It was eleven p.m. on a Saturday night sleepover, and the four of us were living every middle school boy’s dream in the basement of my childhood home: we were stuffed with pizza and sodas pilfered from my dad’s minifridge, sleeping bags and pillows were strewn all over the place, and the TV was blaring Adult Swim episodes on Cartoon Network (the ones where you could see the girls in bikinis, if you were lucky). We were playing tag. It was a great game, too. We bounded and leapt and yelled and pushed and punched, and suddenly there was a crash, a cry—we saw Zack Hunter, our ringleader, sprawled on the ground next to the elliptical. Zack was still laughing faintly, but the expensive exercise machine had taken the brunt of the attack: the pedals were bent, a handle snapped clean off, the screen shattered. Broken glass littered the floor. We froze in our tracks. The fog of youth lifted, and we realized what we had done.
His seventh-grader bravado forgotten, Zack trudged upstairs and apologized to my parents over and over. I was quietly amazed at how the most raucous member of our clique shrunk before my parents’ authority. Back hunched and teary-eyed, Zack begged for forgiveness. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Dizon, I’ll try to fix it, or I’ll pay it back, or, or…” He trailed off. In the swimmingly humid living room, apologies poured from Zack’s lips.
My parents were wholly reassuring, and the night slowly resumed—there were still precious hours left before bedtime, after all—and there was a silent acknowledgment that we would not talk about what happened. Upstairs we saw what we weren’t supposed to see: the crack in Zack’s facade, behind which was a blubbering boy whose tears never seemed to stop.
•
Six years later, my parents called my boarding school and told me that Zack had died in a car accident. I remember being angry. It was a stupid reason. It surfaced that he and a friend had been speeding down a hill and then lost control. In his head he was bounding and leaping and pushing and then a crash, a cry—it was over. I wonder what it was like in the moments before: whether he gripped the wheel and yelled, whether he was laughing the way he did before the elliptical in my basement shattered.
•
Zack Hunter (yes, Zack with a K! He would correct anyone who tried to correct it.) was a ball of energy disguised as a seventh-grader. Physically he was awkward in the same way middle school boys often are: although he kept his short stature and baby face, he was going through growth spurts that only seemed to affect his limbs. He was a scrawny kid, skin-and-bones, all angles: I remember his bony elbows that he would use to jab me in my sides, and his gangly legs, which propelled him from one side of the soccer field to the other in record time. I don’t think our Catholic school uniform—khaki pants and navy-blue polo shirts—ever quite suited Zack’s minuscule frame. They were always too big for him, and he would often get scolded for leaving his shirt untucked. But who could blame him? It never fit anyway.
During recess and after school, Zack became the de facto leader of our group of misfits—none of us had any interest in the more “popular” clique of middle schoolers, who were, by now, receiving their first cell phones and learning to play spin-the-bottle. Instead Zack led us through a series of misadventures: pretending to be zombies in the alleyway behind the school dumpsters, shooting BB guns into the woods behind his house, and, perhaps most dangerously, secretly playing dodgeball in the huge school storage closet. It housed maintenance equipment, folded cafeteria tables, dusty bookshelves—but it also hid the dodgeballs, basketballs, scooters, hula hoops, and all kinds of confiscated sports paraphernalia from nosy students. With infectious bravado, Zack had opened the door to the expansive closet, revealing its treasure of old furniture and deflated basketballs. “It’s the perfect spot,” Zack said proudly. “The tables are like, like, barricades. From Call of Duty, you know? And these…” He opened a crate by the door, and basketballs came tumbling out. “These are the dodgeballs.”
I was wary of getting my skull bashed in by a heavy basketball and then splitting my head open on a cafeteria table—but I saw the other three boys were already clambering onto the furniture and readying themselves for the battle. Anthony had grabbed two balls—one to defend himself with, another to attack. R.J. was in the very back of the closet, almost completely concealed underneath a table. Unsteadily, I climbed a table of my own, my head uncomfortably close to the low ceiling. Zack was still on the ground, one hand on the closet’s light switch.
“Everyone ready?” Zack said. The anticipation was palpable.
He turned off the lights, and all hell broke loose.
•
“Do you want to go to the funeral? It’s here at the church in town.” My mother’s voice, staticky and crackled, over the phone.
