Chapter Twelve

Jake

We’re an hour into the pre-game Boosters Club meeting, and I’m already done with it. Coach told us about it a couple weeks ago. Before the West Side game tonight, we get to shake hands with washed-up has-been players who will give us money. Then, if we win the West Side game, they’ll give us more money.

“I know that look,” Howell says.

“What?” I say to him through my forced smile. The Belles are walking around passing out lemonade and sweet tea, here to make people excited. My eyes settle on Haley. She’s got this big smile on her face, and it almost seems real.

“We’re almost done,” Howell adds.

I hate that he can know what I’m thinking like that. He’s not a best friend that I deserve, and yet here he is. Before I can say anything else, Coach Tucker brings a man up to shake Howell’s hand. Coach looks at me under his hat, a death glare, and I strap on a smile. He nods at me. Figures.

An old man who can barely walk comes up and shakes my hand. He smells like pipe tobacco, which reminds me of my own grandpa. Mom’s dad, who died when I was, like, five, right around the time she left us.

“Hello, young man,” the old dude says.

“Hi, sir,” I say to him.

“What position do you play?” His voice is gravelly and shaky, old and scratchy like a sander.

“I’m the running back, fullback,” I say, and he nods. “Jake Lexington, sir.”

“I used to be the quarterback back in my day,” he says. “We’re destined to be friends, I’d reckon, then.” The old man is shaky, so I take a few steps toward one of the benches. I don’t dare presume he wants to sit.

I take a seat on the bench, and the old man looks at me for a second.

“Doesn’t that hair get in your way?”

I chuckle. He’s not the first person to make note of my longer hair. I like it. “Well, sir, I guess it can be, but the chicks dig it.”

That’s true.

He chuckles, and it rattles in his throat. “When I was younger they liked the buzz cut. Flat on top, as it were.” He takes a seat next to me. “Hiram Diggs.”

“No shit,” I say. Hiram Diggs scored the 1960 State Champion touchdown with five seconds left in the game. It was the first time Culler had ever won. He’s a legend.

“No shit,” he repeats back at me.

“Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean any disrespect. It’s not every day you meet a living legend.”

“A living legend?” He laughs. “I don’t know about all that. If I recall, I went to school with what, your great-great-something or other grandpa. I believe it was”—he pauses—“yes, Quincy Lexington. A chess nerd, if I do remember right.”

“That sounds right. We had a bout of nerds in our line somewhere,” I say.

Hiram Diggs nods at me. “You have a brother who played last year?”

I swallow down a lump, and my heart starts to race. Even a legend knows about Jamie. “Yes, sir, Jamie.”

I’ve had to talk about Jamie too many times today. Everyone wants to know how he is, where he is now, what he’s doing. It’s too much.

“Mighty terrible what happened to him, a young thing like that, talented. How’s he doing? Is he gonna walk again?”

I grit my teeth. “He’s all right for now.”

“Right unfair I say, an old geezer like me still kicking up dust and a young buck like him not even able to walk. Oh well, right shame. I reckon it’s all with a purpose from God.”

I can feel the panic start to sink in and claw at me. Breathe, I tell myself. Bright lights flash in my eyes, voices cloud around me, but I don’t know how to tune in to the present. One, two, three, four… Images flash in my head, too fast for me to catch on to any of them. It all goes back to that night, to me and Jamie and puddles of blood soaking a cotton field. Four, three, two one… I’m there, and he’s stuck, and I can’t help him. I can’t help.

“Jake!” A voice snaps me back into reality. Haley is staring at me, her eyes narrowed in. “You okay?”

That brings me back. Fuck. I look to my right, but the living legend isn’t there anymore. There are still crowds of people around, and I search the space for Howell. He’s standing with Coach, talking. What happened?

“You okay?”

I nod, and she leans in closer, the scent of her assaulting my senses. “Breathe, Jake,” she says to me. I hear her count, and I breathe with her until it feels like my stomach has settled into a calm.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

She raises an eyebrow. “I thought that old man was going to have a heart attack.”

“Did he?”

“What?”

“Have a heart attack?”

She laughs. “No, he left.”

Thank God. I don’t want to be the reason a living legend is, well, a legend.

She sits next to me on the bench, and I let my fingers rest against the back of her hand. She stays stock still, like she doesn’t want to break the spell.

“Are we done yet?” I ask her.

“Almost,” she says with a smile. “Think of all the great things that lie ahead. First, you get to stomp West Side, and then tomorrow, you get to win some unsuspecting hearts at Falling for Fall.”

I laugh. “I have a great date planned.”

“You do?”

“Oh yeah,” I say. “Whoever wins me is going to be up for an unforgettable date. I’ll say that.”

“Maybe I will have to bid on it,” she says, and I’m surprised to hear her being so bold. I smile, but before I can say anything Howell plops down beside me. My hand shoots away from hers.

“I’ve gotta get back,” she says and runs off to the other Belles.

“She’s actually good at schmoozing.”

“Yeah,” is all I say.

Howell stretches out. “Did you talk to Hiram Diggs? Will almost shit his pants. It was great.”

When I don’t respond, Howell looks at me. “You all right?”

Yes. No. I don’t know.

“How much longer is this shit?” I say instead, because at least with this response, I already know how Howell will be.

“They love you,” he says.

I chuckle with sarcasm. “Nah man, they love Jamie. They love asking me about Jamie, checking on Jamie, telling me it’s God’s will that this happened to him and it’s a damn shame. They don’t care about me. They don’t care about you, either, about any of us, unless we’re winning.”

“Is there a problem?” Coach Tucker asks, arms crossed over his chest. “Because you’re making a scene, so someone over here best be dying or there’s going to be repercussions.”

“Jake’s tired, Coach,” Howell says.

“He’s tired, huh? Well I reckon if he’s tired he oughta go home. Is that what you want, son, to go home? I can have the missus take you there if you’re feeling under the weather.”

“No sir, Coach, I’m fine.”

“That’s what I thought. Let’s go out here now and give them all the show they pay for, right? Because without them, you wouldn’t have a jersey to wear, a field to stand on, or a ball to catch.”

“Yes, sir,” I say.

Because that’s all that matters. Football.