The Crazy Horse Electric Game by Chris Crutcher Page A

feeling like something really important has died and you need to be able to mourn it; to grieve. Not many of us do that well. I think I can help with that.”
    Cyril’s closeness, his offer of what seems like real compassion, embarrasses Willie a little, but it’s also a powerful draw. He doesn’t know how to respond.
    Cyril winks at him. “So. I’ll see you next week, right?”
    Willie nods. “Right.”
    Cyril stands and gathers his folders off the desk, stuffing them into a pack sack behind his chair, then swings the sack around one shoulder. “One more thing,” he says. “I know you’ve thought of suicide. You’d be crazy if you hadn’t; then I’d really have my work cut out for me. I need to ask a favor.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œYeah. If the idea gets serious, you call me, okay? If I were the best therapist in the world, they wouldn’t have me out here in the backwater living out of a duffel bag. I don’t think my professional reputation could handle losin’ you right now; besides, I kind of like you, so don’t you go makin’ me look bad, okay? You get in trouble, you call me. Agreed?”
    â€œAgreed,” Willie says. He has thought of suicide. Seriously. And it’s scary.
    Out in the parking lot, as Willie limps toward his mother’s car, he hears Cyril holler, “Willie, my boy!” and looks back.
    â€œThem there school folks will put you in Special Ed over my dead body.”

CHAPTER 8
    The whistle blows to call time and Willie is off the bench with his six-pack of Gatorade and a dry towel. The girls huddle around Coach Williams and Willie hands them the plastic bottles and offers the towel unobtrusively while the coach outlines the play she wants run—designed to get Jenny free on the wing for a last-second shot that will tie the game. Willie stands back from the huddle, across from where Jenny is concentrating on Coach Williams’ every word. She’s to cut off a screen on the left baseline, move diagonally across the key for the pass, and take the quick turnaround jumper from ten to twelve feet, a shot she must be eighty percent on tonight. The girls form a knot with their hands in the middle of the huddle, pump once with a loud “Let’s do it!” and break. Willie’s stomach danceswith anticipation as the girls bring the ball in, and he’s aware that something nagging down deep in him wants Jenny to blow it. He shakes the feeling away, murmuring, “Come on, Jen. Come on, Jen,” under his breath. Jenny starts high and knifes in for the baseline as the ball comes in bounds, plants her foot and cuts back as Denise Caulder sets a perfect pick, scraping off Jenny’s defender, who is on her like glue. Jenny takes the pass from the point guard on top with two seconds left, fakes right, spins left and lets loose a rainbow at the buzzer. She knows it’s good as it leaves her fingertips and doesn’t even watch it go in; simply turns and walks toward the bench as the crowd erupts. In overtime the girls walk away with it by eight points.
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    Willie lingers in the darkened locker room, picking up towels and gathering uniforms for washing, with only the light from the thirty-watt bulb above the manager’s cage to illumine the room. The girls have showered and gone; Jenny waits just outside the door in the gym, making small talk with the school janitor, who patiently waits to lock up. Willie wishes he didn’t know why he’s stalling; why he can’t go out there and congratulate Jen on a great game and just be with her. But he does know why.
    â€œYou gonna polish the lockers or what?” Jenny is standing at the door, silhouetted against the dim light in the gym, duffel bag hanging easily to her side.
    â€œBe…right there,” Willie says, and mumbles something about fixing a nozzle on the shower.
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    â€œSo what did you think?” Jenny