Deadline

My first words ever to Dallas Suzuki: “Bad news. Conventional jock wisdom says you girls will have to wait.” My diagnosis has turned me into a much more forward dude.

  Dallas looks up from the open econ book next to her food tray to where I would be towering over her, had I the power to tower. She doesn’t miss a beat. “Wait for what?”

  “Us,” I say. “Jocks. Studs.”

  “What are we supposed to wait for you jocks, studs, to do?”

  “That thing we do.”

  “Hatch?” She goes back to her book.

  That didn’t go exactly as I planned it, so I invite myself to sit across from her. She reads on.

  “Have you thought about your future?”

  She releases an exasperated sigh, closes the book. “Have you thought about yours?” It’s stated as a threat.

  I have thought about my future plenty because I can think of it all in one thought, but saying that is not going to get Ms. Suzuki into my pickup. “I have,” I tell her, “and I see you in it.”

  “As a friend or a pugilist?”

  “Actually, I hadn’t thought it out that far,” I said, “nor did I know I had a choice.”

  “Tell you what,” she says, opening the book again. “Let me finish this now, and meet me around seven thirty tonight at The Chief. We’ll discuss this long wait I’m in for.”

  I walk away from that conversation way further ahead of the game than I dreamed. Let me be sure you understand the level of my good fortune here. Dallas Suzuki is like the best mix you could get of Japanese and Caucasian. She’s tall—listed 5'11'' in the volleyball program—and you can’t even tell if she’s beautiful because she doesn’t look like any girl you’ve ever seen. I’ve attended every Trout High volleyball game for the past two years just to see her legs. Her muscular thighs and calves give her hops so major she blocks out the sun if you’re on the other side of the net, and the width of her shoulders makes her appear to be dangling from a wire hanger. There’s not one part of Dallas Suzuki’s face or body that is in any way Miss World, but you put it all together and I’d swim through five hundred yards of molten turds to listen to her fart into a paper sack over the telephone.

  I pirouette out of first lunch.

  “I know who you are.”

  “Who am I?”

  “You’re me. My therapist is a dream lady. She brought me up to speed on your act. Everything in a dream is part of the dreamer.”

  He smiles beatifically, sips wine from what looks like an ancient goblet. “I’m you in ways you can’t even imagine.”

  “But that messes me up,” I tell him. “That’s not the kind of thing I would say, or even think. And where’d you get that thing you’re drinking out of? How can you be me if you say and do things I don’t know about?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “You’re the one who said I was you.”

  “Yeah, but you agreed. You said you were me in ways I can’t imagine.”

  “Two very different things.”

  “So how’s this work? Can I, like, ask you questions? Like any questions?”

  “Any questions,” he says.

  “And you’ll answer them.”

  “If I know the answers.”

  “Well, if you’re not me, then you have to be like a spirit or a ghost or something. So you should have answers,” I say.

  “Who made you an expert on spirits and ghosts?” he asks. “Look, don’t worry about it; I’m here to help.”

  “Did Jonah really live inside a whale for a while?”

  “It says ‘big fish,’ not ‘whale.’”

  “Okay, did Jonah live inside a big fish?”

  “Not even a worm lives long inside a big fish. Next question.”

  “Did Adam and Eve really live in the Garden of Eden?”

  “Why’re you gettin’ all biblical on me?” he says. “And why the history quiz?”

  “I’m trying to figure out who you are, really, ’cause in case you didn’t know, I’m dying and if you’re even related to who I think you are, that’s a hell of a resource. I mean, Hey-Soos, that’s like Spanish Jesus. I could get wise beyond my years real quick. Think of the spread I could get in the yearbook.”

  “I’m not related to who you think I am, any more than you are, at least.”

  “But you know Him, right?”

  “Do I know Jesus? Who doesn’t know Jesus? Or about him at least. You sure you want to spend your last days getting into a high school yearbook?”

  “Maybe not as a major goal, but it wouldn’t be a bad fringe benefit.”

