Luke heard the sound of a few trucks pulling up in the dirt, heard boys leaping out of them with a whoop only to go quiet—reverent—as they drew near. He swallowed. The new boys took their place in the circle that Luke felt around him. He’d lost count of how many people had arrived since Mitchell had slipped a blindfold on him a few minutes before.
What Luke did not hear in any of the cleared throats or muted chatter was the sound of a single girl.
At some signal, the low murmur of voices died. Silence tightened the air, finally broken by the squeak of a foot across a wooden board. From ahead and above him, Luke heard a man’s voice, gleeful and unabashedly smug, shout down to say, “This is a beautiful night, ain’t it, boys?”
A mumble of agreement.
“Then let’s not waste it,” the man said, and Luke recognized that it was Mr. Boone speaking, some big deal with the city government his parents sometimes had over for dinner.
Mr. Boone clapped his hands and a moment later Luke heard two people step into the circle. They grabbed the hem of his shirt, tugged it off over his head. Luke’s upturned face caught a glimpse of stars, the hooked moon, before the blindfold was fastened back in place.
He began to panic—the fuck was this?—when one of the boys locked an arm around Luke’s bare chest and clasped a hand over his mouth while the other boy wrenched loose Luke’s belt and tugged his jeans down over his thrashing legs. Tugged down Luke’s briefs.
Luke shouted into the boy’s hand as he was lifted up and his pants were pulled over his shoes. They struck the dirt nearby. His belt buckle clattered.
“Evers!” Mr. Boone shouted. “You’ve got some words to answer.”
The hands released Luke. He shivered with his hand over his naked crotch.
Not real, this wasn’t real.
“You are standing on hallowed ground, son. The edge of goddamn greatness, you hear me? I said do you hear me?”
Luke nodded.
“Say it!”
“I hear you.”
A hand struck the back of Luke’s head.
Boone shouted, “Boy, you will address me as sir.”
“I hear you, sir!” Luke’s teeth were chattering. When had the night gotten so cold?
“Do you swear to keep secret all that you see here, boy?”
“Yes, sir!”
“And do you swear to protect it, even with your own life?”
Luke hesitated. Could this man possibly be serious?
“That’s not a good answer, boy.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Very good.”
Boone and someone else began to clap. A moment later and the circle around Luke joined in, a steady one-two, one-two, one-two. Through the noise, Luke heard a new pair of feet approach him. The hands that had stripped him naked now grabbed his wrists and ankles, wrenched his arms back. The clapping grew louder. A new hand rested on Luke’s shoulder—a man’s hand, calloused and dry.
“To seal the oath you have just made, son, this old place will mark you. It hurts us a little so we know it can hurt us a lot. Do you hear, son?”
Luke’s throat had gone dry. It was all he could do to nod his head.
“Very good!” Boone shouted. The clapping grew wild. A cowbell began to ring, a noisemaker rattled, whoops and shouts echoed over open country.
The grip on his wrists tightened. From down near Luke’s feet, Mitchell Malacek murmured: “Whatever you do, don’t scream.”
A sudden, icy pain spread across the back of Luke’s thigh, just below his ass, and a moment later he felt warm blood spilling down his leg. He gasped. Something firm and cool and sticky came to rest on his shoulder, a few inches from his neck. A knife.
“And just like that, you’re in the end zone,” Mr. Boone shouted above the din. “You, my boy, are in the Bright Lands.”
Luke’s hands and ankles were released. The blindfold was pulled free. He was dazed by a brilliant flash of light. A sudden boom of a marching band coursed through the speakers, and when Luke’s senses returned to him he saw a tiny figure holding a Polaroid camera start up a tall set of wooden steps.
At the top of the steps—and it was a good ten-foot climb—there was a triple-wide trailer, skirted by a wooden porch. Mr. Boone, clad in nothing but a black leather harness across his chest and black leather chaps, smiled from the porch like a priest. Coach Parter, wearing a green Bison jacket and a pair of Lycra football tights, looked impatient to get on with something.
Luke turned and saw that he stood in the center of a wide circle of trailers: campers, double-wides, a little silver Airstream. Between Luke and the trailers there stood maybe fifteen boys. Boys in jockstraps and high socks, boys naked but for pads and sneakers.
Pale Tomas Hernandez. The Turner twins and their mirrored smile. Luke recognized some of the other boys from games—a few had played for Rattichville last week, others he knew from past seasons—but many were strangers.
Strings of Christmas lights ran between the trailers, little footlamps burned in the dirt and, high above them, a pair of tall halogen field lights rendered every hair on every boy’s head, every groove of every boy’s hard body, brilliant and crisp and unbearable.
Mitchell Malacek, wearing nothing but green face paint, rose from where he’d pinned Luke’s feet. Luke could only stare at him, feeling the blood trickle down his leg, and marvel at a reality that put eighteen years’ worth of wild rumors to shame.
“You did good, bro,” Mitchell said with a smile, and smacked Luke hard on his bare, bloody ass.