Nine Inches

Senior Season

IT’S PRETTY QUIET WHEN I leave for school, not a neighbor in sight except for Mrs. Scotto, who likes to get an early start on her yardwork. She’s out there every morning in her bathrobe and slippers, cleaning up the leaves that fell overnight. She doesn’t bother with a rake; she just bends over, plucks them off the ground one by one until she has a handful, then straightens up as best she can and drops them into a bag that says YARD WASTE. She does this all day long, from Labor Day to Thanksgiving, into December if necessary. People around here call her the Leaf Lady.

I have no idea how old she is. All I know is that she seemed ancient when we moved here twelve years ago, and she hasn’t gotten any younger. She’s a permanent part of the autumn scenery on Grapevine Road, a stooped, birdlike woman endlessly patrolling her front yard, her entire existence devoted to that little patch of grass. And she gets the job done, you have to give her that. It’s late September now, but even in mid-November, when the whole town’s blanketed with dead foliage, you can count on Mrs. Scotto’s lawn to be spotless.

People around here admire her work ethic, or at least they pretend to. They all say the same thing when they walk by: Come to my house when you’re done. Mrs. Scotto always laughs and says she charges twenty bucks an hour. Then she makes some friendly comment about the weather or asks about the person’s family. She’s a sweet old lady, not nearly as creepy as you might expect.

She’s just lonely, my mother likes to remind me. She lost her husband and her kids moved away. And then my mother gives me one of her looks, like she hopes I’m filing that away for future reference.

I never paid much attention to Mrs. Scotto in the past. I was always busy and happy, and she was always just there, living her strange elderly life on the sidelines of my own. This fall, though, she’s been getting on my nerves. I can’t even look at her without feeling a little sick to my stomach, wondering how she can stand it. But she always smiles and waves in old-lady slow motion when I drive by, and I always wave right back. I’m sure it’s one of the highlights of her day.

WHEN I get to school, Megan’s standing in front of my locker, looking kinda nervous, and I know in my gut she’s gonna break up with me. It’s been coming for a while now. She was gone most of the summer, working at a camp in New Hampshire, and things have been weird between us ever since she came home, like she secretly resents me for ruining her senior year, like I’m some sad sack of shit she has to drag around while she’s supposed to be having the time of her life.

I can’t say I blame her for that.

What I do blame her for are those denim cutoffs, cuffed way up above what the dress code allows, and those teetery wedge sandals that make her muscly legs look longer and thinner than they really are. It just doesn’t seem necessary, getting all dressed up like that to break my heart, a nice big Fuck you with a cherry on top.

“Okay,” I tell her, tensing my stomach like I’m about to get hit. “Just get it over with.”

“What are you talking about?” She smiles like I’m the old Clay, the boyfriend she deserves. “I just want to know if you’re busy after school.”

“Busy?” I laugh, but even that sounds pissed off. “Busy doing what?”

“That’s what I thought.” She runs her fingertip down the center of my chest, stopping just above my belt. “Then you won’t mind a little company?”

I can feel my brain working away, trying to catch up. I didn’t used to be this stupid.

“What about your practice?”

Megan’s co-captain of the cheerleading squad, which is a major deal in our school. They go to regional tournaments and usually do pretty well. Most of the girls are trained gymnasts; they don’t mind getting tossed in the air. They like to brag about how, statistically speaking, cheerleading is even more dangerous than football. Girls supposedly break their necks all the time.

“I can blow it off.” She’s still smiling, but I can see how closely she’s studying me, like this is some kind of test. “I miss you.”

Her legs are really smooth, except for a coin-shaped scar on her left knee, a circle of shiny pink. She fell on blacktop when she was a kid, an older boy cousin pushing her from behind when she was about to beat him in a race.

“You look hot in those shorts,” I tell her.

MEGAN’S PRETTY cheerful in the car after school. She told Ms. Lambert — the cheerleading advisor — that she had a dentist appointment, and Ms. Lambert just nodded and said, Okay, see you tomorrow. It was that easy.

“That would never happen on the football team,” I tell her. “Coach Z. used to say that dead guys were excused from practice, but only if they brought a note from the undertaker.”