  “You’re worried about how you’re going to be remembered.” It isn’t a question.

  “Yeah. I guess I am. You think that’s bad?”

  “It is what it is,” he says. “You wouldn’t be the first. But you worry about your legacy and you’ll spend all your time trying to create something you have no control over. It’s all in good works, my man. It’s about influence, about what people do in your name after you’re gone.”

  “Were you a real guy once? Is that how you know this?”

  “I thought you said I was you.”

  “Okay, okay, I don’t know. Maybe you are and maybe you aren’t.”

  Hey-Soos nods.

  “Well, were you?”

  “I’m not here to talk about me,” he says. “I’m here to talk about you. You have so much to do with so little time, as they say.”

  “Now, see, that could be me. That’s kind of what I’ve been thinking. So you could be me. Hey, I know. What’s two hundred forty-three thousand divided by a hundred and seven?”

  “How would you know if my answer is correct? I didn’t see you bring a calculator into this dream. Ben, you have a little less than a year. How much of it do you want to spend testing me?”

  He’s right.

  A distant, loud “William Tell Overture” causes Hey-Soos to shove ’er in reverse and back into the darkness. I push the snooze button on my cell phone alarm in hopes I can get in a couple more questions, but he’s out of here.

  Five

  Just because Coach Banks wants his football team to be one with the student body doesn’t mean certain individual players feel that same Zenlike love. With its 943 citizens and its student body count of ninety-three, Trout is Odessa, Texas, Lite. If you don’t get the reference, read Friday Night Lights. Read Friday Night Lights, anyway; it’s hella good. Then watch the movie. Anyway, suffice it to know there are guys in this town who remember the 1965 state eight-man championship as the greatest day of their lives. Boomer Cowans played on the 1982 championship team (the same team from which Coach Banks made his premature exit), and every player on our team but one crosses the street when we see Mr. Cowans coming, to avoid a rundown on his annually inflated statistics along with a graphic description of what a wuss our coach is. Mr. Cowans stayed in Trout after high school in an attempt to clear-cut the trees from every mountain within two days’ drive. He and his compatriots logged themselves out of a job and now he works for the county as a heavy machinery mechanic and advises each new generation of Trout Cougars on the best illegal ways to separate an opposing player from his spleen. His son, Sooner, the one guy who doesn’t cross the street when he sees him coming, does not exactly adhere to Coach Banks’s vision of “One School, One Team.” He doesn’t even see the other football players as part of his team most of the time. This isn’t a case of the apple not falling far from the tree; the apple didn’t fall. He won’t mess with my brother because Cody’s the guy who does or doesn’t hand him the ball, but anyone else is fair game. Sooner operates below Coach Banks’s radar most of the time but if you don’t have at least three tattoos of dragons or sharp objects or motorcycle shit, you don’t want to get caught alone in the men’s can with him. He’s fast and he’s fearless—been whacked by his daddy harder than any football player in the league could hit him—and even though I have nothing to lose in the long run, he’s the one guy I cringe before hitting. His thighs are made of steel strands and he runs h
igh knee, so if you don’t hit him just right he’ll realign your skeleton. Because he’s our kick return specialist and I play special teams, I get him full speed every practice. But every shot I get, I take. The ugliest sound in my life is his laugh when those that I take bounce off him.

  My brother throws his duffel bag into the back of the Grey Ghost, which is what Coach christened his pickup before it was mine, and hops in shotgun. “Take me home, little big bro. We’ll get something to eat and go over this week’s defenses. The scouting team was killing me today.”

  I was playing on the scouting team, the team that plays the next opponents’ defense against the first string, and watched my brother’s eyes as he looked at one wrong cue after another. “There are two guys to watch on their defense,” I tell him, “and you had your eyes on the other six, ten times out of ten. You’d better get your broken field running down if you’re going to play it that way.”

  “We’ll go over it tonight,” he says.

  “Okay, but late,” I say back. “Say, ten.”

