Page 51 of Playworld
“To amputate your leg,” said Cliffnotes.
“Where you at?” Tanner asked. His tone was serious, solicitous.
“One two-seven…ish.”
Tanner wagged his foot. “That’s tough,” he said.
The bell rang. I swigged a mouthful of water from the hallway’s fountain, which I swished around my tacky mouth, allowing my tongue, dry as a dandelion’s corona, to be mercifully submerged. Then I spit in a dribbling stream.
I could rely on my colon’s clockwork, and at the end of first period, right at the 9:15 bell, its Pavlovian ring shunted my morning shit into place. I had a free period before me, and I hurried to my favorite bathroom on the upper school’s second floor. I had high hopes for the turd’s heft—for one of those transcendent, evacuative experiences. But mine was a pebbled bit of business, not enough to fill even the bowl’s throat. I didn’t shy from marching back to the locker room to weigh myself. I had lost almost a half pound since breakfast. I decided to capitalize on my progress and work out, even though my bones seemed sucked of marrow and, down the hallway, the cafeteria’s scents—canned ravioli and broccoli steamed so soft it was nearly white—withered my resolve.
In the weight room I removed my tie, untucked my shirt, and lay on the bench; the space was sauna hot and dimly lit, so I closed my eyes for a minute. The dark made it easier to ignore my stomach’s burbling, my tongue’s sand-dipped stickiness. I opened my eyes and placed the key in the slot; after just a few reps, I had to contort myself beneath the bar, twisting, bridging at the neck, and then I let the plates slam home. I laced my fingers together over my chest and promptly fell asleep.
It was a deep doze, anchor to seafloor, fluke sunk well beneath the sand, and I felt the entire nautical calm of this nap: the space between boat and bill, palm and prow, floating and submerged, the broiler’s thrum creating a submarine silence. There was a boy’s voice just a flight above me, like a gull’s sharp and becalming call, and then nothing again except the ambient noise. I might have slept there for several hours had Kepplemen not shaken me awake.
“Let’s go,” he said.
It was a fact that anger didn’t come naturally to him. Frustration, as now, and anxiety could stoke his temper. But true anger, the rage he might direct our way to elicit fear, this was always something of a put-on, a state into which he had to work himself. What he wielded most powerfully was approval, our desire for his approbation. He ambled ahead of me, swinging his arms more forcefully than was usual, as if he were disgusted, when really all he wanted, I was sure, was relief—he wanted to stop worrying about me. In its way, the experience was no different from when we rolled: it was about satisfying him, and I suffered the same inversion. I was ashamed I’d once again made Kepplemen feel so bad.
Back in the locker room, I stood naked and shivering as he weighed me. Kepplemen, once the balance finally fell, cupped his great beak in his hands so that his face was only his two large eyes. When he finally spoke, his mouth sounded as dry as mine. “Layer up,” he said. “We’re going outside.”
For the rest of the period, I jogged around the snow-covered turf. I was tempted to dive, mouth open and tongue first, onto its accumulation. The field’s length was oriented north-south; the chain-link fence surrounding it was perhaps thirty feet high and lacked only a guard tower. Along its northern perimeter, facing Boyd on Ninety-Seventh Street, was an apartment building fashioned of red brick that in design was a near copy of Lincoln Towers. Twenty stories tall, its balconies bisected the center of its unadorned facade; the thin white railings fronting them put me in mind of birdcages. I swung around, past the lower school, the old building, its brownstone closer in color to coal. Children watched me through the dormer windows; their teachers had called them away by the next lap. Kepplemen, standing out of sight by the entrance’s steps, his only added layer an absurdly long red-and-yellow scarf,encouragingly clapped his gloved hands as I passed him. Their muffled thumps were like a coxswain’s drum. I was miserable and freezing at first, but then something shifted, some invisible, inner spigot was turned, and working up a sweat, I felt flooded, briefly, with fluid and its attendant energy, so that my thirst was miraculously quenched. Soon Kepplemen waved me inside and, my torture ended, I enjoyed a relief that lasted until afternoon.
At practice, any mercy Coach felt for me disappeared. We started with wheelbarrows, taking our training partner’s ankles while he walked on his hands two lengths of the gym, and Coach paired me with Angel Rincodon, our 180-pounder. When we did piggybacks, he made me carry Max Ceto, who clocked in at 195. I was assigned to Ben Bonaci, our heavyweight, for sit-out drills. And when it came time to roll, I was fed first to the team’s lions—to Santoro and Freeman and Adler, who seemed to be determined to toy with me by securing positions I had to fight my way out of with maximum effort, body rides that forced me to carry their entire weight for the whole period, as if they were a carapace that I had not yet grown strong enough to support. Next I was offered to Kokra and Vrock, birds of prey who hooded me such that I was pinned over and over again. At practice’s end, sprawl drills. Belly empty, I thought I might puke. When we returned to the lockers, when I peeled the tape from the rubber suit this time, the fluid issuing from it seemed more vital. When I went to piss, urine sputtered into the bowl. Its color had darkened from rusty green to an ocher dust.
My teammates showered, dressed, and weighed themselves. Because I could not see them behind the bank of lockers, they left soft ghosts of their laughter there with me when they departed. I sat on the bench in my underwear, steadying myself until the dizziness I was experiencing stopped.
Pilchard was perched at the end of the bench, watching my expression with concern. He was naked but for a towel around his waist. His hair hung just above his eyes, which like mine were sunken and—I’d noticed in the bathroom’s mirror earlier—rimmed with purple. Coach, who was almost always last to leave, appeared from around the corner, strode between us, in a towel as well, and entered the showers.
“How close are you?” Pilchard asked.
It was difficult to lift my head to answer him. “Three pounds. More like four.”
Pilchard was sitting up very straight. He clutched his towel’s knot. The shower’s jet turned on and we could hear the water crashing around Kepplemen.
“You should suit up,” Pilchard said. “Skip rope in there.”
I shook my head. “I’m too tired.”
Steamed crawled along the ceiling. Kepplemen hawked and then spit, and the sound made both Pilchard and me tense up.
“Stay,” Pilchard said.
For an instant, he reminded me of Oren.
“I need to go,” I said.
—
I was grateful for the Mercedes’s warmth. For the heat blowing through its vents, to whose grilles I raised my iron palms. For the darkness, after I shut the passenger door; for the silence, as if the car’s thick steel not only sealed off all the city’s noise but that in my mind as well—the subway clatter of my thoughts, the cabs’ horns and buses’ roars, the relentless and ceaseless hurry of it all, and to where? Naomi sat back, ever so slightly, as if startled by my appearance. She asked, “What happened to you?”
I shrugged. I was furious but wanted to laugh. “I’m sucking weight.”
She didn’t know what I meant. She pressed her hand to the side of my face; she covered my ear, cheek, and temple with a firm pressure and then collected my hair between her fingers and, with her thumb, rubbed my forehead. I followed her arm’s path to her shoulder and rested my head there. “No fever,” she said, and kissed my scalp.
“Do you have anything to drink?” I asked. It was difficult to pry the question out of my mouth. My tongue seemed adhered to my jaw’s floor. She handed me her can of Tab, started the car, and drove while I contemplated it. I took a dangerously large swig, which I did not swallow but held and then swished over my teeth. I could feel, I was sure, every bubble of carbonation, and the lubrication was bliss. I lowered the window and spit it out.
Naomi found a parking space. She cut the engine. The West Side Highway’s traffic flickered through the barriers. New Jersey’s skylinesilently considered Manhattan: there was a mile of river between us, and I believed I could drink the Hudson to its bottom.