“That’s because center’s not eligible,” said Zack. He and Joe laughed.
Joe patted Gary on the back. “You’re doing a great job hiking the ball. Keep it up.”
“Okay, Joe.”
The game started. After each play, Gary was the first one back in the huddle with Joe. “Good pass, Joe,” he said. Or, “Nice run.” Or, “That would have been a touchdown if he hadn’t tipped it.”
Joe kept having to move around him so he could talk to the other members of the team.
“So what are you going to call this time, pass or run?” asked Gary. “How about a triple reverse?”
“Back off,” said Joe. “I’ll call the plays,”
“Sure, Joe. I understand. I was only trying to help.”
Joe put his hands in front of him, almost as if he was going to push Gary out of the way. “If you really want to help, the best thing you can do is just keep out of my face. Okay?”
“Okay, Joe.”
10.
It got worse as the week wore on.
“I don’t like being called Goon anymore,” he told Matt Hughes.
“What, Goon?” asked Matt.
“Just call me Gary. Not Goon.?
??
“Okay, Goon,” said Matt.
“I said—”
“I heard you, Goon. I won’t call you Goon anymore. Okay, Goon?”
“How about Blubberhead?” asked Paul.
“Lard Butt?” suggested Ryan.
He shrugged and walked away.
He wasn’t exactly surprised. He knew he didn’t have any friends. It was just that he’d never quite realized before that if he didn’t go up to people and tell them a joke, no one ever spoke to him. No one even said “Hi, Goon” to him in the hall.
But he’d made a deal with his parents, and he kept to it. He remembered a poem from a book he’d read when he was a little kid.
I meant what I said
And I said what I meant.…
An elephant’s faithful
One hundred per cent!
He told it to himself whenever he was feeling especially depressed, and it always managed to cheer him up a little bit.
After school, alone in his room, he was happy—making up jokes. It seemed the more miserable he was at school, the funnier the jokes. It was like the jokes were building up inside him all day long, bursting to get out. Like Rumpelstiltskin, that wretched soul who spun straw into gold, every evening Gary Boone spun his misery into humor.