The Meat Grinder by Chris Crutcher

Author:Chris Crutcher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

I drop into my three-point stance once more as Rich walks back toward Coach, take a deep breath, and get ready for a long afternoon. Coach smacks Rich with the ball again, and sucks air, ready to blast that whistle. Rich looks past my face mask one more time, and I guess he’s not satisfied, ’cause he puts his hand up once more. “Time.”

Coach has about had it. Even for Rich Saxon.

Rich hands him the ball again, walks toward me, motions me up.

“Man,” I say, “just lemme get this over with.”

“I’m lookin’ in your eyes, Mack; I don’t see it, man. You got faith?”

I shake my head. “Got no faith, Rich.”

“Gotta have faith. Not in God. In yourself. When you hear that whistle, you come at me with everything you got, hear me?”

“I hear you, Rich.”

“I mean it.” He grabs my face mask. “Look at me.”

What am I gonna do? He’s got my face mask. I look at him.

“Everything you’ve got. Right below my numbers. Shoulder first, and wrap me up like you’re holding on to a life buoy in a hurricane.”

“Shoulder first. Life buoy,” I say.

“Faith,” he says.

“Shoulder,” I say again. “Life buoy.”

The whistle blasts and Rich explodes at me, knees high, legs pumping like pistons. And I give him everything I’ve got. I’m running low, staring right at his waistline. In the distance I hear a guttural growl, realize just before impact it’s coming out of me.

A light explodes in my head; all feeling drains from my extremities. My arms try to wrap him up, but they are disconnected from my brain. I open my eyes in time to see his legs churning on past, close them again, and wait for sensation to return. And the whistle.

Precious few acts of kindness have been directed my way in my lifetime, so few I bet I remember them all. I don’t say that to get sympathy or pity; it’s just fact. But none like this. In the same second Rich runs me over, he stops on a dime, whirls, and hurdles my near-lifeless body back to Coach in time to snatch the whistle from between his lips. “Pound for pound,” he says, “that’s the hardest I’ve ever been hit.” He nods toward me. “How ’bout it, Coach? My buddy Mack’s done with this drill for the day.”

Coach stares at me. His whistle blasts. “Next up!”

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