The Heartbeat of Halftime Read online

  “I thought you didn’t like football,” I said.

  “I don’t,” she said. “But I like you … . Here’s your breakfast.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She smiled at me. Seemed like it had been such a long time that she had smiled or been happy with something. I think about it now, and maybe she realized that before long it was going to be just me and her; and that maybe she better start getting used to it. Including the football.

  Mom sat next to me while I ate. After a moment, she spoke to me.

  “I love him too, you know,” she said.

  I nodded my head, not knowing what to say.

  We sat alone like that for a time, not talking, just sitting. Still, it was a good beginning.

  As always, I was the first one to the field. Mom dropped me off at the players’ entrance, then went to find herself a good seat. I didn’t see anyone there when I jogged out onto the field to warm up. The stadium was a lot bigger in the daytime. I looked at the fence where we had climbed over the night before. I laughed to myself thinking about the security guard being scared out of his pants when he caught sight of Heat’s dog charging toward him. Then I thought about the chin strap. I pulled my helmet on to make sure the chin strap fit. It did, and I rubbed it for good luck.

  That’s when I saw Coach sitting on one of the benches on the sideline.

  “It’s a big place, isn’t it?” he asked me without getting up.

  “Yes,” I said loudly, since I was standing so far away from him. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I had never been alone with Coach before. And even though we had spent a whole season together, it seemed like I didn’t know him at all. I walked over and sat beside him.

  “You know,” he said. “One of the main reasons we’re sitting right here today is because of the way you’ve played this season.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Everyone tells me this is the best season you’ve ever had. I don’t know, this is my first year in this league, in this town. But that’s what they tell me. Is it true?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Why do you suppose that is?” he asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “We never know, do we?” he said.

  It was the first thing anybody had said to me that really made sense. That was it. We don’t know why things happen, or what’s going to happen. There are a lot of things we just can’t do anything about. And there are a lot of things we’re never going to understand. That’s life. No sense being angry at what you can’t change. You just find a way to make the most of it, to make it work.

  We both looked at the sun over the stadium then. It was cold, but it was a clear morning. A perfect day for football.

  “Let’s win us a game today,” Coach said.

  Sitting there with him, I believed we would.

  Shortly after that, everyone else arrived. We went through warm-ups at one end of the field while Cyprus warmed up at the other end. There were people slowly moving into the stadium, and we all knew they would never fill it. Not for this game. I think we all dreamed of a packed stadium, but we weren’t disappointed when only the first few rows filled up. The last to arrive was the band. Just as we were going into the locker room for a five-minute pep talk, the band hurried into the seats behind the end zone. As we ran by, they all held out their gloved hands to slap us five and shout to us.

  “You’re the best!” they yelled.

  “So are you guys!” Taco Bell shouted back.

  I guess he was just caught up in all the excitement and couldn’t think of anything else to say. We could hear the band warm up as we made our way through the tunnel and into the locker room. Most of the team was too awestruck to hear what Coach was saying. It was the biggest day in all of our lives. It would be tough to concentrate before the game. Coach knew this, so he didn’t say much.

  “We have a win waiting for us,” he said. “There’s a championship right here. By lunchtime today you could be champions. You all deserve it. You deserve it more than anyone on that Cyprus team. You’ve had more to overcome. More to prove. More to lose.”

  He looked at me then, understanding what had motivated me all season.

  “Now,” he continued. “Let’s go have some fun. Let’s go win us a football game!”

  We all yelled then, and gathered into a huddle around Coach.

  “You want to win this game?” he shouted at us.

  “Yes!” we shouted back.

  “Then let’s go prove it!” he yelled.

  We all screamed like infantrymen and stormed the field. Cyprus had already done its screaming and was on the opposite sideline. They watched us jump into each other, yelling and smacking helmets. For the first time all year we recognized what the band was playing. It was our school song. We cheered as half the audience sang along. I turned and looked into the stands while Heat and Spray Can walked out onto the field for the flip. Even though the stands were far less than half full, there were still more people at this game than I had ever seen. Then I saw Leisl. She was up front, leaning over the rail with Katie. She had the bottle-cap necklace in her hand and was looking for me. She caught sight of me and I smiled at her. She smiled back and tugged at the necklace. My cheek suddenly felt warm.

