Tom Perrotta - Nine Inches

“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.