Compulsion (7 page)

“Today’s category: country-western song titles for every profession. I’ll start with butcher: ‘Stand By Your Ham’ or ‘Go-Lean.’ ” I half laugh and turn to Mera’s pale-eyed stare. “Well?” I ask.

“Jake, we’re not twelve anymore, you know.” She tucks pale strands of hair behind her ear.

I return to the hallway, the way things
are
, kind of wishing for then. “Yeah. I know. I just thought—”

She shrugs and goes back to reading.

I think about the line from the book again:
You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect
. “It’s not about what’s real and what we expect to see,” I mutter. “I think it’s the doubting, the wondering about it all. Like how nothing makes sense unless—I dunno. Always doubting, wondering. What if—”

Why don’t I just shut up? Now.
Christ
.

Mera closes her book, picks at a hangnail, and waits. “What if what?” she asks.

What if the numbers aren’t prime?
Now that sounds crazy. I rub my eyes and pull my fingers through my hair. I know I’ve said too much, like a little part of me just hangs there in the hall. But it’s just Mera. UNICEF. Ultramarathon Mera, who has been categorized as social untouchable since seventh grade.

She doesn’t matter. She’s not supposed to, anyway.

“What if” doesn’t matter. It’s a kid game—a stupid thing I do. So I tuck that piece of me back inside—way down deep where nobody will see it. The magic is protected. Everything is right again.

“Jake?” She looks at me hard—a long, blinkless stare. “I mean, this morning at the shop, during the rally. You seem—”

Blink,
I think.
Just blink.
And I count.

She breaks my concentration saying, “The doubting?”
Blink
.
Blink
.

“Christ, Mera, it’s nothing,” I say. The peaceful bubble fissures and explodes, and I feel like my chest is being compressed again; my airways are constricting. The tingling begins and explodes into my brain. I rub my temples and push on my forehead.

I’ve been caught. She knows.

Fucking Mera. I tap my pencil on the book and look back down the hallway at the patterns.

“Do you talk about it?” she asks. “I mean, not with me. Do you, um, talk to Luc about this stuff?”

Yeah, sure
. Hey, Luc, did you know that it can take me up to two hours to leave the house some days because the numbers don’t work?
That’s exactly what I want to talk to the ever-macho, ever-okay Luc about.

I shove my books into my backpack. I can’t hear her words over the hammering in my ears. My breath quickens, so I count, bringing it back, keeping it cool. Tuck. Tuck. Tuck.
Put the piece away
.

The bell rings and I jump up, relieved. I throw my backpack over my shoulder and hurry down the hallway toward English, feeling her eyes bore into the back of my neck. I guess I could’ve waited for her. Walked together. Sometimes I feel like a total asshole.

But she breaks the magic. I need to stay focused for Saturday. I don’t have time to get caught up in what used to be and what is now. I can’t go back. I can’t look forward. I just need now. That’s all.

I can feel Mera’s stare—like the prickle of hot sun on the back of my neck. I scratch it away.

What if she knows about me?

I shake my head. No way.
Focus. Just focus. The game. Getting to class on time. Focus
.

I walk away, leaving her again.

Twenty-nine The Future

Thursday, 2:15 p.m.

Two fifteen. Two plus one is three plus five is eight minus five is three. OK.

Before practice Coach calls me aside, holding a copy of the tardy-notice letter Dad showed me this morning. I want to tell him he should photocopy it and send it to nine people or else his balls will fall off or something equally horrible if he breaks the chain.
Keep the tardy chain going
.

But I like Coach too much to be a total smart-ass. And those are only thoughts.

I pause and stare at him, waiting for a reaction.

Good. I didn’t say it out loud.

Just thoughts.

Coach shows me the letter. “Martin, you can’t afford to be late again. Take this seriously.”

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

I nod, my body itching to get out there and run. Get the release. When I’m out there, the spiders disappear.

“Jake,” he says, “Principal Vaughn doesn’t mess around. He’s here and ready to prove a point—
no
exceptions. Eight tardies and you’re benched—state final on Saturday or not. Don’t mess it up.”

“I won’t, Coach.” Only one day of school left before the final game anyway. I only have to be on time one more day. That won’t be hard.

Coach is still talking, so I start counting his words, my mind racing to keep up.

