regular coffees in his thermos for the drive, and then he’d hit the road. Most of the time he went to Austin, where Ken and the rest of the group would be gathering at their spot outside the entrance.
Betsy always baked something for them—cookies or brownies, something sweet to keep them going—and she’d pass them around while they waited for the first car to come through. Those first few moments were his favorite. In a funny way, it reminded him of being in a locker room before a big game. He’d played football back in high school—made varsity his junior year—and he’d always gotten a rush the minute before they stepped out on the field, when he could hear the crowd cheering and picture the cheerleaders twirling, and the coach would bring them in for a huddle and he would feel the anticipation rising off him and his teammates like a thick steam. It was never as good as it was in that moment, even if they won, because in that moment they were shining and perfect, and as soon as they got on the field they would start to tarnish.
He had his job, sure, but it wasn’t the same. There was the boss above him, who retreated into his office and closed the door, and there were the guys working the floor below him, who stopped dicking around when they caught sight of him and turned all straight-faced and diligent. His guys liked him—he was good to them, only busted their balls if he had to, always said yes to vacation requests—but he wasn’t on their team.
The only person who’d been on his team was Bonnie. They’d been a team of two, him and her—they didn’t need anybody else. People used to make comments about it, would say how it wasn’t natural for two people to spend all their time together like that. “Don’t you guys have any friends?” his sister asked once, and he and Bonnie just looked at each other and smiled. Why did he need friends when the only person he wanted to spend any time with was Bonnie?
Standing there on Saturday mornings, the air still carrying a chill, their breath coming out of them in little foggy puffs, one hand wrapped around a thermos of coffee, the other holding one of Betsy’s brownies wrapped in a paper napkin, he felt like he was finally part of something bigger than him again, a team huddled together, steaming with anticipation and ready to fight.
He didn’t think other people would understand, or, more accurately, he didn’t think his sister would understand. After the blowout at her house, he didn’t call her for a couple of days. She’d always been a hothead—when she was little, their mother used to stick her in the hall closet when she was having a tantrum because the coats would stop her from hurting herself when she started headbutting the wall—and he’d learned over the years that she took at least three days to return to orbit after a blastoff.
Him, he’d stopped being pissed off as soon as he walked through his front door. By then, his anger had dissolved like an Alka-Seltzer, and he was left with an empty stomach and a vague feeling of regret. He didn’t like upsetting his sister. He didn’t like upsetting anybody.
When he finally did call her, he could tell straightaway that he’d judged it right: she wasn’t mad anymore. She launched into a long story about her dog getting sprayed by a skunk and her son trying to give the dog a bath in tomato juice and how the dog had shaken itself out and sprayed tomato juice all over the bathroom and how was she supposed to get tomato juice off the ceiling? And he told her that she should try vinegar next time and she said, “I should have called you in the first place, you always know this kind of stuff,” and that was when he knew she’d forgiven him. That’s why when they were getting off the phone and she asked if he’d been to any more bullshit protests, he told her no, he hadn’t, and he wasn’t planning to, even though he’d been up three nights in a row looking up some of the websites that Ken had suggested, and had already sent a text saying he’d be there next Saturday.
His sister had her team, you know? She had a whole goddamn football team between her husband and the kids and the