The varsity quarterback threw a wounded duck, a pass that wobbled in the air like a shot fowl. The defensive back intercepted at the thirty-yard line and returned the ball for a touchdown. The home crowd groaned.
"A pick-six," William said.
The Houston skyline illuminated the night sky to the east and seemed to loom large over the small stadium. River Oaks occupied the south bank of Buffalo Bayou just west of downtown. River Oaks was a part of Houston, but it seemed completely apart. A different world. A two-square-mile island of wealth and white people surrounded by the two million residents who called the sprawling 627-square-mile city of Houston home. Originally excluding minorities and Jews, River Oaks' real-estate prices now excluded only those without money. Fourteen hundred families called River Oaks home. The Tucker family lived in River Oaks because it was the mother's dream and close to the father's office. Instead of commuting the congested freeways of Houston an hour each way, Frank had two more hours each day with the kids.
It was eight that night, and his daughter stood on the sideline with the other cheerleaders. His son sat on one side of him and his wife on the other, on the front row of the small bleachers among other affluent white people whose children attended the Academy. Since racial integration of the Houston public schools back in the seventies, it was a given that River Oaks parents would send their offspring to private schools. Frank sent his children to private school because his parents could not; he wanted more for his children.
The River Oaks parents and children in the stands looked like models from a Neiman Marcus catalog (there were no Nike sweat suits in these stands) and the parking lot like a Mercedes-Benz showroom (with a few Ferraris and Bentleys thrown in for variety). The Academy was a small private school in River Oaks teaching pre-K through high school; tuition cost $40,000 per year, more than public colleges in Texas. But graduates of the Academy did not go to college at a public university in Texas; they went to the Ivy League. The Academy had become a feeder school for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Smith, and Wellesley. A few went west to Stanford or stayed home at Rice. None went to the University of Texas or Texas A&M.
"Hi, William."
Two preteen girls who looked as if they had stepped out of a fashion shoot strolled by in front of them. They did not distract William from the game.
"Hey."
They giggled as girls did. Frank nudged his son's shoulder.
"Already got the girls' eyes, huh?"
"Girls are lame, Dad."
His son was handsome with angular features, blue eyes, and curly blond hair that fell onto his face. But he had not yet reached the age when girls graduated from lame to alluring. Sports interested him much more than girls. Which was a good thing at twelve. For the boy and his father.
The first twelve years of William Tucker's life had been easy for Frank Tucker. It was more like having a younger brother, teaching William all the manly things Frank knew—how to throw a baseball and swing a bat, pass and punt a football, swing a golf club—or rather, pay the club pro to teach him; Frank would never impose his golf swing on his son—and how to spit watermelon seeds. Frank's father had taught him how to roof and paint a house, use and repair a lawnmower, snake and unclog a sewer line, and fix and change a tire; that is, useful life skills. A man did not pay another man to do work he could do. But Frank was a lawyer not a plant worker so he hired out that work so he would have time to teach his son the less useful life skills.
It had been a fun twelve years with William in his life.
But Frank knew the next twelve years would be more challenging for father and son. His son would go through puberty; his body would transform seemingly overnight from boy to man. But his mind would not. Physical maturity would come soon and fast; mental maturity would come later and slower. Studies suggest that the part of a boy's brain that controls judgment does not fully develop until his mid-twenties. And that gap between mind and body—a body that could suddenly do what a man could do and a mind that still thought like a boy—could put his son's future in jeopardy. Throughout the history of man, testosterone and stupidity had never joined together to produce a good result. Frank wondered if he could protect his son from himself. He put an arm around his son's shoulder.
"You going to get the senator off, Frank?"
The dad sitting behind them leaned in; his breath evidenced his taste for expensive wine.
"Gag order, Sid."
"I can't believe you're representing a Republican."
Sid was a rich Democrat—Houston was a Democratic holdout in the state of Texas—but his children attended this elite private school so they wouldn't have to sit next to the brown children of poor Democrats in the public schools.