  Before I can tell him I’m spending quality time with Dallas Suzuki I catch a glimpse of the shadowy form I know is Rudy McCoy sliding through a doorway in the alley behind Trout Auto and I hit the brakes. I put it in neutral, snatch a package from the jockey box, and tell my brother to take the pickup on home. “I’ll be there in a half hour.”

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Nothing. Just do as you’re told.” I laugh and punch his arm. The joke is that I’m the little older brother who always tells him what to do.

  I step out as he slides into the driver’s seat and the pickup roars away.

  Once in the alley, I knock lightly on the side door to the garage. No answer. I walk around front and peer in through the plate glass windows. Rudy moves through the dark of the repair shop behind the showroom. I rap on the glass; he stops. I can’t see if he’s looking at me, but I point toward myself and make a half circle, signaling I’m going around to the side, which I do. I knock. Again. Louder. Nothing.

  I pound.

  “Whaddaya want?”

  “In,” I say.

  “Whaffore?”

  “Lemme in and I’ll tell you. It’s Ben Wolf.”

  “Who?”

  “Ben Wolf. You know, the car wash kid.”

  “So whaddaya want?”

  “In!”

  The door opens and I step just outside the dimly lit garage. A single bulb burns in a small room off to the right. Rudy’s room.

  “You gonna invite me in?” I ask.

  “Hell no, I’m not gonna invite you in. What do you want? What’re you doin’ here? You ain’t washin’ cars this late in the day.” His voice carries its familiar alcohol-soaked slur. Rudy cleans up after hours. I don’t see him much when I work, but he’s lived in this little room since I can remember. We’ve said hello a time or two, but he always slinks away. No one talks with him much because he keeps a vampire’s hours, cleaning and performing light maintenance while the rest of Trout sleeps. When he does come out in the light of day, he moves around town like a ghost. People walk past him without noticing. He asks again what I’m doing here.

  “I brought supplements.”

  He stares, swaying almost imperceptibly. “Supplements,” he says.

  “Supplements,” I say again.

  “To what?”

  “Your dinner. You been lookin’ peaked lately, Rudy. All pale and shit. Here.” I extend the paper sack toward him. “I separated ’em into little plastic bags. Take all the pills in one bag every day, right about when you eat. You’ll feel better.”

  “I feel fine. And ‘all pale an’ shit’ is how I’m supposed to look.”

  “Just try it,” I tell him.

  “Get outta here.” He says it with little force. “I’m supposed to be like this. I’m the town drunk.”

  There’s something about this guy. He does his job around Trout Auto and he doesn’t have a family so he’s not hurting anyone staying semiembalmed. But “I’m supposed to be like this. I’m the town drunk” is funny actually, and on the few occasions I’ve heard him talk before, that’s kind of standard. Since Hey-Soos asked me what I wanted to do with this time, I’ve decided a little time with the least of my brethren might look good on my celestial resume and Rudy sure qualifies there.

  “Look, you’re a good kid…maybe you’re a good kid,” Rudy says, “so leave your minipharmacy on the bench and go home to your momma.”

  I set my individually wrapped nutrition Baggies out on the workbench. “One a day,” I tell him again, and head out. Got to plant the seed.

  “An’ if you wanna keep bringing nutrients,” he says as I reach for the doorknob, “bring something to wash ’em down with.”

  Dad says The Chief looks exactly the way it did more than twenty years ago when he was in high school: counter the length of one side, booths down the other, tables in the middle. There’s a back room for banquets and wedding receptions. The six-foot profile of an Indian chief’s head outlined in neon flickers just above the entrance, matching colors with the neon window sign that reads, EATS. Doesn’t even say FOOD.

  EATS. The lights shine bright in the near-empty room, and on the jukebox Emmylou Harris sings “Sweet Dreams” low and scratchy and not quite like Patsy Cline did before her. The Chief brags on having one of the last 45-rpm-record jukeboxes in the country. I live in hick city.

