Chapter 7
I watched the guys on the field, just three of them now.
Myles Pham, Eddie, and Ronan were out here again, but Ronald Stevenson had gone to visit family in Oklahoma.
I had a feeling that he’d already decided not to participate in the Woodsmen tryout and this trip was his way of relaying that information to the other Junior Woodsmen without having to say it to their faces. But Pham was still all in and Ronan…
I wasn’t sure. He had definitely registered to try out, because I had sat next to him and watched him send in his information.
But he wasn’t committing to actually showing up on the first day, which coincided with the Woodsmen team’s Fan Day at the stadium.
Luckily for me, a bunch of different departments had needed help with their parts in organizing the huge event and Mr. Gowan had graciously told them that yes, he could spare me.
My days went a lot faster when I was actually doing something and I’d met a lot more people.
Once, I’d even been in Kiya’s department, which had been fun.
But this workout today wasn’t fun—it was serious.
Even Eddie was getting really into it and raising his voice, and he was usually the most even-keeled person that I’d ever encountered.
“Get it, Ronan! Get after it!” he called, and I found myself clapping as I watched the drill.
That had looked very good to me, a lot of power and explosiveness in his get-off technique.
I could say things like that now without sounding as if I was totally full of it, because I’d been watching them practice for at least two months and I’d taken on the task of learning about football exactly like I’d approached calculus, physics, and American history: I had gone all in and now I knew a whole lot more about the sport.
I planned to watch every Woodsmen game and I would understand exactly what was going on.
Or, if things didn’t work out, I would go to the Junior Woodsmen games when their season started a few months later.
But I wasn’t really considering that as a possibility right now.
Maybe Ronan was undecided about his future, but I wasn’t.
I was sure about where he would be next season, and it was the beautiful, rat-free locker room at Woodsmen Stadium, the green, even turf that made up their field, and their pristine workout rooms with all the latest equipment.
Actually, that room here at the practice facility now had some of the latest equipment, too.
It had all been delivered about a week before, which hadn’t given Ronan nearly enough time to benefit from it.
He thought it was great, though, and had made a few remarks about how he and the guys would be able to use it next season.
The other guys would use it, I decided, and I was glad that I’d gotten it for them.
But Ronan would be about forty-five minutes away from here, killing it with a different team.
I clapped again as the three of them talked for a minute and then, as Ed and Myles Pham walked toward the building, Ronan joined me at the bleachers.
Now that it was June, it was warmer than before but some of us were wearing more clothing than others.
He had just removed his shirt but I would be keeping mine on.
“That was good,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s a lot better out there now that the mud is drying. They’re going to have to regrade this whole field.” He talked more about how to fix the drainage problems but I hadn’t been discussing the conditions.
“You were good,” I clarified, and now he shrugged.
“I was all right.”
“How are you feeling about the tryout?”
“I’ll go clean up,” he said. “Meet you back here.”
That was very frustrating. There was hardly any time before he’d have to be at Woodsmen Stadium to start the process and I needed him to focus…
No. No, this was exactly why he’d said he didn’t want a girlfriend or a wife: he didn’t want anyone trying to control his life and his choices.
So when he came back to join me, looking a whole lot cooler because nothing had been done yet about the icy shower issues, I didn’t say anything else about football or about the Woodsmen—not directly about the Woodsmen.
There were things going on in my office which I wanted to discuss but once we were in my car, I asked him about his day, too.
We had driven out here together so there was plenty of time to talk.
“It was fine,” he said briefly. “Fine. You?”
The lack of detail was weird for him but I went ahead and brought up the other weirdness I’d also noticed lately, which surrounded Mr. Gowan. “For the whole week, my boss been disheveled.”
“Huh?”
“You know, messy,” I explained. “Unkempt.” He’d been dressing in a way that reminded me of his cluttered and dirty car.
“And that’s different for him?”
I had forgotten that he didn’t know the guy personally.
I did talk to Ronan about work sometimes but I had never thought to describe the preciseness of Mr. Gowan’s appearance.
“His dishevelment is very different because he’s just about perfect,” I answered.
