The Heartbeat of Halftime Read online

  We ran a counter first, then a sweep, figuring they were expecting a pass. That put us at about midfield with a first down. We had time for maybe two more plays. Trouble was, Heat was breathin’ hard. He had taken a shot in the ribs and was having a hard time catching his breath.

  I looked over at my father. He still hadn’t moved much, only adjusted his arms a little.

  “Run it to the inside!” I heard Darrel yelling.

  Bam called sweep left. I got only about four yards before the linebacker drilled me and knocked the ball loose. I just couldn’t hang on to the ball with my club hand, and I watched it bounce slowly away from me while nearly every Cyprus player on the field went after it. The ball bounced out of bounds. The gods were with us. We had one play left. One play to go home champions.

  “Run the post,” I said to Bam when we were in the huddle. “I can catch to the inside.”

  Bam called time-out. Coach came out and looked at his two backs. Then he sent for the fastest guys on the team.

  “They know it’s going to be a pass,” he said. “We might as well throw our fastest guys at them.”

  Then he drew deep pass patterns in the grass, criss-crossing the middle and all ending up in the end zone.

  “Look for Flame,” he said as he walked off the field.

  Bam looked at me, then at Flame.

  “Get open,” he said to Flame. “Everybody else run like you’re about to get six.”

  I lined up wide, just outside the end. I looked at the linebacker as if I was coming his way. The safety picked up on it and cheated in. When the ball was snapped, the safety dropped back and so did the linebackers. Only four defensive men rushed. Bam had plenty of time to throw the ball, but everyone was covered. Everyone but me. I guess the D-backs figured that after two fumbles and a dropped pass, we’d never throw up a forty-yard pass to a receiver with a club hand. They were wrong. As I bent my route to the inside, I saw that I was open. I saw Bam look left, then right, trying to find a receiver. Then he caught sight of me—all alone, headed for the end zone. I was his only hope. He launched a spiral nearly into the clouds. It was high, and far. I knew by the arc that he’d given it everything he had, closed his eyes and just heaved it. I ran under the ball, watching it turn. I crossed the goal line and reached up with one hand. This time there was no club hand in the way, there was no linebacker to knock it loose, not even a resting clarinet player to trip me up. I caught the ball the way I would have in my front yard, easily, with one hand pulling it in like I was pulling a pear off a tree. For a moment I was crossing my own driveway, gliding across the same grass I mowed every Saturday afternoon, catching passes my father tossed after work. I curled my arm around the ball, drew it into my chest like the head of a friend or a little brother. It was as if it belonged there, like I could’ve closed my eyes and called to it and it would be there, nested in my arms. Then I heard my father calling to me from the driveway.

  “Nice catch!”

  And suddenly he was there, we were there, at the championship game, in the end zone together, listening to the roar of the crowd, the thunder of my teammates behind me. In a moment I would be smothered by them.

  I flipped the ball to my father. It floated slowly through the air, and with every spin I could see my father as a young man running downfield, waiting for the pass to drop out of the sky, running in his own days of glory. I could see his eyes watching the ball, his hands reaching, reaching out to me as I learned to walk, wrapping around my own hands while I grew. I could see him go off in the morning to a job he hated, wanting to be home, throwing a football with his son. And I realized that I wasn’t angry anymore, that we all have our day, that some are shorter than others, that there are moments we remember forever: the way a football feels in your hands, the way a certain girl holds a bottle cap or leaves your cheek warm with a kiss, the way a friend sprays out the words “Sthee you around,” the way your father waits for you by the window, waits to see you one more time before he’s gone, leaving you nothing but his heartbeat in your own chest pounding out the uncertainty of the future and the memories of the past.

  The ball dropped into my father’s hands and he cradled it like a baby. Was it me? Was he remembering too? I didn’t know how much longer he would live then, and suddenly it didn’t matter. I had his heart. And I would listen to it for the rest of my life.

