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“Jesus,” Johnny said.
“Did I startle you?”
“Yes. A little.”
“John. We need to talk.”
“Well—well give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“Sit down, John.”
It was unpleasant to be invited to sit down in his own room, but Johnny said nothing. He went to the closet to get a pair of jeans. His father didn’t move. Johnny turned his back, dropped the towel, stepped into the jeans and zipped them up. He grabbed a light blue denim shirt from a hanger, pulled it on and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“School starts soon,” Amos said.
“Yessir. Another ten days.”
“But football practice already began.”
Johnny nodded. “Yes.”
“Coach tells me you haven’t shown up for it.”
“No, sir.”
“Because?”
“Because I’m not going to play this year.”
“The team needs you, John.”
Johnny shifted uncomfortably.
“I don’t want to play football anymore.”
“Nonsense. Your prowess on the field is one of the things that makes you a desirable candidate.”
Where was this conversation going?
“Candidate for what?”
Amos crossed his legs and swung one booted foot back and forth.
“For West Point.”
Johnny blinked. “What?”
“Your grades the last semester were excellent, but before that they were abysmal.”
“Father…”
“However, those excellent grades, coupled with similar ones in this, your senior year, will go a long way toward moving you to the top of the list. Add on your value as a football player—”
“Wait a minute.” Johnny got to his feet. “I’m not interested in West Point. Even if I was, playing football and getting a few good grades isn’t enough to—”
“Senator Duncan is a very good friend of mine. I’ve been one of his staunchest supporters.” Amos smiled thinly. “You do know that appointments to the military academies pass through the hands of elected representatives, don’t you, John?”
Johnny took a long breath, then slowly expelled it.
“Alden was the one who wanted to go to West Point. He wanted to be a soldier.”
“Not just a soldier. An officer.”
“Whatever,” Johnny said impatiently. “The point is I don’t. I don’t know what I want to be, but I know that it isn’t a—”
“Wildes were warriors long before these United States existed.”
Johnny ran his fingers through his hair. He knew the stories. He and Alden had been raised on them. Anglo-Saxons. Vikings. Men who’d crossed the sea and opened the American West.
“Are you listening to me, young man?”
“Yes.”
“Yessir.”
Johnny knotted his hands into fists.
“Yessir, I am—but I don’t think you’re listening to me.”
Amos rose to his feet, his eyes narrowed, his mouth a knife-sharp line.
“You took my firstborn son,” he said coldly. “You took my wife. You will be a man. You will be a Wilde. You will rejoin the Wilde Cats, you will get only A’s throughout this coming year, and you will interview for the Point and leave a glowing impression on those who will recommend you for appointment to it. Do I make myself clear?”
Pain knifed through Johnny’s gut.
“I didn’t kill Alden,” he whispered. “I didn’t kill my mother!”
“That’s what that foolish old woman would like you to believe, but you and I know the truth. You’ve taken and taken.” Amos’s jaw shot forward. “Now it’s time to give back.”
Johnny wanted to yell. He wanted to put his fist through the wall or maybe through his father’s face, but it was all true. His mother was dead because of him. So was his brother. He was worthless. Useless. He had come into the world a failure and he’d never been anything but a failure.
Amos grabbed him by the shoulders. “You owe this to us all, dammit, to your mother, your brother, and me!”
It was true, all of it. He owed them everything.
Amos let go of him.
“I have done my part with Senator Duncan. You will do yours at school. Do we understand each other?”
Johnny swallowed hard.
“Answer me! Do we understand each other?”
He met his father’s hard gaze.
“Yes.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir, what?”
“Yes, sir, we understand each other.”
Amos nodded. “Good. Fine.” His tone was conversational; he smiled, clapped his son on the shoulder, then turned for the door, but at the last minute, he looked at Johnny again. “The situation with the Grimes girl. Connie. She isn’t for you.”
“She’s a nice girl,” Johnny said. “You don’t know her at all.”
“Her father is a shopkeeper. He doesn’t move in the right circles.” He smiled thinly. “I let Alden spend time with her because she could do him no harm, but the relationship would have ended on his graduation.”
Johnny stared at Amos.
“You let my brother—“
“Of course. He understood.”
“I don’t believe that. Alden would never have agreed to something so—so coldblooded. I knew him in ways you never did.”
“Think that, if it makes you feel better. Just understand that she will be out of your life come next June. And remember, watch yourself with her until then. Each time she pulls down her pants, you pull on a rubber.”
Johnny’s face blazed.
“She’s a nice girl, Father.”
Amos grinned. “Doesn’t mean she doesn’t fuck, John. I’m sure she did for your brother. If she hasn’t for you, why, you have a lot of catching up to do.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost suppertime. I’ll see you in the dining room in ten minutes. We have plans to make.”
* * * *
Yes, but the plans weren’t Johnny’s.
He tried not to think about that all through the next week.
He didn’t go into town to see Connie, but he didn’t attend football practice, either. He refused to think about anything beyond getting up in the morning and falling into bed, exhausted, each night.
The one thing he did let himself think about was Miss Cleary. About going to see her.
He missed her.
Her decency, her kindness, her no-nonsense way of looking the world in the eye.
He considered seeking her advice, but what would be the point? He knew what she’d tell him.
She’d say his father was wrong. He didn’t bear the blame for his mother’s death or for his brother’s, and the rational part of him knew that that was th
e truth.
The part that was pure emotion scoffed.
If your mother hadn’t got pregnant with you, she’d still be alive. If your brother hadn’t climbed into your car, he’d still be alive, too.
Amos was away on business, so he didn’t know Johnny hadn’t shown up for football practice.
The coach phoned the house a couple of times. Johnny got the answering machine messages, but he didn’t return the calls.
What for?
The coach wanted him back playing football. So did Amos.
Never mind Amos.
Deep in his heart, Johnny wanted the same thing. Not so he could seem a more attractive package for entrance to the Point. Not because it would please his father and the coach.
He wanted to be out on that field because he missed the game.
He’d spent all these months pretending he didn’t, but he couldn’t pretend anymore. He missed the other guys, missed the crowds that hung out at preseason practice. He missed the bone-jarring hits and the feeling that came of soaring into the air and catching what was surely an uncatchable ball.
He found excuses to go into town. Somebody needed a replacement wrench? A dozen sacks of oats? I’ll go for it, he’d say, and on his way there or on his way back, he’d take a detour that led him past the high school to the football field, where he’d park whatever ranch or rig pickup he was using and watch as the Cats went through drills and plays.
After a while he stepped from the truck, jogged through the gates, climbed high into the stands where he figured nobody would notice him.
But people did notice.
TJ. Tim Stantos. A couple of other guys. They came into the stands, sat down next to him and said Hey,man. How you been? How’s it hangin’? When you comin’ back? and he’d smile and give them five and avoid answering the question.
Then, one day, the kid trying out for tight end screwed up. Totally. It was just a practice game, but he made such a piss-poor play that Coach marched up to him, his fleshy face scarlet, and chewed him out so badly that Johnny could hear each word even where he sat, almost at the top of the stands.
The kid’s shoulders slumped. He hung his head like a whipped dog.
Coach yelled some more. Then he looked into the stands, pointed his finger at Johnny and bellowed, “Wilde! Come down here and show this asshole how it’s supposed to be done.”
Johnny didn’t move.
The team did.
