The Heartbeat of Halftime Read online

  “Football is a thinking man’s game,” Coach said over and over. “Intelligence is the finest weapon in the arsenal. Think, think, think.”

  And we did. Spray Can would screw up his face whenever he was figurin’ somethin’ like when’s the best time to blitz, or fall back, or shade left or right. He was gettin’ it. So when we stood there in the cool morning air early on game day goin’ through our stretches and warm-ups, all I could think of was eating my lunch in peace … walking through the lunchroom with a tray in my hands and not hearing a word, sitting at a table like I was at a restaurant, slowly eating, laughing, retelling football stories, stories of great victories. I was prepared to win. I had worked hard. I had marked my territory.

  But the stories would have to wait just a little bit longer, wait because Heat would fumble on the three yard line with two minutes left in the game and the mighty Titans would lose by one point. One point! Still, it was a good game. We all knew it. Spray Can had seven tackles. He knew where the ball was most of the time, he tackled so hard even the referees closed their eyes whenever he hit someone. He hit their halfback so hard on a sweep it sent the poor kid skidding out of bounds and onto the gravel track without his helmet on. That was the kind of day he was having. And our offense was scoring. Not once, but twice. The first time, Bam pulled off a fake to Heat and slipped me the ball on the counter. Nobody knew I even had the ball. Then Heat ran a punt back for a touchdown to give us ungodly confidence. Bam went for the extra point on a sneak, but came up short. So when “the jaws of hell opened up,” as Coach said after the game, we were down by only one. We drove the ball the length of the field on our last possession. The guards were playing like madmen, pounding the defense back every time the ball was snapped. Then, on the last play, the 38 power pitch, Bam delivered the ball to Heat in mid stride, Taco Bell pulled from the guard slot and blasted the outside linebacker into the band on the sidelines. Heat cut the corner and the free safety came crashing in. We knew Heat could run over him, could pound him, dodge him, even drag him for three yards if he had to. We were cheering before they even collided. Heat went right through him, like kicking his way through a door. He was standing up in the end zone before he realized the little bullet had punched the ball loose. We all watched in horror as the ball bounded away from us, bounced slowly like someone had dropped it on the way to school. Then a red jersey—not a green jersey, not one of ours, but a red one, a bright red jersey like the light on an ambulance—landed on the ball. The skinny cornerback cradled it like a pot of gold while we all piled on. But it didn’t matter. In a few plays the gun would sound, the game would be over, and we would still be losers. We would still walk away from the football field as losers while the other team celebrated. We would still have to sit in the garbage dump. Of all the losses in our football lives, that one was by far the hardest. All Heat could say after the game was that he should’ve moved to Alabama.

  I was so caught up in the game that I didn’t see my father leave early. He had stumbled on the sideline, too weak to pull himself up. Mom took him to the hospital for a day’s worth of tests and drugs. When I finally did see him, he was in his chair with a blanket around his legs, staring out the window again. Staring like he was waiting for somebody again. I sat beside him and lifted a glass of water close enough so he could sip from the straw. That’s when I told him we lost.

  “We couldn’t beat ’em,” I said. “We just couldn’t. It was there in front of us, but still we lost it. I don’t know why.”

  Pop told me he knew how I felt. He had lost his share of games in his life. Then he said the fight was more important than the outcome. But I think he still would’ve rather seen me win that day. It made me mad to think about him sitting there, not being able to toss me the ball the way he used to. I was pretty small when I first started playing football, so my pop taught me to catch. Every day after school I’d wait for him to come home and throw me the ball. I’d throw the ball on the roof and dive for it as it came rolling off. Throw it again, and wait. Throw it again, and wait. Finally Pop would get home and set his briefcase down on the driveway and toss me passes in his suit and tie. I’d run post patterns, flags, up-and-ins, down-and-outs, curls, flashes … .

  I sat there with him, looking out at the grass where we used to play. I could see the bushes in one end zone and the low fence behind it.

