Tangerine

  "They'd tell you that it was a good thing. They'd tell you that, statistically, it's the safest house in the whole development. Maybe in the whole world. There's almost no chance that this house will ever get hit by lightning again."

  I looked back over my shoulder at the receding Stuart. "It'll get hit again. And again. And I'll tell you why."

  "Why?"

  "The lightning. It knows that spot."

  "What are you talking about?"

  I pointed at an empty lot full of sugar sand. "Think about this place. After they plowed under all the tangerine groves, what did they do?"

  "Who? What did who do?"

  "The developers. The construction guys. What did they do?"

  "I don't know."

  "They leveled everything out with bulldozers. Right? They brought in tons and tons of that white sand and dumped it here. Then they landscaped over everything."

  "Yeah. So what?"

  "So let's say that that corner house used to be the highest ground around here for miles. Maybe it was at the top of a rise with big trees on it. So that's where the lightning always used to strike."

  "Then it must've had big dead trees on it."

  "Whatever. This was the highest spot, and it worked like a lightning rod. Now, you could bring back those developers, and the construction guys, and the engineers, and ask them to point out where the highest spot around here used to be. Not one of them would know. But the lightning knows. It hits right where it's always hit. It's just that some fool has stuck a house there." I pointed back toward the front of the development, toward the four English royal-family models. "Who knows?

  Maybe someday, after all this crumbles away, the trees will be back, and these storms will make sense again."

  We completed our second lap. Joey was looking at me a little strangely. He said, "See you tomorrow."

  "Right. Tryouts are at four. You need a ride home?"

  "Nah, I'll catch a ride with Mike."

  "OK."

  I started off, but Joey was struggling with something. He finally said, "Hey, uh, Fisher ... I don't think lightning is that complicated. I don't think it knows anything about anything."

  I thought about that. "Yeah. Maybe I'm exaggerating."

  But maybe I'm not.

  Friday, September 1

  My last class of the day is language arts, with Mrs. Bridges. If you think we're slugs in the morning with Ms. Alvarez, you should see us by sixth period. Some kids actually fall asleep, but I don't think they're completely to blame. By the time we get to sixth period, the portables' air conditioners have been struggling along for seven hours, with the doors constantly opening and closing. We're sweating buckets by then. We're wilting. Even Mrs. Bridges's perm is wilting by then.

  But today, when the speaker crackled on and the gong bell sounded, I was filled with new energy. I hefted up my gym bag and set off for the soccer tryouts.

  Just to the south of the portables is a baseball diamond with a scoreboard that says, LAKE WINDSOR MIDDLE SCHOOL—HOME OF THE SEAGULLS. The soccer field is to the left of that, next to a stretch of undeveloped land.

  As I left the wooden walkways Joey fell into step with me, and we jogged together to the fields.

  "You're a pretty good goalie, right?" he asked me.

  "Right," I said.

  "Then I'm going out for fullback."

  "Hey, we need at least two goalies. What if I get killed?"

  "You're not gonna get killed. I'll play fullback. I like fullback. You get to knock people down."

  "Suit yourself."

  Joey pointed to a circle of kids near the sideline. "Check out Tommy over there, the kid with the ball. He's from the Philippines. Awesome display, man. Awesome."

  I looked over and recognized a kid from my homeroom, Tommy Acoso. He had a group of guys standing around watching him, like he was a juggler. We stopped to watch him, too. He kept hitting the ball straight up in the air with his head, feet, and knees, never letting it touch the ground, just keeping it going and going and going. Sometimes he would make it stop dead, right on his forehead. It was an awesome display. Not all of these guys were the toe stubbers who I had played with last week.

  "That's Gino over there," Joey whispered. "Gino Deluca. He'll be the captain this year. No doubt. He was a co-captain last year. Scored twenty-two goals."

  I saw a big guy—big for a soccer player—with long, curly black hair. He was driving penalty kicks into the net from twelve yards out. I asked Joey, "Where's he from?"

  "I don't know. New Jersey, I think."