“That sounds like him.”

“It was a joke, but it was kinda serious, too. Nobody ever missed practice, not unless they were on crutches.”

Megan switches the radio from my hip-hop to KISS 108, the only station a self-respecting cheerleader will listen to. It’s their tribal music, the soundtrack of high school popularity. Within seconds she’s bobbing her head and singing along, doing that seated dance that girls do in cars, all hands and hair and puckered lips.

“I love this song,” she tells me.

“You love every song.”

“Nuh-uh. Just this one.”

I smile back, happy to see her so happy, to know that she can still feel that way with me. And it’s a beautiful day on top of it, the sky blue and the windows open, the trees turning color and those cuffed-up shorts.

“Ooh, look,” Megan says, like she’s pointing out a tourist attraction. “There’s the Leaf Lady.”

Mrs. Scotto’s standing in the middle of her lawn, beneath the big oak tree that’s the bane of her existence, gazing up at the branches with a worried expression. She’s wearing regular clothes now — baggy jeans and a man’s shirt and a floppy tan sun hat — which means she at least went inside long enough to get changed. There are days, I swear, when she’s still out there in her robe and slippers when I come home in the afternoon.

“Crazy old bitch,” I mutter, not quite under my breath.

Megan looks surprised. “I thought you liked her.”

“It’s just kinda depressing, you know? Like picking up those leaves is her only reason to live.”

“She’s keeping busy. It’s way better than sitting in the house all day, watching the shopping channel. That’s what my grandma does.”

“I guess.” I pull into my driveway a little faster than I should and scrape the bottom of the bumper. “Just be nice if there were some other options.”

“There are,” Megan reminds me. “She could be dead or in a wheelchair or not even remember her own name. When you’re that age, you’re lucky to be picking up leaves.”

“I guess,” I say again, and shut off the engine.

THE GIRLS on our cheerleading squad have a reputation for being kind of slutty, and from what I hear, some of them actually live up to it. Megan’s an exception. The first time we hooked up, way back in sophomore year, she explained that she was a virgin and planned on staying that way until her wedding night.

Don’t worry, she told me, right before she stuck her tongue in my ear. There’s lots of other things we can do.

That was a bit misleading, because it turns out that she doesn’t go for oral, either, so lots of other things really just means a steady diet of kissing and underwear humping and using our hands. Most of the time I’m okay with it. But it’s been a while since we were alone like this, and I can’t help hoping when we get to the bedroom that maybe today will be different, that maybe something happened over the summer at Camp Hiawatha that changed her mind about what she will and won’t do. Something that had possibly caused the distance between us, but might also bring us back together.

It’s just wishful thinking. Everything’s like always, all the old boundaries still in place. The shorts come off, but the panties stay on. The Trojan remains in the drawer, hidden inside a pair of socks.

“You’re a great guy,” she whispers, slipping her lotiony hand into my boxers. “I’m really proud to be your girlfriend.”

Megan’s not too big on the dirty talk. Mostly she just says lots of sweet things while she jerks me off, complimenting me on the way I smell, and the stubble on my chin, and my broad shoulders. But she says this stuff in a low, breathy voice, her eyes locked on mine. Usually it gets me pretty turned on.

Today, though, I’m a little distracted. She keeps working away, murmuring about my triceps and my teeth, but for some reason, all I can think about is Mrs. Scotto, and what it must feel like to be eighty-something years old, nothing left to do but pick up dead leaves and put them in a bag. Megan must sense it because her hand stops moving and her eyes get all worried.

“Clay?” she whispers. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Keep going.”

SATURDAY’S A home game against Mansfield, and I have to force myself to go to the stadium. I like to imagine that it would be a minor local scandal if I didn’t show up, that people would speculate about my absence in hushed and anxious tones: What happened to Clay? Why isn’t he here? But really, they probably wouldn’t even notice. The team’s doing just fine without me.

Coach Z. asked if I wanted to stay on the roster, which would have allowed me to travel on the team bus to away games and stand on the sidelines in my Cougars jersey. He said maybe I could do something useful — hold a clipboard, keep track of offensive formations, make sure there were enough paper cups for the Gatorade — but I told him no thanks, that I’d just watch from the bleachers like everybody else.

