This is the first day of the future, and all I want is you...
I got a nice positive response to the line I posted from one of my original projects in the census meme. So I thought I'd post it in context, with a supporting scene or two to set up the backstory. If you are inspired to comment, critique, etc., it would be, as always, greatly appreciated.
From: Midnight Madness (Original)
He remembers, with near-perfect clarity, the last time he knew who he was.
He’s suspended, breathless with exertion, with exhilaration. Hands grab for his elbow, his back, his jersey, but no one can tear him down. He blinks and sees stars, his vision still dazzled from an elbow to the temple on the last possession.
He hangs there, buoyed by adrenaline, as the buzzer goes and the crowd rushes the floor.
His mom is in the stands, clapping and shaking her head like the outcome was never in question. Tammy stands next to her, bouncing up and down as much as she can. She’s heavily pregnant and holding a red-faced toddler, his hands clapped over his ears against the sheer volume of the noise in the gym. On the sidelines, Coach Mac pumps his fist into the air, and Cate is completely losing her shit in the spectacular way that only cheerleaders can.
This is who he is.
Eric Reya, #17, Central High Wildcats. Maker of the perfect shot; scorer of the game-winning basket. State Champion. Winner. Hero of the day.
He can't quite breathe and there's a dull throbbing pain in his head. The lights of the gym contract to tiny sulfur pinpoints, like stars in the night sky. Like the far off lights of a ship headed into the canal, pointed homeward.
And then he's falling...
He wakes, still breathless, sweating even though the heat has been off for hours. His stomach lurches and the next thing he’s aware of is kneeling on the bathroom floor, losing what’s left of the greasy hamburger mac and cheese from last night’s dinner. The floor is slick and freezing, thin linoleum over concrete, cold enough to burn his palms.
Everything about that game is etched into his memory. That perfect game. Even the concussion was worth it for that come-from-behind, underdog-upset state championship win. He was the High School Player of the Week on ESPN Radio for that performance, and the recruiting calls had started in earnest while he'd still been propped up on the couch with an ice pack, Gatorade and a bottle of Advil.
That game is haunting him.
Where do you go after a game like that? For most players, especially young players, the answer is nowhere but down. That's why it's midnight and Eric is sitting on the bathroom floor, swishing mouthwash and trying to get his heart to stop pounding.
The unofficial start of the season - his junior season, potentially the most important season of his life - is tomorrow.
And, unbelievably, that's the least of his worries.
*
Toast.
It's the first word that pops into his head on waking and it means, potentially anyway, multiple things.
Immediately, it means breakfast. Metaphorically... well, that all depends on how tonight goes.
Breakfast is toast and Pop Tarts, Sunny-D and a cup of instant coffee mixed with microwaved hot water. Tammy is buttering the toast from a crumb-laced tub of margarine, while trying to wrangle three small children into chairs at the kitchen table. Eric owes Tammy - a lot - so he grabs the smallest child, plunks him into a high chair and starts filling sippy cups with juice.
“Thanks, hon,” she says, gathering up the cups. Then, softly, so the kids can't hear, “Any word from your mom?”
There's no word yet. Not from his mom and not from the Navy, and at this point no news is probably good news. Tammy squeezes his arm, tells him to call his grandma after practice and hands him a plate of toast. It's the most she can do and he appreciates it. He just can't think about of any of it too much - not today.
The local TV news is on and Eric tries not to listen too closely, but it's nearly impossible to tune it out completely.
Tragic news in the fight for Iraq. Three soldiers in a Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade were killed over the weekend when their unit came under enemy fire...
...These latest casualties bring the number of Washington State servicemen killed this month in Iraq to 11, making this the deadliest month yet...
The Pentagon has not yet released the names of the five Navy medical personnel killed in Tuesday’s bold attack on a U.S. military-run clinic, deep inside the Green Zone. The Pentagon will release those names pending notification of the families…
Meanwhile, the president will address the nation in a press conference later today, responding to calls from Capitol Hill to set a timeline for the permanent withdrawal of troops from Iraq. The president is also expected to address continuing concerns around the quality of care provided to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts at the nearly 1300 VA facilities across the nation. We'll have that for you live at 9 a.m., Pacific Time. But, first, Larry is up next with sports...
