Infected

There were no plants and few decorations. On the wall above the entertainment center, however, were Perry’s numerous football accolades. A shelf held trophies for high-school MVP awards and his treasured Gator Bowl MVP trophy from his freshman year. Plaques dotted the walls: Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, Detroit Free Press Mr. Football award from his senior year in high school, a dozen others.

Two items hung side by side, obviously commanding a place of honor among the awards. The first was something he’d been stunned to see, even when he knew it was coming, something that had marked a turning point in his life: his acceptance letter from the University of Michigan. The other item he both loved and hated: his snarling, sweat-streaked, helmet-clad face on the cover of Sports Ill.u.s.trated. In the picture he was tackling Ohio State’s Jervis McClatchy, who was completely wrapped up in Perry’s bulging, dirt- and gra.s.s-covered arms. The cover read, "So good it’s SCARY: Perry Dawsey and the Wolverine D lead Michigan to the Rose Bowl."

He loved the cover for obvious reasons — what athlete doesn’t dream of making the cover of SI? He hated it because, like many football players, he was superst.i.tious. The cover of SI was suspected by many to carry a curse. If you’re an unbeatable team and you make the cover, you’re going to lose the next game. Or, if you’re the best linebacker in a decade and you make the cover, your career will soon be over. Part of him couldn’t shake the stupid feeling that if he hadn’t made that cover, he’d still be playing football.

The place was small and admittedly a bit ghetto, but it was a veritable luxury condo compared to his childhood home. He treasured his privacy. It was a little lonely at times, but he could also do anything he wanted anytime he wanted. No one to track his schedule, no one to care if he brought home some girl he met at the bar, no one to b.i.t.c.h if he left his dirty socks on the kitchen table. No one to scream at him for reasons unknown. Sure, it wasn’t the mansion he should have had, it wasn’t the abode of an NFL star, but it

At least he’d found a job in Ann Arbor, home of his alma mater. He’d fallen in love with the town during college. Hailing from a small town like Cheboygan, he distrusted cities, felt uncomfortable in some sprawling metropolis like Chicago or New York. At the same time, however, he was the proverbial farm boy who’d seen the bright lights of the bigger world, and he couldn’t go back to small-town life, which seemed devoid of culture and fun by comparison. Ann Arbor was a college town of 110,000 that retained a cozy, small-town warmth, giving him the best of both worlds.

He tossed his keys and cell phone onto the kitchen table, threw his briefcase and heavy coat on the beat-up old couch, pulled the Walgreens bag from his pocket and headed for the bathroom. The rashes felt like seven searing electrodes grafted to his skin and connected to a tenthousand-watt current.

He’d deal with the rashes, but first thing first — that zit-thing above his eyebrow had to go. He set the bag down, opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out tweezers. He gave them a habitual flick, hearing them hum like a tuning fork, then leaned into the mirror. The weird zitthing was still there, of course, and it still hurt. He’d seen Bill pop a zit once: the process took like twenty minutes. Bill was methodical and a bit of a p.u.s.s.y, so that was fine. Perry had a higher tolerance for pain and a lower tolerance for patience. He took one deep breath, fixed the tweezers on the small, gnarled red b.u.mp and yanked. The chunk tore free — the pain came hot and sweet. Blood trickled down his face. He took another deep breath as he grabbed a wad of toilet paper and pressed it to the new wound. He held up the tweezers with his free hand. Just a small dot of flesh. But in the middle there, was that a hair? It wasn’t black at all, it was blue, a deep, dark, iridescent blue.

"Friggin’ weird." He ran the tweezers under hot water, was.h.i.+ng away the odd zit. He grabbed the Band-Aids from the cabinet: only six left. He ripped the paper off one and put it over the small, b.l.o.o.d.y spot where the zit-thing had just been. That had been the easy part — any pansy could deal with pain. But itching, that was a different story.

Perry dropped his pants and plopped down on the toilet. He pulled the Cortaid from the white bag. Squirting a healthy portion into his hand, he plastered the goo on the yellowish welt atop his left thigh.

He immediately regretted it.

The direct contact made the welt rage with intense itching pain, a blowtorch burning white-hot, as if his skin had melted away in glowing, molten drips. He scooted on the seat and nearly cried out. Controlling himself after only a second or two, he took a long, slow breath and forced himself to relax.

Almost as soon as the pain started, it died down, then seemed to subside completely. Smiling at the small victory, Perry gently worked the salve into the welt and the surrounding skin.

He almost laughed with relief. Using far more caution, he worked the Cortaid into the other welts. When he finished, all seven of them fell quiet.

"The Magnificent Seven," Perry mumbled. "You aren’t so magnificent now, are you?"

With all seven itches battled into submission, he felt giddy, he felt like howling with joy. But more than anything else, he felt tired. The

maddening itches created constant stress; with that stress suddenly gone, he felt like a schooner with the wind dying out of its sails.

Perry stripped out of all but his underwear, left his clothes in the bathroom and walked to the small bedroom. His queen-size bed left little s.p.a.ce for a single dresser and a nightstand. Less than eighteen inches separated the sides of the mattress from the wall.