Gym Candy (24 page)

After he left, my mom and dad sat, each on one side of me. We talked about the room and we talked about the hospital and we talked about the doctor. We talked about everything except what I had done and what was going to happen next.

A woman brought me breakfast and a nurse took my temperature and adjusted the IV. After that, my mom and dad went down to the cafeteria. "We'll give you some time to rest," my mom said as they left.

When they were with me, I'd thought that I wanted to be alone. Once they were gone, I wanted them back. I lowered the bed and closed my eyes, but that was no good. So then I raised the bed and looked out into the corridor, watching the nurses walk this way and that, seeing patients wheeled in and out.

After an hour or so, my mom and dad returned. They told me about their breakfast and a vending machine that was jammed. "A policeman will be coming later,"
my dad said after a long silence. "He'll be asking you questions about last night. When he comes, your mom and I are going to leave. Tell him everything, Mick. Don't hold back."

Once he said that, they talked about a vacation in San Diego over Christmas. "A little sun and warm weather would be good for us," my mother said. Then they discussed other places we might go instead—Arizona or Florida or even Hawaii. As they talked, I kept looking into the corridor, awaiting the policeman. But when he finally showed, I barely noticed him. I'd imagined someone big, in uniform, gun dangling at his hip. Instead, the policeman was a slender Asian man, about fifty. "I'm Lee Ikeda," he said. "Seattle Police."

He shook my dad's hand, then my mom's, and then nodded toward me. They talked some about the hospital, and as they spoke I felt my throat tightening and a dizziness coming over me. "I'd like to speak to Mick alone," he said at last. My mom came to the bed and kissed me again; my dad gave me a smile.

Once they were gone, Mr. Ikeda took out a notepad and a pen. "I've just come from Popeye's," he said. "We've got Peter Volz nailed solid. So why don't you just tell me how all this happened?"

I looked at him; I looked at the IV in my arm. I put
my hand to my head and felt the bandages. I thought of my mom and my dad, of Drew and Coach Carlson, of Aaron Clark and Matt Drager. Everything that I'd been holding down came surging up, a tidal wave I couldn't stop.

"I don't know how it happened," I whispered. "I don't know." Then I covered my face with my hands to hide my tears.

I spent that night at the hospital, and the next morning my parents brought me here, to the drug rehabilitation center. I didn't want to come, but I didn't have much choice. If I complete the rehab program, my file gets sealed. Unless I screw up again, it will almost be as if none of this ever happened. If I want, I can even play football again next year. But if I don't complete this program, then I go into the court system and everything is out in the open. I don't want that, and neither do my mom and my dad or Mr. Ikeda.

On the way here, we drove past the old Norwegian cemetery. When I was in middle school, we used to dare one another to walk through the cemetery. My
dad looked over at me as we passed those graves, and I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same thing. A twitch was all that had kept me alive.

He pulled into the driveway and we got out—all three of us—and looked at the center where I'd be living for three weeks. This place looks like a Spanish mission. All the buildings have red tile roofs and cream stucco walls that would fit in Mexico or Texas but don't really fit in Seattle. Maybe that's the point. Maybe they want me to feel as though I'm a long way from home.

We walked up the pathway, climbed the tile stairs, and pushed open the heavy oak door. At the reception desk across the lobby was an older woman. She asked my name, gave my mom and dad forms on clipboards, and then pointed to a couple of red chairs and a sofa over by a big window. As they filled out the paperwork, I stared at an oak door with a sign reading
PATIENTS AND STAFF ONLY
on it. I pictured the guys living in the rooms behind that door. They'd be meth addicts and heroin addicts and cocaine addicts.

After ten minutes or so, a tall, fair-haired man wearing glasses came out from behind that door. He strode across the tile floor, walked directly up to me, and stuck out his hand. "Hello, Mick," he said. "I'm Mr. Jonas Riley. I will be your primary counselor while you're here." Next he turned to my mom and dad. They introduced themselves, and the three of them talked about the program and what my days would be like. Then came a moment when everyone stopped talking. It lasted for a while before Mr. Riley said, "I think it's time I showed Mick his room."

"I'm not a drug addict or anything like that," I said, panic coming over me. "I want you to know that up front. It was steroids—that's all I ever used. I don't drink or do marijuana or even smoke cigarettes. Just steroids. So I won't really need drug counseling."

Mr. Riley nodded. "Mick, all I want to do right now is get you settled. You're going to be here awhile; we'll have time to figure out what you do and don't need."

My dad gave me a hug and then stepped back. I turned to my mom. She was teary-eyed. "It'll be okay," I said. She wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tight as if I were a little boy, and I hugged her back the same way. It was the first time I'd hugged her like that in a long, long time.

Mr. Riley started across the tile floor and I followed. We'd taken a few steps when my mother's voice rang out. "Wait, Mick," she said. "There's something I want you to have." She looked to Mr. Riley. "It's in the car. It'll just take a minute. Please."

"There is no hurry, Mrs. Johnson," Mr. Riley said. "We can wait."

When she came back she was holding the large leather-bound Bible that always sits on the table by the sofa. "Sometimes when I'm feeling lost," she said as she handed it to me, "I'll open the book and read and before long I'll find a passage that will comfort me."

I think she was expecting me to tell her I didn't want her Bible, and any other day of my life I probably would have, but that day I took it.

