Juice (4 page)

“Forget your scale. Those bathroom jobs are never very accurate. You'll get weighed every day here. Turn around.”

“What?”

“Turn around. I want to have a look at you.”

Slowly, feeling very self-conscious, I turned.

“Thick chest, good-size arms, pecs are big, your legs look a little flabby.”

I felt uneasy, like I was a prize horse.

“How much can you bench press?” he asked.

“I can do 210 pounds,” I said proudly— that was more than anybody else on the team, including the seniors who had graduated.

“Oh, don't worry about that. We'll have you pushing some real weight soon enough.”

My jaw practically dropped open. What did he mean by that?

“If you follow your program, you'll be hoisting closer to three within twelve weeks.”

“Three? Like in three hundred pounds?”

“That's a minimum goal for somebody who's going to weigh in at 260 pounds.”

“But I only weigh 229.”

“You only weigh 229 now. Twelve weeks from now is a whole different game. You don't do a lot of weights, do you?” Tony asked.

“I was in here a lot last year,” I said, shaking my head. “A couple of times a week.”

“A couple of times? I thought you said a lot. Twice a week isn't going to cut it, and you probably had nobody to train you. Most likely it was a bunch of you boys in here, more pretending and playing than actually working. We'll take care of that. You have a good platform to build on. You're naturally a big guy. How big is your dad?”

“He's big,” I said. Actually, I remembered him as being huge, but most men are pretty big compared to nine-year-olds. It had been almost eight years since I'd seen him.

“How much does he weigh and how tall is he?”

“A couple of inches taller than me and more weight,” I said. I wasn't sure of his exact height or weight, but I didn't like to talk about that.

“That's great. It means we have room for growth. Have you ever taken megadoses of vitamins or used food supplements?”

“Some chewable vitamins when I was small.”

“That isn't quite what I was talking about. What that means is that most of the things

we're going to try, you've never tried. Forget the 300 pounds. We might get you up to bench pressing 325 pounds. They call you The Moose, right?”

I nodded.

“By the time I'm through with you, they'll be calling you a herd of moose.”

“That would be great.”

“All you have to do is follow the program and work hard.”

“I'll work hard,” I said.

“I believe you. You know who you remind me of? Your attitude?”

“Who?”

“Jessie McCarthy.”

“I remind you of Jessie McCarthy?” I said, shocked.

“Yep. Kid always had the right attitude. I started training him when he was about your age. Helped him to become everything he is today. He still comes back to me. He's got all those fancy trainers and therapists and coaches up there in the NFL, but it's still me he calls when he needs to talk.”

“That's incredible.”

“So, I think it's time we got down to work.”

“You got it,” I said. “I'll do whatever you want, whatever it takes.”

“That's the attitude I like. We'll talk about your individual program and then get you started. There's no time to lose.”

“Excuse me, young man, do you have any bananas?” came a voice from behind me.

I took a deep breath before turning around. I was standing in front of a mountain of bananas, and beside me was a cart filled with even more bananas that I was going to put on the top of the mountain.

“Yes, ma'am, we have bananas and—,” I turned around. It was my mother, standing there with a big goofy smile on her face.

“Mom!”

She started giggling. I always came home and told her about the stupid questions I was asked by customers.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

She pointed at the cart at her side. It was practically overflowing with groceries. “I thought I could shop and then offer you a drive home after your shift is over.”

“That would be great. My legs are really sore and tired.”

“You must have moved a lot of bananas today,” she said.

“I did. I moved ninety-six boxes, which is 9,600 individual bananas. But that's not what got me so tired. Tony had me working my lower body.”

“Tony?” she said.

“He's our team's strength coach.”

“Your team has a strength coach?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yeah, isn't that incredible?”

“It's something,” she said.

“He's only here for the summer. Normally he just works with the pros. Do you know he's Jessie McCarthy's personal trainer?”

“Who's she?” Mom asked.

“She? Jessie McCarthy isn't a girl. He's a professional foot —”

She started laughing again and I knew she'd just been putting me on. “I know who he is,” she said. “So why would this Tony come here to work with some high school kids lifting weights?”

“Coach Barnes arranged it. He can arrange anything. Besides, it's not just weight training. He's working out an individual training plan for us that includes diet and food supplements and—that reminds me, you don't have to buy vitamins. They provide it all.”

“That's good. Now if I could just get them to pay for your groceries,” my mother said. “By the way, guess who dropped into the bank today.”

I knew in my head it could have been any of dozens of people, but my heart gave another answer—my dad. He hadn't lived with us for almost nine years, and I hadn't even seen him for eight, but that thought still popped into my head. Sometimes I thought I
saw him on street corners or in stores as we passed by.

I remembered the night he left. The yelling and screaming and crying. The holes in the wall that he'd made with his fists—holes that weren't fixed for a year after that. I thought my mother left them there to remind her.

The yelling and the tears weren't uncommon. None of it was. That time, though, he left and didn't come back. He still came around and saw me a couple of times a week and took me out. Then he moved out of town. There were letters and phone calls at first and then nothing. Nothing for the last seven years.

My father loved football. He played for his high school. When I was playing I sometimes pretended that he was up in the stands watching. Who knows, maybe he was. The crowds were pretty big. More likely he wasn't there, but that didn't mean he couldn't have read about what I was doing. Maybe he'd read that our team won the championship and that I was the MVP.

“That Coach Barnes of yours came into the bank today,” my mother said.

“What was he doing there?”

“He was opening an account, but it looked like he was running for mayor the way he was shaking hands and greeting people.”

“He's pretty good with people. Did you talk to him?”

