So…I’ve been back in Wisconsin for a couple of days.
Yup. Here I am again. Basement bedroom. I have welts on both my forearms. My right hand aches because it got stepped on.
Good! That’s football!
Hi, Aleah. It was so awesome to see you. It was such a shock, and it put me in such a good mood. I was already in a pretty good mood this afternoon, but you really sent me into…I guess, elation? Elation is a word, right? I was very jacked.
I wasn’t the only one who was excited. I knew you were there but hadn’t told anybody. When Cody (who thinks you’re so awesome—which is true, in fact) saw you in the stands during warm-ups, he said, “Hey! Hey! Dude! Aleah’s here! Jesus!”
Cody doesn’t get emotional about anything. “I know,” I smiled.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Man!” he shouted.
He’s been worried all summer that we’d break up. He figures we’ll be coming over to his house for barbecues in twenty years, so it’s very, very important we stay together as far as he’s concerned.
“Thought I’d let you have the joy of discovery,” I said.
“Cool,” he said, getting his shit back under control.
You waved and we both waved back and really we shouldn’t be waving at people during warm-ups (Coach talked to me about that last year), but I waved and you smiled so big and then I just started jumping up and down like I did all the time last year, back when I was an innocent boy.
It was really cool to see you sitting next to Gus and Maddie.
Did you see the Wisconsin coach a couple rows in front of you? He can’t talk to me right now because of NCAA recruiting rules. But he was there. Makes me happy. Coaches don’t get to Bluffton very often. We’re in the middle of nowhere if you haven’t noticed.
Hey, do you remember? Exactly fifty-one weeks ago today I played my first football game. You were there. Tonight I started my second season. And you were there, again.
Man, Aleah, thank you. You were so whacked from travel, so jet lagged, we barely had time to talk after the game before you passed out. Weird that you’re up there in Andrew’s room. If Ronald and Jerri weren’t upstairs too, I’d lie down next to you. Of course I wouldn’t be able to sleep and I’d annoy the crap out of you.
So, I’ve read some of this notebook you gave me. Berlin sounds dang cool. I do understand why you wanted a break. I really appreciate all the thinking you’ve done too. You’re very, very smart. Have I told you that?
I want to finish mine by tomorrow so I can surprise you with a bunch of pages. (Let’s be honest, an absolute crap ton of pages—I probably should just email this to you…not enough paper in the house.) Funny to think you were writing to me while I was writing to you. Of course, you wrote during your whole summer in Germany.
I wrote all of this in just a few days, and honestly, I didn’t think I’d ever actually give it to you. I want you to know, though, that even when I was lifting weights, running routes, flinging around my Frisbee in the yard, hanging with Gus and Cody and those guys, I was thinking about you, constantly.
Thank you for writing to me.
The house does feel pretty empty without Andrew. Yeah, you’re right. It is pretty weird.
Pretty funny that you asked me, “What in the world happened while I was gone?” I’ve got it for you. I wrote it all out.
How did this happen with Andrew being gone? Keep reading.
• • •
You know, Tovi and I talked just about every day after I left Florida that first time, after what we’ve come to call “The Great Reinstein Tennis Court Disaster.” (Stan freaking at me on the court.)
At first, she just wanted to make sure I was okay. I was, I guess.
More than anything, I felt really embarrassed for having run away like I did. Think I could stand up, right? After all that I’d been through, after going out on the boat with Andrew?
Be strong. Don’t freak out. Stay there like Andrew stayed.
Wrong. Squirrel Nut Felton took control. The bad squirrel nut, the one who runs when he should stay and be strong.
I freaked and ran at the first sign of danger. (I mean, my fight with Stan was pretty intense—Jerri, Tovi, and Andrew have all told me to stop beating myself up about it—and I have stopped.)
For the last few weeks, I guess Tovi’s been trying to break some different news to me. “Papa and Andrew are so good with each other. Andrew didn’t leave his side for a week after you took off, man,” she told me.
“Great,” I said. “That’s really good.” I didn’t understand what she was getting at. Nothing occurred to me.
Maybe I should’ve gotten the clue when I finally took that call from Stan.
