Sixteen #2
By the time the pack is halfway up the street, the Shitstorm and the Beer-Can-Mobile have pulled in front of the other outhouses.
But as they draw even with Cheeky’s Bar and Grill, the Beer-Can-Mobile begins veering to the right, forcing the Shitstorm toward the sidewalk.
The bottom edge of the Shitstorm scrapes against the concrete curb, twisting it dangerously askew on its skis.
From inside, Terry makes a faint, panicked sound, barely audible over the roar of the crowd.
This is exactly how their team lost last year.
On my left, Trevor is yelling encouragement to Garrett.
On my right, Ryan Beltrami is shouting taunts at Evan’s dad.
Even as the Shitstorm careens close to disaster, it’s good to know that no one wants Evan’s dad to win.
I take my phone out in time to snap a photo of Garrett, red-cheeked and fierce, a strand of hair plastered to his forehead.
The outhouses draw level with where we stand, and I can hear the racers’ heavy breathing, Dad’s continual muttering of obscenities.
There’s fire in Garrett’s eyes as Evan’s dad tries to edge in front of him, pushing the Shitstorm to the brink of annihilation.
Suddenly, Garrett puts on a burst of speed and veers to the left, shouldering hard into Evan’s dad—a move not unlike what I’ve seen him do on the football field.
The Shitstorm pulls away from the curb, and for a moment, both teams of racers are one mass of running bodies, the outhouses rubbing sides.
But then, unbalanced from Garrett’s shove, Evan’s dad falls and his teammate trips over him.
The Beer-Can-Mobile thuds to a stop against both their bodies, and its squatter tumbles out the door, landing in a heap on top of them.
The Shitstorm breaks free from the mayhem, and it has a clear path to the finish line.
The team digs deep, putting on one final burst of speed, and when they cross the finish line, the crowd roars.
Terry stumbles from the outhouse, and he and Dad hoist Garrett on their shoulders.
Someone shakes a full beer and sprays the entire team with foamy amber liquid.
The chanting begins at the top of the street and makes its way to where we stand.
“Shitstorm! Shitstorm! Shitstorm!”
Trevor, Ryan, and I are jumping and hugging and chanting, too, and I don’t remember when I started caring so much, but I imagine this must be what it feels like when your team wins the Super Bowl.
Later, when I find Garrett, he’s wearing a medal around his neck and a bemused, triumphant expression. Sticky dried beer gleams across the front of his jacket, and he smells like he slept on the floor of Grady’s Bar and Grill.
“I still don’t understand what just happened,” he says.
“You became a town legend.”
I hand him a paper cup filled with hot cocoa, and we stand and watch the town celebrate New Year’s.
The Elks Club has started a bonfire in the middle of the street and is handing out marshmallows on roasting sticks to kids.
A pair of cops attempt to break up a fight between two older guys who went too hard, too early.
People stream in and out of the Irontown Arts Guild, where Aunt Liz leads a class on how to fold and weave birch bark.
At midnight, there won’t be a ball drop. Someone will notice the time on their phone and begin shouting a countdown, and everyone will join in. Then most people will head home, though the bars will stay packed until early morning.
“I was wrong,” Garrett eventually says.
“About what?”
“When I got here, I said Irontown was nothing.” He takes a sip of cocoa.
“But it’s not. There’s something pretty special about this place.
Like, I live twenty-five minutes from downtown Atlanta and obviously the city has a ton of great stuff.
But my suburb? There’s nothing unique about it, not like this.
We have the same chain stores the rest of the country has.
I don’t know anyone besides my friends from school.
Two other houses on my cul-de-sac look exactly like mine.
It all feels a little … empty compared to this. ”
I think about the Burton-Clark and College of Mines applications sitting, nearly complete, on my laptop, one of which might serve as a ticket to a future somewhere else. Garrett is the person who encouraged me to leave this town, and now he’s making me second-guess myself.
“There are plenty of great places out there,” I say.
“Of course there are.” He lifts his shoulders. “I’m just saying you’re lucky to have this one.”
“It isn’t big enough, though, is it? Not for all the things I want to do with my life.” Halfway down the street, Mr. Campbell and his jazz quintet start playing a lively piece. It adds warmth to the winter night.
“Maybe it is. But probably not.”
“Look,” I say, pivoting from the depressing turn our conversation has taken, “that medal around your neck will get us free food. We should take advantage of it while we can.”
“Oh, it gets me way more than free food,” he says as we head back into the heart of the crowd. “Do you know how many grown-ass adults have tried to give me beer?”
I wince. “Was my dad one of them?”
“Nah. But I did see him hanging out with Ms. Virtanen and looking hopeful, so who knows what he’s up to.”
I shake my head. “How would you feel if I talked about your parents’ sex lives?”
We approach a cudighi stand, and seeing the medal around Garrett’s neck, the worker hands us two steaming sandwiches without asking for payment.
“To be fair,” Garrett says around a mouthful of meat as we continue ambling down the street, “our parents probably have no interest in our sex lives, either.”
“We have a sex life now?”
He swallows, wipes a dribble of sauce from the corner of his mouth with his thumb. “I guess I didn’t mean we, like the two of us together. I meant, like, our separate sex lives.”
Of course he did. Because it would be weird to make a reference to our nonexistent romantic relationship.
That would be something I would do.
He sees the expression on my face and nudges me with his shoulder. “Keep it in your pants, Rossi,” he jokes, trying to ease the awkwardness I’ve created, like a Zamboni smoothing the ice after a hockey match. “Sharing your bed on Christmas Eve doesn’t count toward your record.”
“I don’t have a record,” I say, and instantly regret it.
Because if Garrett expresses surprise at this fact, I’ve become even sexually lamer than he already thought I was.
If he isn’t surprised, then I’m exactly as sexually lame as he thought I was.
But there’s a fiery side of me—one that seems to come out only around Garrett—that adds, “It’s not like I have a ton of options in Irontown.
This one guy I liked almost kissed me twice but then told me he likes me as a brother, so that didn’t go anywhere. ”
Garrett freezes, caught off guard, but then something sharpens in his eyes, as if he likes the challenge, as if part of him wants to be taunted by me. The look shoots lava through my center.
“Your Highness,” a voice interrupts from behind me, breaking our eye contact. It’s Katrina, staring at the medal around Garrett’s neck. She glances at me. “Which makes you his royal escort, I guess?”
More like his virginal jester.
The three of us spend the night wandering among groups of people, enjoying the festive mood everyone’s in. Winter is long here, and there aren’t many times the whole town gets together, so we all make the most of it.
Close to midnight, my fingers and toes are frozen, and I’m ready to call it a night when someone starts shouting the countdown.
We join in, Garrett and Katrina and I. Their faces are bright, lit by the streetlamps and the promise of a new year.
We get to zero and everyone cheers, and I hug Katrina like we do every year.
Then Garrett and I look at each other and realize we need to do something, but we aren’t sure what that something is.
He pulls me into a side hug like the kind I give my younger cousins.
A hug fit for a virgin.
He pulls away from me, and it’s the new year. The year I will graduate. The year I will move out of my house. The year I might go off to a city I’ve never been to and share a dorm room with someone I’ve never met and start a life away from all of this.
How exciting, I tell myself.