So that’s what I do. I line up with the civilians, show my ID, plunk down three bucks for a ticket. Then I make my way to the student section and take my place with the rowdy senior guys. I know a lot of them — varsity soccer and lacrosse players, mostly, hard partyers, loudmouths who like to give the refs and opposing players a hard time — and I do my best to blend in, show a little spirit. I clap my hands and join the chants, pumping my fist like I’m not dying inside every time the ball gets snapped and the bodies crash together without me.

RIGHT BEFORE halftime I go for a hot chocolate. It feels like I’m trapped in a moving spotlight, everybody in the bleachers watching like I’m some kind of tragic celebrity. There he is, I can almost hear them whisper. There’s Clay Murphy. My face heats up; I can’t afford to look anywhere but straight ahead.

I manage not to talk to anybody until I get on line at the refreshment stand and find myself standing right behind Mr. Makowski, my old Pop Warner coach, a big bald guy with a belly hanging over his belt like a sack of cement mix. His son Bobby’s taking my place at right inside linebacker, doing a great job, really stepping up. Everybody says so. There was an article about him in the Patch just the other day: “Makowski Making Waves, Getting Noticed.”

“Clay,” he says, smiling the way you do when you visit someone in the hospital. “How you doing?”

“All right, I guess.”

“Back to normal?”

“Almost. The doctor says it takes time.”

There’s a roar from our side of the bleachers. We both turn, a little too late to see what happened. It must have been a third-down stop because our defense is trotting off the field, the punt-return unit heading in from the sidelines. Mr. Makowski pats me gently on the shoulder, like he’s afraid I might break.

“You’re a tough kid,” he tells me. “Keep your chin up, okay?”

PARTS OF last year are pretty foggy, but I have a clear memory of the play that messed me up. It was a third-quarter goal-line stand against Bridgeton, the next-to-last game of the season. We were up 20–6, but a touchdown would’ve put them right back in the game. So our defense was pumped. We stopped them three times in a row from the two-yard line.

On fourth down, their tailback — a kid named Kenny Rodriguez — took the handoff, and somehow I just knew what was gonna happen. That’s the beautiful part of football, those moments that unfold like a dream, a little slower and brighter than real life. You’re reacting, but it doesn’t really feel that way. It feels like you’re predicting, or somehow even controlling the action.

Kenny launched himself off the ground, trying to dive for the touchdown, and I did the same thing at exactly the same time. People said it was an amazing hit, two human missiles colliding in midair. I remember the crack of our helmets, the oof of air leaving my body as I slammed into the turf. Then just a hum, like a refrigerator in a quiet house.

EVERYBODY ASSUMED that Kenny got the worst of it. I was just dazed; he was the one who got knocked out, the one who left the field on a stretcher with a collar around his neck. But he was back in the lineup the following week, even scored a touchdown. He shook it off, the way you’re supposed to.

I wasn’t so lucky. For months afterward, I had stabbing headaches and blurry vision; I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I missed a lot of school, but staying home was its own kind of hell, because there was nothing I could do to pass the time that didn’t make me feel worse. I couldn’t read or look at a computer screen, couldn’t watch TV, couldn’t play video games or make out with Megan, couldn’t even listen to music. A lot of the time, I didn’t even feel like eating.

I’d torn my ACL freshman year and had spent the whole spring recuperating, so I understood what it meant to be patient, to give my body the time it needed to heal. But when you hurt your knee, you know exactly what’s wrong and so does everybody else. You get the surgery, you get the crutches and the brace, you do the PT. You get a lot of sympathy from your buddies and attention from girls. When you hurt your brain, you don’t really know what’s going on, and nobody else does, either. One day you feel pretty decent, the next you’re a wreck. Some headaches come and go; others stick around and get comfortable.

“It’s a software problem,” Dr. Koh explained. “There’s a glitch in your operating system.”

IT WASN’T until springtime that I finally began to feel a little better. The headaches got less frequent and less intense, and my short-term memory started to improve. I had fewer blackouts in class, and found that I could read for fifteen or twenty minutes at a stretch, do a handful of math problems, even play Call of Duty without feeling like I was going to throw up every time something exploded.