  “Remember when you threw me a bomb, Pop,” I whispered to him. “And … and I dove over the fence to make the catch, remember?”

  But he was already asleep. I tucked the blanket in around his legs and went to bed.

  7

  THE GARBAGE DUMP

  We must’ve all been thinkin’ the same thing that next Monday at lunchtime. We stood by the candy machines, holding our lunch trays and staring at our table. It was empty ’cause we were all standing, waiting. No one would sit down. We looked over at Ed Stebbings’s table. It was full. They were laughing, paying no attention to us because they had won. But we knew they were waiting, waiting for us to sit down like slow-moving targets.

  “I’m hungry,” Taco bell said.

  Nobody answered him.

  “Well?” Taco Bell said, trying to look each of us in the eye. We all looked at our lunches, wondering what they would look like splattered on our heads. It had to be spaghetti that day. And pears, there were those pear halves, and green Jell-O and a hard brownie with sticky frosting. “That frosting will be hard to wash off,” I remember thinking. Spray Can walked up with two extra milks and an extra helping of the gross spaghetti that looked like fish bait.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Bam said. “Might as well take what’s comin’ to us.”

  Slowly we walked over to the dumping grounds and sat down. We all looked at each other, our eyes kinda half squinted like we were waiting to get hit. But it didn’t come. We waited like prisoners in front of a firing line, picking at our last meal. Finally, Ed Stebbings walked up and put his hand on Taco Bell. Taco Bell about jumped out of his chair.

  “What? What do you want?” he screamed.

  “Chill it, fat boy,” Ed said. “We just came over to say you guys played a good game yesterday.”

  “You did, I mean, we did?” Taco Bell stammered.

  “Yeah,” Ed continued. “You played a great game … but you still lost.”

  And with that, Ed clapped a pear half on Taco Bell’s head, syrup and all. Then they all laughed and tossed milk cartons and sacks at us. Taco Bell tried to laugh, but I could tell he felt real bad, like he was about to cry. He had played his heart out and still lost. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so hurt. He just sat there, shaking like his whole life was ending.

  “You’re a jerk!” I said to Ed Stebbings.

  The whole lunchroom went dead silent, like I’d said the worst string of bad words or body parts I could think of. Nobody ever said anything back to Ed. He was big, and he had red hair that made him look like he was mad all the time. He never brushed his teeth and he loved to pull smaller kids into headlocks and tell them what crybabies they were, with that stinky breath all over their faces. Once he caught a mouse and killed it by squashin’ it in his hand. He was that mean. He just looked at me, kinda smiled wickedly, and punched me in the stomach. By the time I had caught my breath, Fat Ed had emptied three lunch trays on my head and dumped two cans of pop in my left pocket. Then he had me in that headlock and was draggin’ me toward the wet-garbage can when the janitor broke it up. It’s a good thing, too; that wet-garbage can has caused more than one kid to throw up just from takin’ a peek at what’s inside. It’s where everybody scrapes off their lunch trays before stackin’ ’em up to be washed. You could die in there, I swear.

  Luckily the janitor was strong, and he was used to bad smells after years of mopping up vomit. It didn’t bother him one bit to pick us both up and haul us down to the principal’s office. I didn’t stay there very long; guess I smelled pretty bad. They called my mom and told me to wait outside until she came for
me. I sat out there alone, wondering if it was too late to join the band.

  8

  AN ATTITUDE PROBLEM

  “This is not amusing,” my mother said as we walked out of the principal’s office. “I don’t know why you insist on embarrassing me this way. You know, I got the call when I was in a meeting. ‘Mrs. Hyde, the principal from your son’s school is on the phone.’ Terrific.”

