Reality Check Read online

  “Huddle up,” Cody yelled. The team huddled around him. Cody was suddenly aware of all kinds of things: the noise of the crowd, the smell of sweat, Jamal bleeding from the nose, Junior growling. The guard came in with the play from Coach Huff.

  “Green, eighty-six, left.”

  Green 86 left? That was the exact same play they’d just run. Cody glanced at the scoreboard clock in the end zone, the end zone they needed to reach, so far away. Thirty-two seconds and ticking.

  “Nope,” he said.

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  All eyes widened. Coach Huff sent in every play. He’d never actually said changing the play in the huddle was forbidden. He hadn’t had to: It was unthinkable.

  “Blue three,” Cody said. Blue three, the play action post to Dickie. For a moment, no one moved.

  Then Junior said, “Drop the ball, Dickie, and I’ll fuckin’ kill you.”

  “On two,” said Cody, clapping his hands. They clapped their hands.

  The Rattlers trotted up to the line of scrimmage, took their stances. Martinelli, crouched and waiting between the tackles, stared into Cody’s eyes, then shaded to his right, instinctively anticipating the play that Coach Huff had called.

  “Hut,” Cody called. “HUT!”

  The ball slapped up into his hands. He turned. Jamal came pounding up and Cody slammed the ball into his belly, then pulled it back out. Jamal, hunched over, hit the line full speed, just as though he were carrying the ball, and got swarmed, Martinelli leading the charge. Cody took three steps back, the ball hidden behind his right leg, and looked downfield. And there was Dickie, all alone at the forty-five, hands up, pleading for the ball. Cody zinged it to him—a rope, spiraling perfectly against the night sky. Dickie caught the ball, pulled it in, and scampered all the way down the field and into the end zone 62

  untouched, no one even near him. The Rattlers went racing after him, screaming and jumping. Time on the clock read zero zero, meaning that after the extra point they’d go into overtime.

  “Huddle up,” Cody shouted. The Rattlers were still celebrating, punching each other and smacking Dickie on the head.

  “Dickie!” Cody yelled; Dickie had to make this kick. “Huddle up.” The ref blew his whistle, starting the play clock. The Rattlers huddled up. Cody felt energy all around him, enough to fight gravity, lift the team right off the ground. The guard came running in. But instead of saying, “Kick the bastard,” which was the way Coach Huff called for the PAT, he said, “Green, eighty-six, left.” Coach Huff’s favorite play: They were going for the two-point conversion, the outright win, no overtime! “On three,” Cody said, and clapped his hands. The Rattlers took their stance on the two-yard line, Cody lined up under center, no kicker, no holder. Too late, Bridger realized the Rattlers weren’t kicking the single-pointer, started looking confused. Martinelli raised his hands to call for a timeout, then remembered that Bridger, too, had none left, and lowered them.

  “Hut,” said Cody. “Hut, HUT!”

  The ball slapped into his hands. He took off to the left, Jamal on the outside. Martinelli came sprinting over. Cody 63

  faked a pitch and Martinelli bought it, angling toward Jamal. At the same instant, Junior pancaked the end and Cody cut right. Someone hit him from the side. Cody rammed him with a straight arm, came free, saw the safety cutting across, ran right over him—ran right over him and into the end zone, into the end zone for two points! Two points and the game!

  They’d beaten Bridger! He was just starting to turn, about to raise the ball high in triumph, when Martinelli hit him helmet first, square on the side of Cody’s left knee. Cody heard a horrible popping sound, felt a jolt of pain, the worst in his life, and crumpled to the ground.

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  ALL THE HIGH SCHOOLS in the conference had health insurance policies to cover kids hurt on the field, a lucky thing since Cody and his father had no health insurance of their own.

  “This is called a pivot shift,” said Dr. Pandit, orthopedic surgeon at Western Memorial.

  “What do I do?” said Cody, lying on an examining table.