It was my birthday, a few weeks ago. Tovi said she wouldn’t speak to me ever again if I didn’t talk to Stan. She’s still doing Grandma Rose’s work. Trying to make the family all right. Tovi actually didn’t have to threaten me. I wanted to talk to him (even though it was scary).
Jerri and your dad had already taken me for lunch and a movie in Dubuque. I’d already told Cody, Karpinski, and those guys that I’d be hanging with Gus that night. Gus and I planned to watch movies at his house and eat a whole store-bought cake, just like we used to do on movie nights back when we were in eighth grade. Stan hadn’t called yet, and I was beginning to think he’d chickened out (which bummed me out).
But as I was biking over to Gus’s, my phone rang. I pulled over and pulled the vibrating phone out of my pocket.
It was a 239 area code. That’s Fort Myers. I almost fell off my bike with nerves.
I answered, “Hello?”
“Felton?” the old man’s voice said.
“Yes?” I waited. He didn’t speak right away. I held on—this was a big deal because my squirrel-nut, bolt-up-a-tree sensors were firing pretty hard. “Yes, this is Felton.”
“Felton?”
“Yes. I’m here.”
“This is your grandfather. This is Stanley.”
“Okay,” I said. I’m sure my voice was shaking.
“Are you having a good birthday?” he asked, as if we’d always talked and this wasn’t the actual first conversation (other than him screaming at me to get the hell off his court) we’d ever had.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good…Good. That’s good to hear.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Your brother has really made great strides on the tennis court. Quite impressive. You should really see him play, Felton.”
“Okay. Um. I’ll…I’ll watch for that…”
“Felton?”
“Yes?”
“I bought you a ticket to come back here. I want you to see Andrew play tennis. And I’d like to take you out to dinner for your birthday.”
Football was about to start, Aleah. A ticket? What was he thinking? Just like that? I was totally unprepared for the invitation. “I don’t think I can,” I said. “Not right now.”
“I’m sorry?” he said.
“I’m not available at the moment. Thanks for asking.”
“It would mean a lot to Tovi. Andrew would like to see you. It would be very nice.”
“No,” I said. “I really can’t.”
“Felton?”
“Yes?”
“Damn it,” he mumbled. “Felton?”
“What?”
“Do you know what I did?”
“No?”
“When I yelled at you? On the court?”
“No.”
“I wasn’t yelling at you, Felton. I knew it was you and not your father, but I wasn’t yelling at you. Do you understand?”
“No.”
Stan’s voice began to warble, which made me lose my balance, so I had to step off my bike and sit down on the curb. “Your father, Felton. Your father killed himself.”
“I know.”
“Your father hurt me and your grandmother very much. I would suggest, Felton, that I won’t ever recover from…I won’t ever be okay again, do you see?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And he was, Felton, a good, big, wonderful guy just like you. I don’t know…” Stan was gulping for air. “I don’t know, but he was so far away in that little town where you live?”
“Yeah.”
“With your mom who was just a kid. She was a little girl. What was he doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“I couldn’t help him. He wouldn’t let me. And I am so angry at him, Felton. I am so angry, but I’ve got to stop because the costs of this anger are enormous. Do you know what I did to your grandmother?”
“No.”
“I made it so she’d never meet Andrew, so she’d never spend time with you, because I was so angry. Tovi should have her cousins, you know?”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t yelling at you on the court, Felton. I was yelling at your father because what he did…it’s been too much for a small man like me to bear and I’ve broken everything. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Will you please come down here and see Andrew play and have some dinner for your birthday?”
“Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit,” I cried.
“It’s not just for…I would like to see you, Felton. I would like us to be good friends.”
“I don’t know…”
“Andrew is such a good, good boy. We’re friends, Felton. He’s my grandson. I have a grandson. But I don’t know when I might see you again. We don’t know. We need…I would like so much to be your grandfather. Please come.”
I lay back in the grass, Aleah. All these birds were flying overhead like stingrays below Tovi and me in the gulf. I shut my eyes. I thought of Gus and what he did for me. I thought of Tovi taking off a whole summer of tennis to do Gram’s work. I thought of Andrew and how I want to be the brother he deserves. And so I said, “Okay. Okay. I will.”
