Haterade (now with protein)

Yeah, I know. I need to learn HTML.



By Chris Pastrana


The field was simmering. Its dead, brown grass crunched dryly beneath our feet because the school didn’t water the field during the summer. Out of the shade, the thermometer was probably hovering around a hundred degrees. We were standing like Mexicans in the heat, we stood in defiance of the heat, letting the sun reflect off our foreheads. Joey was the only one moving, trying half-heartedly to get the ball juggling between us. But we were all waiting for Bradley. He was late, as usual. He could do this though, keep us all in suspense, because he was the best player among us. We all played pickup together during the summer, the sophomores on varsity, and Joey was a close second best while I was a well-deserved third. Paulo and Marco, the twins, were of equitable skill and the rest of the boys were good, average for us. Therefore, it was imperative that we all waited for Bradley: the picking order was determined around him and otherwise the teams would be stacked. Joey spat when we saw Brad’s car pull into the parking lot, and he turned towards the girls expectantly. A few of our friends, the girls, always came to watch us and work on their tans. They spread out on the bleachers underneath small, multicolored umbrellas in their bathing suits. These were days of luxury, and the pickup games were followed by pool time at one of our houses until sunset, which signaled the ritual breaking into our parents’ stashes.

When he came striding up the side of the ditch, he was in his customary baby-blue short shorts and performance tee with cut-off sleeves. We were all sweating, but his perspiration endowed him with an attractive sheen that the girls on the bleachers swooned at. We could tell this by their increased chatter and Samantha, the leader of the girls, got up to wave hello. The nine of us boys on the field waited for him to finish his protracted swagger up to us. He was our teammate, our friend, but he was also a douche bag.

Marco handed me the ball: it was a little beaten and flat, none of us had brought a needle, but when Brad arrived, he took it from me and kicked it off to the side. He dropped his bag and said hello gents, been waiting long? Sorry, my dentist appointment ran a bit late. And in fact, his teeth reflected the sun into our eyes when he smiled his apology. But I brought something special, to make up for it, he continued in his drawl. We were all from Texas, but his drawl was pronounced, even among us. Its sweetness lathered the air and made us all that much thirstier. He took a knee and reached reverently down into his bag.

He pulled up an orb of clean, fused perfection: it was the same kind of ball we had used in the championship last season. We had been waiting for this, and we all stood with our eyes half-closed in admiration, lost in our imaginations of goal scoring and perfect touches. Then Brad placed the ball on the ground with a smirk and smugly snapped us all out of our reverie. He left the ball on the ground and pulled a gatorade from his bag before he jogged off to the bleachers and the girls.

He had held us in awe for a moment, but he excused himself quickly with bigger things to attend to. The boys looked to Joey and me now, we were team captains for today anyway. This was already decided based on our schedule of rotation. We roshambo-ed for first pick and I won, rock over scissors; I always won, which was good, especially today. I can read people and I knew Joey wanted bad to play against Bradley: yesterday, when I drove over to Joey’s, I saw him and Samantha talking in the driveway before I pulled up. I chose Brad and Joey chose the twins next, who always came as a package. We had learned not to separate them when at our second practice a missed slide tackle between them broke out into a brawl. They were very competitive and could only either work together or kill each other.

We were conditioned, but we had been waiting for so long that we all needed a drink before starting the game. And, we wanted to talk to the girls who were our official score keepers and protectors of the cooler. Bradley was still at the bleachers, sipping his gatorade and talking to Samantha. None of us were together, but we each had our favorites. We walked up and my asian Jessica was applying sun tan lotion, SPF 85, to Taylor’s pale shoulders. She was a creamy-skinned redhead, and burned easily. Casey, a short little brunette with a set of wild, green eyes, was holding a bottle of ice water to her forehead and throat. Those three were not athletes, and they huddled together in the shade of the umbrellas. But Samantha and Sara were on the girl’s soccer team and they played cards on the top bench, their browned skin glowing in the afternoon heat. Sara’s head was tilted back now, her thick sunglasses hiding her eyes in a private moment of ecstasy. Both the twins were crazy over her, though Casey had a thing for Marco. Samantha was lying on her stomach, lengthwise on a bleacher a few levels down from her usual perch so that Bradley could talk to her at face level. Her legs were bent and her calves hung in the air in a slender scissor. I ribbed Joey for staring, but I had seen the glance between them. She always managed to fall into Brad’s lap though as the night wore on. But we only ever played for an hour or so in the heat, so we stayed just long enough for a quick gulp from our water bottles and a coarse joke from Brad regarding Jess’s messy application of lotion on Taylor. Then he finished his gatorade which he brought on his own; we never stocked that in the cooler, the rest of us all humbly preferred H2O.

