“I was?”

“Yup, right here.” She rustles the newspaper. “Lookit that, Kurtis. Right there in black and white. I’m so proud of you. Coach Brigs must be real proud, too.”

And there it is, a photo of me holding the ball and running up the center of the field, my jersey number visible and, really, the only way to tell it’s me. Must have been shot from the stands the way it’s aiming down. A little paragraph under the photo has my name in bold print announcing me as the male prep all-star athlete of the week. It has my stats and the team’s 6-0 record listed as well. Next to my paragraph is the girl prep all-star athlete of the week, a volleyball player, Samantha Hanes, who led her team, St. Vincent Academy, to a shutout at some regional invitational meet in Iowa over the weekend. Unlike my photo, hers is a yearbook picture of her face. She’s smiling like she’s ready to devour the whole world.

“Pretty neat, huh?” Patti prompts.

“Yeah.”

“Now, you sit down and I’m going to make you some eggs and toast. Or pancakes. Would you like pancakes?”

My stomach starts growling at the thought. “Yes, muh-muh-muh-ma’am.”

I’m curious about when Patti went grocery shopping because, except for the toast part, we don’t have any of that breakfast stuff. I know because I check all the time. Patti pulls open the fridge door and then I understand she’s only had the idea right now.

“Hmmm . . .” Patti stands there, staring at the bare fridge shelves. “I got to start feeding my big boy a little better.” She scratches a mole under her chin, then sticks the cigarette in her mouth. “Tell you what, Kurtis,” she says while smoke rises up in front of her eyes. “I’ll drive you to school today and we’ll stop by Mickey D’s and get a little drive-through breakfast.”

“Yessss, muh-ma’am.”

“Kurtis, when you gonna stop calling me ‘ma’am?’”

Patti drops me off at school with a belly full of Mickey D’s pushing against the waist of my jeans. It’s not the only part of me getting bigger. My shoulders and pecs have inflated from the gym, pulling my once-comfortable shirt tight across my chest. Feels like they’ve grown at least two inches in as many weeks thanks to Coach’s pills. The soreness from all my weight lifting tells me my cells are gathering together and multiplying, layering over me in a protective shell, thickening, increasing my armor, making me that much harder to hurt. It feels good.

At my locker, someone’s taped the same newspaper photo Patti showed me that morning. Little streamers frame the photo and CONGRATULATIONS, KURT!!!! is spelled out in red construction paper running the length of my locker. I look around, expecting maybe the decorators to be standing nearby but it’s only the regular morning crowd of students. Lots of them call out “Hi” or “Congrats” or “Nice game.” Everyone, it seems, suddenly knows me, like we’ve been buddies for years. Teammates like Terrence and Rondo spot me in the hallways and make woofing noises, then give me fist pounds. Mr. Samuel, my history teacher, even congratulates me in front of class. I’m not going to lie. I like it. I like every bit of it. I make it through four periods like that, riding this good-vibe wave, until I find Scott, Studblatz, and Jankowski in the lunchroom huddled together. Students I barely know are coming up and slapping me on the back and it feels like they’re pushing me toward my three captains.

Approaching them, I see a moment’s hesitation in Scott’s eyes while he works out a tricky problem in his head. He finds a solution, though, because he raises an arm to wave me over. A smirk creeps into the corners of his mouth, a smirk that says our little secret makes me just as guilty and dirty as him. That smirk slows my footsteps and I almost veer right out of the cafeteria. Neither Jankowski nor Studblatz seems real happy to see me.

“How’s our all-star prep athlete of the week?” Scott asks. Sarcasm slithers under the question. Not until I’m standing at the table do I notice the sling around his arm.

“That fuh-fuh-fuh-from Jackson’s suh-suh-sack?”

“Yeah, juh-juh-juh-genius,” Studblatz answers.

“Rrrrrrr-remember?” Jankowski asks me. “You let that black bastard get a free shot?”

“Wasn’t his fault,” Scott says. “Pullman’s the one that totally pussed out Friday. Played dead all night.”

“It buh-buh-buh-broken?” I ask, preparing for more fake stutters from Jankowski and Studblatz. In foster care, I always first tried ignoring teasers. If they kept it up, then I swung.

“Naw,” Scott says. “Only dislocated. Once they popped it back in, it felt fine. But the doctors say after it happens, the ligaments get stretched out and it’s easy to repeat. This is to get the ligaments to shorten up again.”

“How long?” I ask, trying to keep my questions short and clear.

“They said it should be fine by game after next.”

“Suh-suh-suh-sorry about that,” I say. I guess I mean it.

“You sh-sh-sh-should be,” Jankowski says.

“No worries,” Scott says. “Long as we got our prep all-star of the week to carry the load.” Chrissy and Tammy, sitting on Scott’s side of the table, giggle at a piece of paper that Studblatz slides toward them. It’s a cartoon sketch of a robot monster; has bolts coming out of its neck and drool spilling out its mouth. Its got long hair and two scars on the side of its face just like mine. A little balloon comes out of its mouth, saying, “BBBBBrodsky Duh-duh-Dumbsky.” Something burns inside my nose, stinging my eyes. If Lamar was next to me, mouth moving at the speed of sound, tongue slashing and burning at full volume, the entire cafeteria would turn on them. Lamar’d know exactly what to say, dropping words like bombs until they were crying for him to shut up. But me? I just stand there and take it, big and stupid, trying my best to ignore the monster sketch. A perfect retard.

“Besides,” Scott continues, casting an eye at the sheet of paper and then back up at me, pretending it doesn’t exist. “We’ve got Robbindale this week. Our JV team could beat them. If Warner can’t control a couple of easy handoffs to you and Terrence, then we don’t deserve to win.”