It's okay here during the daytime. I get up at eight, eat breakfast, and shoot some hoops by myself out on the asphalt. After that I have my first counseling session with Riley. Pretty soon it's time for lunch, and then some classes, which are easy, because most of the guys in here can barely read. Next comes my second session with Riley, followed by more basketball, and then dinner. I'm ten days into the program, which means I have ten days to go. I get the feeling I'm sort of a star patient; Riley always says that he looks forward to our sessions.

I think I know why he likes me. Most of the guys in here kid themselves. I hear them blaming their parents, blaming the world. I started out doing the same thing. I spent my first four days with Riley putting it all on my dad, saying that if he hadn't pushed me so hard, I would never have done what I did, which I guess is partly true. But only partly. Because Peter was right, way back in the beginning. I'd done it for me.

I wanted to be a star.

Me.

For myself.

Peter had made me say it out loud then, and I'm not running from it now. I put myself in here, and I know what I've got to do when I get out. I've got to live the truth. That's what Riley has been drilling into me, session after session. Lies don't protect you; they just make things worse. He says that lying is like a spear with points on both sides, and that the wounds go deep on both sides.

Today Riley asked me how I'd feel if it turned out that I wasn't good enough to be a star running back. "This Dave Kane, what if he's simply better than you?"

"Then I'll be second string," I said.

"Do you think you can live with that?" he asked.

"I won't like it," I said, "but if that's what I have to do, then that's what I have to do."

In the daytime, it all seems pretty clear.

***

But then comes the night.

After dinner, most of the guys hang out in the rec room shooting pool. I tried joining them, but I don't fit. So when I finish eating, I come back to this room, take a shower, and brush my teeth. I do everything I can to kill time, but it's never later than nine when I run out of things to do, and there's no way I can go to sleep at nine. At home I'd watch TV or play a video game and the time would pass. But there's nothing in my room here, nothing but the Bible my mom gave me the day I came in.

When I unpacked my stuff that first day, I put the Bible in the bottom drawer of the dresser. I probably would have forgotten about it if it weren't for the kid down the hall. Around eleven on my first night here, he started screaming and crying. The doors and walls between him and me muffled the sound, which somehow made the crying seem as if it were coming from deep inside me. That's when I pulled out the Bible.

It's a big Bible with gold-edged pages and a dark blue leather cover. As soon as I started flipping through the pages, I remembered back to when I was little and my mom used to sit with me on the sofa and read me stories. "You'll like this one," she'd say, and then she'd read about Adam and Eve, or Cain and Abel,
or Jacob and Esau.

Four nights ago I read the story of Judas Iscariot and how he betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. As soon as I started reading about Judas, I thought of Drew. I didn't want to think of him, but I couldn't stop myself. Ever since that night, I've been trying to read something new, or not read at all, but once that kid starts crying, I pull out the Bible, and once I pull out the Bible, I always turn to the story of Judas.

Riley says Drew saved me, and so do my mom and my dad. They say I owe my life to him. And in the daytime, I know they're right. I know how much I owe him. He acted the way a friend is supposed to act. In the daytime I know all that.

But sitting here in the dark with that kid down the hall crying and crying—I'm not sure that Drew saved me. Sometimes I even think that he betrayed me, just as Judas betrayed Jesus.A few more weeks, and I'd have led us to the championship. And if we won the title this year, why not next year? And the year after that? We could have been three-time state champions; both Drew and I could have been all-state players; Coach Carlson could have won the title he was aching to win.

All those good things, if Drew had stayed out of it.

What I told Riley about being second string? When I said it, I meant it. And I want it to be true. But I don't
know if it is true. I don't know if I can stand watching Dave Kane play running back while I sit on the bench. I don't know if I can stand feeling myself become smaller, slower, and weaker.

I don't know if I can stand being ordinary.

Every session Riley asks me what I want my life to look like when I get out of here. There's nothing special about my answers. I tell him I want to hang out with Drew and DeShawn in the lunchroom, making jokes and talking loud. I want to play flag football at Crown Hill Park in the rain, sliding through the mud on every tackle. I want to walk around Green Lake with Kaylee, sometimes talking, sometimes quiet, the sun bright in the sky. And I tell him that come next September, I want to be in the locker room before a football game—not sneaking off to a bathroom stall, not hiding anything—just there, with my teammates—just one of the guys.

And that is what I do want. It really is.

But what you want and what you get aren't always the same.

***

Before all this happened, I'd read in the newspaper about pro athletes who got caught using steroids. Some of them would pile up two or three or even four substance abuse violations. They'd lose millions of dollars, their reputations, even their careers. It made no sense to me then. They just seemed stupid beyond belief.

They don't seem so stupid now.

Because what I don't tell Riley is that something else is pulling me, drawing me like a magnet draws iron filings. I know that once I'm out of here, I could get in my Jeep and drive to Popeye's, or to the gym up in Shoreline, or to half a dozen other gyms in the city. I could do it any time of the day, any day of the year. Within an hour I could hook up with someone who could get me going on the juice again. Sixty minutes, and I could be back on steroids, getting bigger, faster, and stronger every day. Thinking about it makes my heart race.

So here I am, right this minute, sitting in the dark at midnight on a strange bed in a strange room in a strange place. I know the person I want to become, but I don't know if I can pull it off. I think I can; sometimes I even pray that I can. But the kid down the hall has started screaming again, and in my head I'm screaming, too.

THE END