Happy birthday. He got the damn ticket for the week of my first game. Jerri had to change the return date so I at least had a day back in Bluffton before playing. Then it took two and a half days to get there? Happy birthday, Felton.
It’s okay. I’m glad I made the stupid trip, you know? It wasn’t stupid at all, really.
The big casualty of me being so late to get to Fort Myers was that there wasn’t time to play tennis. When they picked me up at the Shell gas station, Andrew was in his Golden Rods Hawaiian shirt.
“We’ve got to get to your birthday dinner, so I can’t show you my tennis game,” Andrew said.
“We can play back in Bluffton,” I said.
Stan jumped in: “The boy is good! He’s gotten good at the net. Such a technician!”
“Uh, yeah. Pretty good,” Tovi said.
“I’m nothing special,” Andrew said.
“Baloney, kid. You set up points like a chess player now,” Stan said.
“No. I just like to play. I’m nothing special,” Andrew said more pointedly.
“Say what you will,” Stan said.
Instead of driving to Fiddlesticks or back to the White Shells, Tovi drove the Beemer out to Sanibel Island and then to Captiva. For my birthday dinner, they took me to a restaurant right on the beach called the Mucky Duck. The bad part of this was that I hadn’t showered in days and I had chocolate melted all over my shorts, so I didn’t exactly feel comfortable walking into a restaurant.
Nobody seemed to give a crap, and even though the food seemed ridiculously expensive (I guess I got used to restaurants being super cheap from my truck-stop stops on the way down to Florida with Gus), almost everybody in the place was in shorts and T-shirts and sandals.
I ordered a filet mignon. It was quite tasty. I have never eaten such a fancy-pants steak. Andrew, Stan, and Tovi all got seafood, which smells like boiled nut cup. I guess I’m not exactly an ocean dude, yet. It sort of grossed me out, especially Stan’s lobster tail—very graphic crushing of shell…gross.
During the meal, Stan, Tovi, and Andrew laughed and talked and told me about all the crap they’d been doing all summer, and it sort of hurt my feelings, but I totally tried not to show it. Then, after we ordered dessert (Have you ever eaten chocolate mousse? Damn!), Stan pulled a gift out of the canvas bag he’d carried in.
He handed it to me. “For your birthday.”
I could tell it was a framed picture from the feel of it. Scared me a little. I immediately thought about the shot of Dad when he won the NCAA Championship—you know, the sad one? I peeled it open, feeling sort of nervous. Attached to the back of the frame was a check for a thousand dollars.
“What the hell?” I shouted.
“So you can visit that girlfriend of yours in Chicago,” Stan said. “Take her out.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know if she’s interested in…”
“Have fun with it, okay?” Stan said.
I nodded.
So, I’m going to visit you and take you out for some fun, Aleah. You better figure out what you think is fun, though, because I don’t really know how to spend that kind of money on fun. Maybe I’ll spend it on groceries with Jerri. I eat so dang much I sometimes worry I’ll drive her into total freaking poverty.
No, we can have fun, okay?
I paused before I turned over the photo. It seemed impossible that Tovi would let Stan give me that NCAA picture after it had bummed me out so much. Thankfully, it wasn’t that shot. It was the picture of Dad in high school with a whole wad of friends.
“Your father loved every last kid on that team. Oh, they were good. The boy right next to him, Matthew Sedgewick? He’s a doctor at the Mayo Clinic! Good kid.”
“He could be a fellow working at Qwik Trip and he’d still be a good kid,” Andrew said.
“He’s also like forty-five now, so he’s not really a kid,” Tovi said.
“Good boy. Just like your dad.” Stan nodded.
It’s really a good picture too. I’m looking at it right now. Dad’s hair is pretty long and Jewfroed out huge. He looks really, really happy. He’s laughing in it, like somebody just made a great joke. I think I might let my ’fro fly, Aleah. What would you think about that? Can you picture me with big-ass hair? I’m serious!
Yeah, I love the picture. I’ll show it to you tomorrow.
As soon as we finished dessert, people in the restaurant started flowing out to the beach. Apparently sunset is a huge deal at the Mucky Duck.
