Chapter #66The Company That Misery Keeps by: Seuzz   "Are you fucking high?" Steve Patterson asks after you've presented your idea for fixing Monday's tryouts. "No." He turns away.
"Why not?"
He favors you with a cold glance over his shoulder before grabbing and heaving another crate into a corner. "Because I want us fielding the best team in the state, you fucking numbskull."
"We got that already," you protest. "Probably. Even without Gordon—"
"We're picking up Frank and Joe Durras." He surveys the loft. "We gotta cut someone to make room for them, and besides—"
"You've already decided to add them?" you demand. "Even before the trials?"
He gives you another glare. "You've seen 'em in action. You know they're good enough. They're better than most of the faggots we got on the squad now. You know that too."
A chill rushes down your back. "Yeah, well," you stammer, "maybe they're good, but there's a difference between having the best players and having a team that plays well together. I'm talking about—"
You're talking about morale, you were going to say, but the word dies in your throat as Patterson crushes you under a look that's as heavy as an iceberg. "Are you telling me there's going to be trouble after the shakeup?" he asks.
Pluto called. It wants its wind chill factor back ...
"Well, not from me, but I've heard from some people—"
"Who?"
"I don't wanna tell you, man, it was, like, confi—"
"Who?"
You flinch. "Okay, Shuler and Nichols and Sax. But I bet there's others. I bet it's everyone."
"Including you?"
You grimace under his weight of his glacial gaze. "Look, none of us are happy. How the hell would you feel if Gordon was still running things and he made you try out for the squad again?"
"Gordon wouldn't make me try out again."
"Well then pretend I was running things and I—"
"Kah!"
You blink at the noise he made, then realize it was a laugh. Seth has never heard Patterson laugh before, you realize. (And neither have you, naturally.)
"Then pretend that Coach is—"
Patterson waves you silent, and he even smiles. (Sort of. It completely fails to connect with his eyes.)
"I get what you're saying," he says. "I'm not a moron. I'm not surprised people are pissed off."
Then the smile falls off his face. "Let 'em be pissed," he growls. "And if they're sincerely pissed off about having to try out again, then they don't have to show up on Monday. Or let 'em show up, and if they're so pissed off they can't shoot straight, I'll cut 'em for being not able to fucking handle a ball."
His voice deepens without growing any warmer. "I don't want 'em happy," he tells you. "They just need to be happy to give me everything they got. And if they can't do that, then I'm willing to start over Tuesday even if it's just me, the Durrases, and you."
His eyebrows go up fractionally, which drops the ambient temperature to just above absolute zero. "You will be there Tuesday, won't you?"
If I pass the tryouts, you're about to retort, but you catch yourself in time. You straighten up, lift your chin, and tell him, "Fuck yeah."
"Good. Is there anything else?"
"You want me to pass that message along to everyone else, about skipping Monday if they're really unhappy?"
"Your call if you tell 'em. Now is there anything else?"
You shake your head.
"Fine." He leans against the dorm fridge. "I'd ask you stay and make it a threesome, but I only got room in my three-ways for one sausage. So would you qualify to participate?"
It takes you a moment to interpret his meaning. When you do, you flush and tell him you'll talk to him later. "Keep it for Monday," is his parting shot as you turn to the door.
* * * * *
At home, your mom catches you in the kitchen as you're making yourself a small after-dinner sandwich. "I thought you'd be off with Cindy," she says.
That would be your normal routine: down at the river, in your truck with a six-pack, a little weed, and your and your girlfriend's underwear twisted about your ankles. Not that your mother knows that, or needs to know that. "We had a fight," you tell her.
"Oh, honey!" She raises her hand to stroke your shoulder, but pulls back as you tense. "Was it serious?"
"Just a misunderstanding." You open the fridge to get a soda. "But we both kind of blew up."
You avoid looking her in the face, but you can't escape the tiny "tkch" sound she makes. "Well," she sighs, "Cindy's a sweet girl. I'm sure if you call her and talk to her you can get it all smoothed out."
You nod and dodge past her with your plate and bottle. "Probably do that now," you say as you rush for the stairs. You can feel her eyes on your back. She really likes Cindy, and it's all you can do to keep her from planning out your dates and your conversations for you herself.
