Second Down - Chapter 11

Coach ran us ragged on Friday again, I guess thinking if he put us through enough pain, everyone would get on the same game plan.

The only thing that gave me any hope that things would change was he paid specific attention to Elijah and his crew. The optimistic part of me thought that might mean Coach had finally seen what they were doing and was taking it seriously.

Or Coach could just be pissed about Elijah’s missed catches and Hunter’s fumble. My warning to Elijah after the game hadn’t just been for show. They’d tried to do it in a way that made me look bad, but they’d only really achieved making themselves look bad, especially in the second game. If they’d convinced more people to join them on their little crusade, maybe things would have been different, but they hadn’t.

If anything, the rest of the team was getting pissed at them for screwing up. They may not know it was on purpose, but everyone could see where the mistakes would be made.

My only real concern was that Elijah would give up this ploy but think up some new way to get to me. It was obvious to me the best thing he could do was to get the rest of the team to turn against me, and if I could think of that, so could he.

Still, if Coach Heidemann was recognizing what they were doing, it would make things a little better when Elijah finally decided to pivot into doing something else because I wouldn’t have to waste all the time convincing him it was something Elijah would do.

We also weren’t the only team struggling. While varsity was two and ohh, JV had our same record, except their games hadn’t been as close as ours had. They’d lost their second game on Friday by two fourteen points, which is not what the coaches wanted to see. Their punishment come Monday was going to be a lot worse than the running Coach Heidemann put us through.

I also hadn’t heard anything else about the cheating accusation. Mr. Walsh was still giving me looks and being a little hostile to me on Friday, but he didn’t say anything else, so I hoped the Vice-Principal had squashed that.

Again, since I knew in my heart Elijah was behind that, I knew he wouldn’t stop just cause this attempt didn’t work. I’d have to be on my toes for him trying again, that was for sure.

Late Saturday afternoon I’d finished a lot of the assignments I’d been given on Friday and had gone down to the kitchen for a snack when I’d found Mom at the kitchen table, her head in her hands, looking miserable. She normally worked at the hair salon on Saturdays, and then stopped at the grocery store for stuff to make dinner on the way home, but she’d called out today because of her headaches.

I knew there was some kind of condition Mom had suffered from years later, if the dream was to be believed, and it seemed obvious the headaches were connected, but I couldn’t remember any details about it. By the time she’d actually gotten sick in my dream, we’d been completely no contact. When I’d gone to her funeral, we hadn’t spoken in almost a decade, and I was still pissed enough at her that I’d done just enough to get her buried and ignored everything else. I hadn’t even cleaned out her apartment. I’d just left it abandoned with the rest of her probate, letting the state deal with it.

I know she’d been to the doctor about her headaches several times, and they’d always just told her it was stress and they couldn’t find any physical symptoms. I knew that was bullshit, but how do you tell someone they’ll die in twenty years from an aliment you can’t name, and convince them to start looking into what it might be.

They might not see yet that Josh was crazy, but that definitely would have them looking at me like I was.

I was still trying to think of a way to help her, but the best I could do for today was to offer to go to the grocery store for her. She’d been surprised by the offer and actually smiled at me as she accepted, something she hadn’t done in a long while.

So Saturday afternoon, when a lot of kids would be at activities or out with friends, I was at the grocery store, digging through onions and trying to make out Mom’s scribbles on the grocery list.

I actually wish I could have done more than this, but even with the stuff I knew from the dream, I didn’t know how to cook for shit. In my dream life, I’d basically lived off of cereal, instant ramen packages, and hamburger helper. I wasn’t sure offering to make sub-par food for her would have been that much of a help.

I’d just found an onion for the meatloaf she was planning on making and looked up to figure out where the celery was when I practically ran into Eduardo, both of us looking shocked to see the other one in the grocery store.

Unlike myself, however, Eduardo was with an older woman that looked amazingly like him who I could only assume was his mother.

“Eduardo?” I said, partly out of greeting and partly surprise.

I was trying to keep my voice friendly and casual. We’d managed to make it through an entire meal more or less cordially, but he hadn’t agreed to sitting with us yet. Yesterday he’d been by himself again, and I’d needed to talk to Miguel and the others about the game, so I hadn’t been able to sit with him. I hadn’t given up on befriending him yet either.

“Uhh, Hi. This is … uhh, my mom,” he said, shifting the basket in his hands and pointing to the woman next to him.”

“Elena Guzman,” she said, extending her hand with a warm smile.

“Blake Sims, ma’am. I’m a friend of Eduardo’s from school.”

“A friend? Eduardo, you didn’t tell me you were making new friends! How do you two know each other?”

“Just from school.”

“Ohh, do you have classes together?”

“Ohh god, no. I’m kind of the poster boy for a dumb jock. Eduardo’s too smart to be in classes with me.”

