All American Boys Read online

  “It was an accident,” Tooms said.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Guzzo shot back.

  “Enough,” Coach told them, letting go of their shirts. “Take it easy.” He stared at Tooms. “It was an accident, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Bullshit,” Guzzo interrupted. “Everyone has it out for me.”

  Coach rubbed his jaw. “All right, look. Enough of that.” He looked around at all of us. “You think it’s dumb when someone says there’s no ‘I’ in team, but you stick one in there and you see how dumb that looks.”

  Guzzo took a step back, but Coach waved him closer. “Bring it in, boys.” We all hesitated. “I said BRING IT IN!” he yelled.

  So we piled in around him, and he stuck his hand in the middle. We followed, like we always did. “I get it. There’s a lot of bullshit out there, and it needs to get resolved, but we’re not resolving it in here. Not in practice and not on this court. We leave all that bullshit at the door. In here, on this court, we need to win games. That’s all we need to do, and we need to work like one team or we’re fucked. You hear me? We’ve got all kinds of people coming to see us. They start coming next week. Next week! You ready for that? The press, the scouts. When is the last time those guys from Duke were here? You hear me?”

  A couple guys said yes, but the rest of us merely nodded. Guzzo leaned on my back, but I was looking across the circle at English and Shannon. I got what Coach was saying. I wanted to see teammates, but it got me thinking. Maybe right now all I saw were teammates around me, but once we stepped back into the real world, who did I see? Who did they see? Coach could keep shouting at us until we all parroted back what he wanted, but I knew English and Shannon answered because they had to, not because they wanted to. Tooms, too. And that’s what I was doing too, because Coach kept telling us to leave everything else at the door, but I was thinking about it the other way around. How did the team stay a team back out the door? How did the team stay a team out in the street?

  Guzzo’s nose kept bleeding, right through all the yelling, so Coach told me to get him into the locker room and cleaned up. Then Coach blew his whistle, the scrimmage started again with new combinations, and the squeaking of sneakers and the ball on the court followed me into the locker room.

  Guzzo jogged ahead of me, not saying a word while he washed his face and grabbed a couple paper towels. He walked around to a bench deeper in the locker room, sat, and held his head back.

  I leaned against a nearby locker and crossed my arms. “He didn’t hit you on purpose.”

  “Yeah, he did.”

  “Come on.”

  “People have it all backward. They do,” Guzzo said. He wiped at his nose and then pinched it closed again. “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry, but my brother did the right thing. He has to make tough calls. I’m sorry they’re friends with that guy, but what are you gonna do? I mean, Paul—he was helping the woman in the store. He didn’t do anything wrong. He was doing his job.”

  “But that’s not how everyone sees it, man.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean they’re right.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But what?” Guzzo wiped at his nose again and raised his voice. “But what? Whose side are you on here?”

  “Come on, you heard Coach,” I said. “No sides.”

  “No sides? Asshole, of course there are sides. There are two sides to every situation.” His nose started bleeding again, so I got him another paper towel. He wiped at his nose again. It still bled. I got him another paper towel, but he just held it in his hand. “They could call you for a witness, couldn’t they?”

  “Maybe,” I said. I was feeling paranoid about this, because ever since my conversation with Jill, I kept thinking that I had to do it. I had to let someone know. And then what, stand in a courtroom and point my finger at Paul? I couldn’t even imagine doing that.

  “I don’t know how it works, though,” I continued. “Anyway, everyone’s seen the video. It was taken from a spot closer than I was.”

  “But if they called you, what would you say?”

  I was silent. Before anybody would call me into some freaking courtroom, I’d have to tell somebody official that I was there.

  “Whose side are you on?” Guzzo asked again, and when I didn’t answer him, he continued. “Everyone’s gotta get their heads out of their asses. We’re not a team if Tooms or anybody else is going to clock me every chance he gets.”

  “No, man, the problem is assuming he’s out to get you. He isn’t.”

  Guzzo pinched his nose again and tipped his head back. “I don’t need a fucking nurse,” he said. “Get out of here. I know whose side you’re on. And I’m going to tell my brother how you don’t have his back. After all he did for you, man. Fuck you.”

