DISCLAIMER: The Kinkirks are not my creation. They belong instead to the creators of 7th Heaven. Everything else in this story is a fiction of my own creation. This story contains some mature content and adult language. Reader beware.
***
I walk through the halls and everyone knows my name. You know it too. They write about me in the high school sports section of the Buffalo newspaper. Everyone knows: I am Kevin Kinkirk.
My classmates all pat me on the back when they see me. I have achieved celebrity status in my high school. Check that – elite celebrity status. I am their football hero. "'Atta boy, Kevin. Way to knock 'em down!" The county's leading tackler of the year. The school's only safety ever to lead the team in tackles for loss. The fastest free safety in four counties. Hell on wheels when coach calls for the safety blitz. I am the man.
***
So what is a typical day in the life of Kevin Kinkirk like, you ask? Well, there is no such thing as a typical day for me. After all, I'm a star safety. Every day is special when you are as good as me; and as you probably realize, there are very few as good as me.
Nonetheless, I'll do my best to break down an average day in my life for you. It goes something like this: Ben and I rise early. I look in the mirror and realize that I woke up beautiful again, of course. We scramble some eggs and wash them down with protein shakes for breakfast. Then we head to the field for morning practice. The walk is long enough for me to digest breakfast so that I won't puke during drills.
Coach loves little bro Ben and me because we're always the first players to arrive, ready to do laps or hit the tackling dummies or study a new play. Then the rest of the team arrives, and we officially start practice at 6:30 AM.
I love the full-contact drills. I love to knock the shit out of the receivers and the quarterback. There's not an offensive lineman on our team fast enough to block me when I'm rushing in for the quarterback sack. I'm just too elusive. In fact, I'm so good that coach stopped allowing full-contact practices most days, for fear I would injure all our skill players.
Except Ben. He's the star tight end, a brutal blocker. I went after him in the first practice of the season but I didn't give it my all because, you know, he's my little brother. I mean, I pick on him all the time at home, so why should I give him more grief at practice? Besides, I didn't want to make him look bad in front of coach.
Well, instead he ended up making me look bad. Knocked me on my ass. And all the guys were laughing. "Hey Kevin, your 'little' brother's not looking so little anymore, is he?" So I got up and told coach I had been taking it easy on Ben because he was my little brother, and I would continue to take it easy on him, and so coach told him not to block me anymore. I'm not afraid of him though. I just take pity on him is all.
***
Sorry. I got sidetracked there. I was talking about coach taking away full-contact practices, right? Well, as you might imagine, all that did was make me hungry. It starved me for the brutal, fast, hard contact of tackle after tackle. When coach took that away from me in practice, it allowed me only one day a week to satisfy my hunger for that contact: game day.
But game day is never typical, and you asked me about my typical day, right? Usually practice ends at 7:30 AM, and then we hit the showers. I wish that I had more time and a more private shower than the big one in the high school locker room. After all, I love to admire my perfect naked body. Who wouldn't? But as it is, I have to hurry just to clean up, dry off, put my pit-stick on to smell fresh all day, throw on my hot threads, and of course – the part that takes the longest of all – I have to fix my hair just right so it looks sexy for the ladies. 'Cause Kevin loves the ladies.
Then, on a typical school day, breezing through classes, not paying much attention. Flirting with the cheerleaders and joking around with my teammates. Picking on the nerds in the hallways, all the usual stuff. Getting answers from the nerds on homework and tests, if I need them. Loving the fact that the nerds know that if they don't give me their answers then I'll take them out to the parking lot after school and teach them a hard lesson. Knowing that they know word will get around the school about a fight that afternoon, and all the teachers will make a point not to be there because the Star Safety can't get in trouble. Nerds have no protection from me. I'm not just above the law; I am the law.
Sorry. I got a little carried away. Where was I? Oh yeah. On a typical school day, I'm sitting at the head of the popular table at lunch. Maybe sneaking backstage in the auditorium for a quick blowjob from whatever cheerleader I'm dating at the time, before afternoon classes start. Of course, my teammates are throwing interference to keep us from getting busted. They're cool like that. They would do anything for me, because I win games for them.
