If there was any doubt that Hey-Soos is the inner part of me, which I’ve already said a thousand times there isn’t, it is done. Once again he’s gone way beyond my capacity to make shit up. WAY beyond. I gaze around the space we’re in, which is basically my bedroom, only not. I’ve noticed this before, even when I was at Dallas’s place. My furniture, my posters: all that shit is missing. There are only colors and it’s like we’re in them. I have to remember to ask about that sometime. Right now I have to get oriented.
“I feel like I should be asking about the meaning of life or something.”
“You already did that,” he says. “Time wasted. You’re playing a game. A beautiful, wonderful, hard, scary game. And you’re gathering information from it.”
“For what?”
“To take with. Man, you are testing my patience.”
Back on task. “So you didn’t tell me it was a messed-up idea to keep this all a secret because…”
“Because experience is the only teacher,” Hey-Soos says. “Even if I could have told you, it would have been a lecture. Why do you think kids don’t listen to their parents, or people don’t leave churches and do what the preacher tells them?”
Whew.
“There’s only one thing that’s universal.”
“What’s that?”
“The truth.”
So now I have to figure out when and where to tell it. I could tell Lambeer, or Sooner. It’d make their day. I could tell my mother, who would probably become so depressed her heart would just stop beating; or Dad, and watch another two thousand pounds load onto his shoulders. I could tell Dallas, and stand there and watch my own heart break; or my brother, and feel the world cave in under both our feet.
In the end, I have to tell them all. But I know right where to start.
“Hey, man, you feeling any better?”
“That’s relative,” Rudy says.
“I think I know how to get us back on course.”
“Great. Before you spring it on me, I need to say something.”
“Shoot.”
“You’ve been straight with me, now I have to be straight with you. I can’t promise I’ll stay.”
I wait.
“Alive, I mean. I can’t promise I’ll stay alive.”
Shit.
“There’s no redemption for what I did. I can’t give it back. I can’t get Donny’s life back; for him or for the people who loved him. I took his trust and I killed him. There’s no way to fix that.”
“Maybe—”
“No maybes. Some things can’t be fixed.” He looks at his hands, folded in his lap in front of him. “Do you have any idea what a horror it is to be me?”
Experience is the only teacher. “Nope,” I say. “I don’t. I couldn’t. But look, Rudy, the reason I don’t is that I didn’t go through it. Somebody gets hold of you when you’re a little kid and wrecks you, you grow up and wreck somebody, too. You didn’t ask for that.”
“But I knew.”
“Yeah, you knew. And you’ve had nothing but shit ever since. But let me throw in what I came to say.”
He shakes his head as if there’s nothing.
“I can’t promise I’ll stay, either. In fact I can pretty much promise I won’t.”
“I don’t expect you to keep comin’ down here. Not after—”
“Alive,” I say. “I can’t promise I’ll stay alive, either.”
He looks at me dumbly.
“I got some shitty disease. This is it for me. This year. I think I can already feel it going.”
He moves toward me, as if he wants to comfort me, then reels back.
“Don’t worry. I’ve known all year. But look, it doesn’t matter if you’re, like, attracted to me because like I said, I could probably kick your ass and I know I can outrun you. You are safe for the first time in your whole life, Rudy McCoy, because I’m willing to live with whatever the fuck you did. I like you and I want you to help me mess with Mr. Lambeer so I can die happy. If you have fantasies about me, then you do. I’ll pretend you don’t. Just focus on me and not some other kid and I’ll keep you in line, and we’ll go one day at a time until there are no more days, and then if you want to off yourself, well, what the hell, I’ll see you there.” Man, I do not know where half of that came from, but the truth has the ring of truth to it so I know I’m right. All the regular bets are off when death has its arms outstretched.
“I’m not going to wait for an answer,” I tell him, “’cause it would just mean you’d have to look like you were forgiving yourself, which I know you can’t. So just fucking hang in here with me.” I turn and leave.
Whew.
January 2
“Hey, Coach.”
“Hey. My biggest little hitter.”
“I’m here to come clean.”
“Finally. Someone. Have a seat.” He motions me to the chair next to his desk. First day back. School is over for the day; the classroom, empty.
“I’m dying.”
“I know what you mean.”
“No. I’m dying.”
He searches my eyes. “Literally.” He means it as a question.
“Literally.”
He walks to the classroom door and closes it, returns slowly to his chair. “Talk to me.”
“I’ve known all year,” I say. “It’s why I went out for football. I found out when I went for my cross-country physical last summer.”
“What is it?”
“‘Blood disease,’” I say, quoting Doc.
“Are you taking treatments? What the hell? What kind of doctor—”
“It’s not his fault, Coach. He did everything he could to make me do this right—or the way you’re supposed to. I’m eighteen. He had no choice.”