I started hitting the weight room after school, trying to make up for lost time. It was such a relief to be back in the flow, pumping iron with my boys, swapping insults, laughing at stupid shit. It was all good — the soreness in my arms and chest, the occasional dizzy spells, the sweaty clothes in my gym bag, the familiar BO funk of the locker room. Even the return of my athlete’s foot felt like cause for celebration.

I knew my mom didn’t want me to play anymore, but I wasn’t too worried about that. She’d tried to make me quit after my knee operation, and I figured I’d win this battle the way I won that one, by wanting it so bad she wouldn’t have the heart to say no. And I honestly didn’t think I was asking for all that much. I already knew I wasn’t gonna play in college — I’m too small to be a linebacker at that level, and too slow for defensive back — so all I had left was one more season. Ten games, maybe a couple more if we were lucky and made it into the playoffs.

“You’re not serious,” she said, when I handed her the permission slip for my senior season.

“I’m better now.”

“You still get headaches.”

“Just little ones.”

“You’re not yourself, Clay. I can tell.”

“I’m fine.”

“Let’s see what the doctor says.”

Dr. Koh didn’t come right out and say I couldn’t play. That’s not how they do it. He just said we needed to weigh the risks and benefits and make an informed decision based on the available scientific evidence, blah, blah, blah. According to Dr. Koh, there were a lot of risks: cognitive impairment, academic problems, chronic fatigue, serious depression, paranoia, early dementia, stuff you don’t even want to think about. He showed us an article about ex-NFL players living with post-concussion syndrome, guys who couldn’t get out of bed in the morning, couldn’t spell their names or remember the way home from the grocery store; guys who jumped out of moving vehicles or tried to fix their teeth with Krazy Glue. One guy killed himself by drinking antifreeze.

These were athletes in the prime of their lives, he told us. But they had the brains of old men.

“It’s okay if you hate me for a while,” my mother told me on the way home. “I’m pretty sure I can live with that.”

I TOOK the permission slip to my father, wondering if there was anything he could do. We were sitting on his front stoop, watching my stepmother and the twins blow soap bubbles in the driveway.

“I’m not your legal guardian,” he reminded me. “I couldn’t sign this if I wanted to.”

“I just thought maybe you could talk to Mom.”

“I already did.” He folded the slip and handed it back to me. “I think she made the right call.”

That wasn’t what I was expecting. My dad loves football just as much as I do, maybe even more. It’s our thing, the glue that held us together through the divorce and all the weirdness that came after, when he moved out of town and started a whole new family without me. In all the years I played, he never missed a single game, not even the one that took place twelve hours after the twins were born. My stepmother still hasn’t forgiven him for that.

“I’m sorry, Clay.”

He put his arm around my shoulder and left it there. I knew he still loved me, but I couldn’t help wondering what we were gonna talk about for the rest of our lives.

WHEN MEGAN finally breaks up with me, she does it by text, on a Sunday afternoon in early October: i tried really hard but im tired of being the only one in this relationship xxoo m. She’s mad because I skipped last night’s victory celebration at Amanda Gill’s, which turned out to be the best party of the season so far. Something must’ve been in the punch: there were stupid fights and scandalous hookups; on the dance floor, girls were flashing their boobs like it was spring break. This morning, a bunch of bras were hanging from the apple tree in Amanda’s front yard. I saw a picture of it on Facebook.

Megan’s not the only one who missed me. My football buddies — Rick, Keyshawn, and Larry — kept calling my cell, telling me to get my ass over there. Dude, it’s unbelievable! It’s gonna turn into an orgy any minute! They actually came to my house around midnight, waking my mom with the doorbell. She wasn’t as mad about it as I thought she’d be. She just came down to the bottom of the stairs, squinted at the guys for a few seconds, then went back up to bed.

“Come on, bro,” Larry told me. He’s the left inside linebacker, my former partner in crime. “You gotta come to this party.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“We miss you,” Keyshawn told me. He’s a wide receiver, one of our captains. “It’s not as much fun without you.”

