Nothing to Lose Read Free

It’s one of those photo-booth pictures, maybe even from the fair. In the picture I’m about twelve, wearing this so-cool-you-want-to-smack-me expression, which, after a year with the carnival, I now know is universal to all twelve-year-old suckheads everywhere. Mom looks happy. We’re pre-Walker.
    I’ve looked at it so many times that now, when I think of my mother, I can only see how she looked in the photo. I wonder if she ever really existed. Maybe I wish she didn’t.
    I stare at it a second longer before shoving it under my mattress. Eleven other guys sleep in this trailer, and there’s not much you can do to keep stuff from getting gone through.
    I wish I had a photo of Kirstie, too. But it’s okay. I remember her. Kirstie was a carny too, one I loved last year, maybe still love. She was the one who started me on the road I’m on now. If I can find her, maybe she’ll help me figure out where I’m going.

LAST YEAR
     
    Once in driver’s ed we saw this movie about hydroplaning. That’s when the road’s wet and the water picks up your car and makes it skid. The movie said the reason hydroplaning causes accidents is people fight it. It’s instinct to try not to skid.
    But what you really need to do is the opposite. Accept it. You want to be safe, just keep your hands on the wheel and turn into the skid.
    I was in a skid those weeks before I left—with Walker, my mom, my friends. And if I fought it, I’d crash and burn.
    I fought it.
    Monday, after I talked to Mom, I went to Coach Lowery’s office to tell him I couldn’t play football.
    Coach reacted with the concern and compassion you’d expect from an educator.
    “You’re shittin’ me, right? You gotta be shittin’ me.”
    “I wouldn’t … do that. Coach.”
    Coach’s office was full of wrestling trophies and smelled like old sweat and the Clorox they used on the floor. He ran his hand through hair that wasn’t there, then banged his fist on the desk.
    “You waltz in here and say, ‘I’m quitting, Coach. Sorry.’ Like it’s nothing. Like the Dolphins are nothing.”
    “It’s not nothing, Coach. It’s—”
    “Darn right! I was going to start you at QB this fall. Is that nothing?”
    I gaped at him. Starting quarterback! And only going into junior year. Usually positions like that went to seniors, and the best I could’ve hoped for was backup. I’d been playing football since Pop Warner, bumming rides off people, even walking to practice, all for this—and for the chance of catching the eye of some recruiter and getting out of here once and for all.
    Not to mention the game itself. Most guys I knew played because their dads pushed them or to get girls. But I never had a dad to push me like that. And girls—they started calling me back when I still only wanted to play G.I. Joes. No, it was the game, the feel and smell of the ball on my hands. The high—better than beer or even the X I’d tried at a party once—the high of being tackled by a bigger, faster player, but you’d already made the perfect pass.
    Then I remembered why I couldn’t play.
    “I’m sorry, Coach. I am.”
    “You on drugs?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Because your work in history’s been for shit. I been passing you through—since I know you’re trying hard—but that can’t go on forever.”
    Message, Loud and Clear: He’d flunk me in history if I quit. For a second my mind screamed, Tell him! Tell him the truth! But no. I’d already tried that once, telling a teacher. Mr. Zucker had reported it to the authorities as apparently required by state law. But when the social worker showed up, a tired-looking woman, Walker had explained it away, saying I was having a little trouble “adjusting.” He thanked her for her interest and said he’d take care of it. After she left, he had. Mom hadn’t come out of her room for two days.
    “I’m sorry,” I told Coach again.
    “Wanna clue me in on what makes the best player I have decide to throw away his life? And