Chapter Eleven
Bryan
“We met before we were even in junior high when I was twelve, too full of myself and up for trouble, thinking I was some kind of hero. And Susie was a year younger, still a little girl, same age as Liz. I went to Liz’s house that fall afternoon, thumbed my way there because she’d called saying there was something wrong.”
I don’t tell him that the something wrong was her father, a mean drunk in a particularly bad mood because he’d lost his job as a manager at Monsanto. I’d feel bad, but a lot of people in the area lost their jobs at the Monsanto plant in Springfield, Massachusetts.
“Liz’s house? You’re full of surprises. What does she have to do with meeting Susie?”
“I’ll get to it.” Maybe.
I’ve never mentioned to him that I’ve known Liz since we were in Sunday school together in grade school. Her father took the family to church every Sunday and then beat his wife and sometimes his kids when he went home. But I don’t feel like sharing that fact either. It’s Liz’s secret, not mine to share. Her father was a big reason why I don’t put much stock—none at all—in churchgoing as a measure of character. My father was another one.
My mother didn’t mind me looking out for Liz, but Dad thought I should mind my business. It was one of the many things about my father that bothered me. Hell, I thought he was flat-out wrong. His reasoning was that checking in on her would lead to trouble and take me away from the farm work.
He minded anything that took me away from farm work, especially football. But Mom insisted football was good and would strengthen my body, that it would build character. Dad had to grudgingly give in to her argument because he always claimed to be into character building.
Also, he knew the people at church would approve. They often commented about a strapping young buck like me belonging on the football field.
It was true. Football did help, but what good was strong character if you minded your business instead of helping someone in need?
“What big secret past are you hiding, Granger?”
His voice is accusing, as if he should know everything about me. But I don’t owe him the story of my life no matter how much he shares with me. He likes to share. I don’t.
Which makes me wonder, and he probably wonders too, why I’m telling him about this now.
“Never mind. None of it matters.”
I turn away, and he grabs my arm, tighter this time.
“No, you don’t, farm boy. You’re going to tell me the story—the whole story—about how you met Susie, because I can see it’s bothering you.”
He stares me down with those blue eyes that he mostly uses to slay girls.
But tonight I see the brotherly concern in the blue intensity and realize this is why we’re friends in spite of our impressive catalog of differences.
“I’ll let you get away with the farm boy reference because you’re my QB?—”
“I thought you were proud to be a farmer?”
He tries unsuccessfully to hold back his grin, too amused by the rarity of getting under my skin.
Blowing out a breath, I acknowledge my agitation and the fact that I need to unknot whatever sneaky tension has hold of me. Knowing it has everything to do with Susie, the eleven-year-old version who gave me a box of candy and literally the shirt off her back.
“Spill the story. What were you up to with little Susie Bennett? I’m surprised you met her at all. She doesn’t strike me as the type to wander onto a farm to say hello, and I know damn well you didn’t knock on her door.”
“She was on her way to visit Liz. I couldn’t talk her out of it.”
I’m aware I’m making no sense, skipping over what got me in the position of lying in a shallow ditch alongside Mountain Road, bleeding and woozy. I never explained that to Susie either. That didn’t stop her from helping, or trying to.
Liz doesn’t even know. I should have told Susie to keep her secret from Liz because her involvement is the last thing I need. Liz is a big enough complication in my life. I don’t know why I slept with her because I always thought of her as a friend, someone I share a nasty bond with, and I knew sex with her would lead to no good.
She pushed for the physical relationship, sure, but I’m a big boy full of self-control. I didn’t have to go along. I could sleep with any girl on campus. When it came down to it, I’d wanted to sleep with Liz. Or I thought I did.
It was stupid to go there with her, someone I’ve known since grade school. Someone who I knew would never be more than a friend. We have too much that’s terrible in common, our bond based on us both having flawed fathers, the kind who were more bad than good, more tyrannical than kind. Getting intimate with Liz was like wallowing in the muck of the worst parts of my life. It was a big fucking mistake.
Now I don’t know how to undo the damage and get some distance—without losing her friendship, without deserting her. Because the messed-up fact is that I care about her in my own way, maybe like a twin sister. I’m learning the hard way that bonds are different than true friendships and trust is complicated.
Shame wells up and I turn away from Eldy. Reaching for the kitchen faucet, I duck my head and take a drink directly from the stream of water.
He mutters something about getting a glass and being influenced by farm animals, and I almost choke on my spontaneous laugh. I don’t remember the last time I was this out of control, flying by my instincts. The only place I allow that luxury is on the football field.
That’s where I let all the passion out, unchecked.
Swiping my hand across my mouth, I face Eldy, regaining my composure as my eyes meet his.
“I knew Liz since second grade. We went to the same church.”
I don’t blame Eldy for laughing since I’m notorious for boycotting anything to do with church or religion, including Coach’s occasional team prayers.
He snickers. “Hard to imagine you in church.”
He sobers up quickly as I clench my jaw. It’s probably a tell that my agitation isn’t going away, and maybe getting worse.
