One Shot Away Read online

  “Come on Trevor, it’s getting pitch-black,” calls his mother.

  Trevor gets in. Dammit!

  Harry London pulls out. He takes his eyes off the road and looks at Trevor in the rearview mirror. “I know what you’ve been thinking,” he says. “House to a motel. What a comedown. But I’ve already dumped ten grand into the place and I’ve got another five to back that up.”

  They drive on the truck route to the outskirts of town. They pass under the turnpike and follow a service road.

  “No one lives around here,” says Trevor.

  “Not yet,” says London, “but this town is growing.” He talks about some zoning change and his mother listens like it’s interesting, like he’s interesting.

  Finally, London swings a left turn over double yellow lines and hits a driveway hard, bouncing into a parking lot. “Don’t worry, this thing’s a tank,” he says.

  The motel is a one-story, open-ended rectangle with pea-green doors and a faded sign that reads SECRET KEEPERS, AC, POOL, VACANCY. London rolls in next to an old car with the hood lifted. An orange extension cord snakes from the engine into a motel room door.

  “Whose car is that?” asks his mother.

  “Oh, the battery is probably dead,” says London. “This isn’t the Marriott.”

  “It’s not even Motel Six,” says Trevor.

  London smiles. “And I’m not Donald Trump.”

  His mother wears a blue dress and stockings with black shoes. She clutches a pearl-colored purse that Trevor hasn’t seen in years. “Camille, that’s the office where you’ll work.” London looks toward a door marked “Office.”

  A drape parts in a window and an old man peers out. “He’s one of the permanents,” says London. “He’s harmless.”

  “I hope,” says Camille.

  “That’s the pool.” London points to a tarp weighted with bleach bottles and buckets of sand enclosed by a cyclone fence in front of the motel. The middle of the tarp sags under a brown puddle clotted with cans and fast-food containers. Someone swimming could wave to the traffic going by on the road. “Hasn’t had much use. I’m not going to kid anyone,” he says.

  “I’m sure it would be cute if it were fixed up,” says his mother.

  Trevor, standing a foot behind London, makes googly eyes at his mother. Hasn’t had much use? Are you kidding?

  Under a tin awning, which shelters the room doors, London separates a key from dozens of others on a large ring attached to a belt loop on his jeans. He pushes a door in with his shoulder and flicks on a ceiling light. The smell of paint hangs in the air.

  His mother enters on the toes of her shoes, as if the floor is swarming with mice. The room has a love seat and a double bed with a tan spread. Opposite the far window is an efficiency kitchen with a speckled Formica counter seared with gold burn marks from forgotten cigarettes. His mother leans over the counter and turns on the sink’s faucet. Water trickles and spits. She shuts it off, then lights a burner on the stove. “Electric ignition,” says London.

  Trevor wonders when he is going to wake and learn that this is a giant screwup. He can’t be moving to this place, off a highway, with old men peeping from the windows.

  “Camille, this is the bathroom.” London takes her hand. “It’s been cleaned since you last saw it.”

  The green enamel is worn off the tub. The toilet is missing a seat. “Don’t worry, I’ll make it cozy,” his mother whispers to Trevor.

  “Beyond those doors is your own room,” says London with a smile.

  “Go ahead,” his mother says quietly. She is also smiling.

  “Right through that door,” says London.

  Trevor opens the door and faces another door.

  “Keep going,” says London.

  He pushes the inner door open to the exact same room, the same couch, bed, and lamps.

  “Go look,” says London urging him on.

  Newspapers are scattered around the narrow space in front of the stove. Some are soaked with urine. A tan puppy races between his legs, then runs a circle around the room.

  “He’s half lab and half terrier,” says London.

  “He’s yours,” says Camille.

  London catches the puppy and picks him up. “Look at this, look at the size of his paws. He’s going to be a monster.” He hands him to Trevor.

  The puppy is as firm as a punching bag. His coat is like rabbit’s fur. “You didn’t have to do this,” says Trevor.

  London says something about every boy having a dog. Trevor follows them from his room into the courtyard with the puppy licking his cheek. Trevor knows he’s just been bought off but feels something come alive inside him, some happiness he didn’t know was there.