“You’re the best team player we’ve got. Scouts . . . college scholarships . . . teamwork . . . Martin, are you listening?”

“A hundred seventy-three.”

“A hundred seventy-three what?” Coach asks.

Numbers. Words.
One hundred seventy-three. One plus seven is eight plus three is eleven. OK.

“Okay. Just—yeah, I’m there, Coach. You can count on me.”

“We need you
here
,” Coach says. “Now.”

“Is there any other place?”

He smiles. “Okay then,” he says. “Get out there and let’s have a good practice.”

We group up seven-on-seven to play short-sided, practicing skills, going over plays. The fog melts away, the itching disappears. The field is a crisp, glossy photo—the kind in which every blade of grass is in macrofocus. Everything is clear, and the only thing I have to worry about is getting around a few guys who don’t know their asses from their elbows, tripping over themselves to stop me.

But they can’t.

It’s a dance. I flick the ball around Kalleres, push past Keller. Diaz comes forward. He’s the best fucking goalie in Nevada—but not good enough. So I lob the ball over a stunned Diaz, who’s stranded on the edge of the area, prepared for a power kick. It floats into the net like it was filled with helium, pausing in the air before dropping to the ground with the earth’s gravitational pull.

It’s magic out here. This is my fairy tale, my Neverland. No tick. No tock. Just me, the ball, and the goal.

After Saturday, it has to end. Because Saturday is the magic number three. Everything I’ve done has built up to this because it’s my thirteenth year of school, third championship, the end of the cycle, the beginning of real life. We’re playing
the
game on Saturday, November 5. Saturday is the seventh day of the week. November is the eleventh month.
Seven plus eleven is eighteen plus five is twenty-three.

The game is at three o’clock in the afternoon.

Perfect.

When we win, everything will be okay. The spiders will go away, the shimmering white light of migraines and drilling pain in my temples will disappear. Saturday will be magic.

I’ll get to keep that magic with me forever because I did it right.

We’ll all live happily ever after.

“Practice is over!” Coach hollers across the field. “Give Diaz a break already.”

“Three more,” I say between breaths, and power in three more goals—left, right, left. All get past Diaz. He doesn’t even try. “C’mon, man,” I say.

“I’m wrecked, Martin. Christ, it’s like you’re some kind of goddamned Energizer bunny.” I pull him up. “Nice scoop back there. I never expected that.
Mierda
.” He pulls off his goalie gloves and almost bowls me over with the stench.

“Can’t you wash those things?”

“Not all season, M&M. These babies get me through the game.”

“Probably because they can block on their own,” I say.

“Dude, why do you think we win?”

“Magic,” I say, laughing. Diaz smirks. Magic. We all have a little bit of it.

Luc sleeps with his uniform on the night before a game. Keller never washed the socks he wore in our first championship win three years ago and has them buried in his backyard under a weird shrine he has to Lionel Messi—an autographed soccer ball he got when he saw Messi play in Barcelona.

And I have the numbers.

Diaz and I limp to where the rest of the team sprawls on the grass. Coach claps me on the back and turns to the team. “He hasn’t been a starter for three years for nothin’.”

“Kiss-ass,” mutters Luc.

I shrug and lie down, staring up at the blue sky. One, two, three, four clouds. Then two blend together and there are three.

Magic.

Coach is talking about Bishop Gorman’s offense. Their right forward is pretty amazing, being scouted for UCLA’s soccer program. Big deal. It’s all about the team. It’s all about the numbers. Eleven players making magic.

For some reason I’m thinking about Mera. Not in an I-wanna-get-in-her-pants way. Just in an I-wish-we-still-hung-out way. Maybe I’ll join her ultramarathon club. I’ll need some sport after this year’s championship win.

I doze to the sound of his voice; the prickly grass blades tickle the nape of my neck. Every muscle in my body relaxes and my mind is at rest. This is how I’ll feel forever when the stuff that gets my brain all funky disappears—floats away.

Win number three.

Coach says, with a tinge of pride in his voice, “Scouts. I’ve gotten several calls. College scouts are coming out here this Saturday to look at a couple of you. This is a big game—a big opportunity. Big future.”