“Liz called me to come over. She was crying.”
There’s no way I can tell the story without revealing part of Liz’s secret, so I have to decide if I trust Eldy.
“Shit—”
“You don’t even know. And you can’t breathe a fucking word to anyone or?—”
“Don’t worry. I’ve kept my mouth shut about?—”
“You’re right.”
I heave a breath and make a silent promise to Liz that I won’t ever desert her. “It didn’t take me very many Sundays to figure out that her holier-than-thou, pious-as-shit father was a mean drunk who liked to bully his kids and slap around his wife.”
I hadn’t known half of it at the time, but there’s no need to tell Eldy the gory details. And I don’t have to explain how I know all about how holier-than-thou bastard fathers can disguise overcontrolling bullies.
I feel slimy sharing this about Liz, but it’s my story now as much as hers ever since that day.
“Suffice it to say that I got into a fight with her dad. I held my own until he swung a bottle at me.”
“Ouch. Fuck.”
I don’t explain about the bloody mess, the shards of glass in my arm and around my hairline, how I kicked him in the nuts and ran until my adrenaline wore off somewhere down the street.
“I was resting down the road from the house, lying low when the school bus went by. She was on it. When it stopped, she got off.”
“Susie?”
I nod.
“I can see you now introducing yourself with blood dripping to the princess Susie. I bet she was fucking impressed. Did she run the other way?”
“No.”
I don’t blame him for thinking that about the Susie he knows, and that’s the thing that bothers me. I have a need to uncover her, to find out if the angel-girl is still there, underneath the layers of training to follow the rules, to be a lady, to hide away the ugly things and all the mean emotions.
“I thought I was out of sight lying low under a tree in the depression of the road’s shoulder. But after she got off the bus, she came running, her long dark hair flying behind her, carrying a bag, straight for me.
“She dropped to her knees beside me with no regard for getting dirty. When she looked at me, reaching a hand out to touch me like she was little Florence Nightingale.”
I remember looking into her eyes and seeing her honest compassion, but I keep that to myself. “She had beautiful eyes, like everything about her. That’s what I thought then.”
I still remember being moved by the gentleness of her touch, her fresh sweet scent.
“So what did she do?”
“She took off her jacket and wrapped it around my bloody arm?—”
“That’s where you got that scar.”
I meet his eyes without answering.
“I always thought you got it from falling on a hoe.”
I chortle. “You really believed that I accidentally fell on a hoe? Me? The guy who routinely maneuvers through defensive lines and dekes out linebackers carrying a football?”
He grins. “You have a point.”
I wait for him to elaborate because I know there’s more to why he never called me out on that story. No one else would call me out because they’re scared of me, but not Eldy.
His smile fades, and he pushes a hand through his straight blond hair. “Okay. I’ll confess. I always thought it was your dad… being tough on you, maybe a fight between you.”
I let out a long breath. “No.”
It couldn’t be further from the truth. “My dad would never injure me. I was—am—too valuable a mule.”
He was merciless and tough, and he ridiculed me until I wanted to prove I was tougher than him. Not because he might beat me up if I didn’t.
“That’s it? Your dad fucking made you?—”
“He always worked harder than me.”
“He should. He was the adult. You were a kid.”
I almost smile at that. “Don’t worry, Eldy, child labor laws don’t count on family farms. Or at least that’s what Dad told me.”
I shrug. “When I was young, my chores were manageable. My mother’s influence.”
But when I turned fourteen, all bets were off. I can see Eldy reading my mind, and before he gets too indignant on my behalf, I return to my story about the real asshole dad—Liz’s dad.
“About little Nurse Susie, the pressure of her jacket wrapped around the cut did help with the blood, but what really made the difference was the candy.”
Even now, how many years later, after not thinking about the details for so long, the memory still fills me with a warm ache. The sheer kindness of the act, of her eyes suffusing me with that soul-deep kindness, giving me a kick of hope so hard I couldn’t ignore it. Couldn’t let it go until it got buried.
“Candy?”
I clear my throat and feel like shaking my head, like a horse shaking away a fly. “She had a paper bag filled with all kinds of things, and she pulled out a box of candy and opened it without asking me if I wanted any. She held the box out to me and insisted I needed to eat it all to get my strength back. I must have looked pretty bad. While I stuffed a few pieces in my mouth, she cleaned the blood off my face.”
“Did she have towels in her bag, too?”
“No.”
I don’t tell him she wiped my face with a small white hanky, bloodying up the dainty lace-trimmed cloth. And I don’t admit—will never admit to anyone, not even Susie, that I washed and kept her lace hanky. I didn’t know why I kept it until now.
It’s hard to claim I knew our paths would cross again. I’m not the kind of guy that’s given to imagining, let alone hoping for unlikely shit.
Yet here we are, and some small part of me, buried under the day-to-day muck and grind of life, held onto a fucking fanciful notion that I’d meet the beautiful angel who rescued me that day.
