Damage - A. M. Jenkins [2]
Curtis laughs and takes another drink. Curtis has a cowboy hat, but he doesn’t wear it much, and he doesn’t have a beer gut, either. He isn’t the type to argue if he knows he’s right.
You set the empty bottle down beside you. Girls are another thing that’s not right anymore. The Pride of the Panthers has always had a girlfriend—but you haven’t had one in a while. Just haven’t been able to get interested. The way you haven’t been able to get interested in much of anything.
That joyless feeling is out there in the darkness around the pickup, hanging like a low cloud; you can feel its edges brush against you.
Curtis drains the last of his beer and tosses the bottle into the bushes. He hasn’t dated anybody since Kat Hopkins broke up with him in the spring, and he doesn’t want to talk about girls, either.
“Two-a-days start Monday,” you say to nobody in particular, and saying it almost makes you feel a little better. Not that you’re looking forward to sweating through sprints and conditioning drills, line drills in sweltering pads. But Monday morning you won’t have the option of wallowing around in bed like you have all summer; you’ll be out there in the late August sun doing what you’re told.
You’ve always played for sheer fun. Practice or games, doesn’t matter which—there’s nothing like running the play and actually having it work, turning to see the ball coming at you, feeling it fly straight into your hands as if it’s been sucked there.
On Monday, you’re pretty sure, you’ll wake up with the sun, and find that this drag-down feeling has faded away like some bad dream.
CHAPTER TWO
Sure enough, the first week of practice is like sliding into a well-worn groove. There’s no doubt you’ll be starting. Your body, at least, still seems to have a fierce interest in the details and mechanics of football. Inside you still feel pretty much like a flattened tire, but it’s not too hard to shove that feeling down and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
This is Coach Van Zandt’s first year at Parkersville. Nobody knows yet how far he can be pushed. All anybody knows is that he used to be in the marines, and he’s passionate about his job.
After one play, when everybody’s heading back to the line, Coach gives his baseball cap a furious tug. “Stargill!” he bellows. “Whatcha doing lying in the dirt?”
Brett Stargill lumbers to his feet, towering over Coach. Coach’s paunchy stomach is the only part of him as wide as Brett. Still, Brett just shrugs, eyes on the ground.
“You ain’t hurt ’less I say you’re hurt.”
Curtis said earlier in the week that Coach thinks he’s some kind of drill sergeant. He said that’s okay, though, since Coach takes his football seriously. Curtis takes his football seriously, too.
When Coach hollers, “Water break!” nobody needs to be told twice to take off for the coolers Dobie has set up on the bottom row of the bleachers.
You get in line with Curtis, waiting for the water cooler on the end. Both of you are a little apart from all the jostling and joking. Both of your gray practice jerseys are dark with sweat. Curtis holds his helmet under one arm. His hair is sweat-plastered to his head.
You undo your chin strap but don’t take off your helmet. Instead, you just stand there, staring out at a world framed by rigid plastic edges.
“You’ve been playing different,” Curtis says out of the blue. “You’re not as focused as you usually are.”
Now you see that his dark eyes are on you; they’ve got that sharp, considering look. If he thinks you’re going to spill your guts, he’s wrong. There aren’t any words for what you feel sometimes, and, anyway, there’s nothing to talk about.
The guy in front of Curtis steps away from the cooler, but Curtis hasn’t noticed. “You’re the one needs to pay attention,” you say, and give him a friendly shove toward the cooler.
Curtis picks up and fills a paper cup, and everything moves one step closer to normal. While he drains the cup in one long swallow, you pull the silence around you like a blanket. He bends to fill the cup a second time, dumps