Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen Read Free Book Online

waiting. I slowly, smoothly lift my legs with perfect form until my toes tap the bar.
    â€œCome on !” Scott moans as I lower my legs.
    I lift my legs up and tap the bar again, and again and again ... and again, and again. I do eighteen toe touches with perfect form before dropping off the bar. The most I’ve ever done in one set. Bruce and Vance knock knuckles in celebration. Gradley and Steve are slapping my shoulders. Ronnie punches my arm lightly and I accept it.
    â€œDamn! These little dudes don’t play around,” Terrence, a star player for the Knights, says. Some of his teammates are nodding their heads in agreement. “I gotta start working my core like that.”
    â€œYou TRICKED US!!!” The yell is so loud it pushes my hair up on my head. Everyone stops. We turn and find Mike Studblatz, face the color of a plum, steam practically rising out of his ears. His eyes are wild and ferocious and I’m sure he’s about to lunge into our group and kill me, Coach, Bruce, and Vance, though maybe not in that order. Studblatz heaves a hundred-pound dumbbell off the rack and lifts it above his head and then hurls it toward us. We see it coming and step out of the way and it crashes like a meteor into a metal calf-raise machine. The noise is deafening.
    â€œMike!” Coach Stein shouts, trying to regain control.
    â€œYou tricked all of us!” Mike fumes. He’s pacing back and forth and thumping his chest. He gets under a shoulder press machine and presses up two hundred and fifty pounds. His thick arms tremble and spit froths at the corners of his mouth. His eyes bounce around like he can’t focus. “You. TRICKED. US!!!” he repeats, and heaves the weight up again and again. “This is real strength. Not that !”
    â€œFrank,” Coach Nelson snaps at Coach Stein, “you better get hold of your players.”
    Coach Stein starts to move in between the pulsing Studblatz and everyone else. Mike Studblatz picks up two more dumbbells and begins military-pressing them over his head and staring at us, like he’s proving something other than that he’s an animal. I’m pretty sure whatever he’s imagining involves dismemberment. Coach Stein only gets so close and then stops, seeming wary himself. The other football players watch but don’t move. Finally Scott Miller walks up to Studblatz and puts a hand to his chest.
    â€œIt’s okay, big man, the pukes cheated us, they won’t be coming in here.”
    â€œIt’s not a secret why he’s acting that way,” Coach Nelson speaks clearly for everyone to hear. “Frank, I know what you and Coach Brigs are giving these boys. Someone’s gonna get hurt if you keep it up.”
    â€œWorry about your own team, Ted.”
    â€œ All of us , Frank, are supposed to be on the same team,” Coach Nelson says, and then he faces the circled group of football players. “That crap some of you are taking to get big and strong is the same thing they feed hogs and cattle before they slaughter ’em.”
    â€œThat’s enough,” Coach Stein says. Coach Nelson raises an eyebrow at him.
    â€œLet’s go,” Coach Nelson tells us. “We’ll come back when they’ve settled down.”
    As we follow him out, Tom Jankowski grabs my arm and yanks me away from my teammates. Coach Nelson, up ahead, is leaving without me, doesn’t see me. I glance over and see Todd Pullman holding Ronnie Gunderson, his arm twisted up behind his back. Tom’s big hand swallows my whole neck and starts squeezing the life out of me.
    â€œBet you think it’s real funny what you just pulled,” he says. “I’m gonna remember this. You and your little pussy friends are dead. You hear me? Dead. We are gonna bury you.” The threat comes at me in a cloud of sour breath, and I feel my body freeze up, glance over, and only see Ronnie Gunderson in more pain as