  I turned back to Heat and Spray Can just in time to see us win the flip. We would receive. The game had started and everything would fade away, the stadium, all the fans, the band. Everything except the game. It was all that mattered. I took my place on the field and waited. I could hear my own breathing. I could feel my heartbeat. I glanced at the sideline like I always do, looking for my father. He wasn’t there and I grew angry again.

  The whistle blew and the referee signaled for the kickoff. It was like the beginning of my life, it was like I was born right then. I heard the thud of a ball being kicked. I watched it loft over the front line, end over end, arcing first high, then down, down into my arms. I heard Heat running toward me.

  “Up the middle!” he shouted, and cut in front of me to lead the blocking.

  I caught up with him quickly. We were running in the same steps, pumping the same rhythm like we were on a tandem bicycle. Taco Bell laid down the first block, but the line closed in on us. Heat opened up a small gap, but it slammed in on me. I got hit hard from the left side, then the right. I lost Heat, and tried to take one more step, get one more yard. But I got hit head on. I was knocked to the ground and smothered by the defense.

  When I found my way out of the tangle of bodies, my left hand was numb. It felt like it had been cut off. I tried to find my way back to the huddle, but it hurt so bad I had to stop. The referee called time-out and one of the college trainers ran onto the field.

  “Where does it hurt?” he asked me.

  “My hand,” I said painfully. “I took a helmet in the hand.”

  As I walked off the field, I turned around to see Heat growing angry. I had made it to about the thirty yard line. But without me, Stones would have to play halfback. Stones was not fast enough to be a threat on the sweeps or the passes. He played defense and we brought him in on offense only when we had to play power football.

  “Heat is going to have a long game if I don’t get back out there,” I said to myself.

  So while the trainer iced my hand and checked for broken bones, Heat ran the dive, play after play. Stones was a pretty good blocker, and our line was angry enough to hit hard. Heat was gaining four or five yards a play. Taco Bell was playing like a madman. You could see the scabs on his face, and after a few plays they got knocked loose and started to bleed. The scabs on his elbow and leg were bleeding too. He looked like a psycho soldier. I think it scared the other team half to death. Taco Bell knew it and played it up. He’d growl and yell like an ax murderer, then wipe blood on his pants. The kid he was blocking got so intimidated, he wouldn’t even line up in front of Taco Bell; he played back, off the line.

  Bam just kept handing off to Heat behind Stones and they ran to Taco
Bell’s side all the way to the end zone. By the time they got there, nearly every player on the defense had blood on his jersey from a Taco Bell block. Heat punched in the extra point, and we were up 7 to 0.

  Cyprus had come all the way to that stadium to win back what they thought was theirs. They showed up to redeem themselves, to teach us a lesson. What they found was a blood-covered crazyman who chopped up their defense like cordwood. They were stunned at the first score.

  We kicked off, and Cyprus met psycho number two, Spray Can. At the last minute, Ray showed up at the game. I swear you could smell him. That odor of gasoline and grease swept through the stadium. Spray Can caught the smell and it made him crazy, it reminded him of what it was he was trying to prove. He played every minute of that game at full speed. He made the tackle on the kickoff. He blitzed on the first play and hit the fullback head-on two yards behind the line of scrimmage. He collapsed the corner on the sweep the next play and took two blockers with him before colliding with the halfback. Cyprus tried one more play, this one away from Spray Can, but they gained only a yard and had to punt on the next down. They were totally confused.

  “Somebody block him!” the quarterback yelled, pointing at Spray Can.

  Spray Can just smiled. Nobody could stop him, and he knew it.