Eduardo gave kind of a nervous laugh and said, “I have woodshop with some of his teammates though. Blake is quarterback of the freshman football team.”

“Football! That’s wonderful. Young men need good activities to keep them busy, don’t you think? And team sports teach such important lessons about working together.”

‘Not the way we were doing it currently’, I thought. What I said was, “Uhh, I guess.”

We’d reached the problem with my not having become friends with Eduardo yet. I wasn’t really sure what to say here. We’d only had the one conversation, and it had mostly revolved around how much we both hated Elijah.

“So have you lived here long? We only moved this summer, which has made it hard on Eduardo to make new friends.”

Eduardo looked at his mother with a mortified expression, which I got. Parents could be embarrassing, telling someone all the stuff they wanted to keep secret.

“From Midland, right? He said his dad is traveling back for work every day, which I told him was funny because my dad also works in Midland and commutes every day.”

“An officer! How nice. And you’re here shopping for your family? Are you going to cook for them?”

I laughed. “Oh, I’m just the delivery boy today. Mom’s got a headache, so I offered to help out a little. My cooking would make the cafeteria food seem gourmet. This is about the limit of my skills, finding vegetables that Mom can turn into actual food.”

“Well, it’s good that you’re learning. Eduardo helps me in the kitchen sometimes. It’s important for young men to know these things.”

“Mom,” Eduardo muttered, his cheeks reddening.

I cleared my throat, giving Eduardo a friendly nudge. “So, what have you been up to lately?”

“Nothing much, really.” Eduardo shrugged.

“Eduardo’s been very focused on his schoolwork,” Mrs. Guzman said, giving her son an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “He’s already at the top of most of his classes.”

“Mom, please...” Eduardo mumbled.

“That’s actually really cool,” I said. “I wish I was doing better. It’s never been my thing, but I’m working on changing that.”

“It’s not that hard if you stay on top of your work.”

“Says the boy who got perfect scores on his first two quizzes,” Mrs. Guzman beamed. “You should have more pride in yourself, Eduardo.”

He just shrugged again.

“I have an excellent idea. You should come over for dinner next week. It would be wonderful for Eduardo to have a friend visit. Maybe Tuesday?”

“Mom, I’m sure Blake’s busy with football and everything…” Eduardo started to say.

“I’d love to,” I cut in, seeing an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. “If you’re sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble?”

“No trouble at all! We’ll look forward to having you,” Mrs. Guzman said warmly. “Tuesday at six?”

“That’d be great. Thank you for inviting me.” I smiled at both of them. “I should probably finish getting everything on Mom’s list before she starts wondering if I got lost. See you at school Monday, Eduardo?”

Eduardo nodded, still looking nervous. I was pushing it, but if his mom was willing to help me build the friendship I needed with him, I was going to let her.

***

Sunday, I spent the entire morning working on homework because I wanted to be done by the time the game came on. Dad always had Sundays off, and he would always watch the game in the afternoon. When I was in middle school, I’d sometimes join him, but usually used the opportunity to get out of the house and hang out with Elijah and the rest of the guys.

“Hang out” was the wrong word. It was more like causing trouble.

Ever since the dream, though, and the feelings that came along with it, I made sure to be home instead and hadn’t missed watching a game with him since the preseason started. Even if I managed to stop what happened to him and he lived a full life, I’d eventually lose him, just like every child eventually loses their parents. Most people just live busy lives, having fun when they were younger and losing touch with them when they got older. Having felt that loss in my dream, I didn’t want my memories of him to be passing.

So, I’d vowed to myself I wasn’t going to have those regrets. I decided I was going to be on the couch, watching the game with him every chance I could. Something we could do together. Memories we would always share.

Of course, those memories weren’t always perfect because Dad had decided he wanted to watch the Bengals get absolutely bodied by the Patriots. It was an embarrassing showing, and it made for a kind of boring game. Especially since I just didn’t really care much for the Pats.

When halftime started, I’d had enough. “Hey, I think Notre Dame’s playing today. Can we see if that’s on, at least while we’re at halftime?”

“Fine,” he said with an exaggerated sigh.

This might not have been the first time I tried to convince him to change the channel.

I started digging through the stack of stuff on the coffee table, trying to find the remote when he said, “You’re going to have to get up and change it. I haven’t seen the remote all afternoon.”

“Really? Mom had it last night during her shows.”

“Yeah, I know. I used it before bed too, but when I sat down to watch TV this afternoon, I couldn’t find it anywhere.”

I pushed myself off the couch and started to look in all the usual spots, the coffee table cluttered with newspapers, the shelf beneath the TV, even under the cushions, but I couldn’t find it either.

“When’s the last place you remember having it?” I asked.

“Right here on the armrest.” Dad tapped the leather surface. “But you know how things disappear in this house.”