I didn’t know what to say. These guys have been my posse since we started playing Pop Warner in middle school. We still hang together when we can, but it’s not like it used to be.

“What’s the matter with you?” Rick asked. He was smiling, but in a mean-drunk kind of way. He used to be starting nose tackle, but a sophomore took his job a couple weeks ago, and it’s killing him. “You’re not the only guy who ever got hurt, you know.”

“I guess I’m just a douchebag,” I said, smiling right back.

FOR A while after she dumps me, Megan stays in pretty close touch. She texts me on a regular basis and stops by my locker at least once a day to see how I’m doing.

“I’m worried about you,” she tells me, but she sounds more annoyed than concerned, like she doesn’t have time for this, but is going to do it anyway, because she’s a nice person. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“We should talk, Clay.”

“We’re talking now.”

“No, I mean really talk. You want to get coffee or something?”

But I don’t feel like talking. Not to Megan, not to my mother, not even to my buddies. All I want to do is hunker down and get through the rest of the fall. I’m pretty sure I’ll feel a lot better when December comes and I don’t have to think about football anymore.

It’ll be over soon. That’s what I remind myself when I can’t sleep, when I’m just lying there in the dark, feeling cheated. Just a few more games and it’ll be over for everyone.

HALLOWEEN CATCHES me by surprise. Not because I don’t see it coming — pumpkins and skeletons and fake headstones are all over the place — but because it doesn’t seem like anything I need to worry about.

It’s just not that big a deal in our school. People are allowed to wear costumes, but hardly anyone does except Mr. Zorn, a chem teacher who puts on a Superman suit and gives a supposedly hilarious lecture about Kryptonite, and a handful of freshman and sophomore girls who can’t resist the chance to dress up as sexy kittens and French maids. Also, the girl cheerleaders come to school in football uniforms.

That’s the thing I forgot about.

It’s pretty funny, actually. They don’t just get jerseys from the varsity guys, they borrow shoulder pads and helmets, too. Everything’s way too big — the shirts hanging past their knees, the pads askew, the helmets loose, with lots of pretty hair spilling out. Most of the girls are grinning behind their facemasks, like they know exactly how cute they are, but a few try to scowl and swagger like tough guys, holding their arms out like they’re carrying buckets of sand, and grunting at everyone they pass.

Somehow I manage not to see Megan until fifth-period lunch. She’s standing on line in the cafeteria with her best friend, Brianna, both of them nodding frantically, like they’re having a contest to see which of them can agree the hardest. Brianna’s not a cheerleader, so she’s just wearing regular clothes. Megan’s wearing shoulder pads and a Cougars jersey, number 55, which belongs to Bobby Makowski. She must’ve gotten tired of the helmet because she’s taken it off and placed it on top of the tray she’s pushing down the line toward the steam table.

“Clay,” she says, when she sees me standing there. She’s got black war paint under her eyes and it gives her a fierce look, but I can see how nervous she is. “How are you?”

I can’t take my eyes off her chest, those two big 5s, bright white against the blue mesh fabric. Last year she wore my jersey, number 51.

“Wow,” I say. “So you’re with Bobby now?”

I guess I’m hoping she’ll deny it, assure me that it’s just a coincidence, that she just grabbed the shirt out of a random pile. But we both know it doesn’t work that way.

“I’m sorry,” she says, after exchanging an Oh, shit look with Brianna. “I wanted to tell you.”

“There’s a lotta guys on the team. It didn’t have to be Bobby.”

“It just happened,” she explains. “I didn’t do it to hurt you.”

“Are you gonna fuck him?” It’s a stupid thing to ask, but I can’t help myself.

She squints at me in disbelief. “Don’t be an asshole, Clay. It’s not like you.”

By now, the whole line’s stopped and everybody’s watching us like we’re a TV show. There’s space in front of Megan, but she doesn’t move, not even when Brianna touches her on the shoulder, trying to nudge her forward.

I don’t know what else to do, so I grab Bobby’s helmet off the tray. There are paint smears all over the surface, little smudges of green and red and black, the residue of a season’s worth of combat. My old helmet looked a lot like this at the end of last year.

