Wing Jones(34)

Aaron picks me up in the middle of the night, at the end of my street. At first we don’t talk much; we sit in a cocoon of silence, the only sounds the engine humming to itself, the tires grumbling along the uneven asphalt. I don’t want to be the first one to talk. The first one to make it weird.

When the words do come, the third or fourth time I clamber into the front seat of his car, at first they’re about Marcus. How much we wish he were with us. How much he’d love late-night runs. I tell Aaron how I was following him when I broke my ankle as a little girl. He laughs, but in a nice way.

I ask him how it was quitting football. He clenches the steering wheel, knuckles going white. “It isn’t the same without him. No one can throw like him. I’ve been fumbling balls every practice.”

“What does the rest of the team say about him?” I think about how I try to make myself invisible when one of Marcus’s old teammates walks by. I don’t look at them because I’m scared of what I’ll see in their eyes. What my brother did to Michael and his family and to Oakie sticks to me like gum to the bottom of my shoe: no matter how much I scrape, it won’t come off, and as time has gone by, it’s started to just become part of the shoe, part of me, and I can’t remember it not being there.

“Aw, they’re torn up about the whole thing. Most of them were there that night, they were drinking just as much as Marcus. But it’s easy to hate on someone when they’re gone. All the little things everyone used to keep inside, the things that bothered them about Marcus, all that shit is coming out now. And he’s not here to defend himself and I’m tired of defending him. I can’t defend what he did that night … but the other shit they’re saying … I couldn’t handle it anymore. Anyway. The only reason I was a good wide receiver was because I’m a good runner. I was never good enough to play football in college, not like Marcus or some of the other guys. But with track…” He shrugs. “I’ve got a shot.”

I always did think that Aaron stood out a little bit on the field, not just to me, but to everyone. All lean muscle and long limbs, I hated to see his body covered up under all that padding. Sure, it was glorious to see him play, the way he would leap up to grab the ball, and whatever it was between him and Marcus that made them work together like in a seesaw, in perfect harmony, it was magical. But I’m glad Aaron’s quit football. I’m selfish like that. Because now he has more time for running. Now he has more time for me.

When we run, he shows me how to use my arms to go even faster, and then after, he shows me how to cool down.

And then one day, he touches me.

It isn’t sexual. Nothing like that. We’ve been running hard, harder than we usually do, and I gulp my water bottle all in one go.

“You should lie down.” His tone is the same as when he tells me you should lengthen out, you should pump your arms, but now he’s telling me I should lie down. Outside. In the middle of the track.

I pretend I don’t hear him because I don’t know what he’s talking about.

“Wing. You gotta lie down. Let me look at your calves.”

Hold up. Look at my calves? I don’t ever even think about my calves and now Aaron is saying he wants to look at them? My calves? I look down, scared at what I’ll see. They look normal to me. Maybe a little more muscular than they used to be. I notice, with increasing shame, that I’ve missed a spot shaving on the left one… Maybe there’s something wrong with them and I just can’t tell because it’s so dark out…

“Wing, your calves are seizing up. I can tell from here.”

Now that he mentions it, they are all trembly and shaky. I didn’t notice.

“What are you going to do?”

He laughs, the sound buzzing through the night and straight into my heart. “You sound so suspicious. I just wanna make sure the muscles aren’t too tight.”

I’m not sure why this means I have to lie down but I do, tentatively, and the grass is scratchy under my neck.

“Now what?” I ask. He’s kneeling next to me.

“Bend your knees up,” he says. So I’m lying on the grass with my legs bent, feeling like I’m in the position a woman is when she has a baby, when Aaron reaches over and starts pummeling my calves like they’re miniature punching bags until they’re flapping around like an elephant’s ears. He isn’t just pummeling either, he’s slapping my calves one at a time between his palms, and they’re just bouncing back and forth and I can hear the sound of his hands against my skin and I’m so shocked that I don’t say anything for a moment. Then my mouth finally remembers how to form words.

“What the hell?”

He pauses midslap. “Is this hurting?” His forehead wrinkles in concern.

“No,” I say, because it isn’t, “but … um … it is kind of weird.”

“Oh,” he says, quickly standing. “Sorry. I thought you’d like it.” He holds out a hand to pull me up. “The guys on the team, we used to do that to each other all the time. After a race. Helps you loosen up.”

I’m pretty sure it’s had the exact opposite effect. My whole body is tense. My mind is reeling, doing somersaults. Was that just some kind of massage or did it mean something and I’m so inexperienced, so clueless, that I didn’t realize it?