All through morning milking I tried to figure out how to get out of this mess. Me from Red Bend training Hawley's QB was a really bad idea, I could see now. I just had to figure out how to say it. I was still thinking about it, cleaning the barn, when Brian walked in.
"Hey." He was dressed in sneakers and everything, but he didn't look all too pleased.
"Hey," I said. I took a deep breath. "You know, we don't have to do this."
"I know. But Jimmy really wants it to happen."
"Oh." That sort of put a monkey wrench in my plans, knowing Jimmy was in on it.
"For a week," Brian added, just to clarify.
"A week," I agreed. So, not knowing what else to do, I showed him the free weights, waiting for his crack about the dust.
But all he said was "Jeez, I hate lifting," and started at least. After a couple minutes he sighed. "Win did this every day?"
"No." I wouldn't have said anything, but he brought it up. "Every other day. On off days he'd do sit-ups and jumps."
Brian gave me this really strange look. "Yeah. Of course he did."
I kept an eye on him while I scraped crud off the walls with a snow shovel. Once or twice I'd mention if I saw an elbow going out or his speed increasing or something, the way Win and Bill checked each other. I tried my very hardest to say it in a way Jimmy Ott would approve of, trying to earn Brian's respect and all. Not that I wanted his respect, but I owed that at least to Jimmy. Brian was okay about listening too, which I have to hand to him.
"You should power wash that," Brian offered once. "My dad has a power washer down at the showroom you could use."
"This is okay," I lied. I didn't know what a power washer was, and I sure wasn't going to ask. Instead I said, "When you're done there, we'll run some."
Well, "run" is an awfully flattering word for what we did. "Shuffle" is more appropriate. Because it was broiling already and it wasn't even noon. But at least we were moving forward, and breathing hard, though that was more from the heat than our pace. I knew if I didn't go with him he'd quit within a hundred yards, and then once I was with him I couldn't quit either, so we ended up running two whole miles without stopping. A couple times he tried to stop but I'd tell him to keep going, mostly because I wanted it to be over so bad.
"You know," I said at one point, just to take my mind off how hot it was, "Bill ran this course every day his senior year."
I glanced at Brian. He looked furious.
We ran the rest of the way without saying a word. What a stupid thing for me to say, pointing out again how great my brothers were. So much for earning respect. This whole training idea was turning out to be too stupid for words.
We finally, after a hundred years, made it back to the farm. Brian climbed right into the Cherokee, slamming the door behind him.
I thought about asking if he was coming back but I was pretty sure what the answer would be.
"Wait," he said. He sat there picking at his steering wheel.
"You okay?" I asked finally because he wasn't saying anything.
"I ... I'm sorry I was such a jerk at that game."
It took me a minute to figure out he was talking about Bill's football game.
"He worked real hard. He—Red Bend should have won." The words came out of him like they were being dragged, like it was ripping his guts out just to say them.
I swallowed. I hadn't been expecting this.
"And—I'm sorry those guys called you names last week. And I'm real sorry I said that stuff about you being a cow, and dying and all."
He started the Cherokee. "See you tomorrow."
Well, that gave me a little something to think about for the next couple hours. An apology? That was downright shocking. You could probably fill a book with all the stuff us Schwenks aren't good at, but what we're worst at is apologizing. Just ask Dad and my brothers if you've got the guts, because any one of them would smack you for bringing the subject up. Apologizing is like taking a little ache you feel inside and making it ten times worse. Like punching a bruise. Who'd want to go through that pain?
And you can see, just from Brian, why apologizing sucks so much. He was dying when he said it. Although he didn't look like he'd been all that thrilled beforehand, now that I thought about it. All that time I thought he was angry at me, because that's what you think if you see someone angry—it's what I think, anyway—but he was just angry with himself. That was interesting to think about too, the idea that you could be so mad at yourself that you'd need to apologize. Again, not something I've had much experience with. And you know, after he'd said all those things, banging away on his bruises, he still looked pretty cut up. But at least he didn't look mad anymore. I guess apologizing sort of re-leased that.
But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed that he hadn't released all those bad feelings, he'd just passed them right to me. Because it hurt to hear him talk about what his friends had said, how they'd mooed and laughed at me and all. I'd forgotten how much I hadn't liked it until Brian brought it up. It shows why not to apologize: it just makes the other person feel bad. At least it made me feel bad.
Especially because then I started thinking about that last thing Brian had said, about me being a cow and all. I'd blown it off when he'd first said it when we were fighting. But now I tried to remember, because it obviously bugged him that he'd hurt my feelings. It took some time and some effort, but I did remember. And then I spent the next few weeks wishing that I hadn't. I wished it a lot. I still wish it sometimes, to this day.
Brian had said I was just like a cow, something about me dying—probably because he'd just seen Joe Namath go off to the slaughterhouse. He'd said I'd go up on a truck to die and I wouldn't even mind. Which was stupid, because people go in ambulances and die in hospitals like Grandpa Warren did. Besides, unlike cows I at least knew what I was doing. I mean, at least I got mad about stuff sometimes. I didn't much like getting up every morning, especially in the winter or when I was really tired, and I sure didn't like having to work every day with Dad breathing down my neck and treating me like an idiot.
Now that I thought about it, though, what good did it do me, getting mad? Because I sure didn't tell Dad off—which he deserves—or quit. I just kept nodding even though I was about ready to kill him inside and went off to do exactly what he said. Which, I now remembered, Brian had also pointed out in his you-are-a-cow speech. That I did everything without complaining. Well, I was complaining inside, but who would know? My complaining inside just made me feel a little better. It kind of covered up—well, it had covered it up until now—how much I did what Dad wanted. Covered it up the way that frosting kind of covers up a bad cake, makes it go down easier. I just did what my parents told me, and my coaches, and Amber, and Smut, even. If Smut wanted to run back to the barn, I'd run even if I didn't feel like it, most of the time. I was nothing more than a cow on two legs.
Heck, maybe cows get mad too. I've seen cows get so mad they bust a fence or something, although that's rare. But maybe all day long they're seething inside and you just can't tell. They just keep getting milked and chewing their cud and having babies because they just don't know any different. Don't know any way to stop. Maybe they don't even like silage but they eat it anyway because that's all there is. I don't like Dad's food but I force it down or else I'd starve. If it was between that and starving, I'd probably eat silage for that matter, and act just like the cows do. I wouldn't get mad so anyone could see.
I sure didn't like thinking these thoughts, let me tell you. But every time I tried to stop they'd just come back into my head a different way, the way that Smut when you put her outside sometimes comes right back in through another door.
When I got in from evening milking Mom was at the kitchen table doing paperwork. After I'd eaten a bit and drunk about a gallon of milk, she looked up. "This afternoon I ran into Mary Stolze." Meaning the English teacher who flunked me.
I'd just been thinking that I couldn't possibly feel any worse and—BAM—now I did.
"She's real concerned about how you're going to manage this fall," Mom continued. "She still thinks you can finish some of the work you didn't turn in."
"So on top of everything else I'm doing, I've got to write a whole bunch of stupid papers?" I couldn't believe it. Those stupid English papers. Why of all nights did Mom have to bring them up now? Here I was trying to figure out what the whole point of my life was. The last thing I needed was to have to write a stupid paper on Hamlet.
"Honey, you won't be able to graduate without that class."
I kept eating, my head down. Mom kept talking but I didn't say anything else because that's what we Schwenks do. If there's a problem or something, instead of solving it or anything, we just stop talking. Just like cows.