The three friends lay side by side with Danny in the middle. The floor of their tree house was triangular. It worked out okay because Janey fit near the wall, under the window. Danny was a big kid for twelve, but he went in the middle because Cupcake took up the most space. Cupcake was enormous and his legs extended through the open trapdoor. He was built like a small refrigerator, with square shoulders and jaw, a flattop haircut, meaty hands, and ears flatter to his head than a coonhound. He looked like he’d been assembled from a giant Lego set. The only thing small about Cupcake were his teeth, which spilled around the inside of his mouth like corn off the cob.
“After your first four years in the NFL, you become a free agent,” Danny explained. “So even if we don’t get drafted by the same team, we can go wherever we want after four years.”
“Pittsburgh?” Cupcake suggested, brushing light brown hair out of his pale blue eyes.
Danny frowned. “I’m not my dad, Cupcake. When will you get that through your head?”
“Who wouldn’t want to be your dad?” Cupcake grumbled. “Only you.”
Danny wanted to change the subject. “I think we’ll let Janey decide where we go.”
Janey smiled.
“Janey?” Cupcake sat up and looked down at Danny with a frown.
“Yeah,” Danny said. “By then she’ll be a doctor and she’ll have to pick where she wants to do her residency. Wherever that is, we can go play for that team.”
Cupcake’s face still hovered above them. “What if the team stinks? Like, Cleveland or something?”
“Janey wouldn’t want to go anyplace with a lousy team,” Danny said.
“For sure.” Janey spoke in a dreamy voice, almost like she’d been dozing off.
“Oh.” Cupcake lay back down. “I wish it would cool off. I swear, four o’clock is the hottest part of the day.”
Danny bolted up. “Wait, it’s not four yet.”
“It’s three minutes after four.” Cupcake held up his phone.
“No. I set an alarm.” Danny fumbled with his own phone and saw he’d set it for 3:30 a.m. “Oh, shiitake mushrooms!”
Danny scrambled up, pushed Cupcake’s legs aside, and scrambled down the ladder.
Janey’s face appeared in the window above. “Where you going?”
Danny turned and ran, shouting over his shoulder. “My dad’s work! He’s taking me for football cleats!”
He flew through the woods, down a long winding path that came out by the guardrail on Route 222. He scooped his bike out of the tall grass and rocketed into Crooked Creek.
Shops in town had already changed their Fourth of July red-white-and-blue banners and flags for football banners and bunting—purple and white for the Crooked Creek Junior High Raiders, gold and black for the Jericho High Cowboys. The clock over the old brick corner store showed how late he was. He turned left at the store and pedaled like a madman to the edge of town, where the enormous showroom of Zurich Farm Implements dominated the street. In the front of the three-story glass showroom window was a bright red combine the size of a dinosaur.
Danny ditched his bike near the service entrance and entered the showroom from the back. The first floor was lined with offices of the salesmen who worked under his dad. There were seven other stores across the state with their own stables of salesmen who also worked for Danny’s dad. Danny waved at Mr. Humphrys through his office window and took the stairs two at a time up to his father’s large glass office overlooking the showroom. He rounded the corner and froze.
Sitting across from his father’s desk was the hulking figure of a farmer wearing a plaid shirt and suspenders. Danny’s dad saw him, and instead of giving Danny the scowl he expected for being late, he grinned and waved his son in. Danny obeyed.
“Mr. Lindsey, this is my son, Danny.”
“Sorry I’m late, Dad.”
“Mr. Lindsey, are kids ever on time?”
“Not like you and me ever were.” The farmer stood up and extended a leathery hand to Danny. “I heard you’re a chip off the block. Gonna lead Crooked Creek to the county championship this season, people are sayin’.”
“I hope so, sir.”
“Even looks like you, Daniel.” The farmer squinted at Danny’s dad. “We’ll see if he gets that ring you got, though. If he’s like my kids, he won’t. My kids want to play in a rock band. A rock band. I’m ashamed to say it, and me with thirty thousand acres.”
“That’s why you’ve got me, Dave.” Danny’s dad thumped his chest before rounding his desk and putting an arm around the man. “These new combines practically run themselves.”
“That’ll be a comfort when I’m in my grave.”
Danny’s dad gave a hearty laugh. “Well, this is some deal for us both, Dave, and I appreciate your business. I’ve seen a man or two go over to the Kubota dealer in Dustville.”
“Pshaw! Dustville? That ain’t even in Jericho County! You won’t see me in Dustville. You think the Kubota sales manager won them a state title? You think he’s got one o’ them rings?” The farmer pointed to Danny’s father’s right hand, where a giant, bejeweled Super Bowl ring glinted in the light.
“Well, thank you, Dave. Thank you very much.” Danny’s father dipped his head as if embarrassed.
“You see that, son?” The farmer scowled at Danny like he’d done much more wrong than being late. “That’s why this town—heck, this whole part of the state—loves your daddy. He coulda stayed in Pittsburgh. A Super Bowl winner? He coulda done whatever he wanted, but he’s a good ole Texas boy, and humble too. Not like those ninny-hammered showboats you see on TV today. You’d be best served to follow this man’s footprints, son, step for step, an’ that’s comin’ from a man with thirty thousand acres.”
The farmer was quite worked up, and Danny hung his head as if to apologize for all wrongdoers, but he didn’t mean it. He was tired of this game.
“Okeydokey, Dave. Now I gotta get the boy to the shoe store for some cleats, then back home for his momma’s supper on time, so we’ll be seein’ you.”
They saw Dave to the stairs before Danny’s dad wheeled him past the owner’s office. Mr. Zurich sat at a big desk wearing a bow tie with his sleeves rolled up, amid a pile of paper.
Danny’s dad ducked his head inside. “I’m gone, boss. Gotta get Danny’s football cleats.”
The owner whipped off his glasses. “Danny? You take those Raiders to the championship, boy. People sayin’ good things about you maybe bein’ as good as your dad. That I’ll have to see, no offense, son.”
Danny shook his head as if none were taken.
“Looks like you, don’t he, Daniel?” Mr. Zurich smiled, showing a line of perfect white teeth that didn’t match the deep lines in his craggy face.
“More an’ more, boss, more an’ more.”
Danny waved like his dad and off they went.
In the car, the radio played a country song about a boy and his dad, and Danny felt like pulling his hair out. He loved his dad, it wasn’t that. And he was proud of the way everyone waved at his truck as they drove through town or stopped him on the street to look at the ring, or how his dad got to be on the sideline with a select few Jericho alumni for the varsity games.
It was that Danny wanted to be himself.
And in this town, he just didn’t know if that was possible.