“We’ll win,” Jankowski says.

“Wuh-wuh-what if we only tuh-tuh-tuh-tie?” I ask, wanting to be smart-alecky like Lamar used to be. But my stutter makes the question—and me—sound stupid.

“We’ll win because I’m willing it, you understand?” Jankowski says. “Only pussies allow the game to be bigger than them. Champions become bigger than the game.” He’s jabbing his spork through the air at me as he says this.

“You heard my man here,” Scott says.

I leave them to line up for food. Thankfully, by the time I come back, they’re gone. When I sit down, a new group of guys I don’t really know clusters around me. We don’t really talk because I’m not about to stutter for freak-show points, but whenever they catch my eye, they lift their chins and ask, “What’s up?” I let my hair fall forward and keep my face dug into my macaroni. While I’m shoveling in the food, the plastic handle of the spork rubs against a string of tiny, puffy blisters bubbled up between my thumb and fingers. Souvenirs from the rock climbing trip up at the quarry. Danny and me compared hands after math class; skin on his palms tough as rawhide. The way he showed them off, you’d think they had a blue ribbon pinned to them. He laughed at my “dainty” blisters, said my new nickname should be “ladyfingers”. I didn’t mind at all. His laugh reminded me of Lamar’s.

Studblatz keeps his jawing up all practice, working my nerves, firing darts into my head, sparking little embers in the back of my skull. Studblatz promises he’s going to whip the fat off Pullman for how he played last game and teach him a lesson. Pullman’s helmet dips low enough that his face mask almost touches his chest. The new layer of muscle—muscle the D-bol’s given me—winds tight around my neck, strangling me, and I’m breathing heavy, needing to smash something to break the squeeze. Jankowski, Scott, and Studblatz have put Ronnie right out of their minds, gone right back to acting how they always do, not sorry in the least. Arm sling or no arm sling, the three of them strut around like the field’s named after them. Like they own it. Like no one can touch them.

“We go fifty percent, boys, you understand?” Coach hollers before the scrimmage session. “We cannot afford unnecessary injuries before next game.”

“Nice and easy, Warner,” Scott yells from the sidelines to his backup. “No stupid mistakes.” Warner looks over at Scott and again bobs his helmet in agreement. First play is a ZigZag Alpha Twist with a jet route. That means the quarterback fakes a handoff to me and I push through the line, staying on Tom’s left shoulder while Terrence runs behind our blocking. The ball is snapped and I go half speed, meeting Studblatz across the line, putting my hands out to slow up to a stop.

Studblatz decides Coach’s fifty percent isn’t hard enough. He slaps my arms away and rams his shoulder into my chest. Those sparks Studblatz’s jawing planted in my skull earlier light up again. Not liking his attitude much, I grab his jersey and jerk him hard to the left while stepping right. The string of quarry-climbing blisters along my fingers tear open. Studblatz tries to throw me but I sidestep again and shove back.

“Offensive holding, you dumb, retarded freak!” Studblatz screams, voice rising into a wild howl of crazy rage—rage he has no right to claim—flying past his mouth guard, past peeled-back lips. “Holding,” he sputters, barely breathing now, eyes wild as a pit-dog sniffing the cut, smelling the wound. He claws the gate of my face mask and rips downward, twisting and shaking, dragging on my neck. I grab his face mask back and jerk sideways and down. We shove and tug, face mask to face mask. Words choke out of him, past the rubbery plastic he chomps through. His fury makes no sense, only triggers my own.

“Holding, you ugly retard,” he hisses, tears flowing over his eyes. “You fucking retard! Retard!”

I hear a coach’s whistle, feel the press of a gathering pack. Hands and arms encircle me, pulling me backward, but I ain’t letting go. No way. I ain’t letting go. Neither is Studblatz.

“Ugly freak retard!” Studblatz bleats. “You let Jackson through. I watched you. You let him get Scott on purpose!”

If not for our face masks, I’m sure he’d bite me.

“Ruh-ruh-ruh-Ronnie Gunderson,” I stutter. “Ruh-ruh-ruh-Ronnie . . .” I yank up and down on Studblatz’s face mask in a yes motion, forcing an amen from him. “Ronnie Gunderson.” His name comes out perfect on my last try. Unlike Studblatz, I can breathe again. The pressure releases.

I let go. Teammates pry his fingers off my face mask and pull us apart. One of the guys holding back Studblatz is Jankowski and I know he hears me speak Ronnie’s name. I’m glad. I should shout the name over and over and over until someone asks me what I mean and then I spill it all on the field for them ... but I don’t. I say no more.

“Water break! Water break!” Assistant Coach Stein yells, shoving between us. “Cool down, guys. We’re all on the same team here. Save it for Robbindale, will ya?”

I feel a slap on my helmet, turn, and find Coach Brigs beaming at me with an odd look, like he’s happy and mad at the same time.

“Now that’s what I call fired up!” he says. “Brodsky and Studblatz are going to eat those Robbindale boys alive.” He starts slapping other helmets with his rolled-up playbook, any helmet within reach. “That’s what I want to see out here. That’s what I call fire. Some of you think Robbindale is supposed to roll over for you because we’re six-and-zero and they’re one-and-five. Well, I got news for you. They’re not going to roll over. We need to turn it up. You feel the heat coming off Studblatz? Coming off Brodsky? I want that type of intensity from the rest of you.”

I jog back to the school, hoping my legs will stop shaking by the time I reach the water fountain. Once inside the basement hallway, I decide to peek in on the gymnasts for only a second and remind myself of something good, something better. Just for a second, I want to watch the monkeys swinging in their little forest.