Lifting weights after school. My buds challenging me to bench more, squat more, more, more each time. Competing with Ben. Never wanting to let him catch up to me. This season, though, I watched him catch up, slowly at first, then faster as the season went on.
I guess my best friend Tommy, the only four-year starter on the varsity team besides me, was the one who turned me on to the pills one afternoon. "Yo, Kev, man, your brother is getting hella big, man. He's like, really catching up to you on the weights and shit. And he, like, looks bigger than you now. Man, what do you think the other teams are going to say when they see that shit? They're gonna say, 'Whoa, we can take out that older Kinkirk kid. He's a pussy. It's his little brother we gotta worry about.'"
And Tommy was right. Ben was really growing up. His glory was building too, almost as fast as his body. Our rushing yardage was already up fifty yards per game, partly because of his brutal run-blocking. And our red-zone touchdown percentage was way up due to his strong goal-line blocking and his sure hands in the end zone.
He was filling out into a fine football player, but it was my senior year and I couldn't let him take away my glory. He would have one more year to gain his fame. My time was now. So I took the pills that Tommy shared with me, the ones he kept in his locker, the big white ones. And I noticed a difference in just weeks.
I'm unstoppable now. Harder, better, faster, stronger. Unstoppable. A machine; no longer just a man.
My coach noticed too. At least I thought he did, at first. He pulled me aside before the last game of the season. "Kevin, I've noticed a real…something in you in practice lately, and in the past couple games."
"Yeah, coach, I guess it's just…I realize that this is my last season. We've only got one regular-season game left and I want to make it count. So I've really been hitting the weights hard." That's what I thought he was talking about, of course. The extra bulk, the increased speed.
"No, son, it's more than that. I've seen something in you. You look like you have complete and total control over your emotions when you're out there on the field. Every decision you make, every move, is not based on anger or fear. You never react; you act first, and that makes the other players react. Do you realize that? And do you know where it comes from within you? Because seriously, I'd like to know. Maybe it's something I could teach my future players."
My throat clenched. Somehow I vomited the words, "I don't know, coach." A lie. I knew. When I played, I knew what part of me it all came from.
"Well please, think about it, son. I mean, it's remarkable to watch you. You go out there, line up in the correct position for the formation every time, and there's not a single readable expression on your face. You give nothing away to the other team. You are completely focused on your man, or your coverage. You are always aware of where the ball is and where it's going. You make your tackle. Then you get right up. You don't taunt, you don't celebrate, you just get up and go right back into the huddle, and then into your position in the next formation. That lets the other team know you're ready to hit them all over again. And Kevin, that's scarier than anything else about you on the field. Your size, your speed, and your skills are all less scary than your complete and total lack of expression or emotion when you play."
He looked at me again like he wanted me to explain myself, but I couldn't say a word.
Coach continued, sounding a touch disappointed, "Well, I wish you could tell me where it came from, because I really think it would help me as a coach. But maybe it's just one of those mystical things that can't be coached."
He started to walk away, then turned around and added, "And son, let me also tell you: your emotionlessness under pressure will get you places in life. When you go into a job interview not sweating, not trembling, not too aggressive; you'll hold those interviewers captive. When you like a lady and want to ask her out, that total confidence you exude will let her know that you won't take no for an answer. Really, I see great things in your future: a great job, and a beautiful wife."
Another expectant, silent pause. "Anyway, Kevin, son, I just wanted to tell you to keep it up. You've played great for four years, and now you've got to play great for one more. If we win this final game, we secure a playoff berth. We're all counting on you in this game."
***
The game. The game of my life.