Thanks, Jan. Looking ahead… Will the Washington State Cougars have another dream season? Or will the Huskies spoil their run to another NCAA Tournament berth?
Good, he thinks. That's good. Focus on basketball. The other stuff can wait.
There’s a late-90s model Subaru station wagon idling in the parking lot when he walks outside. The motor hitches occasionally, making an ominous noise, but recovers without stalling.
They’ve driven down The Hill to Enlisted Housing to get him. The Hill is the line between the two: officer and enlisted. The road forks at a military-issue brown sign, dividing them. Trying to, anyway. The hierarchy of high school usually trumps the hierarchy of the military. Things like beauty, brains or basketball are more likely predictors of the makeup of cliques than officer and enlisted.
Tariq and Chris are sitting in the car, driver and shot-gun. They’re wearing matching letterman jackets, clearly marking their place in the high school pecking order. Tariq is sturdily built, broad-shouldered and a little stocky. He's frowning as he rolls down the window.
“Hurry it up, Reya. I've gotta go for a run before weigh-in this morning.”
*
The walls of the high school have a cracked eggshell finish, dulled to grey by decades of taped posters and trailing hands. Orange and black banners hang in the halls and in the gym, giving the school the slightly surreal feeling that it’s always Halloween. A poster for the annual “Black and Orange Harvest Dance” adds to the overall effect.
There’s a butcher paper banner over the entrance to the gym, declaring Thursday night “Midnight Madness,” which, according to the sign, actually starts at 10 p.m. He knows from long experience, though, that no one will touch a basketball until 11:30 at the earliest.
The cheerleaders stand in a knot by the door, nodding in unison to something Cate is saying, her face animated and hands moving emphatically. They’re in sleek black uniforms - all angles and slashes, straight off the drawing board at Nike - that he’s pretty sure are Cate’s doing.
Cate is compact and lithe, nothing but solid muscle and fine bones, despite a sweet tooth that could pay off a dentist’s mortgage. He remembers a time when she refused to eat anything but pink Hello Kitty marshmallows. Granted, they were seven at the time, but Cate is still pink marshmallows to him, and probably always will be.
She would kill him if she knew.
*
All of the streets in Officer Housing are named after lost submarines.
Robalo, Trigger, Scorpion, Cochino, Barbel.
Thresher.
Cate lives on a corner where a reactor shutdown and all hands lost meets a mine explosion and four vanished prisoners of war.
Biking up The Hill, he can never quite lose the feeling that he’s an intruder there; that the MPs are watching him, that everyone he passes knows he doesn’t belong.
It’s unseasonably sunny and Cate is on the patio. The MPs slow their white van, the passenger window rolled down, to watch her as they pass. She’s wearing a high-necked sweater and jeans, with bare feet and an open bottle of nail polish.
“Hey,” he says, balancing his bike against the curb, “want to play a little ball?”
“Sure, let me run in and change.”
He doesn't follow her in, and she doesn't ask him to. They both know that her parents - who've always liked Eric - are likely to ask about his mom and it's something they'd both prefer not to talk about right now.
She comes back out wearing flip-flops.
“Really? To play basketball?”
She shrugs, supremely unconcerned. “My nails are still wet.”
“To play basketball,” he repeats, shaking his head.
They head to the playground - two blocks south of a street named after a torpedo misfire at the edge of the Sargasso Sea - without speaking until he says, “I need to work on my free throws.”
Cate nods, the way she has since the day they met, and says, “Okay. You know I'm crap though, right?”
“So's North County, so it'll be like practice for the season opener.” He bounces the ball to her. “Your shot first.”
She makes it - nothing but net - and executes a perfect back-handspring in celebration.
“Two points!” She grins at him, holding up her index and middle fingers.
“It's a free throw, genius. That's one point.”
She laughs at him and he gets a flicker of what other people must see when they look at her. Cate is the American dream in the flesh, head cheerleader, the original girl-next-door. Half the guys on the team are in love with her, but too afraid of Eric to ever try anything.
She rules the school with a kind of benevolent menace.
“All shall love me and despair,” she'd laughed once when he brought it up, though he hadn't quite gotten the joke.