  Late that night, the puppy is whining in the kitchen. Trevor finds his mother in her pajamas at the table with the puppy on her lap. Her eyes are red. She’s been crying. He pulls a chair next to her and sits. “We’re moving on Saturday,” she says.

  Black bags for the Goodwill drop box are piled against the cabinets. Already their essentials—pots and pans, dishes, bedding, photo albums, clothes—are stacked in the living room.

  Trevor takes the puppy from her.

  “What are you going to name him?” she asks.

  “Maybe Whizzer. It’s a wrestling move Dad taught me. It’s used to counter a single leg takedown.”

  “Whizzer,” she smiles. “That’s a good name for an untrained puppy.” She takes his hand. “I’m taking a chance on Harry London. He’s a businessman, but he’s not a bad man.”

  “I don’t want this messing with wrestling. I’ve got to make varsity.”

  “Last year your father had to talk you into going to practice.”

  “Because I was a loser.”

  “No you weren’t.”

  “But I was, I am. Dad would look at me and his chin would wrinkle, and I knew what he was thinking: ‘Why is my son on the JV team? Who’s this loser?’”

  “Trevor, he never thought that. You have that in your head.”

  “Did you know the JV matches are held in the freshmen gym? There aren’t any bleachers in that gym, not even a scoreboard. Instead of a time clock, someone throws a rolled towel on the mats when the periods are over. Dad had to stand with the fathers whose sons couldn’t make varsity. JV is for scrubs, and we were treated like scrubs.”

  “You’re father never complained.”

  “He didn’t have to, he’d just look at me.”

  “He was proud of you. You’re a good student.”

  “But he wanted me to be a good wrestler,” says Trevor, his voice choked with disappointment. “A real wrestler.”

  She puts her arms around him. “Then show him and I’ll be there for you.” Whizzer licks Trevor’s ear. “Who bought him?” he asks.

  “I chose him because he looked like he needed love,” she says.

  “London paid for him?”

  “That doesn’t matter.” She squeezes his thigh.

  “Don’t you see, London is getting into our lives. That’s what this is all about. He likes you.”

  “He’s not as terrible as you make him sound.”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “I don’t have anyone else to trust.”

  Her words hurt. He wants to say, You have me. “Don’t take anything else from him,” says Trevor. “What we get from here on, we earn.”

  Jimmy

  POPS RUMBLES UP IN HIS PICKUP AND BRAKES IN FRONT OF THE gym steps. Jimmy, still sweaty from practice, opens the door and hops in. The cab reeks of beer and cigarettes. Elvis’s “Blue Christmas” plays on the radio. “Made captain,” announces Jimmy.

  “Was it unanimous?”

  “No, Diggy probably voted for himself and then you’ve got Bones and Gino.”

  “Captain Jimmy O’Shea!” Pops’s smile shines in the dark truck. “I like that.” He punches the headliner of the truck and dust falls like snow. It feels good to make his father smile. “Now all you have to do is win them all
and you’ll be on your way to the States.”

  “Geez, Pops, you make it sound like there’s nothing to it. I don’t even have win number one under my belt.”

  “Don’t worry. You will.”

  But Jimmy is worried. At his height, he can’t pack on muscle and stay 160. Sometimes he feels too skinny, almost breakable. He’d like to explain to Pops that going undefeated again with every wrestler in his weight class gunning for him is going to be intense to the max. Bones called it “Mission-NOT possible.” Nick Masters did it, but he was a machine; the perfect height, the perfect weight, a natural.

  Jimmy leans back, knowing explaining this to Pops is like trying to tell him to clean up his truck. All Pops knows is Jimmy went undefeated last year, until the States. That’s all anyone remembers. Now the team, the school, even Greco expects him to do it again.

  They cut through a new development of suburban homes, with three-car garages and brick mailboxes shaped like Egyptian pyramids. Pops slows the truck. “I put the roof on that monstrosity.”

  Jimmy barely glances at the high-angled roof; instead he pictures a thick muscle-head wrestler waiting on the other side of the mat.