  I don’t remember the rest of what she said; all I remember is how mad she was. She made me pull off my shirt and pants and put them in the trunk before I could get in her car. I sat in the backseat in my underwear, listening to her tell me how she could now forget about a raise, she’d be the joke of the office, and that it would be a long time before I could make this one up to her. I just sat there, slowly scraping the brown frosting off my face like I was taking off war paint. My hair was full of pear syrup and stuck straight up on top like a Mohawk. I could see myself in the rearview mirror and thought I looked pretty fierce, and I guess I was feeling too much like a warrior who doesn’t need his mother.

  “I’d do it again,” I said.

  My mother stopped the car. We were still a few blocks from home. “You’d what?” she said, more than a little upset.

  “I’d do it again,” I said. “I don’t care if they call you every day for the rest of my life.”

  “You have an attitude problem,” she snapped.

  “You’re the one with the problem,” I said without thinking.

  “You’re right,” she said, calming down. “My problem is you.”

  I guess it’s not a real good idea to smart off to your mom when you’re a few blocks from home wearin’ nothing but your underwear. A mom could come in handy in a situation like that. But I didn’t realize it until she was driving away and I was standing in the street, hoping that everybody I knew was either at work or school. As it turns out, I saw only two people. Mrs. Porter, who is nearly blind. She waved to me like she does every day, didn’t notice a thing. And the mailman. He walked by quickly, and without missing a stride said, “Must have hippies for parents.”

  “I wish,” I said back to him, walking as fast as I could. I figured if I ran, it would draw attention to me and someone might think there was a fire or some kind of uprising. So I just walked proudly home like the emperor with no clothes. Mom had gone back to the office and Pop was sleeping, so I took a shower and waited for football practice. I went out back and tossed the ball on the roof over and over, not knowing where it would come off and diving for it when it did. I could tell then that I had changed, even before practice started. At first I was just bored and alone. I threw the ball up and caught it. Then I threw it farther away and had to dive to catch it. I’d throw it on the roof and crash through the bushes to make the catch. It was different than it had been before. I wasn’t waiting for anyone. I was alone, I figured I would always be alone. Nothing mattered to me except football, it was all I had left. I headed out to practice before my father got up and made his way to his chair. I left before he could wave good-bye to me. I got my pads on and I walked to the field alone. When we scrimmaged that day, I threw blocks that sent the linebackers onto their heads. I caught every pass, and once, on an up-and-in, I caught the ball and instead of jukin’ Sparky I ran right over him. We hit helmet to helmet and I knocked him flat on his back. He went and sat down on the side and wouldn’t play the rest of practice. “That’s football,” I said to myself. “That’s what it’s all about.”

  “You’re playin’ like a madman,” Bam said in the huddle. “You got somethin’ to prove?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I do. Throw me the ball.”

  He did. I caught it, but before I could slam Flash, the free safety, he let up.

  “What are you afraid of?” I yelled at him.

  “Save it for the game,” he said back.

  “You save it,” I said. “I’m not holdin’ nothin’ back.”

  And I didn’t. Not that day, not the next two practices. By the time Friday night rolled around, I was ready to punish somebody, anybody, for everything I had lost.

  9

  MAKE THE ADJUSTMENT

  I wasn’t asleep when Heat came by. I was on the roof again and I saw him and his pack of dogs walk onto my front lawn. Bam was with him, and so was Spray Can and Taco Bell. I knew what they were there for.

  “It didn’t work last time,” I said from the roof.

  They looked up at me. I was curled up in my blanket and perched on the edge of the roof like some kind of gargoyle.

  “We didn’t have enough of us,” Heat said. “The more we get, the stronger the force will be.”

  I didn’t have anything better to do, so I climbed down and went with them. Truth is I had to go anyway, so it might as well be in the end zone. No one said anything while we walked; I guess they were all thinking about the task at hand, hoping desperately that this would help, that the force of nature would be strong enough to give us the edge we needed to win a game. I had my doubts, but I was willing to try.

  When we got to the field, everybody just stood around, nervous, like we were at a dance with girls or somethin’.

  “Okay,” Heat said, getting right down to business. “We go in both end zones. That way we’re the only ones who can lay claim to either, you got it?”