  Dallas Suzuki sits in the far back booth dressed in jeans and a sleeveless blue-and-white Adidas shirt, scribbling furiously in a notebook. I stand near the entrance, watching—fantasizing about—her to my quickening heartbeat.

  “What do you want?” Winona’s voice whispers in my ear. “Besides her.” Winona has been the waitress here long enough that she bought half ownership with tip money.

  “Nothing. I want nothing besides her.”

  “I put an aphrodisiac in her water,” she says. “Little guys get horny, too.”

  “Little guys get horny especially,” I say back.

  “Go sit. Got hot apple pie and ice cream coming.”

  I cross the tile floor to Dallas’s booth, nodding to Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, who eat here every night. Sooner Cowans sits alone at the counter, eating a burger. Our eyes meet in the mirror and he quickly looks back down at his plate. I think I see a slight swelling on the side of his face. I say, “Hey, Sooner,” but he doesn’t answer and I don’t push it.

  I stand by Dallas’s booth. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she says back, scribbling a few more words and closing her notebook.

  “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  Her face scrunches.

  “Like maybe you forgot, or weren’t serious.”

  “You thought I’d make a date at lunchtime and then forget by seven o’clock? What kind of girls do you go out with?”

  I’m hoping tall multicultural ones with fetishes for diminutive dudes. I sit then nod toward the notebook. “So what’s up?”

  “I’m doing a personality profile for The Coug.” The Coug is our school newspaper.

  “Anybody I know?”

  “Our student body numbers ninety-three, Ben,” she says. “What do you think?”

  “Anybody I hate, then?”

  “Not unless you’re filled with self-contempt,” she says.

  Dallas Suzuki is doing a personality profile in the school newspaper about me. I’m instantly gratified, and disappointed. I was hoping she met me tonight for reasons considerably more torrid than a personality profile. Dare to dream. “What about my personality are you going to profile?”

  “The part that drives a hundred-twenty…-thirty…How much do you weigh?”

  “One seventy-five—”

  “Maybe in lead pants,” she says. “How much do you weigh?”

  “I wasn’t finished. One seventy-five, give or take fifty-two pounds.”

  “I’ll take. The part that drives a hundred-twenty-three pound human to put on a football helmet.”

  “Illusions
of grandeur,” I say. I try to read her notebook upside down, hoping her diary is there, but all I see is a description of what I was wearing when I walked into The Chief. It says I’m cute. Funny, put this face on a stud hoss like my brother and he’s ruggedly handsome. On me it’s cute. But it says I’m cute.

  “Illusions or delusions?”

  “Focus on “grandeur.”

  “Ah.” She writes. “Coach Gildehaus said you were pretty much a lock for State in cross-country this year.”

  “I guess. He seemed cool with me switching. Said a guy’s gotta reach as high as he can. I still feel a little bit bad about leaving the team high and dry, but half of those guys are in my new mini-fan club.”

  “I know. I interviewed a couple of them. They said they wished they had the huevos to do what you’re doing. So,” she says. “With your imminent success as a runner, what made you decide to turn out for football?”

  Dying makes you want to tell as much truth as you can as much of the time as you can. There might be something at the gates to the next place requiring that. “I used to run pass patterns for my brother until it was too dark to see, then I’d watch him do his thing on the field and I ached to play a heroic sport like that instead of one where you’re used as filler in the back of the school newspaper,” I say with uncharacteristic candor.

  “So you turned out for football because you were jealous of your brother.” She scribbles. “You’re going to take some heat for this.”

  “If you print it like that I will.”

  “It’s what you said.”

  “I said I ached to be a hero.”

  “When you watched your brother. How about I say you used to run by the field on your sixth or seventh training mile and look at all those bruisers grunting and sweating and trash-talking each other and you picked up your pace and said, ‘Those guys don’t know what pain is.’ So you turned out for football to show them.”

  “That could get me hurt…but I like it.”

  “Done.” She stares at her notebook, then, “What’s it like running around out there in the land of the giants?”