"I'm representing an innocent person."
"She's guilty of being a Republican."
The other team kicked off. The Academy player fumbled the ball. The opponents recovered and scored on the next play.
"Wow," William said. "They're terrible."
The team was terrible. But the boys were nice. The coaches were nice. The parents were nice. No one was disappointed in their play because no one expected them to win.
"We may not have scored in two years," Sid said from behind, "but ten of our students aced the SAT this year."
The apparent purpose of public high schools in Texas was to produce the best football players in the country. And they did. Division I-A college football coaches from across America journeyed each fall to Texas to fill their rosters. They did not stop at the Academy. Athletics at the Academy were employed to build character and camaraderie among the student body, not to produce D-I athletes. And they did not. No student in the fifty-year history of the school had ever won a D-I athletic scholarship. The Academy was a top-ranked academic school, not a top-ranked athletic school. Consequently, every season was a losing season. This season was no exception. But the parents still came to the games, and the cheerleaders still cheered.
"Two bits, four bits,
Six bits, a dollar.
All for the Armadillos,
Stand up and holler."
No one stood. The students were engrossed in their electronic devices, and their parents in conversation about politics and the stock market. Of course, it was hard to get fired up for a football team called the Armadillos. But Frank stood, threw his arms over his head as if to start a wave, and yelled, "Go 'Dillos!" Becky laughed from the sideline then hid her face behind her pompoms. His wife glanced up at him as if he were insane. But then, she wore perfume to a football game.
"It's over on Inwood," she said to the equally perfect mother sitting next to her. "It's only eight thousand square feet, but we don't want something too big. Just enough room for a charity event."
Frank and William were watching the game; she was climbing the social ladder. She had never been off-stage since her first beauty pageant in high school. She always looked perfect, sat perfect, stood perfect. Perfect clothes, perfect posture, perfect makeup, perfect hair. As if she were still competing for a crown. Perhaps she was.
"We want cozy."
William heard. He turned to Frank, made a face, and mouthed, "Cozy?"
Frank shrugged then held an open hand out to him. They high-fived.
Elizabeth Tucker saw the envy in her friend's eyes. The same envy that had once resided in her own eyes. She had grown up on the wrong side of Houston with nothing. She hated being poor. She always looked at the society section of the newspaper, at the parties and social events and the beautiful people, and wondered what their lives must be like. To have something in life. When she began driving, she would often cruise the streets of River Oaks in the old family car. One day, she had always said. One day.
One day had come.
She had caught her husband's look when she said, "cozy." He didn't understand her. She had grown up in a family of nobodies. She needed to be somebody. He apparently did not. He was almost famous, like a B movie star, but he seemed not to care. He had no desire to become an A-lister in Houston. She burned with such desire.
To be somebody.
But he made the money she needed to be somebody. To live in River Oaks, on the right side of Houston, in a house worthy of somebody. To make the society section. To be envied by others.
William focused on the football field. His buddies spent the games chasing each other around the stadium, but he preferred to watch the games with his dad. Fact is, he'd rather be with his dad than with his buddies. Watching the games, running around River Oaks, playing golf at the club, having their man talks—they could talk about anything, he and his dad. His dad understood him. He knew what was inside him, in a way his mom and Becky could not. Of course, they were girls. He and Dad were guys. Dad said girls didn't understand guys, and guys didn't understand girls; that's why God gave guys cable TV with a hundred sports channels.
William groaned. The varsity quarterback threw another interception.
"He missed the read."
William didn't just watch the games; he studied the games. Analyzed the plays, the alignments, the defenses, what worked and what didn't work. What he would do when he played on the varsity in four years. This year's varsity fumbled and stumbled their way to a losing 0-40 halftime score.
"When's the last time we won a game, Frank?" the dad behind them asked. "Back in ninety-seven?"
"Ninety-eight," his dad answered.
"That'll change when William's our quarterback."