The Off Season (24 page)

Then one day Maryann pointed out that I deserved a vacation—which I did. And from the way Win perked up, I finally got suspicious that maybe Win had ideas about Maryann that weren't totally, you know, therapy-related. And from the way Maryann smiled when he looked at her, maybe she had the same kind of ideas. Then Win gave this huge gasp, so huge that I thought something was wrong. But it turns out he was just disgusted with himself because he had only now remembered that I really needed to visit some universities and talk to coaches about their programs, like the one thing he should have been thinking about for the past month was how to promote my future in college basketball.

He made me call Bill right away. We'd talked to Bill a lot, almost every day, but this time he started ordering Bill to set up an appointment with the University of Minnesota b-ball coach, and make sure it wasn't a recruitment blackout or anything so I wouldn't violate any NCAA rules, and make sure to get me there for a game as well, and do all of this immediately, and finally Win looked at me in total disgust and said, "You talk to him."

Just taking the phone headset off Win's head, I could hear Bill sobbing.

"Hey," I said, "it's okay—"

"It's amazing," Bill gasped out, laughing and crying at the same time. "He's the same son of a bitch he always was."

Then Win called Charlie Wright and said he was ready. Because Charlie had been begging to come east and help, he'd had a couple conversations with the Packers coach, telling him how hard Win was working and how much Win wanted that Packers job. So when Win said he wanted me to have a little break, Charlie just about climbed right through the phone line and said he'd be there ASAP. Which meant the next day, which is pretty ASAP if you ask me, and Bill showed up to take me to Minneapolis.

I
F YOU'RE THINKING
that a lot sure has happened since D.J.'s last trip, and that this trip might be a little bit different, then you would be totally right. For one thing, this time I rode with Bill and Aaron because it's Aaron's car as always, Aaron telling me what a great girl I was and that if Bill ever gave me any grief I should tell him so he could smack Bill around.

"Although," he said, really serious, "I'd have to be careful not to damage my hands."

Which made me just crack up because it's such a funny image of
anyone
smacking Bill around. Though Aaron is so huge that he probably could. He makes Bill look small, even, and whenever he's next to me I feel like a normal-size girl instead of a giant, which I like a lot, that feeling. Also, Aaron and Bill are such good friends that I don't think they've gotten into an argument ever, so smacking around is kind of impossible.

Minneapolis looked like a science fiction movie, all these shiny skyscrapers, and the U of M campus was just so campuslike, with sidewalks and grass, and pretty old buildings and fancy new ones, and some ugly ones too, to balance it out. Bill even walked me to my big talk thing with the girls' basketball program. Only in college it's called
women's
basketball, which makes it sound like they sit at a table discussing global finance or something.

An assistant coach—college sports have as many coaches as players, it seems—showed me around all the sports buildings and didn't get lost once, and asked lots of questions. She already knew about my playing football, and that I was taking care of Win, which seemed to impress her a lot, and she seemed even more impressed about the training schedule Win and I had worked out. She even seemed to understand about my missing sophomore-year b-ball, and she gave me lots of advice on what I needed to do to get recruited, how I needed to play summer ball to get the coaches' attention. Which I knew already, but who has time on a farm for basketball camp and traveling teams? She made it clear, though, that this was pretty important, and I decided that when the time came I'd have her talk to Dad about getting me off farm work.

I really wanted to practice with the team, but that is one of the five gazillion violations of NCAA rules, so I just watched instead. Holy cow. I mean, I'm the best girls' basketball player in Red Bend, probably the best in our league, but those girls are
good.
The whole time when I wasn't thinking Wow, or How did she do that, I was taking all these mental notes on stuff I had to work on, which was pretty much everything. Except foul shots. I've got those down at least.

Maybe the coach told them to or maybe they're just automatically nice, but during one of their water breaks a couple girls came over to chat. One of them who had lots of little straight braids pulled back in a huge ponytail asked what "D.J." meant.

