Anton and I are the first ones out on the field for practice. It’s one of those perfect October days. The air is cool. The maple trees are lit up—orange and red and yellow against a bright blue sky. I’ve waited all day to get out on this field. I’m not good at sitting still in a classroom. I’m at my best when I’m moving around and forced to think on the fly.
Anton and I throw a football back and forth while we wait for the others to come out. I can tell his mind is somewhere else, but even though he’s only half concentrating, he still throws a perfect spiral. It lands right in my hands.
I throw the ball back, but I don’t have an arm like his. No one on our team does. He’s the best QB the Warren High Wolves have had in years, and the kid didn’t even know a thing about football until we became friends in the fifth grade.
Anton was new to our school that year. His family moved to Warren because back then the mines were still open and paying well. I remember at recess how he used to just stand against a chain-link fence and watch the rest of us play touch football on the asphalt parking lot.
One day I threw him the football and told him to join the game, but he just tossed the ball back, shook his head, and walked off.
“You should play,” I told him later as we were heading up the stairs to our classroom. I felt bad for him, standing there alone.
“I don’t know how,” he mumbled looking down at his feet as we headed down a hallway. “I’ve never played before.”
“What?” I was stunned. “You have to learn!” Even back then, I loved everything about football. Watching it. Playing it. Reading about it in the paper.
I invited Anton over to my house that Sunday to watch the Packers game. Afterward we went out back and my dad and I taught Anton how to throw and run the ball. He has come over to my house every Sunday since. We’ll watch football on TV or play our own game in my backyard. It didn’t take long for Anton to develop the best arm at our school. Soon he was the player everyone wanted on their team at recess.
“The Titans have some big defenders,” I say, trying to pull Anton out of his own thoughts. Usually he’s talkative and upbeat—excited about the upcoming game.
“Busby,” Anton says, throwing the ball hard and fast. “We can’t lose this game.”
“I know,” I say, catching it against my chest, surprised by the intensity of the throw. “It’s a big game. We win, we go onto playoffs. We lose, our season is done. But we can beat the Titans. We have a better passing game.”
“You don’t understand. We have to win this,” Anton says moving across the white lines toward me. When he is a few feet away, he looks back at the doors to the school to see if Coach has come out, then says: “The school board is thinking about closing down Warren High.”
I think he’s joking, but then I see his face. He’s not making this up.