What I said before about having some golden time of life where it’s all good, your people have got your back, and you don’t notice? That’s how the cruel world bites you. I have bad days galore to look back on, the shamings and hard fists, and I’ll tell you what. It’s the golden times that kill me. I had two. And like a son of a bitch, I missed them both.
The first, childhood in general. Running wild on my bare feet, tramping the mud of the creek into Mrs. Peggot’s kitchen, those places being two
versions of boy heaven. A kid couldn’t ask for better. Too bad though,
because the kid was full-time fixated on asking for better, mostly in the way of unaffordable shoes and Game Boy.
The second time was seventh and eighth. Regardless Jonesville Middle being baby-town, it grew on me. Not a soul there knew that one mere grade previous, I’d been a worthless piece of shit. Born again. Now I could speak to anybody and had friends in all the kinds: laid-back ones you score weed from, brainy ones to drag you from the death swamp of pre-algebra. Full friend gamut. Teammates you could grab in the locker room and lift off the ground in a reverse chinlock, all slippery with sweat, laughing your naked asses off. Girls ditto, minus the chinlock.
These kids did seem young. Outside of the dummy classes, you’d be hard pressed to find a kid in Jonesville Middle that had even held down a job.
Being friends with such people entailed listening to made-up problems to some degree. I could tolerate that, much more so than Angus. Girls can
surprise you by knowing more than they’re letting on. Also for a guy it’s different. If you sit still and let your ears take all that girl business, other body parts may get their turn.
So the impossible happened. In due time, a school would be owned by Demon Copperhead in his Members Only jacket. He should have been the happiest damn fool ever. But no, he’s waiting for the shit to hit the fan, looking behind whoever is being nice to him that day to see what’s coming. Still your jack-shit homeless orphan, just faking it in nice clothes. I’d done nothing to deserve good luck, and I knew what people are made of. Sooner or later they will turn on you. Or die.
Also, there was this thing that happened with U-Haul. This was in late January. Awkward as fuck. After Coach went to bed U-Haul would spend hours in his office. Putting receipts into the books, jerking off, who knew what he did. And he scooted around the house in his white socks, for
reasons of stealth. U-Haul never came into a room, he materialized. In the doorway of our beanbag TV lounge that night. There he was, crooking a skeleton finger at me.
“Hey! What’s up?” I said. Playing dumb as to the meaning of the “come here” finger.
“The playbook is messed up. Coach must have dropped it. The binder is busted.” He rolled his head to the side, heaving stringy hair out of his eyes. “I thought you’d help me put it back in order. You and him are so tight, I’d say you’ve got it memorized.”
I looked at Angus but she was like, Your funeral, pal. On the football front she’d made herself clear from day one. Not interested. I followed him downstairs wondering how a human could look that much like a reptile
while walking down stairs. He slithered.
We got in the office and he closed the door. “Sit, sit,” he said, slinking around to Coach’s swivel chair behind the desk. I wanted to stay on my feet, but he burned the red-brown eyes into me and I gave in. Moved a box of kneepads and a mouth guard off a chair and put my butt in it.
He pulled the playbook out of a drawer. Nothing about it looked broken.
He’d lied to get me in here. “So, is it Waggle, Bootleg, Shovel? On the Wing T plays? Or the other way around?”
He shoved the big binder across the desk and I opened it. Leafed through the pages and saw nothing out of the normal. Pages stained with fast-food grease, their worn-out holes mostly falling off the rings. Perfectly good playbook. U-Haul was staring at me.
“You think you’re some hot shit. Don’t you.”
I’d never been clear whether I was supposed to “sir” this creep or not. I opted out. “I might be shit. That has been said. Temperaturewise, it’s not really my call.”
He smirked. “I reckon that’s Gift-and-Talented for telling me to fuck off.”
Damn. How did he find that out? Angus hadn’t even told Coach, let alone U-Haul. She was honorable. “Whatever,” I said.
“Right. What would I know? Just a nobody assistant coach, from a long line of nobodies. Mercy’s sakes, don’t let me be the one to stop you.” He kept pushing his hand into the long red greasy hair, then running the hand down his face. Doing that one thing over and over.
“Stop me from what?”
“Oh, you know. Coming in here like one of the family. Using your tactics.”
This time as the hand ran over his face I caught a stealth nose-pick, one finger scooting into the nostril. He took his eyes off me to see what he’d mined out of there. Rolled it on his fingertips into a little ball. U-Haul was a horror movie. Brain says run. Eyes can’t look away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Take it up with my grandmother, if you don’t think I should be here. It was her idea.”
“Well, sure it was. And Coach rolls over and takes it.” He leaned forward, rolling his fingertips still, but eyes back on me. “Eleven years I’m here at his bark and call, running his errands. Driving you kids around like I’m your motherfucking babysitter. If I had tits you’d be sucking on them. And I get sent home at night to my mother’s house. Why is that, I forget?”
I said nothing. It was hard to concentrate, Christ. I’d never seen his eyes blaze so red. And what was his plan for that booger?