  He stood, and I backed away. Even with a bloody nose, Guzzo could drop me in a heartbeat. “It’s about doing the right thing,” Guzzo said mockingly. “I hate all this politically correct bullshit. Nobody’d be spray painting your name on the sidewalk if Paul had grabbed you coming out of Jerry’s.” He punched a locker with the side of his fist. “Half the school’s calling my brother a racist. He was just doing his job. People throw that word ‘racist’ around all the time now. Pretty soon everyone’s going to start calling me a racist if I don’t pass Tooms the ball. It’s fucked up and you know it.”

  “Guzzo,” I said. “You’re not the victim. Your brother isn’t either.”

  The look on his face went fierce, and I was glad as hell that Coach began bringing the rest of the team into the locker room. He called out to us, and we reluctantly joined him and the rest of the guys around the bench closest to the showers. “One more time—bring it in, boys,” Coach said. “We’re all in this together.” He looked at Guzzo, then at Tooms.

  “Sorry,” Tooms said to Guzzo through his teeth.

  “Galluzzo?” Coach prompted.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Guzzo said. “Me too.” Then he pulled the bloody paper towel away from his face and wadded it into a hard ball. “We’re good, right?” he said across the circle to Tooms. He smiled, sarcastically.

  If the rest of us had melted away and Coach had disappeared, I think Tooms would have leaped across the bench and punched Guzzo straight in the face, for real this time. And I wouldn’t have blamed him. But what the hell? Didn’t that make me a traitor to my best friend?

  “Hey,” I said to Guzzo. “It’s over.”

  Guzzo glared at me. “Damn straight,” he said.

  “That’s right!” Coach said. “And we’re a team, and we need to take care of each other. You know the rules. We take care of each other on the court and off it. We don’t go to parties, and we help make sure no one else on the team goes to them either. No one needs to be stupid. We’ve got four months to show the world we’re number one. No parties, and no protests, you hear me?”

  Some of the guys nodded.

  “I said, you hear me?”

  “Yes,” we yelled automatically.

  “Mean it!”

  “YES.”

  “Again!”

  “YES!”

  He stuck his hand in and we followed. “Okay. Team on three. One, two, three.”

  “TEAM!” we all shouted, lying just to get the damn practice finished. Team. Maybe? Like the whole school is a team, the whole city is a team? But we weren’t one just because we called ourselves one. We had to mean it to be it, and to be it maybe we had to talk about the tough shit out loud. Otherwise we’d just keep lying to each other all the time. Lying. Paul wasn’t the only one.

  DEAR CADET BUTLER,

  I HAD PLANNED TO COME VISIT YOU, BUT IT WAS COMMUNICATED TO ME THAT YOU DIDN’T WANT ANY VISITORS. AND IN TOUGH TIMES LIKE THESE, I CAN TOTALLY UNDERSTAND YOU WANTING AS MUCH PRIVACY AS POSSIBLE, AND HAVE ENCOURAGED YOUR FELLOW CADETS TO ALSO RESPECT YOUR WISHES. NONETHELESS, I WANTED YOU TO KNOW YOUR COMRADES AND I HAVE YOU IN OUR THOUGHTS AND WISH YOU A SPEEDY RECOVERY AND RETURN TO THE PROGRAM. AND TO ENCOURAGE YOU I
N THIS TIME, I’VE ENCLOSED A CARD WITH OUR CREED.

  ALL THE BEST,

  CHIEF KILLABREW

  I AM AN ARMY JUNIOR ROTC CADET.

  I WILL ALWAYS CONDUCT MYSELF TO BRING CREDIT TO MY FAMILY, COUNTRY, SCHOOL, AND THE CORPS OF CADETS.

  I AM LOYAL AND PATRIOTIC.

  I AM THE FUTURE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

  I DO NOT LIE, CHEAT, OR STEAL AND WILL ALWAYS BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR MY ACTIONS AND DEEDS.

  I WILL ALWAYS PRACTICE GOOD CITIZENSHIP AND PATRIOTISM.

  I WILL WORK HARD TO IMPROVE MY MIND AND STRENGTHEN MY BODY.

  I WILL SEEK THE MANTLE OF LEADERSHIP AND STAND PREPARED TO UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION AND THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE.