I didn’t answer at first. Jerseyville, my hometown, was a five-hour drive from my boarding school, a place that required absences to be scheduled weeks in advance. But it was a funeral…
My mom kept talking to fill the silence. “Everyone here has been praying, praying… You should’ve seen the line, at the visitation, Michael. They had the viewing at your old high school gym! Next to all the trophies. And the line, it went halfway down the block!”
“Ah…” Next to the trophies, I thought. That’s fitting.
“Anyway… that was yesterday, and the funeral is the day after tomorrow… if we hurry, we can pick you up and take you home tomorrow, if you want? Do you think it’s too busy?”
“Well…”
“Is it too busy?” There wasn’t any hint of disappointment in my mother’s words. In fact, she sounded unsurprised.
“Yeah… I think I have to stay.”
“You’ll stay?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Tell them… tell them I’m sorry.”
•
Zack was fast, and he knew it. This was one of the three marks of middle-school masculinity within our friend group, the other two being your skill at Call of Duty and how much you appreciated the art of paintball or hunting. He was the ace of our eighth-grade soccer team, took up tennis and hockey soon after, and he obliterated whatever opponents he had at playground kickball. It was rumored that he was even faster than Trevor Ward, the only other kid in our grade who was as short as Zack, or even comparable to “Boo,” a mythological figure from another school said to be the fastest in Jerseyville. But whoever Boo was, I knew Zack was probably better than him at paintball. I had seen it firsthand. And hunting. And he could probably get more headshots in Call of Duty. And Zack was probably faster, too.
Meanwhile, I was still getting picked last whenever teams were picked in P.E. I wasn’t good at any of the things the other three guys were good at, either, and when Zack picked up on it, he would immediately call me out: “Michael, that’s gay.” When I missed an easy kill in a video game: “That’s gay.” When I got angry after Zack kept throwing rocks at me on a field trip: “That’s gay.” When I got a fruit cup instead of another burger in the lunch line: “That’s gay.” When I wasn’t fast enough to get to the good kickballs that we wanted to play with at recess:
“Michael, why didn’t you get the good kickball? You’re always in the front of line. You’re supposed to get it for us,” Zack snapped.
“But we can use the yellow ball too,” I said.
“Nah, that’s gay.”
“Yeah, gay,” Anthony and R.J. parroted.
“We could play dodgeball in the storage closet?” I offered.
Silence.
It became a mantra to Zack and his lackeys—“Michael, that’s gay, yeah, that’s gay,”—and in my adolescent innocence I was at a loss for what the word actually meant. To me it was just another reminder that there was something invisible between Zack and I, some kind of barrier placed when my back was turned. Doggedly I tried to overcome it; I would run drills at soccer practice until soaked with sweat, and dead sprint the P.E. mile run as hard as I could. But it was never enough. I was abysmally slow.
For a few weeks, I tried a different angle to get my “in”: instead of physically pushing myself, I would wake up early so I could watch the cartoons Zack kept talking about. I figured a good sense of humor could make up for my poor mile time, and a clever reference at the right time could heal the wounds from years of being mocked. My opportunity came when the four of us were together for some group project, and we had to think of a team name. My head spun with possibilities; we couldn’t be anything corny like The Three Musketeers or anything like that. We could be, like, Team Rocket, from Pokémon (I knew Anthony still liked Pokémon), or Team Avatar, from Avatar: The Last Airbender, or maybe something like The Zombies, from Call of Duty, even though I never played that game? Or, just something funny, like the Laser Monkeys…
Zack broke into a smile. “How about ‘Three Men, One Asian?’”
Anthony and R.J. burst into laughter. “Crap, that’s perfect, that’s perfect!”
With uncertainty I tried to suggest other names, but they were laughing so hard I might as well have been mute. I couldn’t tell why I was getting so upset—why didn’t I find it funny? Why couldn’t I laugh with everybody else? Why can’t I make funny jokes like that? Cheeks growing hot and eyes blinking back tears, I made an excuse to go to the bathroom.
It was never enough. When I got back they kept calling me gay.
•
When the acceptance letter to boarding school came, I was struck with guilt. The size and shape of the gaudy blue envelope made it clear that it was an acceptance letter, not simply a one-page “Thank you for applying, but…” pittance. As I felt its weight in my hands I had a gnawing urge to throw it away. To flush it down the toilet. To bury my ticket out of Jerseyville and never dig it up again.