“Oh, right. Because I’m a fucking nobody. Okay, that’s it!” He leaned back in his chair.
I waited. He didn’t move. “That’s what? You’re done, I can go now?” “Consider this a friendly warning, if you think you’re part of this family.
They’ll put out the welcome mat. Just watch out for the naked bootleg play that’s coming to take you down.”
I walked out of there wondering how long it would take to get the bad
taste out of my mouth. Maybe forever. I needed no snake to tell me I didn’t belong in that family or house or life. I was the tree of knowledge.
I didn’t turn out to be full-gifted, only half. Still hanging on by the short hairs in math. But Language Arts held my interest. Mr. Armstrong the counselor was also a teacher. But he didn’t do the usual teacher thing of making sure you know you’re worthless. Or the Mrs. Jackson thing of, We’re all turds in this teapot kiddos so why don’t I just paint my nails. Mr. Armstrong would talk to us like humans. He was mainly Seventh and Eighth but subbed in for Sixth a lot that winter due to our regular English teacher getting shingles. His first day, he said let’s get to know each other, you can ask me anything, maybe wanting kids to relax about what he was.
Some smartass asks, does he get sunburned. I thought for sure not. I’m only Melungeon-dark, and I’d never burned. But he said yes, he wore sunscreen to be outside, like mowing his lawn. He told us other surprising things. If a person is black, you’re supposed to write Black, because it’s not an
adjective but a category like Chinese or American. All capitalized because proper nouns. I asked what about Melungeons, thinking he’d not have heard of them. Surprise again, he said good example. Melungeon is a proper noun.
He was from Chicago, that’s why the accent. He came here after college as a Vista, which was this program where people from the city come help you out for being poor. His wife was a Vista also, from some other city.
They met here and got married. No kids. They played in a bluegrass band called Fire in the Hole, him banjo, her fiddle. I thought of Mr. Peg. He’d be glad his type music hadn’t totally died of old age. Mr. Armstrong never heard of bluegrass music before he came here, but he fell in love with everything about the mountains and stayed on.
I knew about the wife. If people don’t approve of something, it is discussed, and this was. She was white. And an art teacher, my good luck. In middle school they didn’t have any art, she taught at Lee High. But Mr. Armstrong took some of my drawings to show her, and she came over one day to meet with me. Ms. Annie. She talked in a voice that was almost like singing (which she did, in their band) and dressed like a hippie. Long blue skirt, flowery scarf on her long hair, earrings with little rocks on them, four colors of blue. Blond eyelashes, which you don’t see that much. We were in the empty teacher lounge that had a couch, but she put out some thick paper and pencils on the low table and sat on the floor, so I did the same.
She asked me different things. Could I show her how I went about drawing a face. Easy. Start with a circle, divide it with a cross with the
sideways part below center. Eyes go on that, with a gap in the middle, same wideness as the eye. Different type eyebrows for surprise or love or mad.
Then draw the jaw below the circle as a separate thing, like a skull and jawbone, because a face actually has a skull underneath it. (Something I learned from Tommy.) She asked me how I would decide what type of jaw to make. That’s simple: small jaw for a kid or a lady, big for a man, bigger for a superhero. Which is why lady superheroes are dead tricky.
She wanted to know if I’d taken any class or seen drawing shows on TV, which I didn’t know existed. She kept on being amazed until the bell rang and I couldn’t believe an hour was up. She said I had a natural talent and did I want to work with her on improving it. Perspectives, composition, etc.
Long story short, she would be my Gifted teacher. I could try out other media that she had a whole studio full of. Art supplies other than pencils. Jesus God.
If you’ve ever heard that song “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain,” that was Betsy Woodall coming to visit. No six white horses, but an occasion. Mr. Peg would say high dudgeon.
The first time was late that winter, to transfer over my paperwork. If she approved of how I was doing with Coach, they’d go to the DSS office and sign him on as my new guardian. Old Baggy would shed no tears. She hadn’t called once since I’d moved in with Coach, taking her usual approach of, if the kid’s not broke, don’t fix him. And if he is, go whistle it out your ass.
My grandmother was not that easy. Getting moved up to the harder
classes won me no prizes, she wanted report cards. Mattie Kate had busted her butt clearing up the living room, piling the crap in back rooms, so we all sat around the giant table, including Mr. Dick and Jane Ellen that drove them in the Comet. Miss Betsy wanted to know if the sports nonsense was going to interfere with my education. I looked at Coach: no lanyard twirling. Eyebrows on even keel.
“There’s not any sports right now, football season is over with till the
fall,” I told her. My grandmother probably being the one person on God’s earth that didn’t know that. Obviously other ones did exist such as basketball, but not in Lee County. Any sport that’s not football around here is like vanilla. Why even eat that, if they’ve invented flavors.
She asked Coach was this true, me being done with sports?
“Miss Woodall, you can leave this young man to me. I plan on doing my level best to enhance his full potential.” Total poker face.