  Gino kept hammering penalty shots into the upper left corner of the goal while a tall kid in a gray sweatshirt retrieved the ball and rolled it back. Gino is obviously a major leaguer. He's the kind of guy you have to have on a soccer team in order to win. The guy who wants to take the penalty kicks. The guy who's hungry to score the goals.

  The head coach is Mr. Walski, an eighth-grade teacher. He blew a whistle, and we all moved toward him. He looks more like a baseball-basketball guy to me, but he coached the soccer team last season, and he knows most of the seventh and eighth graders. He's tall and nearly bald. When he spoke, it was in a raspy voice. "I want to congratulate you guys on making the team."

  There was a scattering of laughter.

  "For those of you who may not know it, our policy in the Lake Windsor Middle School soccer program is this: Everybody makes the team, everybody practices, and everybody gets a uniform. However,"—and he paused here for emphasis—"that does not mean that everybody is, as we say, 'on the bus.' Everybody cannot, and I must emphasize cannot, go to every away game. We have a small team bus, and we have restrictions due to insurance. We can only take fifteen kids to the away games. That's our policy. You're a part of this team from day one, but your part may be to play in practice games only and to dress for the home games only. Does everybody understand?"

  There were nods around the group. The coach continued, "OK, let's get started. Gino, you're the captain. Take them twice around the field. Then we're going to break into sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade groups and start calisthenics. Let's move out."

  I ran with Joey and about thirty other guys, twice around the field. "That means half of us are dog meat," Joey muttered.

  "What are you complaining about? You're on the team."

  "Fifteen kids are on the real team, and fifteen kids are dog meat. I was dog meat last year, and it was a drag. I don't want to do that again."

  "Hey, it makes sense to me. Why drive all these extra guys to a game when there's no chance they're going to play?"

  "Yeah? That's easy for you to say."

  After calisthenics, we broke into groups to kick the ball around. I had no reason to do that, so I found my gym bag and got out my goggles, knee pads, and elbow pads. Gino and some other eighth graders were back at the goal kicking shots at the kid in the gray sweatshirt. I walked up next to the goal and stood there until they couldn't help but notice me.

  The kid in gray checked out my goggles and said, "Yow! It came from Mars!"

  The eighth graders laughed, but when I didn't go away Gino said to me, "You here to play, or you here to model sportswear?"

  "To play."

  Gino motioned and the kid in the gray sweatshirt stood off to the side. I moved into the goal, dead in the center, and placed my heels on the chalk line. A kid with red hair was next in line to kick. He took a shot that rolled wide of the goal. I never even moved.

  I was waiting for Gino, and he knew it. He called for the ball and then placed it with care on the penalty line. He stepped back three paces and looked right at me. I got down into my goalie crouch, a coiled spring ready to release. Gino shouted like a samurai, took two quick steps, and started his powerful kick. I sprang up and to my right, exactly where I had watched him kick every other penalty shot. I heard the sound of his foot walloping the ball, and then I felt it smack against my right wrist. The ball flew away from the goal as fast as it had flown in. It sailed toward the far side
line. I hit the ground and popped up immediately, ready for more.

  Gino looked at the ball bouncing away in the distance and then looked back at me. He seemed genuinely surprised. "Whoa!" he said quietly, and gave me a thumbs-up sign with both hands.

  The kid in the gray sweatshirt hung around by the goal for another minute. Then he casually walked out and joined the others in the line, waiting for a turn to kick one at me.

  The coach didn't see any of this, but I knew I had just landed the job. I was now the Lake Windsor Middle School goaltender. First-string goaltender. On-the-bus goaltender.

  Tuesday, September 5

  Mom and I had just returned home from the supermarket. We were unloading her station wagon, carrying bags of groceries from the garage into the kitchen, when Erik and Arthur pulled up in the Land Cruiser. There was mud splattered all over the sides, all over the tinted windows, and even up on that center spotlight. Erik got out of the passenger side and walked up to Mom, slowly and solemnly. Arthur got out and followed him. Erik stopped just inside the garage and said, "Mike Costello is dead, Mom. He got killed at practice today."