  Pops speeds through an industrial park where the air smells like the inside of a new sneaker, then passes the faded sign for Bruney Town. Everyone in Molly Pitcher calls the square mile of identical aluminum-sided houses “Puny Town.” The O’Sheas’ house is concealed behind overgrown hedges that block the sidewalk.

  The house has five rooms, not counting the bathroom and the hall closet. His brother Ricky’s bedroom doesn’t have a window or a door. They call it “the alcove,” but his mother says it still counts as a room, that she “couldn’t live in four rooms.” She tacked a carpet with camels, pyramids, and obelisks over the opening to give Ricky some privacy. He used to be into King Tut.

  Oil stains shine in the street where Jimmy’s mother’s minivan is usually parked. Pops pulls in the driveway. “Give me a hand with some stuff in the truck.”

  Jimmy jumps from the truck and heads for their house.

  “Don’t you dare,” yells Pops.

  Jimmy whacks the front door open into the wall, sending his mother’s framed Bruce Springsteen T-shirt crashing to the top of the television. He picks it up.

  “Is it broken?” Ricky’s face glows in the television’s blue light. He’s eating Cocoa Puffs from the box, one hand tapping on his laptop. He’s nine, in the fourth grade, a cool little brother, smart and everything, but he stays in the house a lot.

  “No.” Jimmy hangs it back on the nail.

  Pops pushes the door open. “Thanks,” he says loudly.

  “Don’t thank me,” says Jimmy. “That’s your mess.”

  “Ricky, where’s your mother?” asks Pops.

  “I don’t know.”

  Pops puts his hands under Ricky’s arms and snatches him off the couch like he’s made of twisted pipe cleaners. Face to face, Pops says, “Think!”

  Ricky’s eyes are wide and white. “She didn’t tell me.”

  “Was she all painted with makeup?”

  “Pops, stop.” Jimmy wants to grab him. “Please.”

  Pops goes into his bedroom. Boots hit the wall and his mattress groans. Soon he’ll be snoring. “That’s the drink talking,” says Jimmy.

  “I don’t like when he picks me up. He’s always picking me up. I think he does it to show me he’s bigger than me.”

  “Pretty soon you’ll be too heavy. You’ll give him a rupture.”

  “What’s a rupture?”

  “That’s when your balls hit the floor like a B-fifty-four, that’s a rupture.” Jimmy messes his hair. “Did ya eat?”

  Ricky shakes the cereal box.

  “Come on. I’ll make you something.” Jimmy finds a can of spaghetti and meatballs in the kitchen cupboard. He dumps the contents on a plate and sticks it in the microwave. After a minute, he smells the canned sauce. His stomach growls. He checks the refrigerator: pickles, applesauce, ketchup, an ancient-looking Tupperware of mashed potatoes.

  On the bottom shelf is a strip of lutefisk. It looks like a slab of bloodless putrefied zombie meat. “I got it for nothing,” Pops had said, opening a wax paper package. “It’s a Norwegian specialty. You cook it the right way and it’s supposed to be delicious.” None of the O’Sheas were big fish eaters except their mother, Trish. She found a recipe online and boiled the white gunk. The house stunk like a cat died in a toilet. No one could eat it.

  “Ricky, you want some lutefisk?” asks Jimmy.

  Ricky grabs his throat as if he’s choking.

  Jimmy serves his brother a steaming plate of spaghetti. With a butter knife, he chisels a package of hot dogs from the freezer.

  “Those are from the Ice Age,” says Ricky.

  Jimmy melts the freezer frost in the microwave. He tries to read the nutritional chart on the package, but the gluey price tag makes it impossible. “How many calories are in a hot dog?”

  Ricky shrugs. “All I know is if you eat a hot dog every day for a year, you’ll die.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Urban legend.” He smiles.

  They eat under the round ceiling light. Headlights from the highway behind the house flash across the cabinets.

  “You made it too hot,” says Ricky.

  “Wait for it to cool.”

  “Could you make some toast?”

  “You make it,” says Jimmy.

  Ricky doesn’t move. “You still like Roxanne?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I like a girl and she doesn’t like me.”