“He sure as hell could have kept you out of football. All he had to do was not pass you on your physical.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, rub my eyes. “Coach, don’t do this. I pled a hell of a case. And it was the right thing. Did I have a hell of a season or what?”
Coach sits back, places his mouth and nose on his finger tepee. I can see him running back over that senseless death more then twenty years ago. “That’s just irresponsible,” he says, more to himself than to me. He’s stuck back on Doc.
“This is what I was afraid of.”
His head snaps up.
“I could have set myself up for treatment, but…” I hesitate, but tell him anyway, that I knew this was my time, how I have never pictured myself past this place. “I knew I was done but I wanted it to be ‘normal.’ But then I realized there’s nothing normal about cashing out at eighteen, and that a whole bunch of people I really care about deserve to know. I’m starting with you.”
“Your parents…Cody?”
“No,” I say. “Shitty as it probably is, you know about as much about death as anyone I know, so you’re my first-round pick.”
He sits, staring at his fingers. “Let me get this straight,” he says finally, “you discovered sometime toward the end of summer that you have a terminal illness, had the presence of mind—if we want to call it that—to keep the doctor from telling anyone, turned out for football, and started hustling the sharpest girl in school?”
“That’s about the small and short of it,” I say.
“Jesus, Ben. That kind of changes the meaning of the phrase death wish. I don’t know what to say. So we’re halfway through the year and you decide to tell.” He’s quiet; exasperated.
Finally, “How can I help?” This is what I love about Coach. Tonight sometime the full reality will dawn on him, but he’s like me: the guy you want at the site where the plane went down.
“The more I didn’t tell people, the more complicated it got,” I say. “I just wanted to have a normal last year; as close to normal as possible with, well, you know.”
“But there was nothing normal about it,” he says.
I nod. “One reason I came to you, besides that you’ve always been cool to me and my
brother, is you haven’t exactly had the best luck with death.”
Coach smiles and looks down. “It kicked my ass right at your age,” he says.
“I’m worried about the people I leave behind,” I tell him.
“You came to the right place. I think you’re right; you need to tell. Maybe not everyone, but the important people. When Becky died I could only think of all we never got to say. Ben, I’ll help you with this any way I can. I just wish you’d told me earlier.”
“If I’d told you, would you have let me play ball?”
He smiles. “Probably not.”
“I rest my case,” I say. “Catching that pass from my brother was the single most thrilling physical event I’ve had, and I’ve had sex. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”
“I get it. So how can I help?”
“Just hang with me,” I say. “I don’t know how this is going to land. I’ve known for quite a while and when I tell Cody and my parents and Dallas”—I flinch—“it’s going to be like everything I said since I found out is a lie.”
“I’ll be here,” Coach says. “You know I will. And keep in mind, these are people who love you and they’re smart. It might take them a while, but they’ll understand. And if they don’t, we’ll make them understand.”
Man, I hope he’s right.
Nineteen
Coach was right that it wouldn’t be brilliant to be indiscriminate in who I told, and that I should decide based on relationship. Cody and Dallas are shoo-ins. We disagreed on my parents. I don’t want them broadsided when it hits, but at her worst my mother is crazier than Daffy Duck, and at her saddest she’s the most guilty person in the world. It compromises my commitment to the truth, but it feels self-protective. Plus, I’m not telling the world in general because there’s no point. Mom and Dad aside, you gotta care enough that I’m here now for me to tell you I’m leaving.
Meanwhile I want to get back to living. I gotta tell you, I think Lambeer may be a closet bigot and I don’t think he keeps the closet door pulled all the way shut. It doesn’t make sense he’s fighting me so hard on this project unless he doesn’t want Trout’s response made public. Bottom line: racism is current. Bottomer line: all bigotry is current. Double bottom line to seal the two: Malcolm X traveled as far down that road as anyone.
Imagine if I could get the people of Trout, Idaho, to pay attention to the beauty of that larger world. Got legacy written all over it.
“Hey.” Dallas is fixing pasta for Joe Henry as I come up behind her.
“Hey,” she says back. “What’s up?”
“Nothin’ much,” I say, and reach into the colander to snag a couple strings of spaghetti. “Want me to throw this against the wall for you?”
“Nobody actually does that,” she says. “How come you’re early? I thought you were going to let me get the booger-eater to bed.”
Joe Henry’s digging in his toy box for his baseball glove and Wiffle Ball. I’ve been preparing him for life as a jock. To my discredit, I’ve been doing it with all appearances of being around when he steps into that life. This is not going to be fun, but if I wait I’ll chicken out.
“I’ve got some bad news.”
She turns around. “Lay it on me.”
“Well, it’s like…I’m dying.”
“Me too. What’s the news?”
Jesus, is everyone going to say that? “No, I mean it. I’m dying. I’ve got this blood disease….”
Her mouth actually drops open. “What? What kind of blood disease?”
“‘Aggressive,’” I tell her, quoting Doc again. “I may only be good for most of this year.”
