Complete Opposites

It's Homecoming weekend and there is a big party/dance kind of a thing tonight after the football game. I have been bugging Shane all week to attend. I know his therapist would want him to go and so do I. He should. He needs to meet more people. I haven't convinced him yet. It's hard to imagine him alone in our room, reading or studying on his bed while the whole rest of the school is at the party. Actually, that's not hard to imagine at all. I've seen it a dozen times and it's only mid-October.

Because it's gameday, my practice this morning is light. Mostly just sprints and warm ups. Most of my energy will be spent during the game itself. After most of the other guys leave, I hang back and meet with our offensive coach for a bit. We talk about Wheaton's defense and review a few new plays we have in mind. By the time I make it to the locker room to hit the showers, the place is pretty much deserted. After toweling off, I slip into some fresh sweats and head out of the fitness center. The rear exit is a shorter walk to the dorm, so that's where I head.

As I clear the door, I get grabbed. Something is pulled over my head and I can see nothing. Hands are all over me. I'd guess about eight of them. That would mean I am outnumbered four to one. I can't shout because one of the eight hands is covering my mouth over whatever is covering my head.

An unfamiliar voice says, "Don't fight it and you won't get hurt. We just have a pregame Homecoming surprise for you."

Another voice laughs. I have no idea who these guys are. But when I find that I'm being shoved into the backseat of a car with two guys flanking me on either side, I begin to worry for real.

Shane:

I've been doing work in the science lab all morning. I'm heading back to our room and it's a few hours before gametime. As I approach, I see the same four football players loitering in the hall who were in my room two months ago, the day I moved in. Cam has done a good job of keeping these guys away from our room since that day.

They seem relieved to see me as I approach with caution.

The ruddy-faced one is the spokesman, "Shane! Thank god! Have you seen Cam?"

I shake my head, "We both left at the same time this morning. He went to practice and I went to the lab. What's going on?"

"We can't find him. No one has seen him since practice ended. He stayed longer than the rest of us, but now he's missing."

"Missing, how?"

"We don't know. He's not answering his phone. Texts go unread. We've searched the fitness center, the dining hall, really the whole campus, except for your room. But we've pounded on the door. If he's in there, he's ignoring us."

I tell them not to worry, but something doesn't feel right. "Maybe he's off clearing his head before the big game."

Ruddy-Face scoffs, "He doesn't do that shit."

I shrug, "His dad is coming tonight, right? Maybe he's having lunch or something with him?"

"Without his phone? He would have answered us."

I get my key out of my pocket, "Maybe he's taking a nap. He is a deep sleeper. Thunderstorms don't wake him."

They all anxiously await as I nervously insert the key into my door. The door swings open and the room is empty. His wallet and phone are on his dresser. He only leaves them here when he's at practice, at games or in the shower.

I ask, "Did you try the showers here in the dorm?"

All four of them nod.

One of them asks, "You don't think he'd..." the thought is left unfinished, hanging in the air.

Ruddy-Face shakes his head, "No way! Our man is long over that shit."

"But dude. Where is he then? We didn't see it coming last year either when suddenly..." Another unfinished thought.

But I'm with Ruddy-Face. Cam would not... He just wouldn't. He's been clean and sober for nine months now. We talk every night. He seems like he's in a really good place, mental health wise. Unless there are things he's not telling me... No. I know Cam. Ruddy-Face does too. But what happened to him then?

Ruddy-Face hands me his phone, "Put your number in here."

I do as I'm told. I hand it back to him and he texts me a test message. "You call if you see or hear anything. The team is supposed to meet ninety minutes before the game. That's in just a couple hours. We need to find him."

The four of them take off.

My spidey-sense is tingling. Then I remember Elmhurst last Saturday. Those four Wheaton College guys sitting behind me in the stands. Was their talk not so harmless?

Fuck.

~~

I start to panic as I drive north. I don't know where I'm going. I mean, my GPS is guiding me to Wheaton College, but once I get there...what then? I have no freaking idea. I need a plan. Let's start with what I know. It's not much. It's a ridiculously short list of items. There are four of them. I had caught a couple glimpses of their faces so I should be able to recognize them. The leader's name was Justin. They live together in off-campus housing. They probably won't recognize me. That's it. Is that enough? It's what I've got.