The four of us walked out there and parked it on the edge of a sandbank overlooking the gulf. The color in the sky, all blue and orange and purple and pink, really was beautiful. All the color just sort of melted into the ocean. (The water and sky were like one thing.) The sun seemed to hang just inches over the horizon for minutes.
While we waited, while people on the beach started clapping for the sun, cheering for it to go down, Andrew leaned over to me and said, “I’m going to stay here, Felton.”
He caught me so off guard, Aleah, that I flinched like the squirrel I am.
“You’re what?” I almost shouted.
“I want to stay in Fort Myers. This is where I’m supposed to be.”
“Jesus Christ, Andrew. No!” I said. “You can’t. Jerri will…”
“I’ve talked to Jerri a lot about this,” he said.
“You have?”
“Yes.”
“She’s okay? She’s hasn’t said a word to me about…”
“I asked her not to. I wanted to…I wanted to be the one who told…Yes. She’s okay. She’s very happy, now. Much better than ever, don’t you think?”
I nodded. She and Ronald are really together now, aren’t they, Aleah? They’re making their own plans.
I shook my head to try to get what he was saying into my brain. People around us stood up and clapped for the sun as its bottom edge dipped.
My next inclination was to say, What about me? I wanted to say, I don’t want to sit in the quiet house without you.
No, Aleah. I couldn’t say that.
Andrew had pulled off his glasses. He stared hard at me, sort of chewing so his jaw muscles popped in and out. I did worry, though. I worried he was running, which is what I do.
“You’re not trying to get away from me?” I asked quietly. “Or from kids in your class who want you to be me?”
“No. I’ve thought about that. I’m not running away,” Andrew said.
“Why, then? Why would you…”
“I enjoy the band very much. I like playing tennis with Stan, you know? And you’re okay and Jerri’s okay, but I’m not that okay. I don’t think so. I’m sad a lot. I really don’t think…I really think that Dad has messed me up. But I’m better here. And Stan and I have a lot in common and Tovi’s leaving for school, and I know Stan’s afraid of being alone, and he knows so much about music. There’s a private high school nearby with a philosophy department and a chamber orchestra and Stan’s our dad’s dad, Felton. He’s our grandpa. I think he can help me.”
“And you can help him.”
“Yes. That’s true, I think.”
The sun slid down. The colors changed. I nodded. “Jesus, Andrew, I’m going to miss you so much. You’re such a good kid. You’re so damn awesome.”
“No, I’m not. Not at all,” Andrew said.
And then the sun slid behind the earth. A flash of green light shot up into the sky. People cheered and danced, and a couple beat on drums and everybody clapped for the sun doing what it’s supposed to do. Andrew and I stood up too. Tovi stood next to me.
She leaned into me and said, “I love you, man. You’re pretty awesome.”
“Nah,” I said. “I’m nothing special.” And I mean it. I’m just me, Aleah. Just a fast and jumpy dude. But you know I’m trying.
We all stayed at the White Shells that night. (Stan got his own room; we stayed in Andrew’s, even though he’d only stayed there on Golden Rods gig nights since I left.) Tovi and Andrew wanted to walk out to the pier, but I was so wiped from the crazy days of travel that I showered, then fell asleep. I guess I had Greyhound bus lag.
In the morning, Tovi and I went into the gulf. Stingray season in Fort Myers lasts through October, but I wasn’t afraid. I know how to deal. You just move slow, shuffle your feet when you walk in. The stingrays scatter then. We didn’t say too much. Tovi goes back to Atlanta on Monday. I think she’s kind of tired. I think she’s ready to go home. I’m not sure I’d leave Fort Myers if I had a choice. I have responsibilities, though. I take them seriously.
Man, though, that water is really, really awesome. We floated around.
By the time we got back to the hotel, it was already time to get me to the airport.
Tovi drove the Beemer. Stan rode in the passenger seat. Andrew and I rode in back. Stan kept telling Tovi where to turn, and Tovi kept saying, “I know, Papa. I know. Stop. I know.”
“Oh, you know everything, is that right?” Stan asked.
In the back, Andrew said, “Felton. There’s something…Something else I wanted to say.”
“Oh…Okay?” Made me nervous.