Not that I’d needed rescuing. I’d have got a second wind without her, the bleeding would have stopped and I would have stood up and thumbed my way home. It would have taken some luck because I was a bloody mess, and it’s probably more likely that the police would have picked me up and my old man would have come to get me, and he would have punished me with his cold silent disapproval, no dinner, and an extra early morning with double my chores.
As it was, I snuck in the back door and pilfered a cold chicken leg and raw potato for supper, because even after I cleaned up, the bandage would have required more explanation than I was up for without a good night’s sleep.
My parents didn’t care how late I stayed out at night, never worried about me. They trusted me. Or maybe they just didn’t care. After Caleb was gone, there wasn’t much worse that could happen to them. He was the farmer, heir to the land, their boy wonder.
As long as whatever I did at night didn’t interfere with my chores before and after school, they left me alone, like a sturdy tractor they left in the field expecting it to start every day anyway.
Football season was the only time I was excused from chores, and even then I made up for some of the lost work on Sundays. I used to listen to football games on my transistor radio stuck in my overalls pocket while I worked. I needed to keep my mind from wandering and thinking about my big brother Caleb.
“There are worse things in life. I have a love-hate relationship with farming.”
A love-hate relationship with my memory of Caleb. But I can’t tell Eldy that because he doesn’t know about Caleb. I can’t talk about him. None of us do.
Eldy grunts. “Guess you don’t mind the smell of manure?”
“Maybe I’m used to it.”
* * *
“What happened after that day—when you met her? Why didn’t you see her again or ask Liz about her? You were obviously smitten?—”
“Smitten? We were kids.”
I may object to the word, but I can hardly deny having profound feelings back then.
Not now. She’s not the same girl. It’s like confronting a dream in the light of day. Not the same.
She seems different, cool and composed, hiding all that youthful impetuousness. I can’t help wondering what’s underneath, if she still has that caring girl inside her, that giving soul that I felt down to my bones that day.
I have no right to judge her for being reserved and cool when I’m colder than the polar ice caps. But we’re different. Her reserve is bright and inviting, nonthreatening, and I wonder if she realizes how vulnerable she seems. Whereas my reserve is like a forbidding wall around a self-contained castle, to keep the enemy out.
She’s nothing like Liz, who has no lines, no barriers, no reserve whatsoever. Nothing but relentless positivity. Though I’m not fooled by the optimism. I know it’s a protection between her and her surprisingly needy demons made of bravado. I found that out the hard way when I tried to reestablish the line of friendship between us.
It’s been nearly impossible once I made that one mistake, the one night we slept together. And now she refuses to let me go. She’s not rational on the subject. I don’t want to go too far and push her away for good. But dammit, I can’t sleep with her again because I don’t feel that way about her, and it doesn’t feel right to hook up.
I pace around the room, something I never do. Shit.
If I show any friendliness to Liz, it encourages her and makes her more determined to sleep with me again, to make us a couple. If I keep shutting her down the way I did that night when she showed up drunk, I’ll grow to hate her for being a mean fucker. And worry that she’ll end up hating me too.
“Never mind. It’s all too complicated.”
I stop my pacing and stare at the floor while Eldy waits in silence. I can feel his curiosity and feel the change in energy the second he decides to give up and leave me in peace for the night.
He mumbles on his way out, “We have a game tomorrow. Get some sleep.”
I would laugh at him throwing my own advice to him at me now, but laughing hurts.
At 8:00 a.m. the morning of our first game, I’m sitting in the whirlpool bath with my colorful bruises on display. A buzzer goes off, and I jump out of the tub. Sopping wet, I grab a towel on my way to the trainer’s table.
Al shakes his head as he tapes up my ribs in silence. I appreciate that about him. He respects my pregame need for concentration and does his part to keep me free from distractions.
Coach Torino walks in and closes the door behind him. I wish I could say he respects my need for no distractions, but he counts himself as too important to ignore.
“Tell me he can play, Al.”
“You’ll have to talk to Doc.”
Torino turns to me and smirks. “Doc says to talk to you, Granger.”
He knows my response and doesn’t bother hiding his pleasure in knowing.
“I’m in.”
Al swears under his breath. “How about limiting his playing time? You’re playing Maine. You should be able to beat them without trouble.”
Torino nods as if he’s thinking it over. “We can give our backup running back some reps. He’s a new transfer student. He has some game experience, but needs to get used to our system.”
He turns to me, and I know his words are meant to rile me. “What do you think, Granger?”
“Fuck the backup.”
I meet his eyes and stare. He nods. We both know about the attention our team is getting, the possibility that NFL scouts will be at the game, at any or every game this season.
Coach says to Al, “We’ll need Granger ready to play as many minutes as possible. Give him a shot to make him good and numb.”
Al nods, looking grim, and reaches for a drawer, pulling a syringe. I don’t ask what’s in the needle as I grit my teeth when he gets ready to stab me with it.
Coach Torino turns away and stalks from the room, calling over his shoulder, “Be dressed and ready to take the field in twenty minutes, Granger.”