It was fifteen minutes to seven on a Friday evening. The coach had wrapped up his speech to the players, full as it always was with a heady mixture of praise and admonishments for them to play their best, and now the young men were left alone for a quarter of an hour to complete whatever rituals they needed to perform before taking the field in front of hundreds of screaming fans.
While the freshmen, still wide-eyed and idealistic, had hung on their coach's every word, Dalton had put in his headphones almost as soon as the speech had started. He had not tried to hide it, and the coach had not tried to interfere. The two of them had an unspoken understanding. As long as Dalton continued to perform, he could have been openly knocking back beers in the locker room as some of the other players did from time to time.
But Dalton didn't want to lose the clarity that he felt every time that he stepped out onto the field. Let his teammates joke, or pray, or, in the case of the team's captain, vomit, but Dalton just needed to sit on a backless wooden bench and listen to music where the singer was so Goddamned angry that he couldn't be understood. That was how Dalton felt in every match, and even in every practice. He did not battle pokémon because it was fun, he did it because it was the only thing that he was good at. He reached a state of purity when he was out there commanding his pokémon, but unlike the serenity of a master musician hitting every note just right, Dalton's mind was always awash with anger. He took everything personally, and he responded in kind. His opponent and his pokémon had some trick that he hadn't anticipated? Screw you. The ref made a call against him? Screw you. He had to shake the hands of the trainers on the other team? Screw you.
That same attitude made practices hard. His own teammates knew better than anyone that Dalton was the kind of guy who would blow up at you over some little thing, and, what was worse, he had the talent to actually back up his attitude. Other trainers on the team might bluster and threaten the guy on the other side of the field, but Dalton didn't, he just started throwing punches. He didn't have to talk big, not when his actions could express his anger and frustrations in a far purer way.
This was why everyone gave Dalton his space before a game. They let him sit morosely on his bench and chew idly on the bag of treats that his rally girl had given him during his last class of the day. She had shown up, chirped, "Good luck!" and then flitted away just as quickly as she had popped up, as if she was afraid that this teenage boy was a bomb which could explode at any moment. Dalton didn't care about that, he barely remembered it, just as he didn't remember what her name was, though she had been assigned to him for the entire season.
It was his senior year, and Dalton had no idea what he was going to do after it was done. He was going to graduate, just barely, but even with a diploma and his skills on the field, he knew that there was no way that he was going to go onto the college leagues or turn pro. Some scouts had been to their school to check out the players from this powerhouse school in the Sinnoh region, but they had shied away from Dalton. His intensity, and his brutal, unpolished style had caused many of them to pass him over in favor of his more genial teammates. Dalton didn't care, not even growing frustrated enough to take it out on the field. He knew that he wasn't going anywhere, that his life was already at its peak. He didn't have the money or the connections to do anything besides go under the earth and dig coal just like his father, his brother, and nearly every other man in his family going back four generations. That sense of hopelessness, of being trapped, had frustrated Dalton enough to fuel some of his early wins this season, but after a few weeks the raw anger at the injustice of it all had dulled to a throbbing ache in his head whenever he was alone.
Oreburgh was a dying town, and as much as Dalton hated it, he loved it too. He saw himself reflected in his hometown. On one hand, it was scorned and looked down by the rest of the region as a backwards den of illiteracy, drunkenness, and sullen unemployment. On the other hand, Oreburgh spit in the face of all of those naysayers. Just like Dalton, its attitude towards its critics, its lack of a future, and itself was defiance. The town's motto was officially "City of Energy", but it very well could have been "Screw you" instead.
Despite the sorry state of affairs in every other aspect of life in Oreburgh, or perhaps because of it, the town still possessed an enviable pool of top-notch pokémon trainers, especially given its small size, and that was enough to let it keep a hold on one of the region's eight officially-sanctioned pokémon gyms. The number of trainers who passed through the local high schools and went on to make names for themselves on the college or professional circuits was a source of local pride. Everyone in the town had dreams related to battling. The boys hoped to make it out of the town, and the girls hoped to hitch their wagon to a future superstar. Otherwise, both knew that they were going to play out the same sad story that was all around them, where the man wore his body down to nothing working in the mines and drinking away his pain while his wife managed a household and raised children in a town where coal blackened every surface and choked every hope of a better life. Even the men whose dreams of professional pokémon battling had long since died tried to live vicariously through their sons, nephews, and anyone else that they could see a glimmer of themselves in. For these men, the boys' wins were their wins, and for people who did not have many other victories to point to, the sense of excitement and belonging that they felt in the stands every Friday night was the headiest of drugs.