“When you first got to Florida, I was very mean and I changed rooms and threw your shoes in the ocean, you know?”
“Yes.”
“That was bad behavior. Very reactionary and…I’m really sorry, okay? I didn’t give you credit for your humanity.”
“I was a narcissist. That’s not human.”
“No. You’re pretty nice. You’ve always been basically nice, you know? Just sort of…”
“Squirrely?”
“Frantic. But you seem much calmer now.”
“Yeah. I’m learning to think. I’m trying to be under control. I’m trying not to be such an idiot.”
Then Stan turned around in his seat. He stared at me for a second, stared through his own plastic nerd glasses (old-man glasses that slid down his nose). “Tovi, pull over this car,” he said.
“What?”
“Pull over the car, please.”
“Okay?” Tovi pulled over on the side of the big road, next to a sign that seemed to indicate cougars or cheetahs or some other kind of large cat crossed the road there.
“Felton, get out of the car, please,” Stan said.
“What?” I thought he was throwing me out. “I don’t want to.”
Stan opened his door. “Please. I need to talk to you.” He climbed out.
I looked at Tovi in the rearview mirror. She shrugged. I looked at Andrew. He said, “Stan is weird.” Then I climbed out.
Stan said, “Let’s walk a moment.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
He reached up and put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me forward. We only walked ten steps before he stopped. The hot sun beat down on my head.
Stan turned and squinted at me. He said, “Your father had what would be called clinical depression. Real depression. That’s a mental illness, you know?”
The air left my lungs. I nodded.
“He wouldn’t treat it. He didn’t believe that it existed. I didn’t either, not until it was too late.”
“Oh,” I breathed.
“The first time I realized something was changing in him—now I know for the worse—he started calling himself an idiot. He would win a tennis match his senior year and come home and describe all of the things he’d done wrong. ‘Idiot move,’ he’d say. ‘Stupid. Wasn’t thinking.’ And he took no pleasure in playing. All he did was remember how he’d failed. And because I wanted him to be the best, I took this to be a positive change. I encouraged him to be self-critical.”
“Oh no,” I said.
“Many things happened.” Stan nodded. “Many things went wrong with your father and with me too. These things I can only begin to understand and forgive, especially my part in this…”
“Uh-huh.” I was shaking, Aleah.
“But I am telling you something right now. I’m telling you right now. Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to love being on that field. Just love it, Felton. Play that game like it’s the greatest thing you could be doing, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Because it is, right? To play as well as you do is such a wonderful privilege. To be a great player is such a gift. Love that gift. Love that gift, Felton. You try hard and you love your gift. Can you do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Remember. Think about it. Think how good it is to be able to run.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll come see a game this fall. And when I do, I want to see you in love out there. Winning, losing, making mistakes. None of it matters. Be in love. Do you understand what I mean?”
And then I thought about how I’d wanted to make out with that Nashville ponytail girl who played Ultimate Frisbee (the one who was so fast and could chase down the Frisbee anywhere on that field) and how I really didn’t want to make out with her at all, I just felt so damn happy being able to play and run that I felt love, Aleah. Really. So I said, “Okay, Stan. Okay. I know. I can do that.”
Jesus, Aleah. I’ve never seen an old man smile so hard. He got big old-man tears in his eyes. He said, “That’s good, kid. That’ll help you. That’s how Andrew tells me to play tennis.”
We were both sort of bawling when we got back in the car.
“More Reinstein crazy,” Tovi said.
Andrew just put his head on my shoulder.
Then I blinked (that’s what it felt like) and I was on a plane high above the Gulf of Mexico, looking down at that big blue and the Dangling Sack dangling into it. And I thought: This is good. Andrew’s right. Andrew’s right. The only thing similar between this trip and the last? I wore my dad’s Stan Smith tennis shoes. Otherwise, it was all different. I felt no regret. I didn’t feel fear. I felt excited for Andrew.
Everything is different, Aleah.
And there were no delays! No cancellations!
Less than twenty-four hours after Tovi picked me up at that Shell gas station in Port Charlotte, I was back in Madison, standing outside the airport, getting picked up by Jerri.
The first thing Jerri said when we got in the car was, “Pretty strange, huh?”