  27

  WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS

  When we got to the lunchroom on Monday, the band had lined up all around the room and was playing the school song. It was as if they knew what was about to happen. The music was as bad as it ever was, but we were enjoying it. It was ours, and we were proud of it, even if we couldn’t recognize enough of the notes to sing along. That’s when Ed Stebbings and his gang walked into the room. They made it clear why they were there, as if we didn’t know already. They showed up at school that day with only one thing on their minds: destroy any celebration we had planned.

  “You’re still a bunch of losers,” Ed shouted at me.

  The whole room went silent. I admit, I was a little nervous. I wasn’t afraid of Ed; I guess I just wasn’t sure what I would do. I knew it was coming, I had known all season that Fat Ed with the rancid breath would one day force a showdown with me. It was the sort of showdown you see in bad Westerns. We stood there, face-to-face, staring at each other with steely eyes. Ed even had his arms bent a little, like he was about to draw. There must’ve been a hundred kids standing there waiting. Ed had said his piece, and now it was up to me to respond. For that split second I thought about the season we had had. I think I finally realized what we had accomplished. For a moment, a very brief moment, I loved the world. I wanted to stick out my hand and say to Ed, “Let’s put everything aside, huh, pal? Why don’t we all just be friends.” Then I saw myself shake his hand and everybody cheer while we all celebrated. I kinda wish that’s how it happened. But Ed wouldn’t have it that way. He slapped the milk out of my hand and growled at me.

  I stood my ground.

  “You’re the loser, Ed,” I said to him.

  There was a short pause, like everyone was taking one last breath before the world ended; then the lunchroom exploded into the biggest food riot the universe has ever known. The band came to their senses quickly and started playing to cover up the noise of the confrontation. Some of them even locked the doors, except for the door that went outside. Fats was standing there with his tuba, and he pushed the door open to let Heat’s dogs in. The dogs charged into the crowd like wild boars and people started going down with the wind knocked out of ’em. The crotch attack was deadly. Somehow the dogs knew who the enemy was. When one would go down, we’d charge with lunch trays and smother the victim with creamed corn and sticky pudding. Spray Can was always first on the scene with a tray full of pig food. He’d launch it sidearm and strafe the downed man with slop. He’d celebrate briefly, then scream, “Reload! Reload!”

  It was like Custer’s Last Stand; Stebbings in the middle and a clan of crazed warriors closing in on him, redeeming their tribe for all the injustice he had rained on them over the years. Before long, teachers were pounding on the doors, trying to get in. But the band played on, and the janitor stood in the corner, not making a move to try and stop the whole thing. Taco Bell was shouting “Charge!” and the whole place soon looked like the inside of a disposal. There was food everywhere. One of the worst hit was Fats. I guess his tuba was the easiest target, and in a matter of minutes it was full of Jell-O lumps and chicken wings. Stebbings and his boys lost ground quickly. They tried to make a break for one of the doors, but Taco Bell read their play perfectly and pounded the first two escapees to the ground with a textbook block. They were soon smothered in slop, and Taco Bell was soon smothered by Katie.

  You kind of expect a first kiss to be under romantic conditions. But there was Taco Bell, covered in creamed corn and Jell-O, and Katie kissing him all over the face like he was a war hero. When she let him up for air, he screamed and celebrated like he’d just won
the doughnut lottery.

  I got to admire ol’ Stebbings. He put up a good fight. Soon as he was knocked down, he was up quick and running hard toward another exit. He put his head down and charged the line of band members like a pulling guard. But Spray Can stepped in front of the band and hit the red-haired bully with a perfect tackle, knocking him over the top of a table and right onto his back. It would’ve been good for Ed if we had stopped there. But we didn’t. Ed Stebbings, that legendary, red-haired bully with the dog breath, had thrown his weight around one too many times. Before he could get to his feet, the mob had picked him up and was rushing him toward the worst possible punishment any of us could think of, that sickening pile of stink, that vomit bucket, that barrel of barf … the wet-garbage can! He slid in easily, like a ball through a hoop, headfirst, all the way up to his ankles. The mob cheered like they had just saved the village from a werewolf; then they picked up the garbage can, Ed and all, and tossed the whole thing outside. Ed spilled out and just sat there, horrified and covered with wet stinky garbage.

