Juice - Eric Walters [18]
I walked down the hall. I tried to look away, but I couldn’t avoid seeing the holes. I was going to go straight from the meeting to the hardware store. I was going to buy a piece of drywall and some plaster and paint. I couldn’t change what I’d done, but I could have it all fixed before my mother got home from work that night. Then I’d apologize and promise not to ever let something like that happen again. Could I keep that promise?
I was going to ask Caleb to help me fix the wall. He was good with that sort of stuff. That was one of the decisions I’d made. The other was that I was going to talk to him. I’d make him promise not to tell anybody and to let me make my own decision, but to help me with that decision. I could trust him. Actually, there was nobody else I could trust with this.
I bumped into a couple of other guys on the way into the school. They were laughing and joking around. Nobody else seemed worried. Maybe there was nothing to worry about. Maybe being paranoid was just another symptom of steroid use.
I hadn’t taken any this morning. Missing one part of the day wouldn’t make any difference, but would it hurt me?
It was a few minutes before ten, and almost everybody was assembled in the weight room. Caleb came over and sat down beside me.
It was strange being here without loud music pumping through the room or anybody sweating away on the weights. Looking up, I noticed the Wall of Fame and all of the progress charts were gone. Why weren’t they there?
All that was left were the inspirational quotes. I looked at them, from quote to quote. My eyes stopped on one: Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser. That one was positioned on the wall so that I stared right at it when I was doing my squats. I still hated squats and I’d learned to hate that quote. What was wrong with being a good loser? Wasn’t that better than being a bad winner?
“I wonder where Tony is,” Caleb said.
“Maybe he’s in his office.”
Caleb shook his head. “His SUV isn’t in the lot. I don’t think he’s here.”
“Probably coming with Coach Barnes.”
I looked over at the clock. It was exactly 10:00, and Coach Barnes was a stickler for being on time.
Almost on cue, the office door opened. It was Coach Reeves! What was he doing here? I jumped up from my chair, as did everybody else, and we rushed over to him.
“I’m thrilled to see you all again too!” Coach Reeves responded. “But I need you all to sit down. We have to talk.”
We settled back into our seats. If I was anxious before, I was really anxious now.
There was a rattling sound and I realized where it was coming from. Coach was shaking a can of spray paint. He walked over to the wall and started painting. He was spraying over all the sayings that lined the walls. Gone was No Pain, No Gain; gone was Reach for the Stars. He painted over the last half of Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser, so that it only read Show me a good loser. He sprayed over the last part of Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing! Now it read Winning isn’t everything. Finally he sprayed over the word Fame and in its place crudely painted Shame, so it was now the Wall of Shame.
We all sat there in stunned silence, watching him work. This was crazy. Finished, he dropped the can to the floor with a metallic thud.
“Thank you all for coming to my meeting,” Coach Reeves said.
“We’re glad to be here,” Caleb said, “but we didn’t know it was your meeting. Mrs. Perkins just said we were to meet with our coach.”
“You are meeting with your coach. Your old, or, I guess, newest coach.”
“You’re our coach again?” I gasped.
“Are you disappointed, Michael?” Coach Reeves asked.
“No! Never! Of course not! I just don’t understand.”
“That’s what I’m going to explain. They asked me to come out of retirement for one more year, and I agreed. Coach Barnes is gone. His assistant, Tony, is gone.”
“Gone where?” Robbie asked.
Coach shook his head. “That will be