I spread the earholes and tug it over my head. It’s a little tight around my temples, but otherwise a decent fit. I buckle the chinstrap, staring at her through the grid of Bobby’s facemask. It feels good to wear a helmet after all this time, like I’m suddenly myself again. Megan’s shaking her head, very slowly, and I can see that she’s close to tears.

“Please don’t do this,” she whispers.

AFTER THE clocks change, the cold gets under your clothes. Dead leaves are everywhere, like scraps torn from a huge pile of brown paper bags.

I go to school in the dark and come right home in the afternoon. Sometimes it seems like Mrs. Scotto and I are the only two people living on Grapevine Road.

The team’s playing well, leading the division, on the way to their first play-off berth in years. People talk about it all the time in school.

That’s great, I say. Good for them.

Megan and Bobby are out in the open now, walking hand in hand down the hall, looking smug and cheerful, so proud of each other. He must’ve pumped a ton of iron over the summer because he’s huge across the chest and shoulders, way bigger than he used to be. I’m not working out and my own muscles are shrinking. It’s like I have a slow leak in the top of my head, like all the air’s going out of me.

I see them kissing in the parking lot one morning. She’s up on her tiptoes, her hand jammed into the back pocket of his jeans.

I’m having trouble in math class again, but I really don’t think it’s because something’s wrong with my brain.

I’m pretty sure I just suck at math.

I play Xbox until my eyes feel like marbles.

I surf a lot of porn, too, find my way to stuff I don’t want to see, but can’t take my eyes off. Some of the girls look so lost, like they don’t know where they are or what they’re doing. It’s like watching zombies.

Never again, I tell myself.

Then I wash my hands and start cooking dinner. My mother’s always so pleased when she comes home from work and there’s water boiling on the stove.

Thank you, Clay. You’re a really big help.

You’re welcome, Mom.

It’s a long month.

THEY HOLD the bonfire pep rally the night before Thanksgiving. It’s a famous local tradition, one of the biggest social events of the year. Hundreds of people show up, including lots of college kids home for the holiday.

I leave my house around seven-thirty, walking because it’s impossible to park anywhere near the blaze. It’s a damp raw night, and I’m surprised to see Mrs. Scotto still on the job, dragging one of her YARD WASTE bags from the garage to the curb. It must be pretty heavy because she has to stop every few steps to catch her breath and adjust her grip. I keep my head down, pretending not to notice when she waves.

I don’t want to go to the rally, but I promised my buddies I’d make an appearance. They’re already pissed at me for blowing off the last two games, tired of hearing me blame it on Megan, even though it’s true: I can’t bear to see her shaking her pom-poms, looking so pretty, so totally focused, like she’s doing the one thing she was put on earth to do, biting her knuckles when the team’s down, jumping for joy when they score a touchdown. The guys don’t say so, but they think I’m being a pussy, wasting my senior year.

Fuck her, they told me at lunch. You’re better off without her.

Forget about Megan. There’s tons of cute sophomores.

It’s the bonfire, dude. Whaddaya gonna do? Sit home and whack off all night?

I TAKE the long way around to avoid the crowd, entering the park at East Street, cutting through the woods and across the soccer fields toward the smoke and the noise. I stop at the top of the sledding hill, looking down on the fire, which they build on the infield of the softball diamond below.

It’s pretty impressive, a ten-foot tower of lumber with a festive mob gathered around, watching the flames lick their way up from the bottom of the structure, a modest blaze building slowly into an inferno. There’s an ambulance and a fire truck parked on the outfield grass, not far from the marching band. They’re not marching, though — too dark, I guess — just standing in place as they play the Gary Glitter song, the whole crowd shouting “Hey!” in unison and punching at the air, just like at a game. I remember what it feels like to be down there by the flames, the heat and the music and the flushed faces, people you don’t even know slapping you on the back, telling you to go get ’em, get out there tomorrow and kick some ass.

I can see the team from here. They’re gathered in a clump near third base, a lot of big guys in dark jerseys, their numbers clearly visible in the fireglow. There’s Rick and Keyshawn and Larry and the rest of them, mingling with cheerleaders and parents and random kids from school. It looks like a good time.