"Darlene Joyce," I said, rolling my eyes. "My two grandmothers. It's really dumb."

"Is it as dumb as Tyrona? 'Ty-ro-na,
Ty-ron-ah.'
It's like they get pregnant and all the blood drains right out of their brains. You know what I'm saying?" Then she invited me to dinner, in a real college dining hall.

Tyrona's a sociology major, which means studying what's wrong with people using numbers. At least that's how I understood it. Another thing about Tyrona is that she sure can put it away, although the other players aren't such picky eaters either, which I loved.

They had a ton of questions about Win, of course, and one of them knew a kid in school with SCI so she had a lot to say. Then Tyrona wanted to know about football and she wouldn't stop until I'd told the entire story, pretty much every detail including Brian, and she just ate it up.

"What are we doing here?" she asked the other girls. "We could be out there breaking new ground, and we're just shooting hoops."

"I'm not breaking ground now," I pointed out.

"Of course you're not—it's November, woman. The ground is
frozen.
You wanna go out?"

That too was quite the experience, seeing Tyrona's room and her signed posters of all the WNBA teams and players, and she dressed me because of course I hadn't brought any going-out clothes, or owned any really, and I sure don't have money to waste on stuff like that. But that's one nice thing about hanging out with Division I women's basketball players: they're all pretty much my size. We went to a party with music I'd never heard before but I liked it, and just as we walked in, Aaron gave this huge whoop because he was there too, and he grabbed me and said, "Hey, y'all, this is Milkshake's baby sister so you all be nice to her." Which is how I learned that Bill's nickname is Milkshake, which he had never felt the need to mention.

I also learned that Aaron's nickname is Tink, short for Tinkerbell, which he is pretty much the opposite of. Although he might have gotten it for another reason, because—and I know this is a huge stereotype about black people, I'm well aware of that—but that guy can
dance.
I mean, he's around 320, but on the dance floor he must have magic slippers or something—it's like he weighs twenty pounds max. Which really impressed me, especially seeing as us Wisconsin folks aren't really known for our, you know, dancing ability, but he took me under his wing and got me dancing too, or at least relaxed enough that I wasn't seizing up from terror at how bad I looked.

If I ever coach football, which is a long shot I know, the very first thing I'm going to do is hire Aaron to come teach all the players to dance, because anyone who can move like that would be pretty much unstoppable.

Bill was there as well, hanging out as always in a big cloud of girls, which would have bummed me out if I wasn't getting so much attention from Aaron on my dancing and stuff. I mean, at times I've been kind of jealous of Bill's abilities to make friends and girlfriends so easily. Not that I want girlfriends but you understand. If I'd been there alone, without Aaron and Tyrona making me feel welcome, I'd be sitting in a corner getting sad about Brian.

But here's the thing: it felt so different here, away from Red Bend and all that high school social stuff. Back in Red Bend, I would never get invited to a party like this—I almost never got invited to parties, period. And these were cool people. I mean, I don't know how they fit into the whole U of M pecking order—I'm sure there were kids somewhere on campus who would look at this party as uncool or unhip or something. But I didn't care, and I got the sense that no one else there cared either. They were having a good time with people they liked, and that's all that mattered to them.

Maybe that's what college is. Maybe it's that town full of strangers I'd been hoping to find with Brian. It's a place where you can start new without anyone sticking their noses in the air about your growing up on a dairy farm or being taller than almost all the boys in school, or having gay friends. Maybe the people at this party acted like that back in high school, I don't know. I didn't know them then. But maybe they'd grown up enough not to be like that anymore.

Brian—maybe he'll grow up too, in his town full of strangers wherever he goes to college. But at the moment I didn't care too much about his growing up, because I felt—this is going to sound pretty stuck up, I'm sure—but I felt that by the time he did, I'd be too grown up to care. Or maybe I was already. Besides, dancing was too much fun to think about people like Brian.