Dalton pulled off his headphones when he saw his teammates start to congregate at the mouth of the tunnel which connected the locker room to the field. Some of the trainers, the younger ones mostly, moved with quick, jittery energy, while the more senior members of the team, like Dalton, moved with the casual confidence of apex predators. Dalton lifted himself off of the bench where he had been sitting, and lumbered over to a small pile of gear, the last few things that he needed to put on before the competition: a pair of fingerless gloves, a sweat band done up in his school's colors, and a belt containing his three poké balls. His hands were large and his fingers thick, but he put on his belt with surprising gentleness. Each of his three poké balls received a small caress as Dalton checked his pokémon and reassured himself that all of them were ready to go. Then, with a short, sharp grunt, Dalton joined the rest of the team at the tunnel's entrance.
Deeper inside the locker room, where Dalton had been sitting, it had been more difficult to hear the noises of the crowd outside, but here the walls seemed to shake with the noise. Even if he had kept his headphones in, Dalton would have been able to hear the spectators, the music, and the hum of the electric lights, all melded into a dull roar that affected all of the boys present. They stood up a little straighter, their faces grew more solemn, and their eyes grew a little glassier as each one of them was filled with the importance of this ritualized combat. Even Dalton was not immune. When he had been starting out, he had liked to imagine himself as a gladiator about the enter some now-ancient arena and do battle for the approval of a crowd who wouldn't care if he lived or died. Even now, with many more years and battles under his belt, it was impossible for him to shake the traces of this youthful fantasy.
The clock struck seven, and everyone knew it from the way that the volume of the crowd rose like a surging wave. The young men, seven in total, arranged themselves in a line ordered by position and seniority. Dalton was second in line, just behind the team captain. They heard the announcer's bellowing voice over the speakers, "And now, your very own West Oreburgh Golducks!" and they marched out into the glare of the harsh white lights and into the hurricane of sounds.
Like his teammates, Dalton looked up at the roaring crowd and waved at them, but there was no enthusiasm in the gesture nor any smile on his face. Some of the trainers, their captain in particular, relished in the attention and adoration of so many people. Their fans were a fickle lot though; depending on what happened on Friday night you could be king of the world or a pariah as quickly as Saturday morning. Dalton didn't care about them, because he knew that they didn't care about him. After he graduated, he was going to lose the luster and he would be replaced by some other young boy eager to be chewed up and spit out by the competition.
That was not to say that he did not like it, or that he wouldn't miss it. Dalton loved the smell of the freshly mown grass and how the field was crisscrossed with painstakingly straight lines of white chalk, and he loved the cheerleaders and how they bobbed and twirled in their blue and yellow uniforms. He loved the feeling of anticipation that took a hold of him when he took his position on the field and dropped his hand down to his poké balls, ready to call them out as soon as the whistle blew.
All of those were positive feelings, but they were eclipsed by the rage that he felt when he saw the other team take the field, his field. The announcer had called them the South Jubilife Luxio, but Dalton had a called them much worse things in his head. Their pristine black uniforms and the way they carried themselves marked them off as being from Jubilife from the start. They had their supporters in the stadium tonight, but this was a home game for West Oreburgh. Not only was this Golduck country, but there was a deeper undercurrent of resentment between the working class Oreburghers and the more well-to-do Jubilifers which both sides' children had imbibed with their mothers' milk. Dalton couldn't put it in terms of politics or economics or values or anything like that, and he didn't need any of those words to know that he hated these swaggering rich kids who thought that they could buy a decent pokémon battling team like they could buy everything else from the second that he saw them.