All I have to do is walk down the hill and join the party. I know I’m welcome: the guys have told me so a hundred times. But I can also see Bobby down there — the numbers on his jersey seem a little too bright, almost radioactive — and a dim shape beside him that must be Megan, so I just stay where I am, watching sparks fountain into the sky every time a piece of wood shifts position.

Around nine Coach Z. picks up a bullhorn and tells the world how proud he is of all his guys, the amazing courage and heart they’ve shown, turning the season around after a rocky start, winning seven of their last eight games, earning a well-deserved spot in the playoffs. He says he has nothing but respect for every one of these individuals, nothing but love and admiration. And then he names the whole varsity squad, starting with the sophomores and moving all the way up through the seniors. He speaks solemnly, pausing between each name, giving the crowd a chance to roar its approval. It’s a long, excruciating process. And that whole time I just stand there, waiting in vain to hear my own name rising up through the darkness.

THERE’S A ten o’clock curfew on game nights, so the players make their exit around nine-thirty, when the blaze is at its peak. It hurts to watch them file out, everyone applauding as they make their way across the outfield to the parking lot and board a waiting school bus. They’ll be quiet on the way back to the high school, everybody serious and focused, thinking about the job they need to do tomorrow against Woodbury. It’s a good feeling, riding in the dark with your teammates, knowing the whole town’s behind you.

The crowd thins out after that, but the band keeps playing and a fair number of people stick around. The bonfire usually lasts until midnight, when the Fire Department hoses down the embers. There’s nothing stopping me from joining the stragglers — it’s just a party now, nothing to be embarrassed about — but instead I turn around and leave the way I came.

I don’t feel like going home, so I just walk for a long time, trying to clear my head, zigzagging through the residential streets on the south side of town, turning this way and that, going nowhere in particu­lar. At least it feels that way, right up to the moment when I find myself standing on the corner of Franklin Place, the little dead-end street where the Makowskis live, and it suddenly occurs to me that I’ve been heading here the whole time.

I’m not surprised to see Megan’s mother’s Camry in Bobby’s driveway, right next to Mr. Makowski’s pickup. Megan used to come to my house on game nights, to keep me company after curfew. Mostly we just watched TV with my mom, but for some reason I felt especially close to her then, sitting on the couch with our fingers intertwined. It makes sense that she’d do the same thing for Bobby, but it pisses me off, too.

I stand across the street, leaning against a tree trunk, looking at the front of Bobby’s house. At least the cheerleaders haven’t decorated it yet. That’ll happen later, after he’s asleep. In the morning, he’ll wake up to toilet-paper streamers on the branches and inspirational messages taped to the door, soaped on the windows of his family’s cars: WE LUV U BOBBY MAK!!! BEAT WOODBURY!!! GO #55!!! I used to get so stoked, stepping outside on Saturday morning, knowing what I’d find, but always pleasantly surprised anyway.

It’s ten-thirty, and I’m hoping Megan won’t stick around much longer. The players are supposed to be in bed by eleven, and with me she always made it a point to leave before then, even when I begged her to stay a little longer, hoping for a little alone time after my mom went up to bed.

You need your rest, she’d tell me. We can stay up late tomorrow.

I’m relieved when the front door opens at ten forty-five, but it’s not Megan who steps out. It’s Mr. Makowski, wearing a Carhartt jacket over his pajama bottoms. He walks across the street with his hands jammed into his pockets. He looks tired and annoyed.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asks me.

“Nothing,” I tell him.

“Well, you better go home. Don’t make me call the police.”

“I’m not hurting anyone.”

“You’re scaring people. Standing out here like a stalker.”

That’s not fair. I’m not stalking Megan. I don’t want to talk to her, don’t even want her to know I’m here. I just want to see her leave, to know she’s not giving Bobby those few extra minutes she denied me. I’m not sure why it matters, but it does.

He waits, but I don’t move. Mr. Makowski steps closer and slaps me lightly on both cheeks, the way you do when you’re putting on aftershave.

“Son,” he says, “you better pull yourself together.”

ONE OF the things I learned last year is that it helps sometimes to project yourself into the future, to allow your mind to turn the present into the past. That’s what I try to do on the way home from Bobby’s.

