“Your mother didn’t tell you?”
“She just said he couldn’t commit.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
“Like he didn’t want a kid.”
“Like he didn’t want—who?”
“Me. Me, I guess. Of course me.”
I wondered what the next thing I was supposed to hate was.
“How do you like school?”
“I hate it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know anyone.”
“You don’t have any friends?”
“They call me Frankenstein.”
“Who does?”
“Kids at school. You know, because of my size. My big head.”
“What about girls?” she asked.
“Girls calling me Frankenstein?”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
Well, there was this one girl—her name was Amy Pouchard, and she sat two seats over from me in math. She had long blond hair and very dark eyes. One day during my first week, I thought she might have smiled at me. She could have been smiling at the guy on my left, or even not smiling at all, and I just projected a smile onto a nonsmiling face.
“No. No girlfriends,” I said.
Uncle Farrell talked to Dr. Peddicott for a long time afterwards. He told me she was referring me to a psychiatrist who could prescribe some antidepressants because Dr. Peddicott believed I was severely depressed and recommended I get involved with something other than TV and music, in addition to seeing a shrink and taking anti-crazy drugs. Uncle Farrell’s idea was football, which wasn’t too surprising given my size, but football was the last thing I wanted to do.
“Uncle Farrell,” I told him, “I don’t want to play football.”
“You’re high-risk, Al,” Uncle Farrell answered. “You’re running around with all the risk factors for a major psychotic episode. One, you got no dad. Two, you got no mom. Three, you’re living with an absentee caretaker—me—and four, you’re in a strange town with no friends.
“There was another one too . . . Oh, yeah. And five, you’re fifteen.”
“I want to get my license,” I told him.
“Your license for what?”
“For driving. I want my learner’s permit.”
“I’m telling you that you’re about to go off the deep end and you want to talk about getting your learner’s permit?”
“That reminded me, the fact that I’m fifteen.”
“Dr. Peddicott thought it was a great idea,” Uncle Farrell said.
“A learner’s permit?”
“No! Going out for the football team. One, you need some kind of activity. Two, it’s a great way to build confidence and make friends. And three, look at you! For the love of the Blessed Virgin, you’re some kinda force of nature! Any coach would love to have you on his team.”
“I don’t like football,” I said.
“You don’t like football? How can you not like football? What kind of kid are you? What kind of American kid doesn’t like football? I suppose next you’re going to say you want to take dancing lessons!”
“I don’t want to take dancing lessons.”
“That’s good, Al. That’s real good. Because if you said you wanted to take dancing lessons, I don’t know what I’d do. Throw myself over a cliff or something.”
“I don’t like pain.”
“Ah, come on. They’ll bounce off you like—like— pygmies! Gnats! Little pygmy gnats!”
“Uncle Farrell, I cry if I get a splinter. I faint at the sight of blood. And I bruise very easily. I’m a very easy bruiser.”
But Uncle Farrell wouldn’t take no for an answer. He ended up bribing me. He wouldn’t take me to get my learner’s permit unless I tried out for the football team. And if I didn’t try out for the team, he promised he would put me on so much antidepressant dope, I wouldn’t remember to sit when I crapped. Uncle Farrell could be gross like that.
I really wanted my permit—I also didn’t want to be so doped up, I couldn’t remember how to crap—so I went out for the team.
2
I made the team as a second-string right guard, which basically meant I was a practice dummy for the first-string defense.
Coach Harvey was a short round guy with a gut that hung over his pants, and calves about the size of my head, which, as I mentioned, was large. Like a lot of coaches, Coach Harvey liked to scream. He especially liked to scream at me.
One afternoon, about a month before Uncle Farrell struck his deal with the chief Agent of Darkness, I saw how much screaming he could do. I had just let a linebacker blow by me and cream the starting quarterback, the most popular kid in school, Barry Lancaster. I didn’t mean for this to happen, but I was having trouble memorizing the playbook. It seemed very complicated, especially seeing it was a document intended for big jocks, most of whom could barely read. Anyway, I thought Barry had called a Dog Right, but actually he had said “Hog Right.” That one letter makes a huge difference and left Barry on the turf, writhing in agony.
Coach Harvey charged from the sidelines, silver whistle clamped between his fat lips, screaming around the hysterical screeches of the whistle as he ran.
“Kropp!” Tweet! “Kropp!” Tweet! “KROPP!”
“Sorry, Coach,” I told him. “I heard ‘dog,’ not ‘hog.’ ”
“Dog, not hog?” He turned his head toward Barry, still twisting on the ground. He kept his body turned toward me. “Lancaster! Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay, Coach,” Barry gasped. But he didn’t look okay to me. His face was as white as the hash marks on the field.
“What play was that, Kropp?” Coach Harvey snapped at me.
“Um, Dog Right?” I said.
“Dog! Dog! You thought hog was dog? How is dog like hog, Kropp? Huh? Tell me!”
The whole team had gathered around us by this point, like gawkers at the scene of a terrible accident.
Coach Harvey reached up and slapped my helmet with the palm of his hand.
“What’s the matter with you, boy?” He slapped me again. He proceeded to punctuate his questions with a hard slap against the side of my head.
“Are you stupid?” Slap.
“Are you stupid, Kropp?” Slap.
“Are you thick, is that it, Kropp?” Slap-slap.
“No, sir, I’m not.”
“No, sir, I’m not what?”