Winger (19 page)

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.

Of course I was crushed, but I knew better than to say anything or try to plead with Coach. That’s just something you never do on the sideline of a game. At least Bags was wearing number sixteen and I got to keep the eleven, so everyone knew who the real left wing was. That’s how numbers work in rugby: a player doesn’t pick his number,
his position on the team determines that, and it’s something that never gets messed with. So all I could do was watch the game start from the sideline and just hope that by some miracle I’d get a chance to sub in.

Joey was standing there with us when Coach M made his decision, and I could see he was upset about the call, because he looked like he felt sorry for me too. But he shook Bags’s hand and said, “I’ll be looking for you out there,” and then he said, “Sorry, Ryan Dean, Coach is just being careful,” and he tapped the bandage on my head.

“I know that, Joey, but I still totally hate JP.”

“You remember how I told you to get your shit together? Well, Megan couldn’t stop talking about you last night. So when’s it going to happen, Ryan Dean?”

Then Joey ran off to his spot on the field, and all I could do was watch the game begin.

The worst part of it, worse than Joey’s scolding—because I knew he was right—was that it was the kind of game I love to play in. Our teams were so evenly matched, and every time it looked like a score was about to happen, the other team would crank up its defense and force a turnover. So it went that way, scoreless, for almost the entire thirty-five-minute half, and then finally JP got called on a dangerous tackle and Sacred Heart scored a penalty kick just as the half ended, to go up 3–0. And I was kind of glad that JP was the one who gave up those points, because everyone could see how terrible he felt about it.

Bastard.

In rugby, halftime only lasts five minutes and the players are not allowed to leave the field. And unlike other sports, there are no substitutions where a player can go out and come back in, which, I think, is one of the reasons the football team hated us so much—because rugby players had to be in such better condition than players in just about any other sport. During halftime, though, Coach brought the team in and said, “Bags is coming out. Ryan Dean, mind your head,” and that absolutely made my day.

Joey shook my hand, and I pulled him close to me and whispered, “Look, I swear I will take care of the Megan thing as soon as I can. Just get me the ball.”

“Okay,” he said.

And he did. About five minutes into the half, Joey skipped the ball past both of our centers, right into my hands, and all I had to do was beat the opposing winger, who had no chance of catching me. I centered the ball right between the posts and put it down to score a try, and I did think about Annie as soon as I got to my feet.

Seanie was our team’s kicker, and he scored the conversion, so PM went up 7–3. We chest bumped each other after his kick, and Seanie laughed, saying, “I think that’s the gayest thing I’ve ever done.”

And I said, “No, it’s not even close. You wrote me a haiku
and
you asked me how my balls were yesterday, remember?”

The score stayed locked at 7–3, and we ended up winning the game.

We had to shower and change back into our ties before the postgame
social. The food was great, and the best part of the afternoon was that the Sacred Heart boys all had cell phones and Coach let us borrow them to call our parents and tell them about the game.

I borrowed the phone from the number fourteen winger, the boy I outran to score my try, and he was real nice about it too, but he did promise they’d even it up against us when we played them during the regular season.

And yes, cell phones apparently can be used to dial directly into hell, because my call went something like this:

MOM
: Hello?

RYAN DEAN WEST
: Hi, Mom. It’s me, Ryan Dean.

I always said that on the phone, like there was someone else who might call her “Mom,” even though I don’t have any brothers or sisters.

MOM
: Oh my God, baby. Are you hurt again? How’s your head?

I was never allowed to call during the week. PM rules.

RYAN DEAN WEST
: I’m fine, Mom.

I wasn’t about to say anything about the Band-Aid-on-the-balls thing. God! Who would ever have the guts to talk about something like that with
their mom
?

RYAN DEAN WEST
(
cont.
): I’m calling from our game. We won. I scored a try.

MOM
: Your dad’s going to be so happy to hear about that.

RYAN DEAN WEST
: Is Dad there?

MOM
: No, sweetie. He’s in New York.

Then she sounded really serious.

MOM
(
cont.
): Ryan Dean, how did you get a phone?

RYAN DEAN WEST
: Well, I just wanted to tell you, Mom, ’cause Coach is letting us use the other boys’ phones today since we’re not at school. But I wanted to let you know, and to say thanks to you and Dad for letting me go stay with Annie this weekend.

