Jack DeCotto strutted along the walk. He watched his shadow as it slid over the concrete. He’d throw a different silhouette later that day. Curved on top, bulky below it. The outline of a machine. A machine whose time has finally arrived.
He ignored the distant glances, nodded at those who acknowledged him. Spoke when spoken to. It didn’t take very much to make someone’s day.
Hi. Hello. How are you? Thank you. Have a great day.
It was simple. He hadn’t played much. He knew it could happen more often once the season started. Especially if the season went as well as he planned.
He pushed through the revolving door to the Cathedral of Learning. His father had brought him there years before. Jack always remembered the first time he looked up at the curved stone in the Commons Room, mainly because his father had been next to him. He wished he had something that would evoke a similar memory of his mother.
Jack tilted his face toward the four-story ceiling. He smiled. He wished his father could see what he was about to do. Jack hoped that, wherever his father was, he could.
“What are you doing here?”
Jack turned toward the sound of the voice. He was feeling too good to be irritated by the scrawny kid wearing an oversized Pitt T-shirt.
“I have class,” Jack said.
The stick man wearing clothes that were too big for him walked alongside Jack, deeper into the Commons Room. “You go to class?”
“Well, I go to school here.”
Jack walked at his normal pace, but the kid had to hustle to keep up with him.
“Doesn’t spring practice start today?”
Jack stopped. “I have class first.”
“You go to class?”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “I just told you that I do.”
“I thought the football players didn’t go to class.”
Jack started walking again. “I go to school here. It would be hard to play football if I didn’t go to class.”
The kid chased after him, already out of breath. “So is this the year?”
“It’s 2015,” Jack said.
“I mean the year.”
“That’s what they tell me.”
The kid stopped as Jack moved away. “Well,” the kid said, “good luck.”
Jack started moving a little faster. “If I don’t get to my classes on time, good luck won’t matter.”