Painting the Black by Carl Deuker Page A

ended.
    I chewed on the ice at the bottom of the cup. Fifteen more minutes passed. One of the workers came over. Did I want a pizza or a sandwich or another Pepsi? I shook my head. He wiped the table clean. I waited a couple more minutes, then slid out of the booth and walked home.
    It was after midnight, so my parents were both in bed. I could hear my father snoring as I tiptoed past their room and upstairs to my own. I turned on the radio, lay back, and thought. I hadn’t been up there five minutes when I heard a car pull up in front of Josh’s house.
    I slipped over to the window and pulled back the curtain. It was Jamaal Wilsey’s red Pontiac Sunbird. A door popped open. Josh got out. He pounded the roof of the car with his open hand twice. Wilsey sped off, honking his horn and cranking up the stereo.
    I won’t say I wasn’t mad at Josh, because I was. Who wouldn’t be? Godfather’s had been his idea, not mine. But I was mad at myself, too. Mad for being so stupid. Because I knew what had happened. I’d known it the whole time I was sitting at Godfather’s.
    You win a game and your teammates are your whole world. Your parents don’t count; your girlfriend doesn’t count; and some guy you threw a baseball to in the summer doesn’t count. You want to be with the guys who played.
    I pictured myself sitting at that center table of the cafeteria with Josh and all his football buddies, and I cringed. The whole thing was like one of those “What’s Wrong with This Picture?” puzzles. Only this puzzle wasn’t funny, because
I
was what was wrong. I was the fish flying in the sky; I was the square tire on the shiny new car. How could I have made myself so ridiculous?
    I took a personal inventory then. Baseball was what I was pointing for, so I looked at myself the way a baseball coach would. It was pretty depressing. I was out of shape—slow, weak, stiff—not exactly the guy you’d build your team around. There was only one good thing. Baseball season was five months off.

10
    The next morning I got up right away instead of lying around. I dressed, brushed my teeth, and cleaned up a little. When I got downstairs my parents were sitting down to breakfast. “You’re up early,” my father said, surprised. I shrugged.
    My mother wanted to make me eggs, but I was in a hurry. I mixed up some of that instant oatmeal that tastes okay so long as you don’t have it too often. My parents sat sipping their coffee as I ate.
    â€œHow was the game?” my father asked.
    â€œGood,” I said, shoveling in the oatmeal. “We trounced them.”
    â€œAnd Josh?”
    â€œHe was great.”
    â€œGlad to hear it.”
    I finished the oatmeal, took my bowl to the sink, washed it up.
    â€œHave you got any plans for today?” my mom asked.
    â€œI thought I might lift some weights,” I said, “stretch out, maybe find the rowing machine and work out on it. That sort of stuff.”
    My dad’s eyes lit up. “Good for you,” he said. “Good for you. I’m not sure where the rowing machine is anymore. But I know the weights are down in the basement.”
    So that’s where I went, even though I hate it down there. The walls aren’t finished off like in most basements, and we’ve had rats more than once. It smells damp and earthy, and if you’re standing by the furnace when the gas ignites, you feel as though a ball of fire is coming your way.
    The weights and the weight bench were tucked away in a back corner. I took a rag and wiped away about a million spider webs, then I cleared a space in the middle of the basement for the bench.
    Like most guys, I’d lifted off and on—mostly off—since I was twelve. And like most guys, bench pressing was all I’d ever cared about. I’d about break my back trying to heave some load of iron up, the whole time fantasizing about huge biceps,