MOM
: Oh. Ryan Dean?

RYAN DEAN WEST
: What?

MOM
: Is that why you wanted to talk to Dad?

Awkward silence.

MOM
(
cont.
): Do you need to ask him . . . about . . .
girl things
? Because I spoke with your father in New York, and so yesterday I FedExed you a box of condoms and a pamphlet about, you know, how to have sex the first time. You should be getting it this afternoon, sweetie.

You know . . . I have lived my entire life and never once,
not one time
, have I ever talked to my mother about “condoms” and “how to have sex the first time.” I felt my ears turning red. I am such a fucking loser. My life is hell. No—worse than that. My life is a Band-Aid on my ballsack.

RYAN DEAN WEST
: No! Please, God . . . . Tell me you did not do that . . . . Mom? FUCK!!!

Okay. I’ll be honest. I do not say “fuck” to my mom. During the
ensuing and second awkward silence, I spend a moment seriously thinking about killing myself.

MOM
: Well, you should ask your friend if she would like to visit Boston sometime.

“Your friend.” Ugh. Oh, yeah, Mom, just stock up on the rubbers and porn.

RYAN DEAN WEST
: Okay, Mom.

I realized how deeply I hated talking to my mom ever since I became a teenager. And if there’s a more potent deterrent to perversion than the Niagara Falls of razor-sharp ice shards poured down your pants, it has got to be talking to my mom about “condoms” and “how to have sex the first time.”

RYAN DEAN WEST
(
cont.
): Well, tell Dad I said hi. I should probably go now, Mom.

MOM
: I love you, Ryan Dean.

RYAN DEAN WEST
: (
Garbled, so hopefully the boy next to him doesn’t understand
) Iloveyatoomom. Bye.

Click.

I suddenly felt so
dirty
.

THE SOCIAL BEGAN WINDING DOWN
a little after four o’clock, and we moved through the cafeteria shaking hands and migrating out toward the bus for our long ride back to Pine Mountain.

Seanie and I were among the first to leave. I don’t think either of us really paid much attention to the group of four boys who were waiting around for us by the bus. If we had, we surely would have noticed that they were not Sacred Heart kids, because they weren’t dressed in ties and slacks.

They were just scrub kids from Salem, out to watch a rugby game, I guessed.

As Seanie stepped ahead of me onto the bus, one of the boys said, “Congratulations. Good game.”

“Thanks,” I said. I put my foot up on the first step into the bus.

“I’m waiting to say hi to my cousin,” the boy said. “He’s on your team. Joey Cosentino. Is he coming out?”

I turned around and saw Joey and Kevin leaving the cafeteria.

“He’s right back there.” I hitchhiked a thumb over my shoulder.

Then the four boys walked back to where Joey was, and I watched them, but it didn’t look like Joey was expecting them at all. In fact, Joey looked startled when he saw them. And the next thing I knew,
all hell broke loose and someone yelled to look out because the kid had a knife in his hand.

I’ve seen people do some pretty stupid things in my life, but trying to jump a rugby player in front of his whole team has to be about the stupidest. One of the boys ran off right away. I saw Chas going after him, but the punk had too much of a lead on Chas, so I thought I’d help him out, which was also pretty stupid considering my stitches and that other injury I’d been trying to forget, but couldn’t, because I felt the sting of pain every time I moved my right leg.

I caught the kid and took him down right on the wet black asphalt of the Sacred Heart driveway. I didn’t get hurt, because he was wearing a down jacket and I landed on top of him, but he scraped up his face pretty good when he hit the pavement. I just pinned him down and tried to not get his blood all over my dwindling supply of school shirts, and Chas caught up to us and kicked the kid twice in the ribs. I know he broke something when he did it, too, because Chas was never one to go soft on anyone if he decided to actually go that far.

“What the fuck are you thinking?” Chas said, but the kid didn’t answer, he just gasped and bled. A lot. And Chas continued, “You’re hardly bigger than Winger. I should just piss on you, you stupid dumb fucker.”

Well, that really didn’t do much for my self-esteem, but I said, “Let me get off him first if you do, Chas.”