I pictured telling my friends—not just Zack, but Anthony and R.J. as well—about the acceptance letter that had materialized in my mailbox. (And their parents would have been shocked, too.) Leaving town was unthinkable—entire dynasties of Jerseyville families had been born, gone to school, gotten married, had children, and grown old on the same soil as their grandparents. The devout could be baptized, married, and given funeral rites in the same church by the same family of priests. As children carried on their parents’ businesses, family names became household names: there were several Dr. Wendell’s at the veterinary clinic, always a Mrs. Perdun on the school board, and, no matter the year, there was a Kuebrich kid in every grade at the elementary school. Ours was a quintessential Midwestern town, a playground to rowdy boys like Zack, R.J., and Anthony. Towns like mine are made for boys like them.
Applying to a boarding school in faraway Chicago was supposed to be my subversive secret. In my head, the Windy City was going to reject me, so I could close the book on my desire and move on. But the letter had come, and here in my hands was physical proof of my sin to Jerseyville.
As traitorous as it felt, I wanted to leave. I needed to leave. I was frustrated at my immigrant parents for setting down roots among rows of cornfields and soybeans instead of among people who looked like me, and more than anything I wanted to pretend I had never grown up here.
•
Coach was picking the starting lineup for tonight’s soccer match between Jerseyville and Carrollton (a nearly-identical small town north of Jerseyville, with whom we had a deep rivalry), and I wasn’t expecting much. Although I had been on the same soccer team as Zack for almost four years, he had already played twice as many games as me. I had grown accustomed to shivering on the cold metal bench, slowly sipping cherry Gatorade, and listening to the Jerseyville crowd cheer Zack’s name. On the rare occasions I did get to play, I mainly tried to stay out of the way so I wouldn’t trip over my own feet.
But this time I scraped by the watchful eyes of the coach to be designated a center back. Anthony, R.J., and Zack, who had already taken their usual positions as forwards, stared at me, wide-eyed. Anthony was smiling, and there was a hint of a smile in Zack’s face, too. Somehow I had gained entrance to the group of soccer-playing boys by the skin of my teeth.
There wasn’t much for defenders to do in a team so heavily focused on offense, so I spent most of the game squinting to see what was happening on the other side of the field. Faintly I could see Zack’s trio sidestepping, passing, heading the ball at impossible angles, and whenever the ball slipped through the cracks and came over to our side, I would helpfully nudge the ball in Zack’s direction. He would receive the pass without a word, and continue the relentless attack.
Something shifted in the second half, and as the sun set on the early November sky, I watched as a light drizzle began to fall. The opposing team had rallied their strength and pushed back; soon, I was in the maelstrom too, yelling and kicking and passing, and somehow holding my own against the monstrously tall Carrollton boys. When a heavyset, blond midfielder stole the ball from me and pushed me into the mud, I sprung right back up and dove to defend our goal. Our cleats kicked up mud as we sprinted. My body ached from kicking, throwing, falling; but I loved sending that ball soaring through the sky.
Soaked down to our bones, the team huddled at the final time-out of the game, and put our hands together in the center of the circle. Coach’s voice, over the sounds of the rainstorm: “They’re tall but we’re quick. Say it!”
Eleven middle-schoolers in unison: “They’re tall, but we’re quick!”
Coach: “We can score, they can’t!”
“We can score, they can’t!”
As we put our hands together in the center of the circle, I could barely tell our uniforms from our skins, my hand from anyone else’s. We wanted to win, and more than anything else I wanted Zack to win. I loved seeing how happy it made him—I wanted to hear his boyish yells, and see his brace-covered teeth smiling wide in unbroken joy. I shivered. Under my breath I said a prayer.
We’re quick. Coach’s words in my ears, and prayers on my lips. In the final seconds of the game I threw my heaving body in front of a Carrollton forward, shut my eyes, and desperately swung my foot towards the ball. I felt the thump of a solid kick. Miraculously it soared to the other side of the field, right in front of Zack’s feet. We can score. The rain was falling even harder—I squinted—wait, did he score? Did he fall? Zack—Is that him on the ground? I can’t tell—
The whistle blew, and the game was over. We lost.