  “Just relax,” said Dr. Pandit. He placed one hand under Cody’s left knee, the other under the top of his calf, pressing sideways a little. Then he slowly pushed up, bending Cody’s leg at the knee. “Nice and easy.” All at once, Cody felt a strange sliding that seemed to be happening inside his knee—as though it were coming apart—followed by a sudden sharp pain. It made him hiss; he couldn’t stop himself. “All right, now, all right,”

  said Dr. Pandit. He released the pressure, gently straightened Cody’s leg. “Okay,” he said. “All there is to it. You can put those trousers back on now.”

  Cody put his pants on, slid his feet into his sneakers.

  “Well?” said Cody’s father, hovering by the examining table.

  Dr. Pandit directed his answer to Cody. “Torn ACL,” he said.

  Cody knew what that meant before Dr. Pandit spoke another word: He was done for the season.

  “But junior year’s the year that counts,” his father said, voice rising. “He doesn’t play this year, he falls right off the radar.”

  “Radar?” said Dr. Pandit.

  “Fuckin’ hell,” said Cody’s father.

  “Dad!” Cody said.

  “Scouts, college, getting out of this goddamn town, his whole future—and you’re saying that’s all up in smoke?”

  “The boy,” said Dr. Pandit, “is sixteen years old. Surely his whole future—”

  “Time for a second opinion,” Cody’s father said.

  “That’s your ri—”

  “Come on, Cody. We’re out of here.” His father grabbed 66

  Cody’s hand, pulled him forward. Cody missed his step, and his knee came out on the spot. He cried out in pain, so sudden and surprising it caught him completely unprepared.

  “Jesus Christ,” said his father, still sounding pissed off, but a kind of realization was dawning in his eyes.

  The swelling went down. Dr. Pandit took some MRI pictures, found no other damage, operated on Cody. The operation went fine. Not too long after, Cody was back in the gym, first just on the stationary bike, soon lifting light weights, his left leg so weak it shocked him. Cody dealt with that by working out harder and harder, hitting the gym before and after school, icing down his knee in the evenings. Some days the school part didn’t happen at all.

  On one of those days, he was asleep on the couch, in between workouts, when someone knocked on the door. His mind a little foggy—he’d taken one of Dr. Pandit’s Percocets—

  Cody rose and opened up.

  “Hi,” said Tonya Redding. “Hey, did I wake you?”

  “No,” said Cody.

  “Bullshit,” said Tonya. She handed him a sheaf of papers.

  “Mr. Lorrie was looking for someone to bring you the homework assignments. I volunteered—my mom’s working downstairs anyway.”

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  “Uh, thanks.”

  “Say it like you mean it.”

  Cody didn’t say anything.

  Tonya looked down at his knee; he had his sweats rolled up because he’d been icing. “Yuck,” she said.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “Coulda fooled me,” Tonya said. She looked over his shoulder. “Cool place,” she said. “First time I’ve been here. Anybody home?”

  “No,” said Cody.

  Tonya laughed that loud laugh of hers. “What about you? Aren’t you here? Or is this a ghost I see before me? Got to read act one of Hamlet, by the way.”

  “How long is it?”

  “Not too long—we could go over it together. Like now, if you want.”

  Cody tried to think up some lie, could not. “Maybe some other time.”

  Tonya’s voice changed. “Sure.”

  “Thanks. Uh, thanks for the homework.”

  “You bet,” said Tonya.

  “No, really,” Cody said.

  “No problem,” Tonya said. She bit her lip. He saw, maybe f
or the first time, that she had nice lips, full and well shaped. 68

  “How’s Clea doing?” she said.

  “Don’t know.”

  “You haven’t heard from her?”

  Cody shook his head.

  Tonya brightened. “Coming to school tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.”

  “See you.”

  Cody went over the Hamlet assignment: Read Act One and answer three of the following five questions. He sat at the kitchen table, opened his copy of Hamlet, and started reading. It made no sense to him. The next day he went to the gym three times, but not to school.

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  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, or the one after that—or maybe the next one—Cody was asleep on the couch, ice pack on his knee, when the phone rang. The phone didn’t actually ring; he had it on vibrate, in his chest pocket. Cody snapped it open.