  That’s when the principal wrenched the door open, his keys still jangling from the lock. The crowd turned to silence as quickly as it had erupted into chaos.

  “What in the world is going on here?” the principal shouted. Then he turned to us, and struggling to get control of his temper, he asked: “What are you trying to prove?”

  No one said a word. We all had answers of our own. And they would stay that way—our own. No one could take them away. We held our heads up proudly. It was the last time we stood as a team, but we would never forget how far we had gotten together, how much we depended on each other that year. We learned that nobody could do it alone, you had to have a team; and that no matter how tough it got, you could do anything so long as you stuck together.

  The principal waited for us to say something. It was perfectly silent except for the sound of a dog peeing on the side of a pop machine. It was our sound, the sound of another territory being marked, another victory. The lunchroom was ours! We would never be losers again. We had conquered the unconquerable, we had won at unbeatable odds. It was a miracle. It was the year the football gods parted the universe to give us a glimpse of the heavens. It was the autumn of 1972.

  For years, my father was up early on autumn Saturdays to watch two of his sons play football. And sometimes, to coach them. Freddy, my older brother, was gifted in every aspect of the game. He blocked. He tackled. He kicked. And he ran—scrambling for touchdowns while defenses grappled at his shifty body, often separating him from shoes, helmet, and fragments of his jersey … but rarely knocking him off his feet. I, on the other hand, was perfectly mediocre. So, to assuage my father of any guilt he may be feeling in his golden years for slightly favoring his older, more athletic son, I am dedicating this book to him: Thanks, Pop, for those times you stood shivering at my games, wishing you were at Freddy’s. I harbor no bitter feelings of resentment borne of the sibling rivalry you encouraged. Nope, I’m just fine with the fact that you saw only three of my games and hundreds of his, that he always got to sit in the front seat of the car on game days, that he got to wear your favorite number on his jersey; and I’m not upset in the least that he carried on the family nickname, got hot dogs after the game, was always first to get a haircut, new shoes, and the pick of the lunch boxes (I really did want the Jetsons lunch box, even though I said I didn’t after he’d already picked it. You didn’t know that did you?) … . On second thought, I think I’ll just dedicate this book to Mom.

  In 1993 I helped coach my son’s Olympus Titan team of eight- and nine-year-olds. They were by far the smallest bunch of kids in the league, yet by some miracle, and lots of guts and determination, they won the championship. This book is also for them:

  Tyler Beisel Casey Evans

  Taylor Bohling Junior Fonua

  Tyson Bohling Justin Green

  Valan Campbell Cooper Johnston

  Daniel Coya Nicholas Jones

  Kevin Dahle Joey King

  Richard Edman Parker Lindsay

  Richard Lindsay Jeff Robinson

  Anthony Morris Nicholas Sorensen

  Joseph Mortenson Matt Springer

  Chase Nelson Robbie Swenson

  Dustin Porter Nate Taylor

  Richard Prescott Jonathan Thorne

  Michael Rice Kade Walton

  Tyler Rice Matthew Wunderli

  Also by Stephen Wunderli

  The Blue Between the Clouds

  Copyright © 1996 by Stephen Wunderli

  All rights reserved.

  Published in Canada by Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd.,

  195 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8.

  Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

  Publishers since 1866

  115 West 18th Street

  New York, New York 10011

  Henry Holt is a registered

  trademark of Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

  eISBN 9781466813632

  First eBook Edition : May 2012

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wunderli, Stephen.

  The heartbeat of halftime/ Stephen Wunderli.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Thirteen-year-old Wing clings to the dream that his perpetually losing football team can ride an unexpected winning streak to the championship game before his father dies of cancer.

  [1. Football—Fiction. 2. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 3. Death—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.W96375He 1996 [Fic]—dc20 95-26695

  ISBN 0-8050- 4713-1

  First Edition—1996