The Heartbeat of Halftime by Stephen Wunderli

my mother said. “I’m a little afraid myself.”

    She sat down in a chair then and stared at me.
    â€œYou look like him, you know,” she said to me. “In a few years you’ll look just the way he did when we first met. I’d like to have that back right now. With nothing in between.”
    She closed her eyes and talked softly. “It hasn’t been easy, I know. Not for you, not for any of us … . You should get some sleep.”
    Even as she said it, the very thought of it put her out like she’d been hypnotized to fall into a deep sleep whenever the word was mentioned. Within moments she was breathing long and heavy. Beside me the pump that filled my father’s lungs breathed for him. The same rhythm, day and night, not slower when he slept, not faster when he was awake. Steady. My own breath fogged the steel bar of his bed. There we were, the three of us sharing the same air, living and dying with each breath, afraid to breathe, afraid not to.

21
    HOW TO PLAY FOOTBALL
    O n Monday morning there was a huge banner stretched across the building. WAY TO GO, TEAM! it said, and all our names were on it. Taco Bell thought it was the greatest honor he could ever receive. I guess the only name he saw was his. He walked into the school like he’d just been crowned prince of the world. He was wearing his jersey so everyone would know who he was. Fact is, the only ones who really knew him were some of the guys in the band, and Katie. But Taco Bell walked through the hallways saying hi to everybody. And if there was a group of girls, he’d kinda saunter by, glance over at them, and raise his eyebrow like Elvis. When he did it to Katie, she said, “Oh, honey. Did you hurt your eye in the game?”
    That’s the kind of day it was. Even lunchtime was strange. We ate like kings, without looking
over our shoulders. Ed and his pals were nowhere to be found. We knew they had lost, that Granite had beaten them up pretty badly. Somethng like 28 to 6. But, it wasn’t like them to not show up. No one was complaining, but it was strange.
    â€œWonder where Fat Ed and his buddiesth are,” Spray Can said.
    â€œWho cares,” Taco Bell said. He was too busy celebrating. After lunch he ate six ice-cream sandwiches. “Victory lunch,” he called it, stuffing them into his mouth. The whole world seemed to revolve around us then. There was nothing in our way, nothing wrong with our universe, our world at school. Until I went back to my locker. That’s when I figured out where Ed Stebbings had been during lunch. There was a note taped on my locker. YOU’RE STILL A LOSER, it said in red ink, Ed’s trademark. And when I opened my locker I found that he had shoved the fire extinguisher hose through one of the little vents at the top and filled the whole thing up with water. Everything was soaked; all my books, my papers, my jacket. It meant that a week’s worth of homework would have to be redone. I guess the big guy from Granite was so mad he took it out on Ed. In turn, Ed took it out on me. Funny how anger gets passed around like that.
    â€œI’ll make him pay for this,” I said into my locker.
    â€œWho are you talking to?” I heard Leisl say.

    â€œYou’re always sneaking up on me,” I said to her, turning around.
    â€œYou’re always talking to yourself,” she said. Then she looked at the inside of my locker. “Why is everything wet?”
    â€œIt’s a long story,” I said. “Do you have any dry paper?”
    She reached in her bag and found me a pad of paper. I pulled out my soggy books and we walked outside and spread them out to dry. It was a warm day for late October. Seemed it was the first time I had noticed the weather for a long time. I copied my wet assignments onto dry paper and tried to explain more football to Leisl. I set up leaves and sticks as the players, but when I went to place a rock for