  “Cody?” It was Clea.

  “Hi.”

  “I heard you hurt your knee.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not too bad.” He sat up. “Are you here? In town?”

  “No. I’m at school.”

  “Darby?”

  “Dover,” Clea said. “It sounds like I woke you. Didn’t you just get out of class?”

  Had to be Monday. “You didn’t wake me,” Cody said. “How are . . . things?”

  “No complaints.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “Different,” Clea said.

  “Like how?”

  “Hard to describe. Kind of amazing, really—the buildings, the landscape, the teachers. Bud loves it here.” Clea laughed. That laugh: one of the best sounds he’d ever heard. “He’s so funny,” she said, and started in on a story about some adventure of Bud’s, a story that Cody lost track of, maybe because of the Percocet, or because he wasn’t quite awake yet, but he got caught up in the sound of her voice and that was enough. After a while came a silence; had he missed something? “Cody?” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I asked you if it hurts.”

  “If what hurts?”

  “Your knee, of course.”

  “Nah,” said Cody.

  “But I heard you’re out for the season.”

  “Who told you that?”

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  “A few kids.” She named them, all from the highest academic classes at County, none well known to Cody.

  “Yeah, well, no big deal,” said Cody.

  “But you’re still . . . keeping your grades up, and everything?” Clea said.

  “As always.”

  She laughed; he laughed, too—long and unrestrained, and felt better than he had for days—since that first visit to Dr. Pandit. Then, in the background, he heard a voice, a guy’s voice: “Hey, Clea, all set?”

  “Cody?” she said. “Got to go. I just . . . hope you’re all right, that’s all.”

  “Christ,” said Cody, his mood changing fast. “I’m fine.” He clicked off.

  Cody had a follow-up appointment with Dr. Pandit. “Fine range of motion for this stage of recovery,” Dr. Pandit said in the examining room. “Impressive strength.”

  “So I’m ahead of schedule?” Cody said.

  “Absolutely,” said Dr. Pandit, writing on a pad.

  “If I keep on being ahead of schedule, do you think, um, well . . .”

  “Think what, Cody?”

  “That I can maybe get back on the field? This season, I mean.”

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  Dr. Pandit smiled and shook his head. “Afraid not,” he said.

  “But keep up the good work. In moderation, of course. Healing takes time.”

  The Rattlers were in a tailspin. Coach Huff tried almost everyone at quarterback, without success. At first Cody watched from the sidelines, then from the stands, finally not at all. He tried to catch up with his schoolwork, but his mind refused to concentrate. Hamlet, quadratic equations, the Dred Scott case, cellular division: They all mystified him. He stopped doing his homework, fell further and further behind. Mr. Lorrie, his English teacher and faculty adviser, spoke to him after school.

  “Sit down, Cody.” Cody sat. Mr. Lorrie, a nice old guy with a droopy face, gazed at him from across the desk. “How’s the leg?”

  “Good.”

  Mr. Lorrie nodded. “Glad to hear it,” he said. “Although Coach Huff told me the unhappy news that you’re done for the season.”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “The thing is, Cody, there’s more to high school than just sports.”

  Cody said nothing. He wanted to be out of there.

  “Have you ever thought about what you’ll be doing,” Mr. Lorrie said, “say, three years from now?”

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  Cody nodded.

  “I’m all ears,” said Mr. Lorrie.

  “College,” Cody said. “I’ll be going to college.”

  “And studying what?”

  Cody shrugged.

  “How about after college—what about then?”

  “That’s a long time away,” Cody said.

  “You’re wrong,” said Mr. Lorrie. He snapped his fingers, a surprisingly loud sound in his cluttered little office. “It’s that soon,” he said.

  Cody didn’t believe that. He was starting to find Mr. Lorrie not so likable.

  “Tell me this,” Mr. Lorrie said: “What are you passionate about?”

  “Passionate?”

  “What do you like to do, most of all? For example, my passion is teaching.”