  MAY GOD GRANT ME THE STRENGTH TO ALWAYS LIVE BY THIS CREED.

  If you’re wondering if I had been having nightmares, y’know, about that day, the answer is, no. I hadn’t been. Not until Wednesday. Actually, it started Tuesday night after my friends and family left my room, and I decided to finally read Chief Killabrew’s card. I couldn’t figure out if he had inserted the creed as some kind of reminder to me that if I’m guilty to fess up, and that I was expected to never lie and steal, or what. Maybe he really was trying to encourage me. Maybe he was saying that because I was a cadet, there was no way I could be guilty. I don’t know. I just know that it rubbed me in a weird way, because ROTC, especially to people like my dad, was the first step to the military, and ultimately into law enforcement. I mean, for all I knew, Galluzzo could’ve been in ROTC when he was my age. Was he “the future of America”? Was he upholding “the American way of life”? I guess it depends on who you ask. Maybe. And maybe it was these thoughts rattling around my head that sparked the nightmare.

  I was back in Jerry’s, but in the dream, the chips were located in the drink fridge. So I’m standing at the refrigerator staring through the glass, when I hear a voice coming from behind me.

  “I know what you’re doing,” the voice said.

  For some reason, I didn’t turn around. I just looked into the glass to see the reflection of whoever was there. And it was him. Officer Galluzzo, like Goliath standing with his hand already on his weapon, sizing me up.

  “I ain’t doing nothing,” I said, still facing the glass.

  “I know what you’re doing,” he repeated, taking a step closer, the sound of his boots thumping on the vinyl floor. I knew I should’ve turned around, but I couldn’t. I was frozen. But I could still see him through the glass, his mirrored image becoming clearer as he got closer and closer. Then I adjusted my eyes to see my own reflection, my own face. But I couldn’t. I mean, my face was there, but . . . it wasn’t. There were no eyes. No nose or mouth. Just blank brown skin.

  And that’s when I woke up, my heart pounding, my throat scratchy and dry. The dream seemed to last five minutes, but it had actually been hours, and it was now Wednesday morning. I reached over to the food tray beside my bed for the leftover cranberry juice from dinner the night before. In hospitals, juice comes in the same kind of cups as fruit cocktails and applesauce, the ones where you have to peel back the foil. Damn things are hard to open. My hands, for some weird reason, were weak, wouldn’t work right. Maybe it was the dream. Maybe it was everything that was going on—the reality. Whatever it was, I struggled to pull the aluminum seal back far enough to take a sip of juice. And I needed it. My throat felt like I had eaten my blanket.

  I pulled and peeled, until finally the stupid foil snapped away from the plastic and cranberry juice spilled all over the place. Of course.

  I snatched the wet sheet back. There was still some juice left, so I decided to get what I could. Right when I took a sip, there was a knock on my door. Now, I know it was probably just a regular knock, but at that moment it sounded like a bang, and I was so jittery that I spilled whatever was left of the juice on myself.

  “Shit,” I grumbled.

  “Watch your mouth.” My father was pushing the door open. He poked his head in—a strange thing that everyone does at the hospital for some reason—before entering.

  “Good morning,” he said, eyeing me as I dabbed juice into my gown, the burgundy blotches on my chest and stomach looking like blood.

  “Hey,” I said. “What time is it?”

  “Just about seven.”

  “Why are you here so early?”

  Dad closed the door behind him and came to the foot of the bed. “Wanted to catch you before I went to work. See how you were doing?”

  “Oh,” I said, kinda shocked. “I’m okay. How ’bout you? Ma told me you were sick.”

  “Yeah. Something didn’t agree with my system. But I’m fine.” He sat on the edge of the bed, which was different for him. Usually he sat in a chair on the other side of the room—as far away from me as possible.

  “Cool.” I wasn’t really sure what else to say.

  Dad sat there staring at the side table where my phone and the spirometer were.

  “Listen, I, uh . . . ,” he started. “I want to tell you a story. When I was a cop—” Pause.

  Here’s the thing. My father has three different ways to start a parental sermon about a whole bunch of I don’t want to hear it.

  1. When I was your age: always about how he was doing way more than I am when he was in high school. Let him tell it, he put the principal in detention.