We drove around Madison’s east side to catch 151 home.
“I’m so sorry, Jerri,” I said. I didn’t know what Jerri thought about all of this, but I wanted to be nice to her.
“Why?” Jerri asked. “Andrew’s on his adventure.”
“Really. That’s what you think?” I asked.
“He was made to do this. That’s what I think.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s been trying to put things back together for years.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Fourteen years old.” She shook her head. “How did a weirdo like me make a kid like that?”
“You’re okay, Jerri.”
“I’m not exactly a traditional mom,” Jerri said.
That made me laugh for some reason.
“What?” Jerri asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
We drove the rest of the way to Bluffton talking about nothing much, the windows down, that awesome Wisconsin August air blowing in the Hyundai.
Oh my God, I have never been so happy to be at football practice as I was on Thursday afternoon. All the weird thought—all the worry I had about the future and recruiters and who I’m supposed to be—was gone. I ran. And the whole team just clicked. All I wanted to do was run with my friends. That’s all my friends want from me, really. Nothing else matters.
This is what I’m beginning to figure out: if you act out of love (for the game, for friends, for your family), whatever you do is both perfect and right. It doesn’t matter if you’re a deep thinker or a squirrel nut if you act out of love. Crap starts getting seriously screwed if something else gets in the way, something like fear or revenge or even victory or being famous or some other dumb thing, I think. I think it’s true. The only thing we need to do is figure out what we really love.
“Good trip, huh?” Coach Johnson asked after practice.
“Yeah. Yeah,” was all I could say.
This afternoon, when you leapt out of Ronald’s car on the driveway and ran up to me and hugged me and cried, I knew I loved you. When Tovi texted me when I was getting up to the high school to dress for the game, to tell me she was dying to be here and couldn’t wait to hear what happened…I knew love. When Roy Ngelale came out on the field, those Bluffton stadium lights firing the green field, and said, “You’re getting nothing tonight, nothing, man,” I felt huge love for him because I knew something. I knew it. He’s great. I’m great. I am a football player.
It was my third touchdown, a trap play I just totally dig, that made it clear.
We were on our own twenty-six-yard line. Kirk Johnson went into motion. Lakeside’s linebackers called, “Watch end around, watch end around!” Cody took the snap and faked to Kirk as he passed by. Then he put the ball in my hands. Reese pulled from left tackle and crossed in front of me. Our center and right guard blocked down. I slowed to let the collision take place. Big-ass Reese cracked the crap out of the d-tackle, and I smiled and exploded. In a broken second I was past the linebackers, who flowed with the fake.
In a second it was only Lakeside’s safety, Roy Ngelale, and me. He broke down to hit me. I dipped right then squirrel nut jumped to the left. He totally missed and had to turn to run with me. And we were off. The two fastest guys in the state. Oh, no…oh, no…There was nothing slow. I could hear the crowd screaming, roaring, sort of exploding…so good. And there was a great, buzzing fast forward. The green field dropped out. The stands turned to a rush of gray. I think I made Daffy Duck sounds. Ngelale roared, trying to catch me. I angled toward the sideline, then flew up the field. Ngelale’s footsteps faded away behind me.
In the end zone, Roy grabbed me. He said, “You’re too good, man. You’re too good. This is your game.”
I hugged him back. I said, “I love you, man. This is awesome. We’re okay at this, huh, man?”
He’d already scored two long runs of his own. Ngelale laughed. “Yeah, man. Yeah. Let’s play for the same team next year.”
And we trotted back up the field to where my teammates jumped me.
After the game, in the good-game line, Ngelale just said, “Go Badgers.”
I don’t know. What about Gators? We’ll see…
I’m not going to worry about college now. Right now I’m thinking of my little brother, Andrew. Tonight, right out there on the beach, he sang Barbara Ann like a beautiful canary while the old ladies screamed. Stan, my dad’s dad, was there. Tovi, my cousin, cheered with the ladies.
I play football. Andrew sings songs.
Tovi plays tennis. Stan wants us all to be in love.
I think we’ll do it. I think we can.
It’s nothing special, Aleah.
It’s just what we do.
We’re just Reinsteins. That’s all.
Welcome home.
I love you,
Felton