Page 91 of The Longest Shot
“Rook, come on—” Kellerman starts, voice cracking like he’s thirteen again. "Who else is going?—"
"No, it's open to anyone who wants to put their hand up, and I probably deserve to lose it." I cut him off. "But suspending me doesn’t unfuck what I fucked. It doesn’t help the women’s team, doesn’t erase the humiliation, and doesn’t fix the disaster they call a locker room, the one we just escaped.”
I take a breath that goes all the way to my toes. “So tonight, nine o’clock, I’m heading over there. Their facilities are criminal. Peeling paint, no storage, lights that look like they’re sending Morse code. We all saw it and we all ignored it, because it was temporary for us, but not for them. So tonight, I'm going to start fixing it."
The silence expands, but I let the quiet exist without stuffing words into it. And, as I head to my locker, Schmidt’s hand lands on my shoulder. Heavy. Warm. Real. Just for a second, but the message transmits clearly:This is what actual leadership looks like, dipshit.
It feels like the first day of rehab from my addiction to being the loudest guy in every room.
As I enter the women's locker room—which had been the shared locker room until recently, while the men's was out of action—the fluorescent lights overhead greet me with their version of electrical Tourette's, flickering at a frequency that could trigger seizures in healthy adults.
"Christ, I don't miss this shithole," I whisper.
I dump my supplies on the concrete—two gallons of primer, three of paint, and brushes the Lowe's guy recommended. My entire December food budget, now transformed into an apology, but I don't mind, because this is the work I need to do, with no audience and no applause.
The silence fills the room like water in lungs. I'd hoped guys would show up to help me, but then my doubt shows up right on schedule, wearing my father's voice after beer number three:Nobody's coming, champ, because that's what happens when you whine like a little girl in front of your guys.
I crack open the first tin of primer with a screwdriver and get to work, the roller feeling good in my hand, substantial and real and deliberate. Attacking the first wall, I start at the top corner, working my way down in steady, overlapping strokes.
The primer goes on thick, erasing years of neglect with each pass, and it feels like progress. Like maybe if I can fix this room, I can fix other things too. The thought is so pathetically optimistic I almost laugh, but the sound dies in my throat.
With half the wall done, the transformation is already dramatic, from the sight of despair to something that at least suggests possibility. Tomorrow, the women will walk in here and feel a little better about their space, even if they don't know who did this.
And that's the point. No signature, no credit, no grand reveal.
Just work.
But then the door creaks, and I momentarily think I've been busted.
Schmidt materializes first, wielding a toolbox, and he gives me The Nod. You know the one. It saysI'm still mad at you and still think you're an idiot but I'm here anywaywithout wasting actual words. And, without even a word, he gets to work repairing the rickety benches the girls have to use.
Leo Cooper follows, hauling enough electrical supplies to rewire a small city. Kellerman practically sprints in, trying so hard to look serious he might sprain something. Martinez has his father's tool belt wrapped around him twice, because the kid's built like a ferret who learned to skate.
They all come.
Every fucking one of them.
EvenNash.
We spread out without discussion, each claiming territory like it's a face-off-dot, each doing the job they're most comfortable tackling (or Googling…). There's no music and no chatter, just the sound of hard work.
Schmidt builds stick racks in the corner with the focus of a bomb tech. Every measurement exact, every cut clean. Leo performs what I can only describe as electrical surgery on some lights, and when he's done, the steady light makes everyone squint like we've discovered fire.
And while they—and the others—are doing a million and one jobs?
Me?
With the primer on each wall drying, I'm on my knees in front of the bench, confronting tape residue that's fossilized. It makes me realize that the women have been literally holding thisdump together with tape and spite while we complain if the ice is half a degree too warm.
I attack it with my scraper, each stroke removing maybe three molecules of adhesive. As I work, my knees file immediate complaints through the concrete and my back starts composing its resignation letter, but I press on, because this is the work I need to do.
It's perfect.
Scrape.
The rhythm becomes almost meditative.
Scrape.