To him, though, she’s just Cate. She shared her crayons and her Chips Ahoy with him every day in 2nd grade because it wasn’t fair that he didn’t have any.
From: Midnight Madness (Original)
He remembers, with near-perfect clarity, the last time he knew who he was.
He’s suspended, breathless with exertion, with exhilaration. Hands grab for his elbow, his back, his jersey, but no one can tear him down. He blinks and sees stars, his vision still dazzled from an elbow to the temple on the last possession.
He hangs there, buoyed by adrenaline, as the buzzer goes and the crowd rushes the floor.
His mom is in the stands, clapping and shaking her head like the outcome was never in question. Tammy stands next to her, bouncing up and down as much as she can. She’s heavily pregnant and holding a red-faced toddler, his hands clapped over his ears against the sheer volume of the noise in the gym. On the sidelines, Coach Mac pumps his fist into the air, and Cate is completely losing her shit in the spectacular way that only cheerleaders can.
This is who he is.
Eric Reya, #17, Central High Wildcats. Maker of the perfect shot; scorer of the game-winning basket. State Champion. Winner. Hero of the day.
He can't quite breathe and there's a dull throbbing pain in his head. The lights of the gym contract to tiny sulfur pinpoints, like stars in the night sky. Like the far off lights of a ship headed into the canal, pointed homeward.
And then he's falling...
He wakes, still breathless, sweating even though the heat has been off for hours. His stomach lurches and the next thing he’s aware of is kneeling on the bathroom floor, losing what’s left of the greasy hamburger mac and cheese from last night’s dinner. The floor is slick and freezing, thin linoleum over concrete, cold enough to burn his palms.
Everything about that game is etched into his memory. That perfect game. Even the concussion was worth it for that come-from-behind, underdog-upset state championship win. He was the High School Player of the Week on ESPN Radio for that performance, and the recruiting calls had started in earnest while he'd still been propped up on the couch with an ice pack, Gatorade and a bottle of Advil.
That game is haunting him.
Where do you go after a game like that? For most players, especially young players, the answer is nowhere but down. That's why it's midnight and Eric is sitting on the bathroom floor, swishing mouthwash and trying to get his heart to stop pounding.
The unofficial start of the season - his junior season, potentially the most important season of his life - is tomorrow.
And, unbelievably, that's the least of his worries.
*
Toast.
It's the first word that pops into his head on waking and it means, potentially anyway, multiple things.
Immediately, it means breakfast. Metaphorically... well, that all depends on how tonight goes.
Breakfast is toast and Pop Tarts, Sunny-D and a cup of instant coffee mixed with microwaved hot water. Tammy is buttering the toast from a crumb-laced tub of margarine, while trying to wrangle three small children into chairs at the kitchen table. Eric owes Tammy - a lot - so he grabs the smallest child, plunks him into a high chair and starts filling sippy cups with juice.
“Thanks, hon,” she says, gathering up the cups. Then, softly, so the kids can't hear, “Any word from your mom?”
There's no word yet. Not from his mom and not from the Navy, and at this point no news is probably good news. Tammy squeezes his arm, tells him to call his grandma after practice and hands him a plate of toast. It's the most she can do and he appreciates it. He just can't think about of any of it too much - not today.
The local TV news is on and Eric tries not to listen too closely, but it's nearly impossible to tune it out completely.
Tragic news in the fight for Iraq. Three soldiers in a Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade were killed over the weekend when their unit came under enemy fire...
...These latest casualties bring the number of Washington State servicemen killed this month in Iraq to 11, making this the deadliest month yet...
The Pentagon has not yet released the names of the five Navy medical personnel killed in Tuesday’s bold attack on a U.S. military-run clinic, deep inside the Green Zone. The Pentagon will release those names pending notification of the families…
Meanwhile, the president will address the nation in a press conference later today, responding to calls from Capitol Hill to set a timeline for the permanent withdrawal of troops from Iraq. The president is also expected to address continuing concerns around the quality of care provided to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts at the nearly 1300 VA facilities across the nation. We'll have that for you live at 9 a.m., Pacific Time. But, first, Larry is up next with sports...
Thanks, Jan. Looking ahead… Will the Washington State Cougars have another dream season? Or will the Huskies spoil their run to another NCAA Tournament berth?