She leans against the sink. Joe Henry hands me the Wiffle Ball and stands waiting with the glove.
“Just a minute, guy. I’ll be with you in a sec.”
“Oh my God, Ben, when did you find out? What are we going to do? Why aren’t you in the hospital, or…”
Here comes the hard part. “I’ve known since summer. It’s why I went out for football, actually. Doc Wagner caught it when I went for my cross-country physical.”
She stares and I know all our conversations are running through her head; I can see the betrayal.
“I know this is going to sound stupid,” I say, “but it made sense. I mean, the minute Doc said it, I knew it was right; like something I already knew and just needed it verified. One of those feelings.”
“Oh God, Ben. What about treatment? I mean, why aren’t you…bald or something?”
“The specialist said it was as aggressive as any he’s seen, that there was a chance it would go into remission, but realistically we could only buy a little time. I…I decided to play it out. I mean, I’ve been eating exactly right and—”
“You aren’t trying to beat it?”
“Well, with nutrition, and, you know. But Dallas, I gotta tell you. Treatment means a whole different kind of life, and probably only a little longer one.”
It hits her. “You knew you were dying when you started seeing me?”
I hang my head. “I couldn’t imagine you’d like me,” I say. “I mean, there was no chance. I thought I could play. Knowing I was dying made me brave.”
“But then you slept with me. And I told you…and you still didn’t say it?”
“It seemed too late.” God, this is worse than I thought. I’ve done something really shitty.
In a low, calm voice, Dallas says, “Get out of here.”
“Dallas, come on….”
“Go. Do not come back. You turn around and put down that fucking ball and get out of here.”
If you could hear her tone, you wouldn’t argue, either.
I get in my pickup outside Dallas’s house and just let it all wash over me. What in the world was I thinking? That was going to happen one way or the other, even if I decided to keep it quiet until I couldn’t. There has to come a point when it isn’t quiet.
God, how am I going to make it through the rest of this time without her? How am I going to do that? She’ll be at school, at games. She’ll be pissed, won’t talk. I mean, if you want to see resolve, you want to see Dallas Suzuki on the volleyball court or the basketball court. This is not how I envisioned the last half of my year playing out. She wasn’t just falling for me (how outrageous does that sound?); I was totally on my ass for her. This feels worse than dying.
It’s dark outside and it’s cold; I mean, headed for freezing and then way down below that. The big snows haven’t started yet, but the last of them will melt close to Easter. But if it’s not the Antarctic, I can run in it, and football hero or no, running’s my thing. Nothing lets me focus better than the even beat of my feet pounding the dirt roads up around the lake. The house is quiet and I quickly pull on my sweats, cover them with Gore-Tex and slip out the back door. A dim light glows through Mom’s window. She’s lying there, staring at the ceiling, probably wishing she could trade places with someone like me.
On this moonless night, the Milky Way spreads across the sky like a billion fiery marbles. If it weren’t for potholes, the roads around here would have no surface at all, so I run high on the left edge on hard-packed snow to avoid them, starting slow, worried my body might bail on me again. But in a mile or so I’m into a slow pace, and in two I’m wondering if other kids are like me. I don’t mean other dying kids, and I know a lot are dying in lots worse ways than I am. I don’t have to watch too much CNN to know that. But I wonder if other kids try as hard as I do to figure out who they are and why they’re here. Adults talk about how kids’ brains aren’t fully developed and we’re like bulletproof sociopaths or something, but that’s not true, at least not for me. Most of us just have a hard time putting things into words. I consider this road I’m running on, bordering water for nearly fifty miles, frozen white just below the road’s edge. Ride back twenty-some odd years and these are Coach’s feet, pounding the dirt in the middle of the night, trying to soak up the meaning of life, when the most important one in his had been taken. It would have
been spring; warmer, but he would have been staring up into the same Milky Way asking the same question I ask. How do I make it worth it?
When Doc gave me the news I thought it was all about me, but I was wrong. It’s about me and everyone I touch. Looking back, I wish I had just said it and told anyone who felt sorry for me that I’d flatten their tires and run a pocketknife down the side of their car in the middle of the night if they patted my head even once.
I reverse my direction and head for home. I’m gonna need to be fresh in the morning to face Dallas—or to not face Dallas—and I’ve gotta tell Cody before it leaks out. If he finds out from somebody else, my life span will be halved.
“It’s not getting simpler.”
“You can say that again.”
“If you weren’t so messed up, I would,” Hey-Soos says. “What did you expect?”
“Obviously I didn’t know. As usual, I didn’t think things out too far. Hey, I’m pissed at you. I thought if I told the truth, things would get clearer.”
“They are clear,” he says. “They just aren’t easy.”
“Man, I need you to walk me through this.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Why are you here? I mean why now, and why me?”
“Because you can use the help, and because you can take the help. And because giving to you, and to people like you, is my best way to spread truth.”