  Our offense took the field just as the trainer was telling me I had broken a bone in my hand. He was poking at a lump behind my knuckles and I turned away because it hurt. I looked downfield at the gate we had climbed and was thinking about our ritual the night before. Then I saw Darrel walking in slowly, pushing something. I looked closer. It was a wheelchair he was pushing, it was my father in a wheelchair.

  “Tape it,” I said to the trainer.

  “What?” he answered.

  “Tape it,” I yelled at him.

  “Okay,” he said.

  First he taped my hand so it couldn’t move.

  “Leave my thumb out so I can catch,” I said to him.

  He just shook his head and did what I told him. And while he taped, I watched my father. He hardly moved. Darrel wheeled him up to the corner of the end zone and made sure he was warm. He tucked the blanket tightly around him. Then he disappeared for a moment, and returned with a chair so he could sit with my father. They sat there, the two of them, seeming so different. Darrel so big and strong. No worries, just a whole life ahead of him. And my father, withered and having only a few days left in a life that had been long and hard.

  Heat and Stones put on another good show, but it wasn’t enough and we had to punt before we got to midfield. So while Spray Can confused and destroyed their offense again, the trainer finished taping my hand. It looked like a big club. He had taped it tight so that it wouldn’t move; then he taped a pad on it so I wouldn’t hurt it again. By the time Cyprus was punting the ball, I was standing next to Coach. He looked at me, wondering what I was doing. I don’t think he planned on seeing me the rest of the game. Then he smiled.

  “It’s about time,” he said.

  I ran onto the field for the next offensive series. Bam looked at me in the huddle and said, “All right … bam! … let’s mix it up.”

  He threw me the pitch the first play and I had to catch it with one hand. I turned the corner before the safety could crash in on me to force me out of bounds. I gained eleven yards. The next play Bam ran was brilliant. Fake to me on the sweep and hand off to Heat on the counter. Heat gained sixteen or so yards and we were past midfield.

  “Throw me the ball,” I said to Bam in the huddle.

  “It’s first down,” he said. “And you only got one hand.”

  “Just throw it,” I said.

  “Okay,” Bam said, and he called flare pass right.

  I lined up behind the tight end and ran the perfect flare to the outside. I had the cornerback beat by a couple steps and Bam delivered the ball the way he had a thousand times before in practice. But when I turned to make the catch, I realized I was looking over my right shoulder, making my club hand the outside hand. So to catch the ball, I had to almost backhand it with my right. The ball hit my right hand, then the club, then dropped away from me onto the turf. I dove to the ground trying to make the catch, but it was no use. When I got up, I saw Darrel.

  “Run it to the inside,” he shouted at me. Then he turned and showed me with his right hand how I would make the catch. I looked at my father, and even though he didn’t move, I could tell it was what he was thinking too. I ran back to the huddle.

  “Run it to the inside,” I said to Bam. “Run the post.”

  “No,” Bam said.

  “I can get it,” I said.

  “Thirty-one dive,” Bam said. “On two.”

  Heat gained a few yards. Then a few more the next play. But it wasn’t enough for the first down. Cyprus was on to us. They shut down the ends and we had to punt. It didn’t seem right. We moved the ball so easily, then hit the wall. That’s how it went until halftime. Neither team doing much until time was nearly out. On their last series of the half, Cyprus crossed the two wide receivers about midfield and their quarterback launched a desperation pass to keep them in the game. Sparky cut in front of the receiver, jumped up, and got a hand on the ball to flutter the flight. But the receiver slowed and scooped the ball up before it hit the ground, and while our whole team watched in disbelief, he ran to the end zone. We were shell-shocked, and didn’t try all that hard to prevent their extra point attempt. Their big fullback ran right up the middle while we stood around wondering how that kid made the catch.

  Score at halftime: 7 each.

  “Ulysses had a vision,” Coach said to us in the locker room. “A vision of a distant land, a land he believed was his.”

  We all knew Ulysses from Coach’s talks earlier in the year. We knew he had completed nearly impossible tasks.