Good, he thinks. That's good. Focus on basketball. The other stuff can wait.
There’s a late-90s model Subaru station wagon idling in the parking lot when he walks outside. The motor hitches occasionally, making an ominous noise, but recovers without stalling.
They’ve driven down The Hill to Enlisted Housing to get him. The Hill is the line between the two: officer and enlisted. The road forks at a military-issue brown sign, dividing them. Trying to, anyway. The hierarchy of high school usually trumps the hierarchy of the military. Things like beauty, brains or basketball are more likely predictors of the makeup of cliques than officer and enlisted.
Tariq and Chris are sitting in the car, driver and shot-gun. They’re wearing matching letterman jackets, clearly marking their place in the high school pecking order. Tariq is sturdily built, broad-shouldered and a little stocky. He's frowning as he rolls down the window.
“Hurry it up, Reya. I've gotta go for a run before weigh-in this morning.”
*
The walls of the high school have a cracked eggshell finish, dulled to grey by decades of taped posters and trailing hands. Orange and black banners hang in the halls and in the gym, giving the school the slightly surreal feeling that it’s always Halloween. A poster for the annual “Black and Orange Harvest Dance” adds to the overall effect.
There’s a butcher paper banner over the entrance to the gym, declaring Thursday night “Midnight Madness,” which, according to the sign, actually starts at 10 p.m. He knows from long experience, though, that no one will touch a basketball until 11:30 at the earliest.
The cheerleaders stand in a knot by the door, nodding in unison to something Cate is saying, her face animated and hands moving emphatically. They’re in sleek black uniforms - all angles and slashes, straight off the drawing board at Nike - that he’s pretty sure are Cate’s doing.
Cate is compact and lithe, nothing but solid muscle and fine bones, despite a sweet tooth that could pay off a dentist’s mortgage. He remembers a time when she refused to eat anything but pink Hello Kitty marshmallows. Granted, they were seven at the time, but Cate is still pink marshmallows to him, and probably always will be.
She would kill him if she knew.
*
All of the streets in Officer Housing are named after lost submarines.
Robalo, Trigger, Scorpion, Cochino, Barbel.
Thresher.
Cate lives on a corner where a reactor shutdown and all hands lost meets a mine explosion and four vanished prisoners of war.
Biking up The Hill, he can never quite lose the feeling that he’s an intruder there; that the MPs are watching him, that everyone he passes knows he doesn’t belong.
It’s unseasonably sunny and Cate is on the patio. The MPs slow their white van, the passenger window rolled down, to watch her as they pass. She’s wearing a high-necked sweater and jeans, with bare feet and an open bottle of nail polish.
“Hey,” he says, balancing his bike against the curb, “want to play a little ball?”
“Sure, let me run in and change.”
He doesn't follow her in, and she doesn't ask him to. They both know that her parents - who've always liked Eric - are likely to ask about his mom and it's something they'd both prefer not to talk about right now.
She comes back out wearing flip-flops.
“Really? To play basketball?”
She shrugs, supremely unconcerned. “My nails are still wet.”
“To play basketball,” he repeats, shaking his head.
They head to the playground - two blocks south of a street named after a torpedo misfire at the edge of the Sargasso Sea - without speaking until he says, “I need to work on my free throws.”
Cate nods, the way she has since the day they met, and says, “Okay. You know I'm crap though, right?”
“So's North County, so it'll be like practice for the season opener.” He bounces the ball to her. “Your shot first.”
She makes it - nothing but net - and executes a perfect back-handspring in celebration.
“Two points!” She grins at him, holding up her index and middle fingers.
“It's a free throw, genius. That's one point.”
She laughs at him and he gets a flicker of what other people must see when they look at her. Cate is the American dream in the flesh, head cheerleader, the original girl-next-door. Half the guys on the team are in love with her, but too afraid of Eric to ever try anything.
She rules the school with a kind of benevolent menace.
“All shall love me and despair,” she'd laughed once when he brought it up, though he hadn't quite gotten the joke.
To him, though, she’s just Cate. She shared her crayons and her Chips Ahoy with him every day in 2nd grade because it wasn’t fair that he didn’t have any.