A year from now, I tell myself, none of what I’m feeling right now will even matter. I’ll be in college, living in a dorm, surrounded by people from other towns and other states, kids who don’t know Megan and Bobby and don’t give a crap about the Cougars or the playoffs or our big Thanksgiving rivalry with Woodbury. I’ll lose some more bulk and grow my hair long; none of my new friends will even know that I used to be a football player, or that I got hurt, or that they’re supposed to feel sorry for me. I’ll just be the laid-back dude from down the hall, the guy everybody likes. Maybe I’ll join the Ultimate Frisbee team, just for fun, get myself in shape. I see myself jumping like a hurdler, snatching the disc out of the air, flicking it way downfield before my feet even touch the ground.

Damn, they’ll say. Where’d he come from?

This fantasy keeps me occupied all the way to Grapevine Road, right up to the moment when I turn the corner and see the wall of brown bags arranged in front of Mrs. Scotto’s house. It’s such a strange and upsetting sight, I can’t help crossing the street for a closer look.

There are twenty-eight bags in all, lined up along the curb like headless, limbless soldiers, stretching the entire length of her property. It must’ve taken her all night to drag them out here. They’re not light, either. I give one of them an experimental kick, and my foot barely makes a dent, as if the bag is packed with sand instead of YARD WASTE. I kick it harder the second time, and that does the trick: the toe of my sneaker breaks the skin, leaving a neat little puncture wound that gets bigger with each successive blow until the whole thing just splits open, and all the guts come spilling out, way more leaves than you can imagine from looking at it.

I pause for a second, a little freaked-out by what I’ve done. I don’t know why I’m breathing so hard, why my face feels so hot and my heart so jumpy. I don’t know why I’m still standing here, why I don’t just turn around and run.

Son, I think, right before I go ballistic on the second bag, you better pull yourself together.

IT’S THANKSGIVING Day, and the sun’s barely up, but Mrs. Scotto doesn’t seem all that surprised to see me crossing the street with a rake in my hand. She’s in her robe, standing in the middle of the mess I made, the disaster area that used to be her perfect lawn.

“Clay?” she says. “Did you do this?”

I take a moment to survey the damage, a season’s worth of dead leaves scattered on the grass, along with the carcasses of so many broken bags. Some of the leaves are relatively fresh, bright flashes of red and yellow and orange; others are dark and slimy, fragrant with decay. They’re distributed unevenly across the yard, shallow drifts and rounded clumps marking the spots where bags got overturned, once I got tired of kicking them. I can’t understand why I didn’t get caught, why nobody stopped me or called the police.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I had a really bad night.”

She considers this and gives a little nod, as if she knows this is as good an explanation as she’s ever going to get. Then she bends down and scoops up a handful of leaves, which she deposits in a brand-new YARD WASTE bag. There’s a big stack of them on the front stoop.

“Well, I must say, you did a very thorough job.” Her voice is croaky and frail, but not as angry as I expected. “I thought I was dreaming when I looked out the window.”

“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I’m gonna help you clean it up.”

“Thank you,” she said. “That would be nice.”

I use the rake at first, but it doesn’t feel right, so I put it down and follow Mrs. Scotto’s example, stooping and snatching up the leaves with my bare hands. It’s a little gross at first, but pretty soon it starts to feel normal.

“My nephew’s supposed to pick me up at noon,” she tells me. “I’m invited to his house for Thanksgiving dinner. But I guess I’ll have to cancel.”

“You go ahead,” I tell her. “I can finish up on my own.”

“That’s okay.” Mrs. Scotto’s face looks younger when she smiles. “I don’t like my nephew very much.”

“We’re going to my uncle’s,” I say. “But not until four o’clock.”

“Isn’t there a football game today?” she asks.

I nod and leave it at that. There’s a game, but it doesn’t have anything to do with me. The sun gets brighter and warmer as we work. My back starts to hurt, but I do my best to ignore the discomfort. I try not to think about anything but the leaves on the ground, and the slow progress we’re making, me and Mrs. Scotto, getting everything back to the way it’s supposed to be.