I close my eyes tighter. Coach says
future
like it’s the most important word we’ll ever hear. That’s a total geezer thing. “Future, future, future.” Maybe because they have less of one. I dunno. Parents, teachers, and Coach are so fucking stuck on tomorrow.

I can’t even get past now.

“M&M! M&M!” someone chants.

I open my eyes. The sun is already low in the sky and there’s a late-afternoon chill in the air. I shiver.

“Nah. They’re here for Luc,” I say. “And definitely Grundy and Kalleres.”

Luc won’t look at me. We know they’re not here for him. He’s good. Carson City good. Maybe Nevada good. Not college good.

Coach clears his throat. “Duke. UCLA. Maryland.”

Some guys whistle.

“No shit,” Luc says, and starts pulling grass from the field, his jaw tense.

“No shit,” Coach says, and clears his throat, mumbling, “Excuse my language.”

After a brief silence Coach says, “You’re all great players. All of you. But I don’t want anybody being a hotshot out there. Do your job on the field like you have every game this past year.”

“In other words, stay out of Martin’s way,” Diaz says, and laughs. “Fucking scoop. Never saw that coming.”

There is no
I
in team
.

“See you tomorrow.” Coach looks at me. “On time, Martin. Saturday’s too important for the team.”
You
, though, is implied. Saturday is my future. Ninety minutes of my life on a field will decide everything—college for Coach and Dad.

Peace for me—a weightlessness and calm I only feel out here. And I have to make sure it lasts a lifetime.

Saturday I can’t screw it up.

We stand up and stretch. Practice wasn’t so hard. We’re just tired from having to condition at dark-thirty in the morning.

Luc shrugs and mutters, “Asshole doesn’t even care about scouts.
Guevón
.” It’s an affront to him that his nut best friend is better at soccer. He once told me that being Colombian meant he had the right to be better because the soccer fans down there were for real—not some white-collared assholes following the latest sports trend. In Colombia it’s do or die.

I’m just glad he’s not Argentinian or I’d probably be crucified by the Maradonians, Year of Their God, AB 51.

I close my eyes and try to recapture that moment before everybody got all hung up on the future. But it’s gone now and the spiders are working their way up my neck again—mad web spinners trapping all my words, fogging my thoughts.

I keep my eyes shut until I feel Luc kicking on my side. “Let’s go out with Tanya and Amy before dinner. Maybe to Comma Coffee or something.” Luc pulls me up and we head to the locker room and shower up.

Amy and Tanya are waiting for us in the parking lot. I can’t help but think about Ren Höek. “Luc,” I venture. “Does Tanya remind you of
something
?”

I do a mental list of famous Chihuahuas because I don’t think Luc’s ever seen Ramón, Sarah Merckley’s little rat dog. He’s gotta know Ren from
Ren and Stimpy
and Mojo the diarrhea dog from
Transformers
.

Luc elbows me. “Yeah. Tanya Reese. You know what they say about Reese’s.” He smirks.

“What? It’s more than a mouthful?”

“No,
guevón,
that’s Whatchamacallit. A Reese’s is even better.”

“Yeah. You would probably know.”

He shakes his head. “Unfortunate last name, however appropriate.”

We both laugh. I squint, trying to picture Chihuahua Tanya and me getting horizontal. Maybe if I just close my eyes and listen to her talk. That would be hot.

Just then Mera walks past us, her violin case banging against her thigh.

“Holy ‘Colors of the Wind,’ Pocahontas,” Tanya says.

Mera’s wearing these worn-out boots with fringes, a mini jean skirt—real mini—and a heavy wool sweater.

Tanya makes an obnoxious Indian sound like in those Old West movies.

I cringe and stand away, trying not to be with them, but trying not to look like I’m not wanting to be with them. Pretending again.

Tanya continues, “The other day she refused to partner up with me in class, saying I didn’t have enough EFAs in my diet to feed my brain, so my work is substandard. Then she handed me an avocado. Like, ewww.”

I stifle a laugh. Mera’s the only high-school loner/orchestra geek/nerd I know who has a superiority complex.

“As if anybody else in class wants to partner up with her.” Tanya’s still fuming. But Mera only did in class what Tanya and every other double-X chromosome in the school does to her every day at school. Treat her like crap. She hums the presidential march and says, “Voted Most Forgettable Senior at Carson High.”