American Outlaw - Jesse James [38]
Sensing impending harm, he extricated himself with a quickness. “Look, guy, I’m leaving, okay?”
“See ya!” I said, fake-smiling.
The whole thing made me tired. Being broke and without allies could wear the strongest guy down. One evening, after another interminable practice, I pumped the last three dimes I had in the world into the candy machine in our dorm. I was tired as hell. My stomach was growling. All I wanted was a candy bar. I was going to eat it in two bites and collapse into bed.
My money in the machine, I stood in front of the window, sizing up the selection carefully. My eyes fell on a Whatchamacallit, and suddenly, I grinned. Whatchamacallits reminded me of being a kid: when I was nine or ten, my dad had gone to one of his auctions and returned home with a truckload of them.
“What’s that?” I asked, my young eyes bugging out.
“Fuckin’ candy bars,” he said.
“Who . . . who are they for?” I asked, breathless, hoping against hope.
He looked at me as if I were stupid. “You. Me. Have as many as you want. Hell, eat ’em all, get ’em out of my life.”
There was something fishy about the boxes upon boxes of candy bars, of course: they were probably stolen from some cargo truck years earlier, then bought for pennies on the dollar by my dad, who didn’t know what the hell to do with them. But for his giant, hungry, ten-year-old son? Absolute heaven. I ate Whatchamacallits that summer until I couldn’t stand them. Until I was straight pooping Whatchamacallits.
I had not tasted a Whatchamacallit in almost a decade. But locked in this dorm of loud, delinquent football drunks, broke beyond belief, suddenly, I desperately needed one. I needed something that reminded me of home. I put my change in, pressed the button on the machine, and waited. Nothing happened.
“Goddammit,” I growled.
I tried again: nothing. The Whatchamacallit, encased in its tan and brown wrapper, hung on its hook, smugly.
“Come on,” I groaned. I shook the machine, then kicked it. The candy bar wobbled, but remained in place. Where was my goddamn Whatchamacallit?!!
“Yo, yo, Outlaw, what’s the problem?” said Josh Paxton, approaching on deceptively quiet, graceful fat-man feet.
“This machine, man!” I pointed at it, outraged, near tears. “It stole my money!”
“Calm down, calm down.” Josh patted me on the back. “Go to sleep, Jesse. You’ll have a candy bar in the morning. I promise.”
I looked at him and nodded. He was right. I was having an episode. It was, after all, only a candy bar. The next morning, I awoke early. Opening my door to the hallway, I was surprised to discover a small pile of assorted sweets scattered right outside my room. Whatchamacallits, Twix, Bonkers, Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum, about ten or fifteen packages of candy in all. Slowly, I walked down the hallway to investigate. The candy machine’s plastic casing was completely shattered and open to the public. I laughed and patted the ruined machine softly. Some punk must have murdered it for me. Now, that’s a real friend.
——
Football remained my principal reason for being alive. Yet for the first time, I was beginning to entertain tiny shreds of doubt in my own ability. In high school, I’d always been the most physically gifted guy on the field at any point in time. Being six foot three and 225 pounds means quite a lot in high school. At RCC, every single player was big. To a man, we were lean, healthy young animals.
My biggest problems arose when we began running the slant, a defensive lineup designed to help more agile players like myself use raw speed to combat the strength of giant offensive linemen. When you run the slant, instead of hitting the opposing players straight up when they snap the ball, everybody on your line all lunges in one direction. I thought it was a great strategy: if I tried to butt heads with big, fat, tub-of-lard linemen, I’d lose every time, but if we ran the slant, often I’d be past them before they even got their hands off the ground.
The only catch was, I had to be really fast off the line. And for one reason or another, that wasn’t happening.