Lex Thomas: Quarantine: The Loners

David looked at Alan, confused, “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know,” Alan said. “I just thought maybe if you’re back, like old times… then you’re back. You know?” Back? Like back on the team? For the first time in a long time, that sounded… really good. “Yeah,” David said. “What the hell. I’m back.”

Alan punched David, jaw agape.

“You’ll come to practice on Monday morning? For real?” Alan said.

“I’ll be there,” David said. He suddenly swelled with strength just by saying it. Why couldn’t he do it again?

Alan raised both fists in the air, “Yes!” He grabbed David by the sleeve and pulled him away from the counter. “You gotta let me break the news!”

David followed Alan through the warm forest of bodies, toward the sliding glass doors to the backyard. Alan saw someone he knew, and he stopped to lock the dude in a bear hug. David didn’t pay attention to who it was; he was looking at Sam.

Half the football team stood around the deck as Sam hazed a younger teammate, forcing the kid to chug a beer. He tripped the kid, making him flop face-first onto the ground. Some of the team laughed, and Sam’s face transformed at the sound of it. He had the delighted expression of a child receiving a surprise present. As the kid tried to get up, Sam pushed him back down again with his foot. Sam looked to the team for a bigger reaction. Fewer of them laughed this time. Sam snapped at the kid to get up as if it were the kid on the ground’s fault that the gag didn’t land a second time.

David remembered when Sam was the one being hazed.

Last year, a senior, Carson Lacy, spread IcyHot all over the inside of Sam’s jock strap. Someone had done the same to David his first year-it was standard. You ran to the showers and washed it off. Not Sam. Later that day, in the weight room, while Carson did bench presses, Sam threw a twenty-pound dumbbell down between Carson’s legs. Carson ended up losing a testicle. In the end, Coach Barter just looked the other way, because David quit soon after. The team needed a quarterback, and Sam was the only other one.

“Hey, sorry. Let’s do this,” said Alan.

Alan patted David on the shoulder and walked out to the deck. David followed slowly. The deck was as wide as the house, went back a good twenty feet, and it was thick with kids. The sky was just a touch lighter than black. The deck was lit by the low, warm light of novelty chili-pepper string lights around the perimeter of the deck. A girl on the grass fell and knocked over a copper fire pit. Flaming logs toppled onto the ground and coughed up a cloud of sparks. The drunk girl lay laughing on the damp grass, beside the fading embers.

David felt more out of control with every step toward Sam. An image flashed in his mind of Sam and Hilary in bed together. Hilary throwing her head back in ecstasy, her lips quivering, her blonde hair whipping across her wild eyes, Sam’s hands moving up her.

Sam laughed about something. David hated Sam’s fake smile. He hated his pig nose and that ridiculous dimple in the middle of his chin. The closer he got, the more he was certain that Sam was the cause of all his misery. He blamed Sam for losing Hilary; he blamed him for his mother dying, for the year of grieving that followed. He put it all on Sam. Through the haze of all those vodka shots, it was clear as day.

Sam saw David approach; his face flinched.

“Look who showed up to rage tonight!” Alan said to the guys. “He’s got some big news!”

David’s old teammates hollered back halfheartedly. A warm Hey, old friend kind of smile blossomed on Sam’s face, but David was sure there was panic in the eyes. Sam walked toward David, his arms spread out for a manly hug.

“This party just got killer,” Sam said. “What’s the big n—” David interrupted Sam by bashing his forehead into Sam’s teeth. Sam let out a grunting whimper and fell to the floor.

David kicked him, then he kicked him again. Sam spit blood onto the keg. David tried to drive his foot straight through Sam’s body, to make up for all that David had lost.

The team rushed forward and grabbed David. They wrenched his arms behind his back. Alan stood there in shock, staring at David like he was crazy. Spit was falling out of David’s mouth in ropes. It took four guys to drag him into the kitchen. He saw the crowd on the deck. They were disgusted by him, afraid of him. He saw Sam on the ground, holding his bloody mouth; and just before the people in the kitchen blocked his view of the deck, he saw Hilary’s face in the crowd outside. He swore she was smiling.

David didn’t want to go to school.

Monday’s morning light taunted him through the windows of his bedroom. He’d spent all Sunday in bed, nursing a wicked hangover and beating himself up for having drank so much that night. Why couldn’t he have just gone home after Hilary broke up with him?

Last night’s sleep had cured his hangover, but he felt even worse today. Now that his head was clear, he knew that what he had told Alan wasn’t drunken bullshit. He did want back on the team, he did want to lead them again. He also knew that he had obliterated his chances of that happening when he attacked Sam. As half the defensive line dragged him through the party, he heard whispers from the other party-goers. He’s a maniac… He went crazy… When his former teammates tossed him onto the brick walkway and slammed the front door in his face like he was a stranger, he knew that he had severed whatever was left of their bond.

Today was going to suck. Sam would want payback. Everyone was going to be gossiping about him. If it were up to him he’d skip today. But he had to go. Today was his little brother’s first day of high school.

David peeled back his flannel sheets and stood. His room was in shambles. There were used plates and glasses on the floor along with piles of dirty clothes, free weights, and one overflowing trash can. He couldn’t believe he had gotten used to living in such filth. He resolved to clean it up the minute he got home. David pulled on a frayed T-shirt that was draped over a lamp, and then some dark jeans from the floor. He’d had these clothes since football season of last year, and they still fit. His room might have gone to hell, but at least he’d maintained his fitness. He slipped on a black hooded sweatshirt and pulled the large hood over his unruly brown hair.

David dug his feet into his favorite beat-up sneakers and took the stairs down two at a time.

He stepped into the kitchen and smelled burnt food. The room was small, with counter space and a breakfast nook taking up most of it. The walls were painted the color of mar-malade, and his mother’s old lace curtains cast floral patterns across the floor. Will stood in front of the fridge. He was short and stringy, and he drank orange juice out of the carton with the refrigerator door wide open. Smoke plumed up from a pan on the stove. David ran to it and switched off the burner.

“What are you doing?” Will said.

There were pancakes in the pan, dry and brown on top, charred black on the bottom. “You’re gonna burn the house down,” David said. He took the pan off the stove and walked it to the trash.

“Whoa, whoa, there’s nothing wrong with those,” Will said.

“They’re incinerated.”

“I like ’em crunchy,” Will said. He took the hot pan from David. David shook his head. Will could be so stubborn.

Will slid the stiff, blackened disks onto a plate. David moved to the counter and opened Will’s epilepsy medication.

He shook out some pills.

“Already took ’em,” Will said. David gave Will a puzzled look, and Will shook his head again. “Dude, if I managed to remember taking my meds for three weeks on the trail, I think I can manage myself from now on.”