Allen Zadoff - Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have

Dad says, “All right then. Have your mom sign it, then I’ll sign it.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Dad doesn’t say good-bye. That’s a waste of money. His picture simply goes from big to tiny on my iPhone. Call over.

I bite into the first bagel, feel the crunch as my teeth pass through the crust into the soft, hot dough beneath. I know I’ve got problems, but I can’t worry about them now. Right now my mouth is busy, and that makes life seem good.

It’s six o’clock, and Mom’s cooking mini sausages for a party tomorrow. Sometimes she cooks right through dinner, turning down the heat briefly, running over to the table to take a few bites, then running back to the kitchen to stir. She says it relaxes her. It makes the rest of us tense.

“How was UN?” Mom asks.

“Incredible,” I say. “I’m heading up the Defense Committee.”

I feel my stomach turn over. I haven’t figured out how I’m going to handle that little issue yet. My bowels might get me out of one or two UN sessions, but an entire semester? I’d have to take a dump the size of Faneuil Hall and make a video to prove it to Eytan.

Mom lifts a sausage to her mouth, blows on it twice, then thinks better of it. She holds it out to me on the end of a fork.

“Are these too spicy?” she says.

I pop the sausage in my mouth and feel the burst of hot grease. It’s sweet with an overlay of spicy. Mom at her very best.

“It’s perfect,” I say. “You’re perfect.”

“Thank you, sweetie.” Mom giggles like a little girl. She loves a compliment almost as much as Jessica.

“What do you think about sports, Mom?”

“Your grandmother had a cancerous mole removed. You can’t be too careful.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Spots. You have to be vigilant. Cancer runs in our family,” Mom says.

“I said sports , Mom. You know, like tennis?”

“Please, Andrew. I know what tennis is.”

“What do you think about me playing sports?”

The pan sizzles. Mom shakes it hard.

“What sport do you want to play?” Mom says.

“Something that would help me get some exercise.”

“You mean like bowling?”

“Bowling, baseball, whatever.”

“What about your asthma?”

The asthma again. My whole family is waiting for me to die. Unbelievable.

“I haven’t had an asthma attack in years,” I say.

Not a full-scale one, at least. Mini ones. Two puffs on the inhaler and I’m fine. But I don’t want Mom to remember any of that.

“I don’t know,” Mom says. “It worries me.”

Mom removes the sausages, placing them on paper towels to drain the fat. I wish I could drain my fat. I’d lay on a giant, triple-absorbent towel at 306.4 lbs., then stand up at 180.

“I want to play so I can lose some weight,” I say. “That’s all it is.”

It’s hard for Mom to argue with reasoning like that.

“Why don’t you try walking to school in the mornings?” Mom says.

“I hate walking to school.”

“My point is, you don’t have to play sports in order to lose weight. You could do something less dangerous. Maybe you could work out with your sister.”

Jessica speed walks around the neighborhood. Mom doesn’t know it, but she puts weights on her ankles under her pants so she’ll burn extra calories. Sometimes she wears them in the house, too, but she puts her socks over them so we won’t notice.

“Forget it,” I say. “I’m sorry I asked.”

“Don’t yell at me,” Mom says. “I’m worried about you. Remember, I’m the one who rushed you to the hospital when you had an attack.”

“That was when I was eight!”

“You had to get an emergency shot of adrenaline. Remember?”

“I remember.”

“Your father wasn’t around. He was working. No surprise. But I was there, Andy. I saw what can happen.”

Mom drops raw, pink pork into the pan and it sizzles in protest.

I have the consent form in my back pocket, but I don’t even bother to take it out.

“Slow your roll,” Coach says as I jog onto the field. He holds out his hands like he wants something.

“What?” I say.

“I didn’t get your form. In my mailbox by ten a.m., latest. That’s what I told you.”

“I forgot it at home.”

“You forgot it, huh?” Coach scratches his chin. “What else are you going to forget?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you going to forget to show up for games?”

“No.”

“Will you forget the plays?”

I don’t know what the plays are, but I say, “No, Coach.”

“Maybe you’ll forget to protect your quarterback? The bad men will come running at you, and you’ll start to breathe fast and your little heart will go pitter-patter in your chest, and you’ll forget that you’re a football player. Is that what I can expect from you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“The form is signed, right?”

“Of course.”

“Bring it tomorrow,” Coach says.

“Will do,” I say.

But there’s no way I can bring it tomorrow. Mom won’t sign, and Dad won’t sign without Mom. Maybe Coach will get busy with other things and he’ll forget. Maybe I can stage a Mission Impossible– style break-in, steal the file cabinet, and drop it in the Charles. Maybe we’ll have a late season nor’easter and the school will be destroyed—

“Zansky!”

“What is it, Coach?”

“Wake up, son. I’m talking to you.”

“I’m wide awake.”

“You don’t have the epilepsy, do you? My cousin’s son had the epilepsy. The boy used to fall asleep on his feet. One time he rode his bike off the side of a parking garage, didn’t know it until he hit the ground.”

“It’s not epilepsy. I just think a lot.”

“You know what thinking does to a football player? It gets you killed. I don’t need you thinking. I need situational awareness.”

“I’ll work on it,” I say.

“That’s the right attitude. Now get out there.”

Do you know what a center does?

Get this.

I crouch down like a sumo wrestler, take the ball in my right hand while I lean on my left knee. O. Douglas bends over behind me, and he kind of puts his knuckles up against my butt, and he screams a whole bunch of numbers until he gets to “Hike!” It doesn’t even sound like “hike” when he says it. He has his own style. Something more like “Haaa-eeee!”

A guy puts his hands on your ass and screams, “Haaa-eeee!” What would your reaction be?

Run like hell. Call the cops.

That’s not what the center does. The center leans back, leans into it. When O. screams, that’s my cue. I lift the ball, twist, and push it up and into his hands. That’s the snap.

O. says the snap is the starting point of all things. It’s the trigger of the gun.

But there’s one other little part to it. While I’m crouched down, there’s a huge, ugly guy standing three inches in front of me, waiting to kill me. The second the ball leaves my hands that guy smashes into my head.

Football. Good times.

Today after calisthenics and running, we set up for snap-and-pass drills. O. calls out some numbers then screams, “Haaa-eeee!” I snap the ball back… but instead of going into his hands, I fling it right past him onto the ground.

“Crap,” I say.

“Relax,” O. says. “You’ll get it.”

O. calls another play. I snap again. This time I feel a crunch as the ball bangs into the tips of his fingers. I see the Neck shaking his head like I’m a lost cause.

Maybe I am.