Free Running Loose by Chris Crutcher Page B

the district basketball tournament we lost the championship game to Modoc, and Boomer tore out a whole section of lockers. Ripped ’em right off the wall. Then he went back up to the gym and threatened their high scorer. That’s not what I’d call emotionally equipped; that’s emotionally armed. When the dust had cleared, Trout paid for the lockers and Boomer was on “probation,” even though basketball season was over and there was nothing to be on probation about. Jasper and Lednecky both said that though they thought Boomer took it too far, they were glad to see he had such a competitive spirit. Christ, Justice isn’t only blind; she’s deaf and dumb.
    After I took Becky home, Carter called to get the hot poop. I told him what happened in the office, and he said he didn’t blame me and that maybe he’d misread Lednecky. He asked if there was anything he could do and I told him not to forget the answers to that math test, that I’d be back in a week or so.
     
    I spent some long mornings down at the Buckhorn for the next week. I’d clean up and Dakota would come down and we’d shoot a few games of pool and talk. Iprobably learned more in that one week than I’d learned in four years of school. And he showed me a thing or two about pool.
    I remember one morning after he’d beaten me three games in a row—and remember, one of his hands is a hook —he put his cue back up in the rack and asked me what I was going to do with my life.
    I said I was going to wait for them to let me back in school, then just keep my mouth shut and graduate and get out of here.
    He hoisted himself up on the bar like he does and said, “You know, it’s a funny thing. You get holed up in a little pissant town like this and you don’t get away much and you start to think the way things are here is the way things are. It ain’t necessarily so.”
    I said I didn’t know what he meant.
    “Well,” he said, “take this whole football deal and you gettin’ kicked out of school an’ all.”
    “What about it?”
    “Up to a few days ago they had you thinkin’ the most important damn thing in the world was playin’ football. Told me so yourself. Now they got you thinkin’ the most important thing in the world is goin’ back to school—on their terms—an’ graduatin’. All that’s goin’ on there is them tellin’ you what’s important.Sounds to me like they don’t know their butt from what’s important.”
    I started to interrupt.
    “Hold on a minute,” he said. “From what you’ve told me, Lednecky gave that colored kid a raw deal an’ you took a righteous stand. Now to my way of thinkin’ it’s a damn shame to back off a righteous stand, which you almost did the other day in the office, or you wouldn’t have been there. A man has to plant his feet somewhere an’ say, ‘This is as far as I go an’ anyone tries to push me any farther’s gonna have his hands full.’”
    I just looked at him. Not too much to argue with there. Finally I said, “Yeah, well, what now?”
    “Hell,” he said, “I don’t know.” He raised his hook. “I’m just a dern fool pirate never got outta the third grade. What’s next is up to you. But damn it, there’s other places you can go to school. Clear Lake’s only a half hour up the road. Or you could go down to the big city and graduate outta Boise or Borah. Hell, I’d grubstake that, an’ so would your ol’ man, I bet. I’m sayin’ you don’t have to go up there on your knees to get back in school.”
    I promised I wouldn’t get on my knees to get back in. The idea of driving to Clear Lake wasn’t a bad one.It might be tougher in the winter, but certainly possible. I didn’t want to go to Boise or Borah, though, because that would mean I’d have to live down there and I didn’t want to leave Becky.
    While I was racking up the balls and thinking about that, there was a knock at the back door, so I went to open it. It was Mrs. Esau in her black skirt and her black