I considered calling Ruddy-Face with what I know, but I decided not to. First, I could have this all wrong and if I do, I shouldn't be pulling the four of them away from real efforts to find Cam. And second, if I'm right, The five of us stomping and barging around the town and campus will only raise flags and take away the element of surprise. If I'm right, those Wheaton guys have no idea that I'm on my way. If I find their house and Cam is being somehow held inside, my solo non-threatening presence will get me pretty far. Hopefully.

As I get closer, an idea comes to mind. I stop at a downtown pizza place and buy two large and one small along with a bottle of Gatorade. I drive in a circle around campus and come to a grid of streets nearby where the houses look like they might be occupied by students. The yards have no family feel to them.

I find a place to park on one of the streets and I take a deep breath. I feel my anxiety building. It's at this moment that I realize that I haven't felt much anxiety lately. Cam is the reason why. Our late night talks, just his presence in my life... But right now, anxiety is back with a vengeance. If I even find him at all, what am I about to walk into?

I leave the small pizza and the Gatorade in the backseat and I grab the two large pizza boxes. I pick one random house, walk up to the front door and ring the bell. "A nice looking boy a year or two older than me answers. He looks confused.

I say, "I'm sorry. The person taking orders at the restaurant was busy and got some things messed up. I have a pizza order, but the address is wrong. All I know is that it is in this neighborhood. Four or five guys and one of them is named Justin."

The cute boy apologizes and tells me I have the wrong house. He does not know a Justin. Over the next thirty minutes, I try five more houses spaced out on different blocks only to get the same negative response at each. It's my seventh house where I meet a guy who knows who and where Justin is. He gives me directions and I'm only four houses away. I sigh. Pizza delivery people are overworked, underappreciated and underpaid.

Okay. Showtime. I approach the door of the house that I was informed is Justin's. Could Cam really be inside somewhere? Has he been kidnapped? What is going on in there? I take a deep breath and ring the doorbell.

After what feels like forever, the door finally swings open. I can feel my heart beating in my chest. I recognize the dude before me as one of the guys from last week at the Elmhurst game. It is not Justin, but he is one of the four. I need to get inside and see if I can find evidence of Cam being here.

I hold up the pizza boxes and say, "These are for Justin."

The guy shakes his head, "We didn't order pizza." He slams the door, putting his sizable hip into it. I shove my left foot between the door and the doorframe, preventing the slam. With the weight of his body behind it, my foot gets crushed and I have to force myself to not cry out in pain.

I elbow the door back open, "I know you didn't. The football team paid for these. They have a message for you too. They said, they know what your doing and the pizza is a 'thank you' from them."

That makes him pause. He calls over his shoulder, "Justin, the football team sent us pizzas. As a thank you."

I take the opening and step inside. Not wanting to get shut down again before confirming Cam's presence or absence, I push past this guy and cross over into the front room.

The door guy calls out behind me, "Hey! Stop! I'll take those."

It's too late. There's Cam, sitting upright in a chair, all four limbs tied to the chair itself. When he sees me, his eyes almost pop out of their sockets. The other three guys all jump up off the couch, not having expected company.

The biggest guy is closest to me. I pass him the pizza boxes and he stupidly takes them. With his hands occupied, my right hand lashes out in a devastating palm strike that crushes the big guy's nose. I could both feel and hear the crunch. He goes down fast in a heap, pizza spilled everywhere. Blood spurts from his nose. He's done. The pain is surely overwhelming. Blinding, really. He won't be up anytime soon.

But now the element of surprise is over. The remaining three guys now know that I am much more of a threat than I appear to be. All three of them are several inches taller than me. They are all a good forty pounds heavier than me. And suspecting the possibility that I could take them each one on one, they come at me all at once in a triangle formation. This is smart on their part, as at best, I could only focus on one of them at a time. And if I did attack one of them at this point, the other two would absolutely pummel me. It would be over. I need to do something that will shift the element of surprise back into my favor.

