He could ditch the whole damn pack, right here in the dumpster behind Circle K. All twelve rolls, plastic wrapped. He could walk home in peace. Well, at least with that dignity Coach is always going on about: Chin up, both on and off the field. Whether you played in Friday’s game or not. No matter who your daddy is.

Minus toilet paper, he could take the rest of the day getting home, spin a few racks at Dustdevil Comics, wave to Mr. Arlo at Jack’s Deli. Like the old days. Take it real slow past the Hoffman’s house, just in case Brenda is reading on the steps.

Alley-oop, up and over the rusty rim—but his mom would kill him. If he came home empty-handed, no TP and none of the cash she’d sent him off with, he was dead meat. Plus, she’d probably make him miss practice.

Joey hugs the pack. It’s hot for September and the plastic sticks to his arms. Heat glosses the parking lot, puddles that disappear when you try to jump them. The sky, which ought to be blue this time of year, is off-white, like back in spring when there was all that smoke. If he carries it like this—like the blocking pad Coach has him wield in practice, Spinner and Jackrabbit crashing into him and, on a good day, bouncing off into the grass—he won’t look like such a doofus.

“Lookin’ good, Number 47,” Mr. Arlo might shout when Joey charged past the deli, and no one on the sidewalk would gawk like he’s got two heads.

But the main drag is filling up—with kids he goes to school with. Guys who used to work with his dad. And there’s no way he’s walking through that, not with this hulking pack of butt-wipe he’s too chicken to trash. Chicken. That was Joey’s football name, back before it was Bic.           

Joey stomps a fake puddle and hooks left, away from the sidewalks and shops, giving the dumpster his back. He’ll make his own way home through the scrub. It’s not far—up that hill, then over to Twenty-third where he’ll slip back into his neighborhood.

In the distance—Joey knows what ought to be in the distance: lush desert, the sort photographed for art galleries and filmed for TV. Burrowing owls and ocotillo. Barrel cactus and coyotes. The whole shebang crisscrossed with rutted roads and blinged-out in wildflowers each spring—red and purple and orange lighting up the creases of the foothills. 

But Joey doesn’t look in the distance.

At first, he sticks to the ratty edge, kicking through trash like dry leaves: broken bottles, cigarette cartons, Styrofoam cups. He carries the pack bowling-ball style, his fingers poked through the plastic, and it bumps his leg as he walks, bip-bap, bip-bap, laying down a rhythm for a rap. But Joey can’t rap, not like Jackrabbit can, so good even eighth-graders stomp the bleachers. Town flickers in the dusty air, car exhaust and bacon grease, roasting chiles and sweltering pavement. And another smell mixes in from the distance, a smell like when his uncle skins a possum or figs are left to rot on the ground.

Joey knuckles the grit in his eyes. He climbs diagonally up the hill, weaving around prickly bushes, and where they’re packed shoulder to shoulder, he lowers his own shoulders and pushes in. The flimsy plastic catches on a twig, but he doesn’t stop. He’s sweaty and thirsty, and when a thorn bites into the pack, Joey jerks it away—and the wrapper splits.

Sprung from formation, twelve rolls tumble from the pack. Joey juggles—no, this isn’t juggling, it’s fumbling, and he can practically hear Coach blowing a gasket.

Toilet rolls nest in the bushes and thump in the dirt. One bounces off his fingers and he longarms, reaching, reaching, his fingers treadmilling the roll like a rat on a wheel, and he snags it, brings it in—Number 47 completes the pass!—with a whump to his chest.

His eyes tick left, tock right, like the eyes of the cat clock in the Arlo’s kitchen. He almost stands there like a doofus. He almost doesn’t move. But he’s made that mistake before: That time on the 10-yard line, frozen with the ball in his possession. That time in the kitchen with the phone in his hand, his mom crumpled on the floor, shouting the number, the stench of burnt rubber pulsing through the screen door—shouting, he’s gonna do something real stupid this time—and he couldn’t punch 911.

Joey snugs the ball in the crook of his arm, spreads his fingers across the nose—and runs.  Uphill, sneakers spitting gravel. He runs because there is no sun, only stadium lights. No cacti or shrubs, only defenders. He’s at the 50-yard line, the 40—his lungs fueling the burn in his chest. His sweaty hair droops in a bowl-cut helmet. His scratched arms glow. Joey jukes, faking out a mesquite. Jukes, and a linebacker swallows his dust. He pancakes a tumbleweed, dodges a prickly pear, and—Can you believe this kid used to warm the bench?—launches over the crest of the hill.     

Joey looks up. He hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t meant to close the gap, to get so close to the distance. But there, just beyond that ridge, in place of lush desert, is Smathers’ Scar. Smathers. The name isn’t official, it’s not on maps or anything. It’s just what people call it—the 275-acre gash where fire exploded rocks, wiped out spring flowers, stripped cacti down to the bones, and turned a Datsun pickup truck that had wound in on the rutted roads to a twist of brittle metal.

Joey backpedals, stumbling away from the ruined desert. Old smells curdle the air. He’s out-of-bounds, surely, but no one blows the whistle, and he spins away from the scar—The kid is on fire!—and scrabbles down the slope to the road.

#

At the bend in Twenty-third, Joey pivots into his neighborhood. 10 yards!—and he sprints past them all: The Andersons’ yard and the Caldwells’, the Tidwells’ and the Chous’. So fast no one can catch him, not even with their eyes. Not the lady with all the birdbaths. Not Mr. Burke scrubbing the hood of his Caddy DeVille. Not even Jack Arlo, who’s punting that stupid ball against the Arlos’ garage, the ball Joey gave him for his stupid birthday last year.

Joey slows past the Hoffmans’ house, stutter-stepping around the leaves on the sidewalk—Three yards, two!—and there’s Brenda on the steps, her hair the color of a game-day football, her eyes glued to the book in her lap. Joey switches the ball from right to left. He runs slo-mo, high steps, rewinds for an instant replay, fakes a lateral pass. And still, Brenda doesn’t look up. Because that’s what she does, she minds her own business, which is how he knows she loves him back.

Joey turns on the afterburners, chugging along the faded marks on the street, the twin arcs of burnt rubber the Datsun made that night, his dad behind the wheel with a lighter in his pocket, a full can of gas in the bed of the truck. Joey swings around the mailbox, hustles up the path—Joey Smathers is in the homestretch!—and leaps onto the porch, the toilet roll damp in his grip.  

“About time.” His mom’s voice through the screen door.

Two seconds on the clock, and all he has to do for a touchdown is cross the threshold. He bends over, trying to breathe out the stitch in his side. The smoke that’s been trapped down there a long time. Behind the trees, the sun blazes in the sky. If he was Jackrabbit, he could make that rhyme, make it work in a rap.

“Joey—” His mom’s voice, softer this time, and she’s working her arm around the door. Reaching out, like she might touch him. Like he might be toppled yet.