When the trainers from Jubilife marched in, Dalton finally smiled for the first time since he had arrived at the stadium, but it was a hard smile, one without any joy behind it. One of the boys across the field caught sight of it, and Dalton was pleased to see how the other trainer stumbled over his own feet on the way to the visiting team's pitch. Dalton's blood was quickening and he felt his body grow warm, with sweat gathering on his forehead and his palms as they clenched and unclenched at his sides. Just a few more minutes, he thought to himself, just a few more minutes and we can get this over with.
Once all of the trainers had taken their places, fourteen in total, the captains stepped across towards the referee standing at the middle of the center of the field. The two boys smiled and gripped each other in a handshake that seemed friendly enough from up in the stands, but Dalton could see the strain on each captain's face as he tried to maintain his grin while trying to crush the other's hand at the same time. They separated and the referee produced a coin from the chest pocket of his uniform's black and white shirt and showed it to each captain. The visiting team got to call it before the flip, but Dalton couldn't hear what he chose with the blood pounding in his ears. The referee tossed the coin and for a few seconds, all eyes in the stadium were on the small piece of metal as it spun through the air and reflected the harsh fluorescent lights off of its silvery surface. Then, it landed on the grass and the referee stooped down to pick it up while the captains watched with polite interest.
Into his headset, the referee announced to the breathless crowd, "South Jubilife has won the coin toss. West Oreburgh will be calling out the first pokémon this half."
Dalton nodded his head at the news as his teammate resumed his position on his right. There was supposed to be an advantage to seeing the other team's pokémon before you sent out your own, but Dalton didn't really care either way. His pokémon were tough enough to handle whatever they went up against. The captain and the coach could strategize all they wanted, but Dalton was just there to fight.
The team had run through their opening plays so many times in practice that it felt anti-climactic when the captain nodded at one of the underclassmen, who pulled out a poké ball and tossed it up in the air in order to release the round and craggy form of a graveler onto the field. A boy on the other team threw out his own poké ball, and the referee blew his whistle. The timer started counting down and Dalton's smile faded as he let himself get lost in his fury.
Two-and-a-half hours later, it was all over. The team from Jubilife and their fans had been denied victory yet again, and were trickling out of the stadium with their tails between their legs. Only a few of the chastised spared a look backwards at the field where their hopes had died. Dalton and his teammates were in the locker room. Everyone was celebrating their win with their pokémon, although the captain had needed to throw up again as soon as they were through the tunnel. The boys and their pokémon were a tired and sore lot, but hardly felt it in the euphoria of victory. Even Dalton felt his anger dull as he clapped his hand on the back of his powerfully-built machoke and took a swig from a bottle of beer that one of his teammates was passing around. Between the alcohol and the big event over with, Dalton was able to relax a little, even laughing along when one of his teammates made a stupid joke.
As they changed out of their uniforms, their coach came into the locker room to congratulate them on their win. He highlighted some of their best moves of the night, both from following the plays that he and the other staff had worked out as well as the improvisations that the trainers had come up with on the spot. The coach also touched on the times when the team fell short, and promised them that they would iron out these deficiencies at practice on Monday. He did this all without giving any sign that he noticed the beers that were being passed around by his players, except to give a snort of amusement when one of the underclassmen's drink fizzed up, ran over, and soaked through his shoes. As soon as his post-game talk was done, the coach and his assistants made their way out of the locker room and left the players to discuss their plans for the rest of the night.
"I'm going over to Christine's," one of them boasted, "she's been sweet on me for weeks now, and I figure it's time I make her dreams come true."
"You guys go have fun," a sophomore grumbled, "I've got to study for my history test next week."
One of the older players put him in a headlock and crowed, "History? Nah, you don't need to be studying that crap. We're going to be making history when we get to regionals and win it all!" That earned a round of cheers and laughter from the rest of the team, bolstered by the sight of the scrawny underclassman trying to pull himself out of the hold.
"Well," the captain said once the team's rowdiness had subsided somewhat, "my parents are visiting my sister at college this weekend, so I've got the place to myself. We could have a little get-together there."