As they close in, I get an idea. I don't love it, but I can't think of anything else. This is going to suck so hard.

I let them seize me.

They are shouting, screaming really, about what I did to their friend. And over their screams, I hear Cam demanding they let me go.

Two of them grab me by the arms and twist them behind my back. My plan is working. They are back to thinking I'm a weakling. An asshole who lucked out with a sucker punch and needs to be punished. Justin stands before me. He tells his friends to shut up. He looks me hard in the eyes, searching for something. He says, "You sat in front of us at the game last week. You heard us talking."

Cam shouts out again, "Let him go! You've got me. He means nothing to you. Don't hurt him!"

There is real fear in his eyes. There is fear in my eyes too. No way those guys let me go now. They know what I heard them say last week. They know that I know they kidnapped Cam. They know that I know where they live.

I start to brace myself for the blow that is about to come. The blow that has to happen so I can turn the tables once again. I'm held captive as Justin winds up with a killer's look in his eyes.

"Don't you fucking dare touch him!" Cam yells and fights against his restraints.

Justin delivers a powerful uppercut to my gut. It does the job and then some. There is no acting needed as I double over in pain, squealing and gasping for breath and forcing back the bile that builds in the back of my throat.

Cam screams, "Noooooo! Shane!" and thrashes violently.

I think Cam's scream helps my cause. They think I'm done. The two big guys holding my arms let go as I crumble to my knees. Except I never make it down to my knees. With my arms once again mobile, I elbow each of them between the rib cages and suddenly it's their four knees that hit the floor. I had known Justin's big blow was coming. While it hurt like a fucking son of a bitch, I was able to expel my air and brace myself. These guys were not expecting my perfectly placed jabs and the wind was knocked out of them. Three down and one to go.

Justin's eyes bulge and he winds up to punch me again, but I am no longer restrained. He never makes it past the wind up because I headbutt him in the nose, which pops and spurts blood like his friend who is still rolling around in a mess of spilled pizza. And now Justin won't be getting up anytime soon either.

But I am worried about the two guys I elbowed. Once they get their wind back, they'll be threats again. Before that can happen, I have to take further action. So, I break each of their right arms. Since they're both still trying to find their breath, they don't put up much of a struggle. I straighten the first guy's arm and rest it on the seat of the couch, creating a forty-five degree angle. With my uninjured right foot, I stomp at the elbow and his arm cracks and bends in a way that arms are not meant to bend. He must have some of his air back, because he manages to howl. I repeat the clinical procedure on the other guy and the threat is finally over.

My adrenaline begins to recede and with it, the pain in my crushed foot surges back into my awareness. Fuck, it hurts. And so does my stomach. My eyes are watering, my gut is burning and my breathing is ragged. I survey the scene around me. Satisfied that none of them are in any condition to pose any further threat, I finally fall to my knees and bury my face in my hands.

"Shane!" Cam shouts as he continues to struggle.

Yes, the pain in two places is crippling, but I'm emotional over the realization that I was almost too late. What have they already put him through? What did they plan to do next?

I force myself to shake it off. I drop my hands from my face. I shuffle over to the chair on my knees and I go to work on freeing Cam.

Cam:

I have been stunned speechless since the moment Shane walked in this house carrying two boxes of pizza. I have been confused, shocked and in awe. At first, I was terrified that these guys were going to kill him. No offense to Shane, but he is a fraction of the size of any of those guys. But Shane methodically took them all down, one by one. My brain is having trouble believing what my eyes just witnessed.

Shane pulls a Swiss Army Knife out of his pocket and begins cutting my bindings. As he does so, he asks me, "Are you okay?"

"Am I okay? Oh my God! That asshole hit you! Are you okay?"

He tries to conceal a grimace as he lies to me and says, "Totally."

He has the last of my bindings cut and I am finally free. I jump up and hug the shit out of him, careful not to hurt him around the middle. He squeezes back. It feels good. We've never hugged before. Actually, we never touch.

Setting him down, I ask, "Where are we? Who are they? My head was shrouded until we were inside this house."

"I'll answer all of your questions once we get the fuck out of here. I refuse to be the idiots in the horror movie who just stand there as the evil killers come back to life. Let's get to my car."

