CHAPTER THREE

WHEN ALEX STARTS nagging for something, it’s usually a good idea to just suck it up and do what he wants. You’ll save yourself a lot of grief. Because eventually, you’re going to end up doing it anyway, just to shut him up.

That’s why we go out for football that September—not for the competition or the glory, not for the exercise, not for the love of the game, but because “Chicks can’t resist shoulder pads.”

Of all the cockamamie schemes in pursuit of Alex’s Holy Grail, this is by far the cockamamiest.

Football tryouts are like marines training. Why countless hours of jumping jacks are required to prepare for a game that takes place in five-second bursts of activity, I’ll never know. But when the dust clears after three rounds of cuts, we’re still there. I manage to win a spot as the fourth-string halfback. And skinny Alex turns out to be a pretty fair kicker. We’re proud shoulder-pad-wearing members of the Jefferson Jaguars.

“I hear those football parties are wild!” cheers Alex.

Either there are no football parties, or bench-warmers aren’t invited. Our social lives still consist of each other.

Practice lasts a hundred hours a day. We have double workouts until our first game—an hour in the morning, just to get the blood pumping, and a ninety-minute marathon after school.

“Hang in there,” Alex promises. “The rewards’ll come. I know it. I can taste it.”

“All I taste is sweat,” I say sourly. “We’re up at the crack of dawn; we don’t get home till dinner, which is a two-hour stuffing festival at my house. Then I’ve got homework to worry about. Every girl in Nassau County could be after my aching bod, and I wouldn’t have time to do anything about it.”

Alex shrugs. “The other guys manage it.”

“The other guys are signed up for Basket Weaving 101. We’ve got real courses, SATs to get ready for. That New Media class—I took it because I thought it was watching television. It’s all about the Internet! We’re going to have to design Web sites!”

“Yeah, I’m a little worried about that one too,” Alex agrees. “Have you seen what a bunch of dweebs are in there? Girls could get the wrong idea about us.”

“We’ll wear our shoulder pads,” I say sarcastically. “That’ll fool them.”

Our home opener is on Saturday. It’s Alex’s first chance to check out the cheerleaders, so he misses the whole warm-up and gets benched by Coach Bronski. With me being on the bench anyway, we sit together, watching other guys living the quintessential American high-school experience. Boy, going out for football has really changed our lives.

Our opponents are the Lions from Central High in Valley Stream. Neither team is very good, and it shows. The game is a huge yawn, destined to go into halftime at 0–0. I mean, even the cheerleaders are pretty listless. I see newspapers opened up in the stands. It’s pathetic.

Coach Bronski is trying everything to get a little offense going. Eventually, he scrapes the bottom of the barrel, because I get a tap on one of the shoulder pads that make me so irresistible to women.

It’s a run off the right tackle, and the second I touch the ball, I know the play is going nowhere. My blockers haven’t cleared me an inch of space. All I can do is run into a bunch of fat behinds, theirs and ours. So there I am, surrounded by five defenders, and I brace myself for the big hit. It doesn’t come. Maybe they don’t realize I’ve got the ball. I push through and still nobody lays a hand on me. Finally, someone grabs the back of my jersey and gives a gentle pull. It’s not much of a tackle, but I trip anyway, and down I go. I gain eight yards, which is the biggest offensive play by either team all day.

Coach leaves me in. I take a little pass. When I catch it, there’s a linebacker right there to hammer me. The face looks kind of familiar, but I can’t place it. And when I turn back again, he’s gone! I start downfield. I don’t know where the other team went, but they’re sure not in front of me. Every inch of my forty-yard scamper to pay dirt, I’m expecting to get viciously hauled down from behind. It never happens.

Suddenly, our comatose fans are going nuts. The cheerleaders are craning their necks, trying to read the name on my shirt so they can come up with a cheer for me. Somebody obviously needs glasses, because the cheer comes out, “Here we go, Lucy! Here we go!” Stomp! Stomp!

As I’m jogging back to the bench, I get a congratulatory slap on the butt. It’s that linebacker from the other team, the one who didn’t make the tackle.

He says, “Hey, Vince, remember me from Enza’s wedding?”