She eyed us one by one. Angus had on this gigantic green sweater that swallowed her entire body like that Scooby-Doo girl, and her hair in these pop-up knobs like devil horns. My grandmother was like, Hmmm, maybe
this one needs my educating. But Coach wouldn’t give her up. He might not say much, but he’d sometimes come up behind Angus and put his arms around her neck, chin on her head. Stand there leaning on her like a man saved.
All the sudden my grandmother hefted up her six-foot scarecrow self, and we all drew breath. She walked over and picked up the photo of Angus’s mom. Wiped it with her sleeve, looked at it, set it back down. Then announced that I appeared to be on the uphill climb, and if I kept it up, all would be well. She discussed changing my last name to hers, which I wasn’t wild about. Having the exact name of my dad seemed like asking for confusion. With a dead person, that could have consequences. Plus where
was Mom in all this, erased? Otherwise, all good. I had legal kin and a guardian that didn’t hate me. Mattie Kate brought out a roasted chicken, and we had the meal that table was made for, fit for a king.
I was on notice though, and she stayed on my case. Jane Ellen drove
Miss Betsy and Mr. Dick up to visit every few months, and it never stopped feeling like Survivor where I was fixing to get voted off the island. I hung on. The bright side was, our living-room situation improved, with the mayhem transferred to Coach’s office and other places Miss Betsy wouldn’t see. Once in a great while they stayed the night. Mr. Dick used a fold-out couch in a downstairs room.
Angus said it wasn’t too disgusting now for friends to come hang out, so we both did that, different friends. Hers being all guys, mine girls. Angus said just keep the drama out of her sight. She and Sax and them stayed
upstairs gaming or watching old movies that Sax was into. He memorized entire scenes and had contests with Angus of trying to say all the words right. Crazy to watch. They were in the same classes, and he kind of egged her on into contests of everything, including best grade on every test.
Meaning he ended up pissed at Angus basically at all times.
Downstairs meanwhile, the so-called homework club girls sat around our king table trying to fit variable expressions into the tiny mail slot of the Demon skullbox. They’d crack their gum and be amazed how hard it was
for me to get higher math. If I flirted with any one of them on accident, the others would go brutal on her. They couldn’t just relax and be regular human. Angus had a point, and I was seeing it. Then May Ann Larkins’s older sister Linda came with them, being an alleged math whiz. Holy Moses. Long hair, long legs, long sideways looks out of those blue eyes like, dude, I’m in high school. I know shit. This is not algebra we’re discussing. Try doing equations some time while trying not to get an under- table woodie.
Who these girls really loved though was Mr. Dick. If he was there, they made such a fuss I got jealous. Me with my excellent arms and legs, feeling sorry for myself because these girls are crowding Mattie Kate out of the kitchen, taking over the blender to make strawberry milk shakes for Mr.
Dick. Or pushing his wheelchair outside, breaking branches off the crab
apple tree for him to smell the first flowers of spring. Not that I wanted to be their little dolly. It’s how sweet they were, in a way that didn’t happen with regular guys. Not trying so hard. And not scared.
Coach saw my future, and it was tight end. Every kid of course dreams of being quarterback, and I did too, since my altar call in the church of Fast Forward. But I never forgot what Coach said: a team is made of followers. Your coach or QB calls the play, but it’s not worth pissing on unless there is execution. That’s what a tight end is about. He’s fast, he’s alert, good at catching a pass and holding the ball and putting it down. Big enough to be a force, to get around the end and open a gap for a running play. If he has what it takes to play both ways, D-line also, and if he says his prayers, then he might get to be one of God’s diamonds. A General.
Football camp ran through a good chunk of summer, both JV and varsity. Coach had put in the word with Mr. Briggs, the JV coach. He agreed about me being tight end, and that’s where he put me, as alternate to Collins that was in eighth grade, my height, thirty pounds heavier, headed up to
Generals the next year. To be the next Collins, I would need to bulk up. Bring it on.
Mr. Briggs also ran defense drills for the high school team, and
sometimes called me over to go in on the hamburger drill, which is man-on- man. If he needed to match somebody for size. U-Haul always noticed, trying to take me down with the Hellboy eyes. But too bad for U-Haul
because I just kind of oozed my way into the kingdom, as young as I was.
No more errand boy. Coach gave me full privileges in the weight room, and at camp we all used the field apparatus together. The chutes, which are a metal pipe contraption like cattle chutes but with a low ceiling, three feet high. You have to get your body down low and charge through there, duck- walk running without banging your helmet on the top. Four guys would run it side by side, trying to be first to get to the end and hit the blocking guard and push him up the hill.
The chutes were my superpower. On other drills I held my own, but on
the chutes I amazed. Tall as I was, I could still make myself small. And then at the end, throw all my might against whatever stood in my way.
Everybody saying, Jesus look at him go, turbo-Demon. To me it felt normal. Keep your head down, don’t get seen, assail. My life was one long chute leading me there. By fall I was dressing out, wearing my jersey to school on Fridays, getting the full quotient of pep rally love. A damn seventh grader. In another year, I’d be playing for Coach.