Upstairs, lounging on your bed, you shove the sandwich in your mouth with one hand and tap a text into your phone with the thumb of your other. It's not to Cindy, though. talkd t sp, you text Shuler. he saod f peps dont likr trials dont cm t thm. You get a lot of misspelled cuss words in reply, followed by a phone call. You're very tired by the time you finish relating exactly what Patterson said, and that you don't like it either, and you end up crossly telling him that if he and his friends don't like it then maybe they should just quit the squad. So he cusses you out and hangs up.
And that leaves you too mentally exhausted to try sweet-talking Cindy into forgiving you. So you turn in early after shooting Caleb a text saying that you'll talk to him tomorrow afternoon.
* * * * *
"What's the old expression?" Caleb chortles. "No rest for the wicked?"
"You callin' what I'm doing evil?" you demand of him.
He rolls his shoulders in a shrug, and smirks. "Hey, I wouldn't call stealing a guy's body, soul and life ethical, but I ain't judgin' either. I just think it's ironic that you still got hornswoggled into going to church."
Except you weren't "hornswoggled," for church attendance is a regular thing for the Javits family, just as it is for the Prescott family. So you were up early to shower and shave and put on some itchy slacks and wool socks, tight dress shoes, a constrictive tie, and a too-warm sports jacket. Still, you looked real nice (except for the still-fading bruise on your face) when you checked yourself out in the mirror—lots of straight lines and tapering angles. There were certain girls there—girls who go to the Christian school, which South Creek Presbyterian basically owns—who more or less drooled over you (as they always drool over Seth), much to your smug delight.
But now you're dressed out much more comfortably in floppy athletic shorts, a polo shirt, and canvas sneakers, and you're hiding in a back corner of the municipal library, where no one is likely to catch you talking with (snicker) Caleb Johansson. Not that you're likely to be there long with him. You've been texting with Marc Garner and Laurent Delacroix, who are trying to get together a pack of guys for a game of touch football over at the municipal fields.
"So," Caleb says now after the silence between you has turned awkward. "You hooked up with Cindy yet?"
"No."
His eyes pop. "Why not?"
"I kinda got a lot on my mind." You clasp your hands between your knees, and your shoulders hunch up. "There's those tryouts on Monday, and everyone is freaking out." Briefly you relate the gist of your conversations with Shuler and them, and with Patterson. "So, it's all kind of fucked up."
He sniggers again. "No rest for the wicked," he repeats. "But you're not gonna leave Cindy hanging 'til Monday, are you? I mean," he continues as he ignores the cold glare you throw at him, "isn't that what the cheerleader's boyfriend is supposed to do? Go crawling back, begging forgiveness?"
You can't help sneering. "You'd love to see that, wouldn't you?"
"Dude," he says, leaning forward, "hands on both my grandmother's graves, I would use a mask to turn myself into the proverbial fly on the wall to see that!"
You briefly wonder if it would be possible to use a mask to turn yourself into a fly, or into some other kind of animal, but quickly dismiss it. "Are you going to turn yourself into someone else? Or is this"—you flick a contemptuous finger at him—"the best you figure you deserve?"
He makes a face. "No, I've been thinking about it," he grumbles. "Not seriously, but I've been thinking. I got a look at the girl that Grant turned himself into. He's seriously hot now. He looks like Chelsea."
"No!"
He grins. "Totally. Like Chelsea Cooper's kid sister."
"Whoa." You lean back in your chair. For a moment you're mesmerized by the thought of Chelsea—that bosom, those legs, that great mane of soft, golden hair. But gears are whirling in your head, and you're yanked out of the daydream by a sudden implication. "No! You're not thinking of turning yourself into ... Chelsea! Are you?"
Caleb shrugs and rolls his tongue around in his cheek. "How come not?"
"Well, for a start, we couldn't hang out. Not with Cindy around."
"So you got a better idea?" he retorts.
Do you? If Caleb wants to be a cheerleader, there's girls who are Cindy's friends. Yumi Saito. Lin Pol. The Garners. As one of them, he could help you manage your girlfriend.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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