  “We have our own vision,” Coach continued. “This is our football game. This is our territory. We have laid claim to it, marked each end zone.”

  Our faces lit up. He knew about our ritual. And he’d said “we.” Did that mean he too had marked the end zone? Could that have been him with the flashlight last night? As the mystery grew, so did our passion for victory.

  “This is our football field,” he yelled. “Ours by every natural and god-given right!”

  We went crazy, yelling and screaming.

  “No one can take it away from us! No one!”

  The roar was so loud it made our heads ring, ring with adrenaline.

  “Now let’s go get what belongs to us!”

  We charged the field even crazier than we had the first half. Cyprus must’ve been wondering what it was that could get us so psyched up for a game. But we knew. It was three years of losing, it was feeling alone in your own school, your own family. It wasn’t about winning. It was about never wanting to lose anything again. Cyprus had never felt that. They had never sat together as a team after losing so badly it made them wonder if they would ever play football again.

  We kicked off the second half, and Cyprus lost more yards than they gained. They were bigger than we were. They were faster. But they could not move the ball. When the fullback broke one loose up the middle, little Sparky stood him up with a hit so hard it staggered him and he fell over on his side. Our defense exploded. Our smallest man, our free safety, had taken on their huge fullback and rocked him right down to his toenails. There wasn’t anything Cyprus could do to get past our howling defense.

  When our offense took the field, we moved forty yards in three plays. The sweep. The counter. The dive. Everything worked. Taco Bell had dried blood all over his face and no one would go near him. He had to chase people down to block them. But the drive ended on the two yard line when we ran the sweep and I fumbled just before stepping into the end zone. I walked to the sideline without ever looking up. We had the win, we had the momentum. And I’d handed it to Cyprus without a fight, like handing over my wallet to a gang of thugs. I couldn’t believe it, and I couldn’t look at my father. All I could think of was
him going back to the hospital with this vision of his son giving away the championship. His last football memory would be of his son fumbling on the two yard line.

  The fumble gave Cyprus new life, it gave them all the energy we had. They moved the ball slowly upfield against our dejected defense. Time was running out. Cyprus had control of the game. A score seemed inevitable.

  “Suck it up!” we yelled from the sideline. But it didn’t do any good. Cyprus had a first down with four minutes left, and they were inside the twenty yard line. Their huge center was getting a good piece of Spray Can every play and they were gaining four yards a carry. That’s when Spray Can called time-out. He huddled up the defense and drew a play in the grass. When they came back to the line, Sparky was playing noseguard. Smallest guy on the team, and Spray Can sticks him at noseguard! Before Coach could do anything about it, Cyprus was over the ball. We heard the cadence. We watched the center lift and hike the ball. Then, with incredible speed, Sparky shot between the center’s legs and got ahold of the quarterback’s ankles before he could hand the ball off.

  The sideline went crazy. For the first time in the drive, Cyprus lost yards. They lined up again. Sparky took on the center again. This time when the center hiked the ball, he flattened out and lay on Sparky. Not a bad idea, except that Spray Can crashed the line right behind Sparky, and with the center lying down, it was an easy hurdle for Spray Can. He jumped the two like he was striding over a hay bale, then ran down the halfback, who was headed for the corner on a sweep. The sideline erupted again. Now it was third down and twenty yards to go for a first down. The defense had backed them up ten yards in two plays. We were all screaming, but above it all we could hear Ray cheering for his son.

  “Yeah!” he’d yell. “That’s it, yeah!”

  It was the most any of us had ever heard him say.

  When Cyprus lined up again, we all knew what the play was. Pass. Sparky had moved back to safety, and our linebackers covered the flats. The quarterback set up, but no one was open and he threw the ball out of bounds. On fourth down they tried the screen pass, but the halfback gained only four yards against a pumped-up defense that read the play perfectly. Spray Can’s smarts had saved the game, and with just under a minute left, Bam led us out onto the field.