  2. When I was in the army: always came whenever I was tired. It didn’t matter what I was tired from. If I showed any signs of exhaustion, he would hit me with how when he was in the army he wasn’t allowed to be tired, and that if he even yawned they made him drop down and give them a thousand push-ups.

  3. When I was a cop: always came whenever he was either defending cops or insulting teenagers.

  “When I was a cop,” he started. He reached up and loosened his navy-blue tie. Then he hiked his khaki pants up, just enough to show his tan socks, peppered with dark-brown diamonds. Office clothes are as boring as offices. Anyway, I braced myself and prepared to ignore whatever was coming.

  “One time,” he began, “I got a call that there were a few guys making a bunch of noise in the middle of the night, over on the East Side. You know how it is over there. Nine o’clock, that whole neighborhood shuts down. Now I was used to these quick runs. You drive up, hit your lights and your siren, and if the kids don’t take off running, you just roll down the window and tell them to keep it moving. Never really a big deal.” My father was still staring at the spirometer. As if he was talking to it, as if I wasn’t in the room. “So my partner and I answer the call and head on over. When we pull up, there’s a white kid in tight black jeans and a sweater and this black kid going for it. A backpack was upside down on the side of the curb, and these two were just throwing down, scrapping. The black kid was dressed like . . .” He looked at me, finally. “Dressed like your brother. Hair all over his head. A hoodie. Boots. His pants were damn near all the way down. And he was mopping this boy. My partner and I jumped out of the car and approached them, and before we could even give them a chance to stop fighting, I ran over and jacked the black boy up because I knew he was in the wrong. I just knew it. I mean, you should’ve seen how he was pummeling this kid. And he fought me back, telling me that I had it wrong. He slipped right from my grip and ran for the backpack. I pulled my gun. Told him to leave it. He kept yelling, ‘I didn’t do anything! I didn’t do anything! He’s the criminal!’ But now he’s wheezing, like he was having a hard time speaking. Then he grabbed the backpack. By now, my partner’s got the white kid. I tell the black dude to leave the bag and put his hands up. But he doesn’t, and instead opens it. Puts his hand inside. And before he could pull it out, I pulled the trigger.”

  Holy shit!

  “What!” I yelped. I had never heard this story, and I thought I had heard all the stories. I heard all the ones about the people he saved—the woman who had been beaten by her husband; the high-speed chase of a bank robber, who Dad eventually caught after running him off the road, movie-style. I had heard all the stor
ies about how Dad had been shot at. And definitely the one about how he had been shot. I saw the bullet wound in his chest every morning when he got out of the shower, like a tiny crater or a third nipple, a symbol of near death. But I had never, ever, EVER heard this one.

  Dad’s Adam’s apple rolled down his throat, then back up. Then he continued. “He was reaching for his inhaler. Turns out, he lived in that neighborhood and was walking home late, when the white kid tried to rob him. He was trying to fight the kid off, and when we showed up, his adrenaline went so high that he couldn’t breathe. Asthma attack. So he had to get to his inhaler, but he was having a hard time telling me that. I just assumed he . . .”

  “Wait. Wait . . .” I put my hand up, pushing the words back into my father’s mouth. If there was ever a time that I needed, for once, to control a conversation with him, it was now. I only had one question. “Did you kill him?”

  “No.” Dad teethed his top lip. “But I paralyzed him from the waist down.”

  I just sat there, dumbfounded. My dad, my dad, had paralyzed an unarmed kid, a black kid, and I had had no idea. My dad shot a kid. I mean, to me, my father was the model of discipline and courage. Sure, he was stern, and sometimes judgmental, but I always felt like he meant well. But to that kid—and now my head was reeling—to that kid, my dad was no different than Officer Galluzzo. Another trigger-happy cop who was quick to assume and even quicker to shoot.

  My father filled in the silence my lack of verbal response had created.

  “You know, you were still very young, but Spoony remembers it all. The news. The drama. I’m not proud of it. It’ll never stop haunting me, and I think it messes with your brother still too.”

  “It probably messes with that boy’s—what’s his name?” I asked, hard.

  “Darnell Shackleford,” he rattled off. It was clearly a name he couldn’t forget.

  “It probably still messes with Darnell and his family too.”