“What the hell is that?” I say.
“Estonian National Anthem,” he says in a thick accent. “We must hurry—glorious future UN triumph awaits.”
“Okay, Borat.”
Eytan pulls me down the hall towards the auditorium. Usually he’s a pretty cool character, but today he’s so excited he’s practically skipping. I look back at O.’s group down at the opposite end of the hall.
“For what purpose do you suspend forward movement?” Eytan says.
“I have to go to the can,” I say.
“There’s no time for Number 2 when the fate of our Number 1 country hangs in the balance.”
“It will be the fastest dump in history,” I say.
He looks at me through squinted eyes. “You’d better set a land speed record,” he says.
“I’ll bring you the digital readout.”
He pats me on the elbow and runs towards the auditorium.
I stand there for a minute. I don’t really have to go to the bathroom. I just need a second to breathe.
I look back and forth down the hall. It’s one of those moments when you know something big is happening, but you don’t know what it is yet.
If I turn left, I’ll follow Eytan to the Model UN meeting. Those are my people, the UN geeks. Any kind of geeks, really. I know what’s going on in there, and it might even be fun. I can talk in a stupid accent like Eytan and try to score with the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The thing is, I don’t really like Model UN. I’ve never really told anyone.
Still, I belong there. I belong on the left.
I turn right.
Before I know it, I’m speed walking down the hall, doing my best to catch up to O. and his group without making it too obvious.
Maybe it’s because of April. Maybe I’m just sick of being me. Or maybe it’s something bigger. I don’t know.
The hall leads all the way to the back of the school. I can see sunlight pouring in through the back door. I’ve never even gone out the back door. I’ve got nothing to do back there.
Until now.
O. and his posse crash through the door to the outside, and a minute later, I follow.
18. the secret world behind the school.
The field is crowded with people I don’t know, all hanging around and talking to each other. I feel like I’ve wandered into something top secret. I imagine one of those horror films where everyone at school is slowly turning into aliens, and there’s one guy who doesn’t know about it until it’s too late. He’s walking towards danger while the audience is screaming, “Don’t go out there, you idiot!”
I’m that idiot.
A whistle blows over to my left, and about twenty-five of the hottest, most popular girls in school crowd into a circle around the dance teacher. One of them pinwheels her arms like she’s doing a cheer.
Cheer tryouts. Duh.
Maybe I’m not such an idiot after all.
April is there, too, biting nervously at her lip. April wants to be a cheerleader? It makes no sense.
On the other side of the field, about forty guys fall into rows in front of Coach Bryson. Coach looks at them while he spins a football on his finger.
Football. Cheerleaders. This is Twilight Zone stuff.
I walk over to the group of football jocks gathering around Coach. He does a double take when he sees me. He stops twirling the football and starts twirling the corner of his moustache.
“You gotta be yanking my yak,” Coach says. “What do you want, Zansky?”
“I want to play football,” I say.
Forty guys look at me like I’m crazy. Thirty-nine, actually. O. Douglas looks at me a little differently. He has a half smile on his face, like he’s kind of curious.
“Uh—look, Zansky,” Coach says, “have you ever played football before?” He says it like I’m a little kid.
“He only plays soccer,” a goofy-looking guy says, and everyone laughs. Jurassic Pork. Hysterical.
“Have you even touched a football?” Coach says.
I think about Dad and me on the quad at Harvard, throwing a ball around. He started taking me there when I was eight, hoping I’d get a taste for football and Ivy. Instead I got a taste for the warm rolls at Bertucci’s.
“I can throw a little,” I tell Coach. Throwing was always easy. It’s catching that was the problem.
The girls’ cheer rings across the field:
“You have to let him try out,” a Latino guy says. “Equal opportunity and all that.”
He has a line of facial hair that starts above his nose then winds its way all over his face like he was attacked by a Sharpie marker. It’s not really a moustache. More of a facestache.
“Yeah,” a short, thick guy with acne says. “You remember that girl who wanted to wrestle in Wisconsin?”
“If girls wrestled, I’d be wearing tights and grabbing guys’ asses,” the goofy guy says.
The acne guy says, “You tired of wrestling with your mother, Cheesy?”
“Not tired,” Cheesy says. “I’m just looking to expand my dating horizons.”
A bunch of guys laugh. All except that guy with the thick neck. The Neck just stares at me, expressionless. He’s got white sweatbands pulled up above his elbows that make his arms look massive.
Coach looks at me and sighs.
“I just want to try,” I say. It sounds feeble, even to me.
“We all deserve one chance to fail,” Facestache says.
“Rico Suave is right,” a huge black guy says. “Even girls get to try out.”
Coach has had enough: “Rodriguez, Cheesy, Bison—all of you. Haul ass!”
He blows a double tap on the whistle and the guys break into a run, circling around the perimeter of the field.
Coach steps towards me. He pats his belly like he’s petting a dog. “You sure you’re up for this, son?”
I’m not sure of anything. But with April behind me, the jocks in front of me, and Ugo back where I came from, it’s an excellent time to lie.
19. go.
It begins with running, moves on to calisthenics, and then it really gets ugly. I’m struggling along as best I can, sneaking sips on my inhaler when nobody is looking. But who am I kidding? I can’t do any of this stuff. My idea of sports is Grand Theft Auto. I can run for hours on that, and I’m not tired at all. At worst I have a thumb cramp.
In the pause between drills, O. quickly introduces me around. The guy with the bad jokes is Cheesy. Facestache is Rodriguez, aka Rico Suave. The big black guy is Frison, aka Bison. Everyone has a nickname. Except me.
I barely exist. Guys won’t even nod when they meet me, much less say my name. They just stare, challenging me. Everyone looks like they’re ready to fight.
I glance at my watch. It’s been six minutes, and it feels like I’ve been out here for ten years.
I’ll be honest. Model UN is sounding better and better.
We set up for a sled drill. The sled is this thing that weighs about three million pounds. Coach blows his whistle and six guys at a time run and slam into them.
When you watch football on TV, people bang into things all the time. They even put mics down on the field so you hear the crack when the bodies hit. No big deal, right?
Very big deal.
It hurts.
We’re supposed to hit the sleds hard enough to push them backwards. Guys scream and crash into them without blinking. When it’s my turn, I try to do the same, only when I hit the sled for the first time, it’s like running into a wall. Every bone in my body hurts.
I limp back to the line, panting and clutching my chest.
“Die on your own time,” Rodriguez says.