That’s how I know the guy! Johnny Somebody. His dad is Rafael, a member of Uncle Uncle’s crew, out by JFK Airport. Sure we were at his cousin’s wedding. Being the top dog, my father gets invited to every baptism, sweet sixteen, and yes, bar mitzvah. These days the vending-machine business crosses all ethnic boundaries.

On the bench, Alex looks almost resentful. “You didn’t tell me you were good.”

I defend myself. “It was a fluke. Honest.”

Pretty soon we get the ball back, and guess who gets sent in to rack up some more yardage? As I take my place in the backfield, the Lions’ defense is looking at me with fear in their eyes. I’m a little confused, but it feels good. This is what it’s like to be a star athlete. And I’m just getting started. Maybe I’m a natural.

Then I hear it, just a whisper from somewhere behind the line: “That’s him. Luca’s kid.”

The wind comes out of my sails so fast that I’m dead in the water. Superstar. Natural. Yeah, right. These guys won’t lay a hand on me because Johnny blabbed about who my dad is. They think if they tackle me, and somehow I get hurt, Dad’ll send Uncle Pampers over to pay them a visit.

I get the ball on every snap. A lot of arms reach for me, but nobody makes much contact. It’s embarrassing! Eventually, I start falling down when I think someone should have made a tackle. But I can’t play offense and defense at the same time. Pretty soon I’ve got another touchdown.

Back on the bench, I’m fuming. Of all the ways my dad’s business screws up my life, this is the most insidious. I mean, Dad’s not here. I made it a point to tell no one at home about the game. But he’s here as surely as if he was sitting in the front row, threatening everybody.

It’s crazy! Dad wouldn’t care if someone tackled me. If I got hurt, he wouldn’t blame it on anybody. It’s like his absence speaks even louder than his presence. It’s not his fault, but in a way it is. If he was a lawyer, or a cop, or a teacher, like other fathers—I’ll bet their kids get tackled.

I can’t even play football because of who I am. I set aside the fact that I don’t really want to play football anyway, and decide to be mad about it.

I turn to Coach Bronski when we take possession again. “I don’t want to go in on the next series.”

He gapes at me, astonished. “You’re eatin’ them alive, Luca!”

“I can’t explain right now, Coach,” I plead, “but you’ve got to bench me!”

“Fat chance!” he roars. “Get out there!”

What can I do? I quit the team.

Alex shoots me a look, as if I just folded a royal flush in the World Poker Championships.

“I’ll tell you about it later,” I mutter, and head for the locker room.

“Hey, wait up! Hey, Vincent!”

I turn around. “It’s Vince.”

I’ve seen this girl at school. Honey-blond, petite. Pretty cute.

“I’m Kendra. Kendra Bightly. I’m covering the game for the Jefferson Journal.”

You can guess that, in my house, reporters are almost as popular as cops. Secrecy is very important in the vending-machine business. On the other hand, I’m not sure that extends to our school newspaper because nobody actually reads it.

“You’re missing the game,” I point out.

“I’m gambling that you quitting the team is the real story,” she says seriously. “Want to talk about it?”

“God, no.”

She doesn’t go away. “You had a fight with Coach Bronski.”

“Not really.”

“Well, that’s what I saw, so that’s what I have to print. Unless,” she adds, “you want to tell your side of the story.”

I trudge into the locker room. She doesn’t stop at the door. “Who wants to read about a fourth-string halfback?” I ask her.

Her face is so completely clueless that I realize she doesn’t know what a fourth-string halfback is. She probably doesn’t know a football from third base. Back in sophomore year, Alex tried to write for the Journal. His first assignment was to cover a dog show—the guy’s so allergic he couldn’t even breathe in the building. It must be some kind of hazing thing they do for the new reporters—sending them on a story they don’t have a prayer of pulling off.

“You don’t know anything about football,” I accuse her. “So you’ve decided to write about the guy who quit the team.”

Her expression remains tough, but a slight flush starts from under her collar and works its way up her neck to her cheeks. I’m not sure why, but something my mother told me pops into my head: The problem with the young girls these days—they don’t blush anymore. I make a mental note to tell her she’s wrong.

Then I say, “I’m supposed to get changed now.”

Part of me just wants to watch her face turn from pink to crimson. But she’s out of there before I get a chance to see it.