•
I pulled up the screenshot of the acceptance letter on my phone, and the whole homeroom class eagerly began passing it around. Before algebra class could get started, something like an interrogation was playing out with a dozen hyperactive interviewers:
“Michael, whoa, where is this school?” It’s in Chicag—
“This is crazy, dude, why did you even decide to go?” Well, I’ve always loved math and science, and I thought a boardin—
“Are there girls there? Do you stay with girls?” It’s a co-ed dorm, but the boys and girl—
As I tried to frantically explain what a boarding high school was, out of the corner of my eye I spotted Anthony and Zack in the corner of the classroom. I already told them on the bus ride to school. Anthony gave me an encouraging smile, as expected, but Zack was mostly confused. He didn’t ask much; just had a puzzled look on his face, like he had accidentally swallowed a piece of gum. I thought I saw Zack grimace a little when he glanced at the letter. Maybe he blinked a little more quickly. Maybe he gasped. But maybe it was just the light.
•
For two weeks, Zack Hunter, high-school junior and newly-minted ace of the varsity soccer team, flits in and out of consciousness while his body is confined to St. Louis Children’s Hospital. For the first time in his life he cannot move, and the town knows it. Zack’s parents cling to every medical update the doctors can offer, and report them directly to Jerseyville. Word spreads in the blink of an eye. The town mobilizes quickly: memorial services spring up across the landscape, the churches fill up again, and two old friends, Anthony and R.J., set up fundraisers for the family’s hospital fees. Bumper stickers, bracelets, and hats featuring Zack’s initials, a hockey stick, and a soccer ball materialize seemingly in a single night. As a machine forces air into Zack’s torn lungs, the cornfield town holds its breath, anxiously awaiting the return of its ace.
In Zack’s mind he is still sprinting down the soccer field, coated in drizzle and sweat, all life and limbs and motion. The scene is a wet blur of the grassy field illuminated by the stadium lights, the minuscule bodies of twenty-two players, and the great, jet-black sky above, pouring rain onto the field. The referee’s whistle, his parents’ prayers, and the roar of the Jerseyville crowd are all drowned out by the sounds of the downpour. A swirling thunderstorm approaches. That was better for Zack. Rainy’s the way he likes it. He digs his cleats into the muddy ground and jostles for position with the opposing team’s defenders.
From an ungodly distance down the field, Zack sees a dark-haired boy send the soccer ball straight into the night sky. The boy elbows a defender out of the way, sidesteps a dirty tackle, wipes the rain and mud out of his face, dives, kicks—and suddenly, the ball lands right at Zack’s feet, heaven-sent. Was that Michael? Zack thinks. He could never kick that far. He looks up to check, but he can barely tell the color of his team’s jerseys through the pouring rain.
But there’s no time to wonder where the ball came from, since the defenders he dodged are circling back around to recapture it. He sprints, and they crowd him like vultures, barking sharp, indistinguishable commands to one another. The rain falls harder. The crowd’s roar intensifies—it’s deafening. They’re tall, but we’re quick. Zack trips, tumbles. He’s losing control. It’s hard to see their faces, impossible to tell where the night sky ends and their jersey-clad bodies begin. They’re getting closer. They’re tall, but we’re quick. Faster, he goes faster. An unfathomably tall tower of defenders closes in on him—
Zack is scared. In a memory from ages ago, he is scared and crying helplessly before Michael’s parents. Shattered glass litters the ground. His friends are looking on in horror.
On April 16, 2016, Zachary Hunter is pronounced dead.
•
Four years after Zack has passed, I return to Jerseyville to find a town that has already moved on. The children have taken up their posts at school and the parents have returned to work. My mother tells me Anthony and R.J. left town to study in college, but are due to come back anytime now. And nestled in the corner of a grade school classroom, another rowdy, skin-and-bones sixth grader is persuading his friends to sneak into the storage closet with him. In the way that Jerseyville replaces a Wendell veterinarian with another Wendell veterinarian, some kid will unknowingly take Zack Hunter’s place.
The broken elliptical still sits in the basement of my home, abandoned beside new yoga mats and the treadmill. I think my parents have long forgotten who broke it, but the memory of a crash—Zack’s crash—still sits in my stomach, uncomfortable yet permanent.