His last few words were drowned out by the cheer which arose from his teammates and they very nearly carried him out of the locker room on their shoulders. Since the captain proved resistant to that, the trainers settled for assigning tasks to one another. Someone had to pass the information along the grapevine and let the cheerleaders and rally girls know, and another boy was tasked with getting food for a party which youthful ambition and recklessness was quickly turning into the social event of the year. Owing to his haggard appearance and height, Dalton snagged for himself the task of getting more beer for the party. Even if his looks didn't fool the clerk at the liquor store, it was hoped that his reputation as a fearsome and beloved part of the Golducks family would smooth over any questions of illegality.
Once they all had been assigned a job, the team spilled out of the locker room and into the real world. They mingled with their friends and family members, but only long enough to spread the word. Soon, carried on the wings of their angelic cheerleaders, everyone who needed to know, and a few who did not, was aware of the party which the team captain was hosting. In ones and twos and in small groups, students climbed into their vehicles, mostly trucks and battered station wagons, and set off as pilgrims in search of a good time.
Dalton was clambering into the seat of his own truck when he felt a hand on the back of his shoulder. He turned around expecting to see one of the other boys on the team, but Dalton's easy smile hardened as he found himself face-to-face with his father, a man whose drawn, unshaven face was so much like Dalton's own. He violently shook his dad's hand off and grudgingly lowered himself from the cabin of his truck back to the ground.
"What do you want?"
"You did a good job tonight." Dalton's dad said, and then he looked at Dalton. The family resemblance was strongest in the eyes, at least in their color and shape. Beyond that, it was clear that whatever fire that Dalton was losing was already missing from the older man's eyes.
Dalton just shrugged at the compliment and then, when nothing else was forthcoming, he asked, "What?"
The harshness with which Dalton had given the word had no effect on his dad. The older man shifted on his feet unsteadily before he finally said, "Your mother. She's in the hospital."
The reality of what was said almost hit Dalton, but he managed to call up his anger just in time. He clung to it and was able to lose his worries in the rage that welled up inside of him and exploded out of him as he snarled, "So, what? Six years and now you care about her all of a sudden? About me?"
His dad didn't shrink back from Dalton's anger, his plaintive eyes just seemed to get sadder and Dalton felt sure that his old man, this drunken deadbeat, was feeling sorry for him. His mind blurred and his vision sharpened as a surge of red-hot rage pulsed through Dalton's body. It reached past his shoulders, down his arms, and to his hand so quickly that, before he even knew he was doing it, Dalton was pushing his dad. With the combination of muscle and anger, that quick burst of action, that snap of his arms sent his dad sprawling on the ground.
A crowd was gathering around them now, and that made Dalton angrier, but not as angry as he was when his dad gingerly picked himself back off of the ground and looked at his son with those sad eyes the whole while.
"Come on," Dalton growled, curling his hands into fists. "Come on!"
But Dalton's dad just shook his head. "I'm not going to fight you, Dalton. I just thought that you should know." With that, he just walked away, the crowd melting away from him as he approached.
Dalton was left there in the rapidly emptying parking lot of the stadium with only his anger to keep him company. There was nothing for him to do with his rage, no one to hit, nothing to break. He contented himself with savagely kicking one of the tires on his truck, but that small impotent act provided more frustration than relief. With a string of curses and oaths hot on his breath, Dalton crawled back into his truck and started it up with a powerful roar. His fingers drummed over the top of the steering wheel as he thought darkly. His mom was in the hospital, and he had to go see her, but he didn't want to see her now.
By the time that he brought the truck into drive and pulled out of the parking lot, Dalton knew that he was going to go to the party instead of the hospital. He hated himself for it, but he tried to tell himself that it was what he needed to do. Some more alcohol in his system would help him calm down, and he could get his anger out of his system at the party. There would be some excuse for him to get in a fight, with a houseful of excited teenagers, that was guaranteed. As he drove, the thought of tussling with one of his teammates or one of the team's hangers-on soothed Dalton somewhat, and he was able to sing along to the song coming out of the truck's crackly radio as he pulled onto the main road and sped up to ten, twenty, thirty miles past the speed limit. But even as he sang along, his knuckles were white around the steering wheel.