  Mom and I stopped still, the supermarket bags weighing down our arms. Neither of us moved, or knew what to do next. We stared at him, speechless, until he continued in the same voice. "He was just standing there in the end zone. He had one hand on the goalpost, leaning on it, and kaboom! There was a crack, and a flash, and he went flying through the air. He landed right on his back, right there on the goal line."

  By now Mom was staring hard at him, trying to understand the point of this speech. "Erik? The boy ... the boy who was here?—Mike? Is dead?"

  "Dead before he hit the ground. Arthur and I went over and looked at him, right?"

  Arthur spoke up. "Right."

  "The whole left side of his hair was burned off. Singed right off, you know?"

  Mom still did not seem to comprehend. She struggled for words. "What ... what ... Erik, tell me exactly what you did."

  "Me? Nothing. There was nothing I could do. Coach Warner, all the other coaches, they surrounded him. They started banging on his chest."

  Arthur added, "Bangin' on him."

  "Doing CPR. Everybody was going nuts. Dad started running up to his car phone, dialing 911."

  Mom said, "Your father? Your father called 911?"

  "Yeah. Ambulances came. Cop cars came. They had this power-pack thing, you know?"

  Arthur said, "Jump-startin' him."

  "They were trying to jump-start his heart. They were sticking needles in him. Everything! But nothing worked, because he was already dead. He was dead before he hit the ground."

  "What about Jack? Jack Costello? Was he there watching all of this?"

  "No, I didn't see him. I think his brother was there." Erik looked over at Arthur. "Was that his brother?"

  Arthur said, "Yeah," and seemed to fight back a smile.

  Erik continued, "His little brother freaked out. He went crazy. He kept trying to take off Mike's shoes. I thought the coach was gonna have to smack him. He wouldn't get out of the way. Just kept trying to get his shoes off. Did you see that?" Erik looked at Arthur again, who covered up his face with his hand.

  Mom picked up the phone. She tried to reach Dad—first at his mobile number, then through his office beeper—but she couldn't.

  I asked her, "Should I call Joey?"

  "No. No, we can't call the Costellos now. We can't intrude on them now." Mom banged out another number on the phone. "I'm going to try the school."

  There was no answer at the school, either. Mom stood there staring at the bags of groceries. She looked like she was going to pass out. The ring of the telephone made her jump. It was Dad, calling from the hospital. He told her basically the same story that Erik had, right down to Joey Costello and the problem with Mike's shoes. Joey and his parents were at the hospital, and Mike had been officially pronounced dead. Dad said that everyone there was in a state of shock.

  I know I was. I carried my bags of groceries on into the kitchen and set them down. Then I heard a strange sound. It was the sound of voices in the backyard. Happy voices.

  I looked through the patio doors and saw Erik and Arthur. They were laughing. I stepped closer to the doors, and I could hear Erik saying, "Did you see his hair? Did you see the side of his head? He got Mohawked, man!"

  Arthur said, "Mohawked."

  I watched them in disbelief. How could they be happy? Who were these two people? Then I realized it: They were the two people who will benefit from Mike Costello's death. And they were celebrating it. Erik grabbed at Arthur's shoes and screamed in a high-pitched voice, "The shoes! Gimme the shoes!"

  I turned to look for Mom. She was still in the garage, on the phone with Dad. She saw none of this. She heard none of this.

  I turned back to watch the cruel comedy routine on the other side of the glass. There they were, Erik and a nasty friend. Just like I remembered them in Houston. Nothing had changed except the name of the friend.

  I felt sick and confused. I asked myself, How could this happen? How could this happen to Mike Costello? He was a nice guy.

  He was number two on the depth chart. He was already accepted into the School of Engineering at FSU.

  And I answered myself, Here's how: because Mike Costello didn't fit into the Erik Fisher Football Dream ... Mike would never, could never, have been sitting out there with Erik and laughing at such a thing.

  Now Mike is dead.

  But the Dream lives on.

