Andrew Smith - Winger

“Was that hot nurse there?” Seanie practically drooled.

“No,” I said. “Just Doctor No-gloves.”

“Eww,” Seanie said. “Did he touch your little Westicles?”

I took a bite of chicken, pretending that was all I was going to say about the matter. I looked over at JP, and he looked away.

“Are you going to tell us, or what?” Seanie said impatiently.

I paused to gather my thoughts.

“Do you believe in witches?” I asked.

“I give up,” Seanie said, and took a drink of milk.

I looked at Isabel. It was kind of embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as telling everyone in the infirmary why I showed up, scared pale and covered in mud with my hand thrust down my shorts, holding onto my balls. Even my friends were too embarrassed to go there with me, afraid they might have to face their own fears and watch in that cold examination room while I sat naked on a rustling paper sheet and the doctor looked me over. Head wounds were one thing, but, like I said, no boy ever wants to come face to face with a catastrophic penis injury.

“It’s just a cut,” I said. “On my balls. He put a Band-Aid on it.”

“Was it a SpongeBob Band-Aid?” Seanie asked, almost spitting out his milk when he said it.

Even Joey laughed.

I am such a loser.

“Dude,” Seanie announced, “how awesome is that? You are the only guy I’ve ever known in my entire fucking life who had to have a doctor put a Band-Aid on his ballsack. That’s the kind of thing you just can’t make up. Ryan Dean West, you are going to be a fucking legend!”

“Seanie,” I said, “I can’t even begin to put into words how much I hate you right now.”

“Aww . . . I love you too, Ryan Dean,” he said.

I NEVER COULD SLEEP THE night before a game, especially a first game.

After dinner, Joey kept his appointment for our Calculus study group with Megan at the library, and I came back to O-Hall alone and tried to relax in bed. But it was absolutely impossible to get comfortable, considering the locations of my injuries. And I know I’m a pig for thinking it, but I really wanted to make out with Megan again.

So I just lay there, staring up at the ceiling with my knees bent, listening to Chas’s breathing, wondering if Annie had read my note, and what she was thinking about at that moment, if she was awake like me.

And I knew that if you could keep score for such a thing, and, of course, I did keep that score, my Degree of Loserdom would be nothing short of godlike.

To make matters even worse, by midnight I had to pee. But there was no way in hell I was going to go down that hallway on the night before a game and run the risk of a face-to-face with Mrs. Singer again. So I held it as long as I could, but that just made my Band-Aided wound hurt more. When I couldn’t stand it any more, I fumbled around the side of the mattress where I stored that Gatorade bottle Joey brought me when I was sick. I unscrewed the top— Mmm! It still smelled like lemon —and, kneeling on the top bunk, I filled it to within half an inch of overflowing.

The Ryan Dean West Emergency Gatorade Bottle Nighttime Urinal was an invention of depraved genius. After a quick check on the snugness of my Band-Aid, and, pausing momentarily to wonder how many days it might take to fall off, since—sweet mother of God—there was no way I was going to yank it and all the hairs affixed to it off, I screwed the lid back on as tightly as possible, tucked the bottle down by my feet, where I noticed it produced a very pleasant warmth, pulled the covers back over me, and finally went to sleep.

AT SIX IN THE MORNING, we were all on the bus heading down from Pine Mountain to play our first rugby match of the year. It had stopped raining during the night, so it was going to be a perfect and soggy day for rugby. Twenty-five players rode on the bus, most of us stretched out in our own seats, along with the coach and a couple other adults, and I swear I had to go from seat to seat and personally tell the story of the Band-Aid on my balls to every one of the boys who hadn’t been there at dinner the night before.

It was a four-hour bus ride to Sacred Heart. Our kickoff was scheduled for one o’clock; and, as always after the game, in a rugby tradition called a social, we would sit down with the opposing team and have dinner before our ride back to Pine Mountain. We always had to wear our school uniforms and ties whenever we showed up for a rugby match; that was just the way things were done. So every one of us knew it was going to be a long and tiring day.

But we didn’t know just how tough, and unexpected, things would actually turn out to be.

We sang almost the entire way there. I don’t know how Coach M put up with it. It was like he was deaf or something, because he never showed the slightest expression even when the songs got completely vulgar. It was like singing was the only time he’d tolerate our cussing, and he’d just keep his attention pinned on his notebook, where he’d organize rosters, medical forms, and notes on plays. But I could tell the singing was making the driver of our chartered bus really agitated. He started looking so frustrated and mad, but I could hear Coach M explain to him in his Henry Higgins tone of voice, “They are a rugby team. They sing. There’s nothing I, you, or God can do about it beyond hope that they eventually tire.”

And just before we got to the field, someone got into our first-aid kit and secretly passed around Band-Aids to everyone on the team except me. So when we arrived at the locker rooms at Sacred Heart, and the headmaster, who was dressed in his full priestly attire, and a couple nuns from the school greeted us, every one of our players with the exception of me came down the steps at the front of the bus wearing a black and blue school tie, white dress shirt, and khaki pants with a Band-Aid stuck across his fly.

Nice.

We changed into our uniforms and took the field to warm up. I had my head taped up, and I felt like I was completely ready to go. When Sacred Heart came out to begin stretching, we ran around them on the field, singing “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” which was the only song we were allowed to sing at a Catholic school because it wasn’t really dirty, it was just about a guy who fathers an illegitimate child and then gets his balls shotgunned off by the girl’s father. Tame by our standards, and as Coach said, it wasn’t likely to incite a religious war or anything since it contained a moral lesson.

But the Sacred Heart boys didn’t think it was very funny, and instead of singing something back at us, which is what any decent and proper rugby team would do, they just scowled and prayed.

I am not religious at all. Some of the kids at PM are, though, and we do have a nondenominational chapel on the grounds for kids who don’t go home on weekends. But we always prayed before games, and praying with the team was the only kind of praying I ever felt good about. So, a few minutes before kickoff, we would all take to our knees in a circle and put our arms around each other, and Kevin Cantrell would stand over us and give thanks for the day and for the other team that was there to play with us, and for being able to play the greatest sport that was ever created, and hope that everyone, even our opponents, would be safe and have fun.

Then, just a few minutes before the game, Coach M pulled me aside and told me that he wasn’t going to let me start, that he was putting in Mike Bagnuolo, a sophomore winger who was actually older than me, because he wanted to see how Bags could handle himself.