The game got off to a good start, my team was up two points after five minutes thanks to some well-timed plays between Bradley and I. We were having a great time but the heat was omnipresent, and after another easy goal, Joey threw an elbow that just grazed Bradley’s cheek. It was an accident of course and Joey apologized quickly before anything could be said; ‘bows and fouls were a natural occurrence on the field and this was a friendly game between teammates. Bradley took it gracefully, his face unemotional and cool, his slightly open mouth allowing only brief reflections off his teeth to show through with each breath. Joey scored soon after though, right before halftime. But whether my team was sluggish from thirst or self-aware consciousness was left unsaid at the water break.

Instead, one of the other boys, who used to be a gymnast, did a backflip off the bleachers and landed perfectly with both of his feet planted next to each other in the dirt. And the girls clapped and we cheered and threw ice cubes at each other from the cooler. Sam told us that her folks were going to be out tonight, they had left for Tulsa for some sort of conference; her parents were both electrical engineers and her dad had invented a new kind of light bulb. We loved her house the best, with its brand new deck underneath a canopy of age-old oaks, and the salt water pool and her busty older sister who would help buy us booze.

We tromped back out onto the field refreshed and sucking on ice cubes. We switched sides and Joey started out with the ball this time. At kickoff, there was miscommunication with the twins about which one was to run where, and Paulo collided with Marco who fell in front of Joey’s run, tripping him. Joey hit the ground, rolled and sat up choking on his unfinished ice cube, turning white. One of the other boys and I ran to go pound on Joey’s back. While he hacked and sputtered, we went to work on him, and Bradley was bent over laughing with exaggerated intent. He was the only one, and he pointed and laughed until Joey swallowed the cube and burped painfully. Bradley walked over to him and offered him his hand for help up, which Joey ignored, his fists clenching as he jumped up. I could hear Joey’s teeth grinding, and we all stood still when Bradley put his arm around Joey anyway. He told him him how sorry he was but that was damn funny as he wiped the tears out of his eyes. Joey kept silent, he face getting darker and redder as they walked to the ball together, embraced like that. The girls were silent as well as they watched Joey calmly pick up the ball and walk back to centerfield.

The rest of the game did not get any better. Joey and the twins were playing to win and they weren’t discriminating between Bradley and the rest of us. The lesser boys took most of the hard tackles. Brad and I managed to juke aside and run through most of them, until Marco got a quick snap at my shins. I dusted myself off, no big deal, but Bradley made a big deal of calling Marco out, puffing his chest out and bumping against him, trying to provoke him. Truthfully, it was all in good fun. It was hot out and the girls were watching but we all knew who was in the right and who was wrong. By the time the sun set, the pool would have us all cooled off and we’d all be dancing together on Sam’s massive balcony, overlooking the lake.

Bradley had one last point to make though, and he let the game get tied up. On the final play, he drove the ball all by himself through Marco, then Paulo and finally Joey, juking him so bad he caused Joey to roll an ankle. Then Bradley scored. We didn’t need to celebrate, it’d been a rough day, but Brad strutted anyway. He stood over Joey and taunted him a bit, saying maybe one day he’d know what it was like to drink like a champion. We took it to the bleachers then, first helping Joey hobble over, then mingling with the girls and rehydrating underneath the shade of the umbrellas. Bradley was the last to walk over, he had to be the peacock, game winning goal and gatorade in hand. We just sighed and watched him mosey up to us, taking a winner’s swig out of his bottle. His adam’s apple undulated and we saw him turn green before he threw up all over himself.

What the fuck, dude, we all yelled, what’s wrong with you? I don’t know guys, what is this stuff? He handed us the bottle and we tore off the label to get a better look at its deep brown contents. In the murkiness, sediment roiled and settled at the bottom. Oh shit, he said, looking like someone had punched him in the gut. Oh shit, oh shit, I think I know what that is. What man, what? I think its my piss. Ha ha ha, what dude? Look at that shit, that’s not piss, we told him, it looks like shitwater. Nah, I think that’s from last season. Remember when we were on that long bus ride, stuck in traffic? When we saw that chick giving road head? Aw yeah, dude. Wait, that was like six weeks ago, why do you still have that? I don’t know guys, I threw it in my bad afterwards and I guess I just forgot about it.

I don’t remember who laughed the hardest: Joey, the twins or the girls. But for damn sure, Samantha wasn’t falling into Brad’s lap that night and Joey might’ve gotten lucky.