  That was easy: Football was Cody’s passion. Was it possible that someone could care about teaching a roomful of kids, many of whom didn’t even want to be there, as much as he cared about football? But Cody sensed that football was the wrong answer and stayed mum.

  “Let me guess,” said Mr. Lorrie. “Your passion is playing football.”

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  Cody nodded.

  “Football,” Mr. Lorrie said. “We’re getting somewhere. Too bad about your knee, but I assume you want to play next season.”

  Of course he wanted to play next season. The problem, as his father had pointed out, was the importance of junior year when it came to attracting college attention. Cody didn’t get into all that with Mr. Lorrie, just said, “Yeah.”

  “In order to do that,” Mr. Lorrie said, “you’ve got to be academically eligible. Which means” —he opened a folder, glanced at a sheet of paper—“you’re going to have to get with the program in terms of your classwork.” He leaned forward.

  “If grades were submitted today, you’d be failing every subject, Cody. Every single one, including mine. You got a zero on the first Hamlet quiz. You’re a bright kid—how did that happen?”

  Cody stared back at Mr. Lorrie, said nothing.

  “There’s after-school academic help, Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Mr. Lorrie said. “Room four-one-nine for juniors. Plus I’m just about always here for half an hour or so after the last bell.”

  Hanging around the school for longer than he had to, maybe hearing the thump of a punted football coming from the practice field while he labored over some assignment? No way. And Mr. Lorrie had it wrong about him being a bright 75

  kid. That was so ridiculous, it must have been some strategy, maybe to pump him up.

  “So, Cody, what do you say?”

  “I’ll do better,” Cody said. “But on my own.”

  Mr. Lorrie frowned and closed the folder.

  Cody tried to do better. Was there any choice? Not if he wanted to keep playing football. Was there a chance he could still be recruited? Had to be. Hadn’t he read somewhere—maybe on ESPN.com—about some big NFL star who’d missed his whole junior year of high school, possibly more? Cody spent some time online searching for the story, but never found it. Trying to do better meant flushing the remaining Percocet pills down the toilet. It meant not merely arriving at school on time and staying all day, but really paying attention in class. That was the hard part: His mind would not cooperate, insisted
on tuning out after ten minutes, or five, or three, so that whatever the teacher was saying didn’t even sound like English, and whatever was written on the page twisted into an uncrackable code. After school, Cody hit the gym, then went right to the apartment, where he’d open his school books and fall asleep over them. That was another problem. He was sleepy, very sleepy, almost all the time. On nights his father didn’t come home, 76

  Cody often slept all the way from homework time till the ringing of that five-thirty alarm, especially if he’d tried doing his homework on the couch. On nights his father did come home, he would wake Cody and say, “Hittin’ the books pretty hard this year, huh?” And Cody would pull out the pull-out part of the couch and crawl under the covers.

  Cody dropped out of school after Columbus Day weekend. He didn’t make a formal announcement or discuss it with anyone—although he did write Clea an email about it, never sent because of how rambling and stupid it seemed when he read it over—but simply stopped going.

  Junior came over. “What the hell are you doin’, man?”

  “I’m sixteen. You can drop out when you’re sixteen.”

  “They changed it to seventeen.”

  “So? That’s two months away. They going to arrest me? School sucks.”

  “I know. Christ, believe me, I know, but what else is there?”

  “Real life.”

  “Real life?” said Junior. He gazed out the window of the apartment. Rain was falling hard, slanting down at a sharp angle. Junior pounded his fist into his other hand. “If I ever see that fuckin’ Martinelli . . . “

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  “Nah,” said Cody, even though he’d had the same thought, more than once.

  Cody’s father figured it out a few days later. He didn’t argue, didn’t try to change Cody’s mind. All he said, after gazing at Cody lying on the couch, was: “Means you’ll be getting a job, right? And soon.”

  Cody called Sue Beezon at Beezon Lumber. “Ms. Beezon? It’s me. Cody.”

  “Hi, Cody. I hear you hurt your leg.”

  “It’s not too bad. I, uh . . . “

  “The team sure needs you. That’s what everyone’s saying.”