  “That’s because you’re too young to like girls. You’re supposed to be torturing them.”

  “Like how?”

  “I used to take their hats and run around the playground with them chasing me.”

  Ricky laughs. “That’s dumb. The girls in my class don’t even wear hats.”

  “You could invite her over to do homework,” says Jimmy.

  “She lives in the new development. The one they built over the sunflower fields.”

  Jimmy pictures the new development, with winding Belgian-block curbs and juiced-up houses that cost over a million each. “Meet her in the library then.”

  Ricky bites on his pencil. “I guess I could.” He goes back to his social studies book, open on the table. “I don’t see why I have to know this,” he says. “I mean the Magna Carta happened in twelve-fifteen.”

  “You mean it happened right after lunch?” asks Jimmy, smiling.

  “Yeah, funny, right. So funny I forgot to laugh.”

  Jimmy finishes his hot dogs and pulls his chair next to his brother’s.

  “I have to write a full page, actually write it with a pen,” says Ricky. “The teacher won’t let us print it off the computer.” Snores from the rear bedroom make them glance at each other. “I smelled weed from Ma’s bedroom today,” says Ricky. “She was talking in her baby voice about taking us to Disney.” Ricky grunts. “Like we’re ever going to go.”

  Another long snore. Ricky shuts his eyes and starts in on his pencil again.

  “Don’t worry, Pops is passed out for the night,” says Jimmy.

  Ricky shakes his head. “He could get up, right?”

  Jimmy

  A BREEZE RUFFLES THE LEAVES ALONG THE CURB. THE AIR IS CRISP and cold. Jimmy shivers and raises his hoodie. Today at Greco’s weigh-in, he was three over. Six-foot two. 163. He spits into the street. He once spit off a quarter pound. If only he could move up to 170. He’d be able to eat. Diggy could take 160, and Trevor would fit right into 152. But Jimmy could lose at 170. One weight class makes all the difference. At 160, Greco says Jimmy’s height is an advantage. “You’re lean, stripped, and ripped.” At 170, he’s screwed.

  He needs to play it safe. In ninth and tenth grade, his seasons were just above average. Then last season happened. On the mat, there was nothing except the next move, the strength he needed, the possibility of winning. In the battle, he spun, grabbed,
twisted, cranked, and listened for the whistle. His father made protein powder concoctions in their blender, mixing skim milk, ice, bananas, and strawberries. And Jimmy grew stronger. His muscles popped like rolls in an oven.

  He settles into a jog and tries to imagine his weight melting off his body. Coach Greco says wrestling is cerebral, physical, and strategic. The right weight makes the difference between winning and losing. Jimmy spits.

  He jogs into Roxanne’s development, named Washington’s Crossing, then into her cul-de-sac. Brick towers rise on each side of the driveway, topped by brass carriage lamps with real flames. Her Volvo, square and expensive, reflects the moon.

  Jimmy jogs around to the back of her house to a sweeping deck with redwood furniture. He calls her cell phone.

  Roxanne lets him in through the kitchen slider. She wears baggy sweats, a soccer shirt with faded numbers, and slippers. She looks fresh from the shower. Her naturally curly hair is wet, almost straight. Roxanne is like one of those American Girl dolls Jimmy’s seen in her room, except for a chipped front tooth that happened when she was mountain biking. Her parents want her to fix it, but she says she’s keeping it as a souvenir.

  The kitchen is as large as his entire house. Copper-bottomed pots hang from a rack above a granite-topped island.

  “Who is that?” yells her father.

  “Don’t tell him I asked you to come over. Act like you just showed up, unexpectedly, okay?” she whispers.

  “Am I talking to myself?” calls her father.

  “Jimmy,” she says, answering him.

  “Bring him in here.”

  “My father doesn’t like surprises,” she whispers.

  Jimmy follows her into the den and faces a humungous flat-screen playing the news. Her father mutes the sound, then gets up off a leather couch. Her mother reclines in an easy chair, pen in hand. Her lap is covered with papers. She’s an English teacher at the junior high. Ricky could have her in a couple of years.