31
DANNY
In our first gymnastics meet since the
attack, Bruce leads the team in mistakes, but I pull ahead in the
vaunted “Bonehead” category. Luckily, there’s only, like, eight
people in the Farmington High bleachers to witness the carnage and
no one’s taping for YouTube. I’m not sure if the rest of the team
has figured it out, yet, but neither of us wants to be here. After
almost two weeks away from the gym, the skin on my hands has
softened and my body feels clumsy. During warm-ups on high bar, I
trick myself into thinking I’m fine. The chalky steel bites into my
palms in a rough but familiar way, like a handshake from my mom’s
brother, Steve, who works construction. He’ll sit smoking Pall
Malls and drinking Budweiser at our kitchen table and tell me and
Dad story after story about Mom when she was my age.
The high bar’s handshake turns painful, though,
after a couple more warm-up swings. My palms grow tender, then
sting, then get hot the way they do before they blister and rip
open. Worse, my timing is off from lack of practice. I miss my
easiest release moves in warm-ups, splatting on the thick mats
during both attempts.
“How about we keep it nice and simple,” Coach
suggests after my second crash. “Leave out the big tricks
today.”
“Sure,” I say. Even the crash is unable to shake me
from my weird dream state.
Bruce starts the downward spiral early, falling out
of position two times on rings and stepping out of bounds during
his floor exercise. The rest of us follow his example.
I’m signaling the judge and back on high bar. I
can’t remember what moves I agreed to take out. Wait! Where the
hell am I in the routine?! I’ve just skipped most of my tricks.
I’ve got to throw something before the dismount. Might as
well be the big one. I don’t really throw the up-and-over-the-bar
suicide so much as simply let go and see what happens. What happens
is the steel pipe slams into my chest just below my throat.
What happens is I’m shattering.
A flash-bomb goes off and the world spins and
tumbles and there’s Coach reaching out, trying to catch me, trying
to stop me but the floor’s going to beat him to it. I tuck my chin
to my chest, trying to form a ball, trying to roll through the fall
and keep from snapping my neck. The angle I hit at drives out all
air as either my teeth or spine cracks like plates.
Silence.
I lie motionless, unable to breathe, unable to
move. The first moments after breaking my neck.
“Danny? Jesus Christ! Danny!”
Coach’s shouting above me. I feel his hands
squeezing my arms as he aligns my body. I can feel him. I can
feel him? I make a fist and wiggle my feet. I’m not paralyzed.
I’m not paralyzed!
“Unngh.” I gasp, the wind still knocked out of me.
My teammates circle me, hover over me, their faces wrinkling into
prunes of fear and concern. It frightens me. I’ve got to move. I
have to be all right. I have to be all right.
“Just lay still, Tiger, I got you,” Coach says, but
I don’t believe him. No one has me. No one can catch me. No one
caught Ronnie. I roll to my side while fighting for air, feeling it
slowly come back into me.
“Just lay back, dude,” Fisher says in a voice I’ve
never heard, a serious voice, and that scares the crap out of
me.
I sit up. “Fuck you, Fish,” I croak. My teammates
start laughing. It’s not that funny, so I think they’re mostly
relieved.
“Okay, little pill,” Coach says, “I’m guessing
you’re fine, but why don’t you just relax for a minute.”
Turns out, I am okay, minus the giant horizontal
bruise running across my sternum. We lose the meet. By a lot. Bruce
and I both set personal worsts. We’re untaping our wrists and
stuffing sweats into our bags when Farmington’s team comes over to
our bench.
“We heard about your teammate,” their captain says.
He’s a shaggy-haired, freckled guy named Oscar. I remember him from
last season, plus he placed second on pommel horse in state meet.
“We had a guy on the swim team do that last year,” Oscar says. “It
sucks. It really does.”
We mumble agreement back at him while mopping our
brows with T-shirt sleeves. Oscar and his teammates go off to tear
down their equipment and move it out of the gym. Coach Nelson’s
over on the side talking with the Farmington coach and I’m pretty
sure they’re discussing Ronnie.
“Guys,” Fisher says. “Let’s go up to the quarry
Saturday. Weather’s supposed to be perfect, like a summer rebound.
We’ll do a little tribute or séance or something. For
Ronnie.”
“Water’s too cold now to go swimming,” Paul
says.
“Then we don’t go swimming,” Fisher says. “We’ll
just climb this time. Coach’ll lend us the ropes and gear.”
“I like it,” I hear myself say, picturing the one
place still unpolluted by the attack. “The quarry’s perfect.” I’ve
got a break-n-shake chemical freeze pack pressed just below my
throat. I’m imagining the quarry forest, far away from school and
the halls and classrooms and locker rooms and that awful thing that
lives like a monster in our gym’s storage room. “I’m in,” I say.
“Fish, I’m in.”
“Yeah, me too,” Gradley says, building
momentum.
“Yeah, why not,” Paul Kim says, and bumps
Menderson, who nods that he’s coming as well.
“What about it, Bruce?” Fisher asks. Bruce has been
in his own world as much as me. He’s either thinking about the
question while he stuffs his leather grips into his bag and pulls
off his socks or he isn’t even listening. Fisher’s about to ask
again when Bruce finally answers.
“Okay,” he says quietly.
There’s one more person who needs to come with us
up to the quarry, I decide. Showing Kurt the team’s secret place is
the only way I can think of to thank him for saving me and Bruce
that day.
“I’ve got a piano lesson on Saturday,” Pete
says.
“So skip it,” Fisher tells him. “It’s not like
you’re going to be a concert pianist or anything.”
“Did you just say concert penis?”
“Pianist, dumbass. Pianist.”