He takes a step forward with his left foot and almost collapses. He winces in pain. "My foot blocked the slamming door and now..." He trails off, shaking his head like he's disappointed in himself.

I squat down in front of him and say, "Hop aboard." I carry him piggyback style as he grips my shoulders and directs me to his car, three blocks away.

He insists he's okay to drive as the injury is to his left foot. I help him into the driver's seat.

His car smells like pizza. He reaches behind my seat and hands me a small box and a bottle of Gatorade. He says, "I know it's not the healthiest pregame dinner, but time and options were limited. Eat and drink up. I can get you back before the start of the game."

I can't believe he thinks I'm still playing in the game after he got injured risking his life to rescue me. I shake my head. "I'm not leaving your side. We're going to the emergency room and getting your foot x-rayed."

"No." He hasn't started the car yet. He turns to me, "You are so going to play that game and trounce and humiliate any and everyone who has anything to do with Wheaton College. Wheaton College is where we are right now. You have revenge to exact upon them."

He really means it. I can tell he won't change his mind. If I have any hope of getting him medical attention, it won't be until after the game. I really want to hug him again but its too awkward in the car. I ask him, "How did you find me?"

He tells me a complicated story about going to my game in Elmhurst last week and hearing these guys talking in the seats behind him in the stands. It seemed like it was just talk, though. What if he got injured? What if he had a family emergency? What if he fell off the wagon? Shane didn't actually suspect a plot to abduct me. But when I turned up missing, he remembered what he'd heard. He then went into investigative mode and against all odds, tracked me down.

He starts the engine, "Besides, it's Homecoming Weekend. Everyone is counting on you. And your dad is coming to the game. You have to play. You have to win." He taps the box in my lap, "Did they feed you? Eat this."

Not only did my roommate, my new friend, save my life, but he brought me dinner too. I take a slice. "I have so many questions."

"I already answered them."

"How could you walk into that house alone? Why didn't you call the police? Or at least bring some of my teammates with you?"

"And tell the police what? Some guy named Justin said some weird shit a week ago in Elmhurst. I don't know who he is or where he lives. I don't know that he did anything at all. Find him and rescue my friend. They would have laughed me right off the phone."

"My teammates would have believed you."

"Probably. But I didn't know anything. I couldn't risk having them stop their own search. What if my hunch was wrong?"

His hunch wasn't wrong. He was almost killed saving my life. And he did get hurt.

He continues, "The more people I would have brought, the bigger the chance things could have turned out badly. I knew those guys would underestimate me. I was no threat to them. But once I took the first guy down, they got the idea that I might be more than a slight nuisance. I needed them to get back to thinking I wasn't a threat. That's why I had to let them get me. And hit me."

He let them do that to him. He had the bigger picture in mind and his plan worked brilliantly. But it was a crushing blow and I can see he's in a shit-ton of pain that he's trying to hide from me.

Shane asks me, "You really didn't know where you were? Or who they were?"

I shake my head, "All four of them sneak attacked me walking out the back of the fitness center. They put a bag over my head and I never saw a thing until I was tied up inside of that house. I could have been anywhere."

"What was their plan?"

"To keep me tied up until after the game."

"And then they were just gonna let you go?"

"Not exactly. Once we were inside and they let me see their faces, I knew it wasn't going to end well. They weren't looking to murder me." I clear my throat, "They were going to make me get drunk and then dump me somewhere near the Homecoming party after the game so I could be 'found'."

"They were going to..." He stammers, "They were willing to ruin your life over the outcome of a football game?"

"They told me that they knew about my troubles last year and they were going to make it look like I went on a weekend bender or something. They said that even if I remembered some of what really happened, no one would have believed me. I didn't know their names. I didn't know where they held me. I would have been found drunk. No one would believe my story and at some point I would even begin to doubt myself."

He looks at me, "I would have believed you."

I get a lump in my throat, "Because you heard them talking last week."

"No. Suppose I didn't hear what I heard," he says. "History or no history. Drunk or sober, I would have believed you because you are you and I know you." We're at a red light and he holds my eye.