Worship You

Chapter Eight - Gazz

The day after I saw Cassie put Linda 7 in her place, I couldn't wait to pick her up in the morning, couldn't wait to see her coming down the street because in my head all night and that morning I could hear her saying, "'Cause I love you." Again and again and again, almost crazy. Like I can't do anything else, not eat not sleep until I see her and she says it again for real.

I waited but she never came. I don't have the words to describe it, waiting for her, waiting and not knowing. Waiting and she never shows up. Waiting not knowing what this means, except, yes, you were stupid enough to say it, to say I love you out loud to a girl and now she hates you, she doesn't fear you, she takes you for granted and so she disappears without a word, stands you up, leaves you hanging. And it's like knives in your stomach, it's like drinking acid, it's like... I don't know. It's not describable. So I won't try. Just let me say this, I started to sweat, not from heat or exercise, but from fear because if she did that to me, if she dumped me I didn't know what I would do. But it would be bad and it made me afraid. And so the sweat was running down my face and the sides of me and it wouldn't stop.

Finally I started the car and drove past Cassie's house. And saw Stan Cioukowsky leaving to go dig holes for the Power and Light. Cassie wasn't with him, the house was dark and something told me she was gone, so I didn't even check. I drove to the school.

You've heard the phrase, Rocked my World? So had I, but I didn't know what it meant. Because when I turned up the walkway into school and saw Cassie sitting on the wall next to Ron Gazowsky. Gazz looked bigger than usual and Cassie looked smaller. She was laughing at something Gazz said, which is crazy if you knew him at all, because he couldn't make a joke ever. Not on his best day. He's just too stupid to put one together. So Cassie was probably laughing at Ron Gazowsky, not his witty banter. Because to be fair Gazz was funny sometimes just not on purpose.

I saw them together and it rocked my world. Really. The ground seemed to tilt under me and I got dizzy and unbalanced. I felt like I was an ant in one of those glass box things, an ant farm. And a person had taken it and shaken it. My face was burning as I walked toward them. It must have been glowing purple red. I stopped a couple of paces away from them and just stared. I didn't believe what I saw. It couldn't be this.

Cassie kept laughing, although I was sure she knew I was standing there.

Ron finally looked at me and said, "Hey Harper! Where you been? Your girlfriend here couldn't find you this morning."

Cassie said, "I waited, David, but you never showed up."

"Where? Where were you waiting? Because I waited for you. I was there at 7:30!"

"I was waiting at the house. We said. Don't you remember?"

"No! We didn't say! I waited at the usual place."

Gazz stood up and loomed close the way he did when he wanted to make somebody aware of his size. He said, "Don't worry, I filled in for you." He was smirking and I wanted to tear him a brand new ass opening. But I told myself to calm down. And I pretended to smile.

Cassie said, "You know Ron, don't you David."

"Yeah. Me and Harper here are teammates, right, Harper? At least we were until he gave up the game." Gazz put his huge hand on my shoulder and squeezed. He would look like he was being friendly, but he was squeezing hard, pinching the nerve there and it hurt.

"Stand away from me, Ape," I said pushing him. It was like trying to move a wall of the school. I twisted and pulled my shoulder out of his paw hitting his hand away with my forearm and stepped back.

He got a little mad then, because I hit him hard, and I was one up now on the Who's Badder? You Or Me? scale.

"Hey," he said, "Don't call me that."

"Oh right, I know you don't like people to insult your family."

Gazz faced me now and lowered his face to look at me from under his eyebrows. He was trying to think about what would happen if he started to beat on me.

He had some calculating to do. First he could probably kill me if he cared to. He weighs a good fifty pounds more than I do and he's stronger than anyone in the county, just about. Except maybe that defensive end that plays for the Episcopal Prep School and who they recruited from Virginia or some place.

At that moment, Gazz knows he could kill me. In the end. Sooner or later.

But he also knows me and how vicious I can be. Once the coach was punishing the two of us by making us bash each other on the line of scrimmage over and over. We'd been at it for a long time, and I was exhausted and I knew that Gazz was going to take me apart soon. We went down on the line on all fours, too tired to get into the three point stance you're supposed to take. We're like a couple of dumb animals now, our faces just inches from each other, both of us breathing so hard flecks of white foamy spit are coming out of our mouths, beading up on the surface of the dry fine dust that passes for our practice field. I grabbed up a handful of that dust and when the coach blew the whistle I threw it in Gazz's eyes and blinded him. He stood straight up rubbing at his eyes with both hands and I speared him in the solar plexus with my hard hat. I really uncoiled on him and crushed his chest onto his heart and he fell like a tree. He lay there gasping and for a while I wondered if this was it, that he was going to die, and I was dead meat for the system at last. But he got over it. He's kind of indestructible.

(He got his own back of course, two days later, and I literally "didn't know what hit me." One moment cruising along, the whistle blowing the play dead and the next I was on my back looking up at the dark cloudy sky feeling like a puppet with its strings cut. After ten minutes or so they got me to my feet. I could walk all by myself after an hour.)

After I sucker-punched Gazz with the dirt that day, the coach was yelling "Whoa! Hold it! Hold it!" But he was kind of laughing at the same time, because in his theory, experiences like this are good for a young man. Because I had done this to the Great Gazz, blinded him and speared him in the heart, Gazz would become a lot better of a player, more "motivated." Which only means that Gazz would be just that little bit more homicidally insane come game time that Saturday.

So Gazz is mad at me now and Cassie is watching. But he knows that I play dirty, and that while he's killing me, he could hurt his knee or something else crippling could happen and he'll miss the last games of the year and that will keep him off the All-State Team. That would kill his chances at High School All-America and that will mean that Gazz cannot go to Notre Dame, the only ambition he's ever been able to form in his ape's brain.

Also, if Gazz beat me to death right there in front of the school he would probably be expelled or at least suspended and that would lead to no Notre Dame too.

So he doesn't do anything but look angry and shift his bulk from foot to foot.

And after a few tense seconds Cassie laughs. I never heard her laugh that loud. It was kind of a fake, loud bark. She said, "Relax, boys!" And took my arm and pulled me away.

"Bye Gazz," she called over her shoulder. I looked back and Gazz had a very puzzled look on his face, like a bull that doesn't know where to charge and just stands there head lowered trying to piece it all together.

"What was that about?" I said, meaning him and Cassie talking.

Cassie squeezed my arm and said, "Just testing out a theory I've had about guys."

"And?"

"I was one hundred percent correct."