  We all nodded our heads like we were about to embark on a top-secret mission.

  “Oh,” he added. “One more thing. We’ll start there, but you got to save some for down here. It doesn’t do any good to only do one.”

  We agreed again, seeing the logic. If we marked only one, well, that meant we’d have only one good half. A team can come back and beat you if you play good ball for only half a game. It made sense to us. But, you know, it was a lot more difficult than it sounded. Think about it. You’re goin’ in the first end zone; halfway through, you have to shut it off, then run a hundred yards to the other end zone, and let the rest out. It took some practice to get good at it. But we did. By the last game, we could squirt out a little, then walk casually downfield and squirt the rest. We were that good. In fact, we were so good we could mark just about anything, anytime.

  When we were done marking, we sat down in the middle of the field and talked about the plays we had learned that week. You see, every team has a little different defense. So even though we had most of our plays learned, we changed ’em just a little bit for each game. We were playing the Woods Cross Warriors the next day. We knew they had some big guys in the middle who would clog up our power plays. So Coach changed our dives to run off tackle instead of off guard. We also changed our sweep a little, pulled the guard from the far side so we had more blocking. See, those big guys are strong, but they’re not fast, so we figured we’d run sweeps all day until they stacked the ends, and then we’d run off tackle. If that didn’t work, we’d throw the ball.

  Bam had a football, he always had a football, and we ran through the plays until it was almost midnight. Heat set up his dogs like the defensive line, and Taco Bell pulled over and over. Bam pitched and handed off to Heat and I ran pass patterns. Since Spray Can only played defense, he covered me every time I went out. On the way home we talked about Woods Cross and what they would throw at Spray Can.

  “They got lots of big guys,” Bam said. “So they like to run up the middle a lot. You’re gonna have to take on two or three blockers at a time … bam … bam … bam! Like that.”

  “I can do it, I sthwear,” Spray Can sprayed.

  For the first time that year, we believed him.

  10

  SOMETHING TO PROVE

  My father gets up early on Saturday mornings. By the time I wake up, my uniform has been washed and dried and he’s sitting on the downstairs couch pushing my pads into the pants. There are clean socks beside him, next to my jersey, and a shirt for under the shoulder pads. I always wake up and sit on the fireplace, rubbing my face awake. This is our time, when the house is quiet, to talk about football. If there is anything else that needs to be talked out,
it comes later, after the game, after we have talked about each play. And even though most afternoon talks were about a loss, the morning talks were always optimistic. I sat there that morning watching my father tiredly thread the belt through the slits in my pants. His hands were shaking, but it was his job and I didn’t want to take it away from him.

  When he was done, he was breathing hard and his eyes were half closed and sad.

  “Bam will give you a ride this morning,” he said. “And I’ll try to make it to at least part of the game.”

  “Okay,” I said back to him.

  He closed his eyes then and laid his head back on the couch. I got dressed while he breathed through his mouth. His skin had turned pale and I could see the bluish veins running across his face like highways, tiny rivers of traffic running over his cheeks. It made me think of all the places he had been. Oakland, California, where he’d been born. Santa Fe, where he’d worked for a winter, Norfolk in the Navy, Germany on some base there, Missoula with a friend and a broken-down cattle ranch, Salt Lake City selling oil property, our small street—a stream that runs into the main river, with small houses right up to its edge like it’s only a matter of time before the water washes them all away.

  “Pop,” I whispered into his face. “Pop, I’m leavin’ now.”

  He half opened his eyes. “Okay, okay,” he said softly. “See you there.”

  I didn’t say much to Bam on the way to the game. His older brother Darrel drove us over to the high school. Darrel was on the high-school football team. He was proud of his little brother and wanted Bam to be a hero like himself. He turned the music up loud and shouted over it.

  “You guys are about due for a win,” he yelled. “I’d say it’s about your turn.” Then he’d slug one of us on the shoulder pad or cuff us on the back of the head.