Pop

Marcus is put in to play cornerback for the next game, and while the position is one of the least glorious, he’s just glad to be playing at all. Marcus notices that Troy makes a play to avoid being tackled, and though it’s petty, this makes Marcus feel better because it means “even Golden Boy was human” (78). Since Charlie is in the audience, Marcus is determined to show off what the man’s taught him. Marcus makes a hard tackle and intercepts, earning praise from the coach and annoyance from Troy. After the game, Charlie ignores Troy to congratulate Marcus, which makes Troy even more furious.

At his next practice session with Charlie, Charlie dislocates Marcus’s shoulder during a tackle. Charlie insists Marcus just needs to ram the shoulder back into place. Marcus refuses because he’s in so much pain and insists he needs to go to the hospital. Charlie runs off, allegedly to get his car, but he isn’t back after almost an hour. Knowing he’ll never make it on foot, Marcus braces himself and then rams his shoulder into a marble statue. He blacks out from the pain, but when he comes to, his arm is fine.

Marcus is amazed that Charlie was right. In the next instant, Marcus can’t believe an adult left him alone in such agony, wondering if Charlie “consider[s] himself so big a sports star that other people simply didn’t matter” (85). Marcus hops on his Vespa and speeds away, only to pass Charlie driving back toward the park. When Marcus tries to get the man’s attention, Charlie looks right through him and keeps going. Marcus zips around and flags Charlie down, furious. Charlie doesn’t seem to remember the incident or Marcus. Marcus speeds away, deciding that the egotistical pro athlete isn’t worth his time anymore.

At Troy’s house, his mother shows him a dent on her car, believing he’s responsible. Troy swears he didn’t do it. At once, they realize it must have been Charlie. Troy’s mother hides the car keys.

Marcus misses his practices with Charlie more than he expected, considering how the guy treated him. Still, Charlie’s training helps Marcus improve at school, and soon, he’s playing full offense on the team, much to Troy’s consternation. At their next game, Marcus keeps sneaking glances at Charlie in the audience. Troy notices and gets in Marcus’s face, shoving him. The coach benches Marcus, which feels unfair since Troy started the fight. Alyssa finds Marcus to comfort him and invite him to a party that night.

When Marcus arrives at the party, one of his teammates advises him to keep a low profile so Troy doesn’t find out he’s there. Alyssa finds him, and the two make out in a closet until Troy arrives and throws a punch at Marcus. Alyssa gets in Troy’s face, reminding him he broke up with her—not the other way around. The other players are similarly supportive of Marcus’s presence. Suddenly, Chelsea arrives to tell Troy that Charlie has gone missing. When Marcus offers to help, Troy’s rage makes his anger from moments ago seem inconsequential. In a flash, Marcus realizes “something was wrong with Charlie. Something serious” (103).

Marcus thinks he knows where Charlie is, and he leaves the party to go to Three Alarm Park. Sure enough, Charlie is there, casually sitting around as if nothing strange is going on. Marcus manages to get both of them on his Vespa, but when he asks Charlie where he lives, Charlie gives vague answers and looks “uncomfortable and completely lost at sea” (109). When they pass the exterminator’s store, Marcus is shocked to see that the place has been toilet papered, and he then notices toilet paper sticking out from Charlie’s shirt sleeves. When Marcus mentions the sugar prank, Charlie doesn’t remember it. Despite Charlie’s vague directions, Marcus manages to find the man’s home. Chelsea drags Charlie inside without even acknowledging Marcus.

Marcus goes home and spends several hours trying to figure out what’s wrong with Charlie. He finally stumbles across an article linking concussions in the NFL to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a neurological condition whose symptoms include forgetfulness, difficulty focusing, and, in some cases, mental decline as seen in Alzheimer’s dementia. The most severe form of the disease matches what Marcus observed from Charlie tonight—selective memory loss that makes it appear as if Charlie is living in the past. Marcus realizes Troy is defensive because his family is trying to keep Charlie’s sickness a secret. This also explains how Charlie gets away with just taking stuff from stores—people cut him slack because he’s a big name in town and assume he’s just quirky. Further reading tells Marcus that CTE never gets better. It’s unclear how much time Charlie has, but eventually, he will forget everything.

The next day, Alyssa comes to Marcus’s house. She’s unapologetic for bringing Marcus to the party, but Marcus is annoyed at the situation, especially how Troy treated him. Midway through the conversation, the police officer arrives at Marcus’s house because the exterminator wants to press charges for the toilet paper. Though Marcus knows he’ll get formally arrested and tried for the crime, he can’t bring himself to throw Charlie under the bus because the man deserves to hold on to his dignity, “even if he would ultimately end up at the point where dignity wouldn’t mean much to him anymore” (117).

At the newspaper office where his mom works, Marcus looks at old photos of the town and realizes that many of them show things that align with Charlie’s view of the place. Since they met, Charlie has called Marcus “Mac.” Up until now, Marcus thought this was a strange way of shortening his name, but he now wonders if there is a real Mac from Charlie’s childhood.

At school, Chelsea thanks Marcus for caring enough to bring Charlie home. Marcus asks her about CTE, and Chelsea is annoyed he figured out the truth. Her family is private about Charlie’s condition. Marcus promises not to tell and realizes that, as hard as the disease is on Charlie, “it had to be just as hard on his family, maybe even harder” (123).

The football coach orders Marcus to stay away from Alyssa, as their relationship is distracting Troy from football. Meanwhile, a hearing for the toilet paper incident is scheduled. If Marcus pleads not guilty, he’ll have to give up Charlie to prove his innocence, and between this and football, he feels Charlie’s presence in his life closing in around him. After looking at pictures of his school’s past football teams, Marcus realizes one of the men (James McTavish) is probably Mac. Pretending to be Charlie, Marcus leaves a message on a site for tracking down old college friends and classmates.

At the next game, Marcus notices Troy holding back again. Meanwhile, Marcus is starting to be noticed both on and off the field. This includes amped-up flirting with Alyssa, which feels good, and Marcus hopes that “in spite of everything that had happened, it could get a whole lot better” (133). Marcus also gets a message from someone in the alumni association of Charlie’s college, who has an address for McTavish in a nearby town.