Stick

By Michael Harmon

“Stick” is the best wide receiver in the history of his high school—the football seems magnetically drawn to his hands, hence his nickname.

Preston is an outcast, and his pipsqueak stature and nerdy social status couldn’t be further from a star athlete’s.

Stick puts on his football costume every week to make others—his teammates, his dad, everyone but himself—happy, but he’s fallen out of love with the sport and feels that he’s lost control of his future.

Preston puts on his homemade superhero costume every night to help others, too: to avenge his father’s murder, he’s determined to right the wrongs he sees in his neighborhood and regain control of the flawed world he sees around him.

A twist of fate brings this unlikely pair together in a friendship that is as odd as it is true. Each can see the other better than he can see himself, and in these unexpected reflections lies a chance for mutual redemption.

Also by Michael Harmon

Under the Bridge

The Chamber of Five

Brutal

The Last Exit to Normal

Skate

I was there. In the zone. Midair, my body stretched, flying right along with the football. I loved the feeling. Those few seconds when nothing was touching me. When I was free. When I was doing what I loved and the rest of the world disappeared. Game winner. Touchdown. Cheering crowd. We would put another notch in the belt, show the league who would dominate. Just like last year. State champions. First time in school history to take it twice in a row. Second time in state history any school had swept two years.

It skimmed my fingers. Fell away. Like a dream you could barely grasp after waking: there, but not there.

I hit the field, thudding and skidding on the turf, the ball tumbling away uselessly. Dream over. Game over. Back to real life.

Driving home, I replayed it in my head a million times. Our first loss of the year. Me picking myself up. Feeling the bruises forming, the adrenaline leaving my veins. The crowd quiet. Coach with a slack-jawed expression. My dad on the fifty-yard line, four rows up in the stands, manning the video camera. His face wasn't disappointed. No. Not one bit disappointed.

He was sitting in his recliner when I got home. Four empty beer bottles, and a fifth, half full, sat on the table next to him. I shut the door. He hit the pause button on the remote and nodded toward the couch. "Sit down, Brett."

I took a breath, walked across the carpet, and sat. Of course he was replaying the game, and of course it was paused exactly at the spot where I missed the pass. The past three years of my life--since I'd made it onto the Hamilton team at the start of freshman year--had been paused on every mistake I'd ever made on the field. He took a swig of his beer. "Perfect pass, Brett. Perfect."

"I couldn't get to it."

He grunted, then jabbed the remote at the TV like he was poking a fire. He rewound the tape. "No. Watch." He hit the play button, and we watched the down from beginning to end. "See? What do you see?"

My shoulder ached. "Me missing a pass."

He looked at me, never happy with anything but total perfection. His eyes went back to the screen. "Why, though? Why did you miss it?"

My knees were killing me, and the only thing I wanted was to zone out, but no, he had to teach me. Show me everything I wasn't. Show me everything he'd never been. "I'm tired, and I've got to train in the morning. Can we do this tomorrow?"

He nodded, chugging the rest of the beer and getting up. "Yes, we're going to do this tomorrow. But we're also going to do this tonight." He pointed at the screen as he passed to get another beer. "What did you see, Brett?"

"I saw a long pass."

I heard him pop the cap on a fresh one. He walked back in and sat down, tipping the bottle at me. "It can't always be somebody else's fault. You were late on the snap. Look." He hit rewind and played it again. "See? That half second meant you would have been where you should have been. It wasn't a long pass. You should have been there."

My father was an avalanche of ice spilling over me, but instead of stinging and burning, I was just numb. He was relentless. Obsessed.

"It was one pass, Dad."

He finished his beer. Less than three minutes from full to empty. He shook his head. "Exactly. One pass. Losers lose, and you lost because you didn't pay attention."

I grunted, glancing at the beer bottle still clutched in his hand. "You didn't happen to notice the four I caught? Or maybe that I went for ninety-seven yards? Or maybe that my room is full of trophies?"

"Don't start with the bullshit, Brett. I'm tired of your attitude, and on top of that, I know you're failing math, which means no football." He shook his head and tried to take a swig of the bottle, which was empty. He looked at it, irritated, then tipped it at me. "Yeah, Coach called. You're failing. I don't know what your problem is, but we've got a scout from UCLA coming to look at you next week, and I'm not going to let anything ruin that. Including tonight. What if he'd been here? What if he'd seen it?"

You could give my dad a penny less than a million dollars and he'd bitch about the penny. And I knew he really didn't want to know what my problem was. If he knew, he'd flip. "He would have seen me miss a long pass."

He shook his head, his eyes bleary. "You want to be a smart-ass? Fine. Grounded for the weekend. Forced manual labor. Go to bed."

"Dad--come on. So I should have caught the pass. I'll watch the tape tomorrow, and I'll work on the snap."

He shook his head. "Grounded. At least until you buck up." He raised an eyebrow at me. "And lose the attitude, huh? This isn't Little League. You're not playing with a bunch of little pukes with no talent. You're a champion."

Relentless. It never ended. "There's a party tomorrow night. The whole team is going to be there. Please?"

"I said grounded." He held out his hand. "No phone, either. Not until you bring that grade up."

I bit my lip, tempted to stuff the phone down his throat, but I handed it over. He threw it on the table, then went back to watching the screen. I watched him watching me fail, and I knew why I was in trouble. And math had nothing to do with it.