Hitting and hitting hard. Not knowing what I'm hitting at first. Trees? Mountains? The stars in the sky? No, no, no. My father? Am I hitting my father for all the times he told me to fetch him a beer or else he would beat the living shit out of me? For all the times he threatened me that if I didn't get off my sorry ass and do my chores he would take out his anger on little Patty Mary and Ben and boy would I feel sorry? For all the times he hit me and made me cry and called me a sissy for crying and said I wasn't good enough to call myself his son?
Stop crying. Stop pouting. Stop showing anything. Don't give him a reason. Just hit him and hit him hard. On every play, never let him forget that he's the one carrying the football, and I'm the star safety: a simple equation, so emotion doesn't matter.
Where does it come from? He beat it into me, coach. Should I thank him for doing that; for lighting my fire?
Emotionlessness, the fire inside me. It burns me on every play, every second of every game. It spreads. Engulfs me. The turf, ablaze, turns from green to orange. It lights up the man with ball. Dad. I run. Speed. Trees and planets fly by. The universe melts from the heat of my fire. I hit him without feeling. Just like he did to me.
Something falls, spiraling into my hands the way my heart used to do every time Dad hit me back when I was younger and still had a heart. Except this time I don't hit the ground. Dad tries to tackle me. Why? Is it because I have the ball in my hands? Oh shit. I do! I have the ball in my hands. I run. More speed. More trees and planets fly by. I soar into the end zone untouched. Fumble returned for a touchdown. The clock ticks down to zero.
It was the game-winning play. The game of my life.
***
After-party. Kegger at Mario's house. His family's rich and out of town and they don't know about his fake ID. Of course, I could probably just walk into a local liquor store and get a keg without an ID. I'm an elite celebrity. But Mario can afford a keg. I can't.
Mario's huge backyard. I set a new team record for longest keg-stand at forty-seven seconds, and stand up straight when they set me back down. Setting records is what I do.
Backyard is huge. Trees are swimming. I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful.
Tommy taps me on the shoulder. Tells me obnoxious Pete is trying to talk Patty Mary into jumping into the private, two-person hot tub in Mario's parents' bathroom with him. And Pete is naked. And he's trying to get Patty Mary drunk.
I bust open the bathroom door and kick his ass. Tommy and Mario and I toss him out the front door buck-naked and lock him out. We're part of a team, and I made the game-winning play for the team, so it's simple. They help me when I need help. That's how it works.
Patty Mary is pissed. Says she wasn't going to get in the hot tub with Pete, and she wasn't drinking at all, and she can take care of herself.
Ben says he's taking Patty Mary home. Says they don't want to be around me when I'm like this. I guess my emotions must come out when I drink. They don't like that. It reminds them of the old days when I was younger and still had emotions, and those emotions made Dad hit me. They don't like when I act like the old me.
Emotions. I got angry with Pete, didn't I? I let it slip, didn't I? No reason for that.
I go out back to think by myself. Mario's huge backyard. Trees swimming everywhere. You could drown in them. It's beautiful out here.
I'm thinking, maybe if I had walked out here to swim with the trees, I wouldn't have gotten mad at Pete. Sobered up. Stayed emotionless. Emotionlessness leads to perfection.
Natasha finds me. She's my cheerleader of the week. I throw my drink away into the pool of swimming trees. Remember what coach said. No expression. Focus. Make sure that all she has to do is look at my face to know I won't take no for an answer.
Before long she's taking me in her mouth. I look away. I can't let her see in my eyes how much I am enjoying this. I can't let anyone see anything in my face. Ever.
***
I'm sorry. I got off-track again, didn't I? I was supposed to tell you about a typical day in my life, and somehow I ended up returning blows I owed my father, torching the football field, doing an impossible keg stand, fighting for my sister's honor, swimming through trees, and getting pleasured by a cheerleader.
Oh well, that's just how it goes. Every day is special for me, because I am the best. And when you're the best, everything will go your way, for your whole life. So really, there's no point in worrying or getting angry or sad or re-living memories of a whole bunch of bad shit or anything like that. Because emotionlessness will lead to perfection. The universe will bend at my whim. I know it. You know it.
Everyone knows: I am Kevin Kinkirk.