Bloodthirsty - By Flynn Meaney Page 0,15

the gate of Fordham Preparatory School wrapped in bandages?

“You look horrible!” my mother wailed.

“Hello to you, too,” I told her.

“What’s wrong with you?” my father asked eagerly.

I’m a pale and creepy virgin? Nope, not what he was asking.

“It’s an allergic reaction,” I reassured them. “It’s temporary.”

I was super thrilled when I saw that it was a pretty girl who was ripping the game tickets at the Fordham gate, seeing as I was wearing my best James Bond formalwear: my swim trunks, a t-shirt that showed off my man-nipples, and a Y2K supply of Ace bandages.

“Go Rams!” the ticket girl told me, making an admirable effort to focus on school spirit and not my arms.

She was a brunette, too. Brunettes are my favorite. Eff my lack of luck. Not only did I look like a freak, but when I sat down in the bleachers, I was one of the few kids with parents instead of friends. I was sandwiched between my dad, who was wearing a new Fordham Prep hat (my dad doesn’t wear flat-brimmed hats because he’s a rap star. He wears them in a very uncool way), and my mother, who kept accidentally smacking me in the face as she pointed to Luke on the field.

“Look, he’s drinking water!” she’d say. “Look, he’s lacing up his shoes! Look, he just spit! Oh, Luke”—my mother shook her head at her son from fifteen rows up—“that’s not very polite.”

My parents and I first spotted him with a cluster of other white-padded guys under a floodlight. Luke was playfully hopping from foot to foot. Other players were doing various homoerotic things that belong in the locker room: slapping each other’s asses, giggling over secret handshakes, etc. One leaned over to slap Luke’s ass, and my mother was proud.

“Look!” my mother said happily. “He already has friends.”

As the announcer introduced the other team, Holy Cross, I ignored the field and looked around the bleachers instead. How were there so many girls here? Fordham was an all-boys school. But girls were everywhere. There were girls in groups, leaning in toward one another to share secrets beneath wide eyes. There were girls in groups with boys, projecting their laughter into the face of the right boy, pitching their voices higher than the other girls, seeking attention. There were girls who really liked football, who climbed down the bleachers to sink their flip-flops into the mud by the fence and press themselves closer to the action. These girls were watching boys like my brother.

And Luke was something to watch. Fordham had decided on a running game that night. I think they wanted to show off their new Indiana running back. After all, the whole world revolves around Luke. When he was introduced at his new school, there were whistles and shouts like the High School Musical cast was on a mall tour.

Luke really was great, though. Dodging between defenders’ shoulder pads, making sharp cuts and kicking up field dirt with his cleats, finding the open space and dashing into it just before it shut, letting the green-uniformed chests collapse into a pile behind him. I’d seen all of this before—Luke’s dodging, darting, sprinting, and slipping-between. Luke had used these same tactics as a child to escape from my mother in crowded shopping malls and airports. You’d think my mother would have become Jerome Bettis trying to keep up with her son. Actually, she gave up most of the time. Then she’d send me after him. I’d usually find a sleeker route, along the wall, avoiding the people and obstacles I knew I couldn’t hurdle or intimidate. I would catch up to Luke using speed alone, not skill. This lack of coordination explained how I’d ended up headfirst in a bin of peppers—and why only one of us was a football player.

In the first half, Luke completed three touchdowns. The other team, Holy Cross, was pretty good, though, and they were only a touchdown behind. Their defense geared up in the second half; they had two guys key in on Luke for most of the plays—a short-and-tall doofy pair who resembled Crabbe and Goyle from the Harry Potter movies. On the last play, though, Luke had a really showy run. He hurdled like a Kentucky Derby horse and won out in the end with pure chest-heaving speed. Then he did a victory dance that made me embarrassed to be his brother.

After the victory dance, Luke’s teammates mobbed him and ripped off his helmet. They swallowed him up