“He made a point of coming over to talk to me. He certainly has a lot of teeth, and they're very white, unnaturally white.”

“What did you talk about?” I asked.

“You and football.”

“What did he have to say?”

“He had nothing but good things to say. He certainly knows a great deal about you and our lives.”

“He knows a lot about everything. He's an amazing coach.”

“Funny, he reminded me more of a used car salesman.” She paused. “Or maybe he should be writing greeting cards or bumper stickers or those little messages you get in fortune cookies.”

“I don't follow,” I said.

“He just seems to talk in tiny bursts of words, all those little sayings of his.”

“He just likes to say things that are inspirational,” I said, defending him.

“It was like he was trying to sell me something.”

“He is selling something,” I said. “He's selling confidence, a winning attitude, a positive way of —”

“Excuse me.”

I turned around. It was a woman standing beside her grocery cart.

“Can you tell me the price of bananas?” she asked.

Right above my head, in numbers as big as my head, was the price.

I pointed at the sign. “Sixty-nine cents a pound, ma'am.”

“Oh, I didn't notice.” She grabbed a big bunch, put them in her cart and walked away.

My mother was covering her mouth to keep from laughing.

“You see,” I said. “I get the stupidest questions.”

“There are no stupid questions,” my mother said.

“Okay, that was a smart question asked by a stupid person.”

“You handled it well. Very diplomatic, very polite. I guess that's why you're the employee of the month again. I saw your smiling face at the front.”

A big picture of the employee of the month was posted by the front door.

“Why didn't you tell me?” she asked.

“It's no big deal. I think they gave it to me because I recovered that fumble.”

“I think they gave it to you because you're a good, hardworking, polite employee. Now, can you tell me where the green peppers are?”

“Mom,” I said, shaking my head.

“No, seriously, I don't know.”

“Oh. Far wall. In the corner. You can get the good ones by digging into the back. And if you want to know the price, it'll be on a big sign right above them.”

She smiled. I loved making her smile. “I'll see you right after work. Maybe we'll stop on the way home and pick up supper—your choice.”

“You're the best,” I said.

She flashed that smile again and I watched her walk away. She really was the best.

I strained under the weight, the bar balancing on my shoulders, behind my neck. In the last two weeks I'd increased my squats by twenty-five pounds. Part of the reason for the gain was that I'd learned how to balance the bar better. The other part was that I was stronger. I could feel it in my legs and see it in the mirror. Maybe I hated squats, but I'd keep on doing them. And I was sure that in eight weeks I'd hate them more often and with more weight.

I finished the last squat and carefully lowered the bar into the cradle with a metallic thud.

All around me, working the different machines, were the members of the team— our returning players from last year and a half-dozen others, students who Coach Barnes thought had potential and could make the team.

On the far wall were painted the words “Wall of Fame.” All the guys called it the Wall of Pain. There, for everybody to see, were our individual plans and results. In neat rows and columns were our weekly goals, each week listed separately until the first week of September.

Success or failure was there for everybody to see. So far, all we'd had were successes. Each guy, each week, had met or beat his goals. With Tony's help and Coach's encouragement, we seemed unstoppable.

There were also words of wisdom painted on the other walls:
No Pain, No Gain; Reach for the Stars; You miss every shot you don't take
. When I read those words I could hear
Coach's voice. Maybe he did talk like he was writing bumper stickers, but they were sayings that did inspire me. He was one smart guy.

I walked over to where Caleb was working. He was skipping—one of the best ways to improve foot speed and strength. For the receivers, bulking up was the opposite of what they wanted to do. They had to build speed and agility and vertical leap, not raw strength.

Caleb was whipping the rope around, doing double skips and crossovers, the sound of the rope whistling as he worked. The rope sped up, faster and faster, and then he did a triple pass and stopped.

“Need…a…drink,” Caleb panted, sweat pouring down his face.

That sounded like a good idea. We walked over to the big fridge in the corner. It was filled with power drinks and protein shakes.

“What do you want?” I asked as I opened the door.

“Shake. Love those shakes.”

I grabbed two and handed one to him. Caleb flipped off the plastic top and took a big sip.

“I've been bugging Tony to tell me what's in these so I can make my own at home,” Caleb said.

Tony made up the protein shakes, and he wouldn't tell anybody what was in them. Some of the ingredients were obvious: ice cream, milk, protein powder and vitamins. But exactly what and the amounts were like a state secret.

“I just know that whatever it is, they work,” I said as I slurped down my shake as well.

Tony was at the far side of the room, working with one of the guys. He was always working with somebody or working out himself.

“Tony's a good guy,” Caleb said. “Shame he doesn't have a life.”

“I was thinking the same thing. He's here all the time.”

“Doesn't he have a wife or girlfriend or something?” Caleb asked.

“I think this is his life.”

“Then again, with those skin problems maybe getting a girlfriend isn't that easy,” Caleb said.

It wasn't just his face, but his arms and back were covered with acne—big, ugly-looking zits.

“Yeah, it's —”

The phone in Tony's office started ringing. I yelled out for him, but between the music and the distance he couldn't hear me.

“I'll get the phone and you get Tony,” I said to Caleb.

The office door was open. I grabbed the ringing phone.

“Hello,” I said as I picked it up.

“Good morning. This isn't Tony. Who is this?”

“No, sir, Coach Barnes,” I said. I'd recognized his voice. “This is Michael.”

“So, Moose, are you adding secretary to your role as team captain?” he asked.

“If that's what it takes to win, I will.”

He laughed. “That's the attitude, and as we both know, attitude leads to altitude. The better the attitude, the higher you'll fly.”