“Hardly anyone in our part of the building even wears a tie but he has on a suit every day with a scarf in his pocket. He always looks like he just got a haircut. He nails every detail—like he’s the definition of ‘dapper.’”
“Really. He’s perfect?”
His voice had sounded funny to me and I looked across to where he was squished into the passenger seat.
“Perfectly dressed,” I explained. “But when he came in on Monday, his tie was sideways. Crooked. And there was a stain on the knee of his pants, or maybe if it’s a suit, you’re supposed to say ‘trousers?’” I waited for a moment but he only shrugged.
“And it only got worse as the week went on,” I continued.
“Today, he wasn’t wearing socks. He has polished, lace-up shoes, the kind where you’re supposed to have socks for sure. ”
“You notice a lot of details about him.”
“Well, we’re the only two people in the office. I can either look at the walls of my cubicle or at him when he walks by,” I reasoned. “Don’t you think that’s funny, though? How his appearance has devolved?”
“Sometimes I don’t wear pants.”
“At home and not in front of me, though.” I’d seen plenty of his top half, but none of the bottom area from waist to mid-thigh. I suddenly found myself thinking of that area—but Ronan was talking about something unrelated to any of that and I snapped back to attention.
“One of Ed’s friends is planning to sell his auto shop,” he said.
“Oh.” At first I didn’t understand the significance, just as he hadn’t understood the importance of Mr. Gowan’s messy tie. But then I got it. “Do you want to buy it?”
“I never planned to have my own shop.”
“You said that to me once,” I reminded him. “You said that maybe you could do that rather than trying out for the Woodsmen. But you also told me that you don’t have any goals or plans for the future.”
“I don’t. I don’t plan beyond the next week.”
“You’ve spent the last few months preparing for the Woodsmen tryout,” I said. That was both a goal and a plan.
“Yeah, about that.”
I glanced over and then I pulled to the side of the road. There was a gravel shoulder and nobody came by here, anyway.
“What are you doing?” he asked me.
“No, what are you doing?” I demanded. Screw that crap about not nagging. “Are you thinking about giving up?”
“I’m not giving up! I’m talking about continuing as I am,” he told me.
“I wouldn’t quit training and I’ll look to the future, the future with the Juniors.
The one I always had before I—I don’t know why I started thinking about all this stupid bullshit!
” His voice cracked with frustration. “Why would I do the tryout? Why the hell would I want my own shop? I don’t need any of that. I’m fine just the way I am!”
“Then fine,” I told him. “Keep going exactly as you are and waste it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I heard how only a few guys make it in football. Practically no one does,” I informed him. I momentarily forgot that he’d been the one to clue me in to that fact. “And you have a chance to play for the Woodsmen! Are you joking when you say you might quit?”
“How do you know that I have a chance?”
It was a good question and actually, I was totally unqualified to make that determination. “I know that you have to push. When I was applying to colleges—”
“This isn’t the same thing.”
“I understand that! But I also didn’t think that I could do it. No one in my family had ever gone and my dad told me that I was stupid. Why didn’t I follow him and do something useful? But I decided that I had to try. Why not? Why not give it a shot? What’s the worst that could happen?”
Ronan stared at the pine trees outside the window. “I wouldn’t make it. I wouldn’t be good enough.”
“And then you’d go back to the Juniors and then, if you wanted, you could figure out how to get financing and buy your own auto shop. That all sounds ok to me,” I told him. “But psyching yourself out before you even try…” I shook my head. “That sounds dumb. Don’t do that.”
He turned to look at me. “Ok. I won’t do that.” He took a breath. “If the job with your Ken-doll boss doesn’t work out, you should think about motivational speaking over welding.”
“I don’t care about motivating most people but I’m glad it worked for you.” I realized that my heart was pounding. “Did you want to eat?”
“Yeah, I’m suddenly starving.”
We went to his house to have dinner together and then we were supposed to go out later for drinks—what might have been a drink for me, Kiya, and Channing, but would be water for Ronan. Actually, Channing would probably order more than one because when we’d gone out before, he’d imbibed quite a bit.