We left the party pretty early, actually, because Bill and Aaron were still on football time and had a curfew, which was fine with me. Aaron crashed with a friend down the hall so I could have his bed, which was huge just like him. The next morning I slept in for the first time in years, which felt like absolute heaven, and I walked around campus for the rest of the day pretending I was a real college student. That was a pretty heady feeling, let me tell you. Although it didn't compare one tiny iota to that night when I got to go to a women's basketball exhibition game.
Wow.
Almost ten thousand people—ten thousand!—watched, and they were extremely loud, and the game was extremely amazing, and Minnesota won because they've got a total home-court advantage, and I couldn't help but think that however exciting Red Bend football had been, this was a totally different league.

Afterward Bill took me back to his room because he actually had to study, which I guess is part of college too, and I didn't mind one bit seeing as I had my own homework to do. And then the next morning he drove me back to the rehab hospital. Back to reality. Although I felt so great, it was like I'd been gone three months instead of just two nights. And we didn't even stop at the Mall of America though it was right there with huge signs begging us to come in. We just drove right past it.

As happy as I was to be at U of M, I think Win was twice as happy to have three days with Charlie Wright, talking football around the clock while Charlie helped him. Charlie had even brought some Packers tapes. Win still couldn't watch live TV football for reasons I'm sure you can understand, but this was a
job,
which of course Win was totally into, and he and Charlie pored over them, talking all sorts of stuff that would probably have bored even me.

Bill came up to visit for a bit and join in all the football talk, stuff about pro ball that I'd never even imagined, it's so far from Red Bend. Although I did get to point out that if Bill ever got drafted, he'd either be training under Win or playing against him, both of which would pretty much suck. Which made them all crack up, even though Win had to add that
maybe
he'd get that assistant's position, and of course
maybe
Bill would be good enough for the NFL. Thanks, Win.

Then Charlie said, in a voice like they'd been through this before, "You need a degree before they'll hire you." What is it with grownups and college degrees?

Win stiffened, if you can stiffen in a cervical cream-cheese collar. "I know that!"

I had no idea what they were talking about but I sure didn't want to set Win off, and Bill must have felt the same way because right away he started talking about this girl he'd met who had eyes that are two different colors. Which wasn't the most exciting way to change the subject but it sure beat irritating Win.

Later when Win was napping, Charlie explained that the University of Washington would still give Win a full scholarship, which was awfully nice of them considering that he'd ruined his life playing for them although I don't mean to sound bitter. But of course in order to get that degree, Win would have to go back to school. With assistants if he needed them, specially trained people so it's not all dumped on your family. And Charlie said that folks at the university, and folks in Red Bend too, like Kathy Ott and Cindy Jorgensen, who apparently are angels from heaven sent to care for us Schwenks, were organizing fundraisers and stuff because SCI costs so much. Wheelchairs cost a ton, even the manual ones and don't ask about electric, and rebuilding bathrooms and kitchens—which our house will need, duh—and those specially trained aides, and PT, and a whole bunch of other stuff. So the fact that people out there wanted to give money to Win was awfully nice.

Which brought up what Charlie and Win had been fighting about, that Win wanted the degree but he didn't want to go to class with the other students. And even though he liked the idea of fundraising, he refused to talk about something like a press conference, which of course would be the best way to get the word out. Even when Charlie said that Win needed to be a role model, which usually works on him the way the words "free beer" work on Bill, Win objected. He didn't want people looking at him and talking about him and feeling sorry for him. Which I could understand, but I could understand Charlie's point too.

Anyway, we talked about this a while, and when Win woke up he transferred to the wheelchair with not too much help from me and Charlie, showing Bill how good he was getting, and I wheeled him downstairs to say goodbye. Charlie asked Win to come out to the curb where his rental car was but Win wouldn't. He said it was because it was too cold, but it was clear to all of us that Win didn't want to be out in public, on a street where he could be seen by strangers. So that was a bit of an awkward moment, and then Charlie and Bill both hugged us and said how impressed they were by Win's progress, and off they went while I took Win back upstairs.