“Mom sometimes sits on the couch and puts it on the back, maybe it fell back there,” I said, pushing it enough to see behind it.

And there it was. Well, mostly. The remote lay in pieces, its black plastic casing cracked, and the circuit board exposed.

“Found it,” I said, holding up the mangled remains.

The back was missing, and so were the batteries. A large piece of the plastic where the back cover would have snapped into it still had the broken-off tab from the cover.

It would never go on again, even if the rest of it wasn’t completely trashed.

“What in the world happened to it?”

I didn’t have to guess. I knew exactly what had happened to it.

“You know exactly what happened.”

“What?” he asked, honestly confused.

“It was Josh. He broke it. Probably threw it against the wall, and it dropped behind the couch after it broke. Maybe he broke it and threw it back there, who knows. But he did it.”

“You don’t know Josh did this.”

“Yes, I do. I heard him watching TV down here this morning before church.” I paused, tossing the broken remote onto the coffee table. “But even if I hadn’t, we both know it’s true.”

“Blake…”

“No, listen. I didn’t break it. You didn’t break it. And Mom broke it, she would have said something or at least have gotten it from behind the couch. But more than that, we both know Josh is getting worse. His anger’s completely out of control.”

“Leave it alone.”

“No! I can’t. Did you know he cut Mom the other day?”

“She said it was an accident.”

“It wasn’t. I walked in right after it happened. I’m scared, Dad. He’s getting seriously dangerous and it will only go downhill from here. What if next time it’s worse? What if he seriously hurts her? Or someone else?”

I was once again screwed by the fact that there was no way I could explain my dream, or how it wasn’t completely crazy that I was believing in it. All I knew was that Josh was going to get worse, and it was going to go way beyond hurting mom or breaking remotes.

“Blake…”

“We need to get him help before it’s too late. Before he does something we can’t take back.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?”

Instead of answering, Dad pointed at the TV, which we’d never changed the channel on. “Look, the Pats are back on…”

“Don’t change the subject.” I stepped between him and the TV, turning it off. “This is important.”

“This isn’t your responsibility. Stay out of it.”

“How is it not my responsibility? I’m part of this family too. You’re a cop. You know what the right thing to do is.”

“Blake…”

“Should I just call the sheriff’s office next time? Report the assault?”

“No.” The word came out a lot angrier than I’d expected.

“Then what? Because this is crazy,” I said, throwing up my hands. “Are we supposed to just keep pretending everything’s fine until someone ends up in the hospital?”

Dad slumped his head back against the headrest of his chair, his voice sounding completely exhausted. “I promised your mother I wouldn’t do anything that would put Josh in the system.”

“What system? Like juvenile detention?”

“Mental health facilities. Psychiatric wards.”

“But he needs help!”

“You never knew your Aunt Tabitha, did you?”

The sudden shift threw me. “Mom’s sister? I thought she died when Mom was a teenager. Suicide.”

“That’s true, but it’s not the whole story. She was in an institution with serious mental problems. Back in the sixties, they called it manic-depression, but it went deeper than that.”

“Ohh,” I said, unsure of what to say about that.

“Your mother adored her big sister, looked up to her. When the doctors couldn’t help, when Tabitha ... your mother blamed the system. She’s terrified of losing Josh the same way.”

“It’s different now. They know more about-”

“You don’t know that. Part of my job is taking people to the mental health facility in Midland. Those places... They’re soul-crushing. Patients surrounded by others struggling just as much or worse. Half the staff care more about protecting the hospital from lawsuits than helping anyone.”

“Then we find someone private. A doctor who won’t put him in a place like that.”

“It’s not that simple, son. You’re young. You don’t understand how these things work.”

I wanted to tell him I did understand. That I remembered being in my thirties and forties, remembered what it was like navigating the healthcare system, remembered the weight of adult responsibilities. But I couldn’t.

“If we don’t do something, we’ll lose him anyway. His anger’s getting worse.”

“I’m handling it.”

“Are you? Because it doesn’t look like it from where I’m sitting.”

Focus on your own problems. Let your mother and me deal with your brother.”

“What if it gets to a point where I can’t just ignore it? What if next time he doesn’t just cut Mom? What if...”

“Enough! This conversation is over.”

“No, it’s not! You can’t just...”

“Blake,” he said in a voice that made it clear he was done with this conversation. “Drop it.”

I stared at him, this man I loved so much, this man I’d lost once already in another life. The unfairness of it all hit me like a physical blow. Here I was, trying to prevent one tragedy, while watching another one build right in front of me.

“Just... think about it. It’s going to get out of control,” I said, holding up my hand when he started to yell again. “I’m not saying anything. I just want you to think about it.”

He just made a noise and turned back to the TV as I turned it back on. I just hoped he’d listen to me before it was too late.