  Wednesday, September 6

  Mom seemed to think they would be canceling classes at the high school today and sending everyone home early because of the tragedy with Mike Costello. Mom was way off on that one. They didn't cancel classes. They didn't even cancel football practice.

  I watched the football practice from a distance. I stood in a goal on the soccer field, looking through the back side of the football stadium bleachers. Different pockets of players were doing different drills. It all looked very violent today. Over here they were shouting and hitting a tackling dummy. Over there they were hurling their bodies at a blocking sled, trying to drive it backward. In the middle of all this knocking down and getting knocked down and getting back up again, I could see Erik standing at the fifty-yard line, untouched by it all. Calmly, deliberately, he drilled his field goals between the upright posts in the end zone. But Mike Costello was not there to spin the laces away from the kicker and set the ball down. Mike Costello was on a slab at the undertaker's. No, there was another backside in the distance today—Arthur Bauer's.

  Naturally, Joey Costello was not at soccer practice, or at school. I expected to hear something about Mike over the loudspeaker, but the only announcement they read was about reduced tickets to a carnival that's coming to Tangerine. No "Pray for Mike Costello" or "Pray for Joey Costello." Ms. Alvarez, though, wrote his address on the chalkboard and urged everybody who knows Joey to send a card to the family.

  A couple of guys at soccer practice were talking about the accident. They said that the principal of the high school, Mr. Bridges (husband of my language arts teacher), read an announcement. Mr. Bridges said the Student Council planned to do something special to honor Mike's memory. He didn't say what that something was. It obviously wasn't canceling football practice.

  Mom and Dad are at each other's throats arguing about all of this—the football practice, the lightning, the kind of place we live in now. Mom is determined to call the parents of each and every football player, get them together, and have them refuse to send their sons to any more afternoon practices.

  Dad, apparently, is arguing the other side. Coach Warner now refers to Dad as one of his "football fathers." Dad likes that, and I think he is afraid of doing anything that might mess up his status. Mom's reply was something like, "Dead boys don't kick footballs."

  Soccer practice was a colossal drag. We spent most of the time playing a pointless (and goal-less) scrimmage game—the sixth and seventh graders versus the eighth grade
rs. I hate games like that. The ball never gets near the goal. Two teams full of clueless toe stubbers keep kicking it back and forth at each other, never going twenty yards past either side of midfield. The kid in the gray sweatshirt played goal for the eighth graders. He had a shutout going, too.

  It's obvious to me that there are only a handful of real players on this team. Our side had Tommy and me. Their side had Gino and a couple of big guys playing fullback. Everybody else who got the ball just kicked it away in a panic. We have absolutely nobody at midfield. That's why the pointless, toe-stubbing battle continued to rage. There is no in-between on this team. We have two great strikers in Tommy and Gino, one great goaltender in me, and a freezer full of dog meat. Maybe when Tommy and Gino get together on the front line they can feed off each other. I sure hope so.

  While I was standing there in the goal waiting for something to happen, my mind started to wander. I started thinking about Joey and what he must be going through. I wondered what I would be like in Joey's place. What if my brother had landed on the goal line with the left side of his hair singed off? What if Erik was the body at the undertaker's now? How would I feel about that?

  I would feel relieved. I would feel safer. But I would feel sorry, too. Erik is a part of that eclipse story. I know he is. Erik is a part of whatever it is that I need to remember. I don't want Erik to die and take his part of the story with him.

  Thursday, September 7

  Mom began her telephone campaign at 9:00 A.M. She had a list of all the numbers in Lake Windsor Downs. She called everyone she knew of who had a son on the football team.

  After a few hours of this, she was interrupted by a call from Dad. The principal of Lake Windsor High School, Mr. Bridges, had called him. Mr. Bridges told Dad that he was getting complaints from parents about the afternoon football practices. Dad and Mr. Bridges arranged to have a meeting at our house tonight with Coach Warner and anyone else who wanted to come. Mom acted surprised, hung up, then returned to her list and called back everyone who had expressed interest. She asked them all to meet at our house at 7:45.