Over the End Line Read Free

star. Then I'd get my rightful playing time. And with more playing time I'd score eight, nine, maybe even ten or eleven goals a season. Then it'd be a good year. And when I was really thinking crazy, I wondered if at another school
I
could be the Kyle Saint-Claire of the upcoming senior class, while some other guy would be its Jonathan Fehey. Short of that, could I at least be on equal footing with the others, or—as was my reality at Millburn—would I be a casualty of an omnipotent ranking system beyond my control?
    Jacob's Ladder.
    That's what it's called.
    The rumor is that someone thought the wretched lost souls of our class should be "given their due." So, at the end of our sophomore year, a ladder was drawn on a sheet of paper. The wretched lost souls were hung from the lowest rungs; those in the crowd from the highest rungs; the rest of our class, somewhere in between. The hierarchy had been there all along. Now it had been made real. At least on paper.
    They said the original and only copy of the ladder was hidden in the stacks on the second floor of the town library, neatly folded inside a book so obscure it would never be borrowed. But it's all a mystery. Or a myth. It's kind of like the Bible in that way. I mean, does anyone really know who wrote the Bible? Yet millions live by its words, if only to pass judgment on others. The same was true with the ladder. The creator intended to be anonymous, and through that anonymity, gave the ladder authority.
    But these vagaries don't imply that the ladder's existence is in question. It's not. It's tangible, even if it can't be held and examined. It's the material from which our class's social fabric is woven, securing the fate of each of us. And don't mistake my frustration for resignation. A thousand times I've thought,
I'm better than that.
In fact, every day of my junior year, I walked the crowded hallways and sat in the classrooms, praying that something, somehow, might change—hoping against hope that I might be moving up a rung or two, that someone in the crowd might recognize that I'm more than where the ladder—
    Glass shattered.
    "Damn it," I heard my mom say.
    "You all right?"
    She let out a long sigh. "Just being clumsy."
    "Need help?"
    "I'm fine."
    Holding on to the countertop, my mom picked up the glass pieces, then tore off a handful of paper towels to soak up the wine. She had a slightly bothered look on her face. From more than just spilled wine. Was she thinking about my dad? A strange thought, but the first that came to mind. I think about him sometimes. I don't remember much, though. I only knew him for a short time, when I was a little kid, before he left us. I suppose I should be thankful for any time I had with him. I've kept some of his stuff. Rather, I've taken things that my mom stored away in the attic or hid in the secret drawer of her vanity. A watch with his initials and the date 3-5-1974 engraved on the back. A light blue button-down shirt he wore to work. Ticket stubs from a Cosmos-Rowdies NASL game he took me to.
    Thinking about my dad is like opening my eyes in the middle of the night and not being able to distinguish dreams from reality. So I try to fit these vague memories together, like puzzle pieces, with the hope of seeing some kind of truth. A bigger picture. But that's never really worked.
    I wondered how often my mom thought about him. She's never said anything, except once when we were driving down the parkway to my aunt's house for a holiday dinner. She told me her life with him, for a time, was nice.
Nice.
That was it, nothing more. I always thought she said it just to appease me, because when I looked at her eyes, I saw something that she never revealed in words. Pain.
    I've asked questions like, What does "nice" mean? Was it ever better than that? Why isn't he here? But no one is around to hear me, and so the questions remain lost in the silence between my mom and me, and I go back to being an only child of a