American Outlaw Read Online Free Page B

football.”
    “Jesse James, I swear.” Bobby’s face grew dark. “If you go pussy on me, I will personally kick your ass myself.”
    “All right, jerkoffs!” a coach called out. “Enough yapping! Come and get your rags.” The JV kids swarmed around the coaches, trying to get uniforms. We were an ugly little crew. Tiny runts, fatsos with man-tits, white trash, mean losers, and punks with messed-up lives. As a whole, we were one big zit cluster, a dog pile of teenaged assholes hoping against hope to make the big squad. But even we knew that most of us didn’t have a fucking chance.
    Another coach blew his whistle. “
Gentlemen!
Line up! Let’s toss, sweep, block!”
    Slowly, the varsity center, along with his quarterback, fullback, and tailback, all strutted up to the line together—they’d done this drill before. Tom, of course, was the quarterback. Big, imposing linebackers came to stand on either side of the formation.
    “Oh, hey, it’s the faggot, with the gay clothes,” Tom called to me. “I thought I told you not to come down here today, didn’t I?”
    I said nothing.
    “Let’s get a defensive line!” the coach called, motioning over to the crew of JV kids. None of us moved. “Guys! Let’s not be shy. I don’t have all day.”
    I walked up to the outside linebacker position. Bobby came out and stood beside me. Another tenth grader, a chubby kid named Mike, walked up and joined us. Slowly, the defensive line filled.
    The coach tossed the ball to the center. “All right, boys. Let’s see what you got.”
    “Hut, hut!” Tom shouted. He looked both ways, put his hands down underneath his center’s thighs, got ready to receive the ball. I stared at him, dead-eyed.
    “Hut, hut, HIKE!”
    As soon as the ball was snapped, I tore off the line, heading straight at him. Dixon looked to his left—no one there. He drifted back, lookingfor his tailback. I snuck around the end. The fullback tried to chop at my legs, but I straight-armed him and pushed him down.
    Dixon looked to his right—drifting back again. His tailback approached, and he was just about to sweep, when I arrived.
    I tackled the fucker hard, right around his ribs, and brought him down to the field violently. The ball flew loose, and all the air expelled from Tom Dixon’s mighty lungs with a clumsy
“OOOF!”
    “Nice
hit,
Jess,” Bobby hooted. “Show ’em how we do it!”
    Tom Dixon squirmed under me uncomfortably. He looked dazed. “Get off, kid!”
    He lay there, trapped under my knees.
    “Nah, I don’t think so,” I whispered.
    I wrenched his helmet off his blow-dried head and smashed him in the face with my fist. I hit him as hard as I could, my knuckles hammering the bone of his cheek, driving his head into the ground. I pulled him up by the collar of his jersey, punched him in the temple again, then socked him below his eye. I hit him in the face again and again, over and over, until blood was gushing.
    “He’s crazy!” Dixon’s buddy cried. “Get him off! Fuck, this kid needs to be put in jail!”
    They tried to rip me away, but I was locked on like a pit bull. I bashed his skull against the ground over and over again, filled with rage. Finally, Tom Dixon made a terrible, high-pitched squeal: an inhuman, pig-shriek sound. The sound of complete defeat. As soon as I heard that, I smiled and loosened my grip. I let the rest of the team peel me off him.
    I staggered back over to Bobby and the JV kids, on shaky legs, feeling like I had to vomit.
    “Fuck, James, that was
awesome,
” Bobby said, collapsing with laughter. He clapped me on the back. “You see that fucker’s face? Man, I had no idea you even had that
in
you!”
    I was still shaking. I hadn’t come close to depleting my rage. I wouldn’t for a long, long time.

2
 
     
    “You gotta grow up,” our head coach advised me, shaking his head. “You know, I think a year on the JV squad might be just the ticket for you.”
    I guess it was meant to be a lesson: