The Two Chairs at the Bench End

I came down the bleachers one step at a time. Every step thumped on the old wooden risers. Eighteen rows is more than you think when the whole gym is listening to your shoes. Somewhere around row ten a man I had known since the second grade stood up out of his seat and held his program flat against his chest.

Somewhere around row six, somebody started to clap, and nobody joined in, and then somebody did.

By the time I reached the floor the clapping was ragged and scattered, and it was not even really for me. It was the sound a crowd makes when it does not know what is happening but knows it is on the right side of it.

Coach Brandt met me on the second step from the bottom. Up close he is a big man in a red polo, and he looked like he had not slept. He did not say a word. He held out a green spiral notebook.

I knew the cover before I touched it. A little scuffed at one corner, the wire bent where it had been jammed into a box. Across the front, in Dale’s square block capitals, were two letters: D.V.

“Found it in the equipment room,” Coach said, low, so only I could hear. “It was in a box of old warm-up shirts. Everybody thought it was a stat book from some old team. Then I saw the handwriting.”

“There’s nothing in it,” I said. My voice came out like paper.

“No, ma’am. It’s blank. He kept a spare in there, I guess. For when one ran out.” He swallowed. “We thought maybe you’d keep tonight’s book. If you wanted. We don’t have one. We never really did, after.”

Brody Mathews stood at the end of the bench, a head taller than I am up close. He pulled out the nearer chair for me with both hands, like a boy at a dance, and I saw that his ears were red.

I sat down. My hand was shaking as I opened the cover, and the pages smelled like the inside of Dale’s coat, like cold air and pencil shavings. I took his pencil out of my purse. I held it over the first page.

Evan dropped into the chair beside mine, the second one, and leaned toward me with his hands between his knees. “Mrs. Vickers,” he said, “we couldn’t do anything about the cards. We looked. Coach said it was the club’s business. But nobody said where you could sit on the floor.”

“That’s a bench,” I said.

“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned and then stopped grinning. “It’s the best seat in the house. We checked.”

Coach Brandt walked down the sideline and stopped in front of my chair. He did not make a speech. He bent down on one knee, the way a man does when he does not want to be seen from the back, and said, “Dale sat behind my bench for twelve years and never missed a game.

I never once said thank you to him in front of anybody. I should have. This is me being late.”

“Glenn,” I said.

“You keep the book, Karen. I need it. I’ve been blind in the left corner since March of last year.”

That is when I stopped being able to look at anyone. I looked at the page.