THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4:
Wobbly but on Target
They don’t waste any time getting the intramural league started. There are six seventh-grade classes, and we’ll play each of the other five twice in touch football. The courtyard outside the school is all blacktop; not a blade of grass in sight.
We play Mr. Blaine’s class in the opener. The games are at lunchtime, so everybody goes down the block to Chicken Delite or Lovey’s Pizza to grab a quick bite beforehand. Then we hustle to the locker room and change into our gym uniforms: baggy gray shorts and blue T-shirts with numbers in a white block. Mine is XS-107. The XS is for “extra small.”
Blaine’s class has a lot of the smart kids, and I’m surprised I’m not in it. On the other hand, Tony is, so the criteria can’t be all brains.
There are twelve guys in our class, and we’re supposed to play eight at a time. But Douglas Richter has a metal plate in his head, so he’s out, and Thomas White says he gets too wheezy.
Fine by me. More playing time. Magrini assigns himself the quarterback position and tells me to play flanker. I look around. Diane is in the huddle.
“You cheering?” Magrini asks her.
“No. Playing.”
“Who says you can play?”
“Who says I can’t?”
Magrini frowns and shrugs. “Okay.” He looks her over. “Play safety.” He gives everybody else assignments on either offense or defense or both. I’ll be an outside linebacker, too.
Basic rules. Two completions in a row equal a first down, as long as there’s forward progress. A touch has to be with two hands. Conversions are worth one point. No field goals, since there aren’t any goalposts.
It isn’t easy to score. The “field” is about sixty yards long but narrow. And we only have about half an hour for the game. Mr. Eckel, an eighth-grade teacher, is the referee. His eyes are severely crossed, so it’s almost impossible to tell if he’s talking to you.
The game is scoreless when he says we’ve got eight more minutes. Blaine’s class has the ball and has completed four passes in a row, but they’re only a few feet past midfield. Benny Allegretti is the quarterback.
Tony is glaring at me, but he breaks into a smile when I meet his eyes. He’s my responsibility. He does a simple square-out and nabs the pass, but I stop him immediately.
“I saw Patty and Janet yesterday,” he says, walking back.
“So?”
“Just thought you’d want to know. Patty asked about you.”
His teammates start making noise about getting back onside, so he jogs to the huddle. When he splits out again, he’s got a bigger smile.
At the snap, he darts three steps forward, stops and makes a half turn toward the sideline, then breaks long. I stumble with the fake and he gets past me.
The pass is wobbly but on target, and Tony’s got me by a couple of yards. But Diane steps in front of him as the ball begins to dive, and she picks it off. I meet Tony as he rushes back, blocking him hard. Then I turn and follow Diane, who’s sprinting along the sideline. Allegretti is zeroing in on her.
“Behind you!” I shout.
Barely looking back, Diane flips me the ball, and her momentum carries her into Benny, knocking him to the pavement. I catch the ball, hurdle over him, and break into the clear. Nobody gets close, and I race into the end zone.
The team mobs me. “Way to go, Winslow!” Magrini yells, putting me in a bear hug and lifting me off my feet.
We line up for the extra point. Nobody gets open, so Magrini scrambles around until Allegretti gets his hands on him.
“Defense!” we shout. Allegretti panics and throws four long incompletions. We run the ball three times and take our time getting back. Eckel blows his whistle and we jump up and down.
I take a seat under the fire escape and soak it all in.
“Nice run,” Diane says, walking over to me.
“Great interception. Heads-up lateral, too.”
She pats her chest. “I know what I’m doing,” she says. “I’ve been playing with the boys forever. I have two older brothers.”
“Lucky for us,” I say.
She sits next to me. The girls’ uniforms are blue one-piece things with shorts and mid-arm-length sleeves. No numbers. I guess they step into them and button them up in back.
“Pretty good team,” she says.
“Yeah. Magrini has a decent arm.”
“I mean you and me. That was real teamwork on the runback.”
“Heck of a block,” I say.
“I suckered him. You should have heard him cursing under his breath.”
I look around to see who’s in earshot. “He’s a bit of a jerk,” I say.
“No kidding. He kept asking me out last year.”
Interesting. So she’s at that level, popularity-wise. “What’d you say?”
She lifts her eyebrows. “Nothing bad. He wasn’t a pest or anything, so I was sort of flattered. But I wasn’t attracted, either. I let him down easy. He moved on to other things in a hurry.”
“Like what?”
She laughs. “You mean who. Debbie Fitzpatrick. Then Donna Egan. I don’t remember who came next.”
“But you could have been the first.”
“Quite an honor.”
The early bell rings, so we’ve got five minutes. We’re still in our gym uniforms. I scramble to my feet and start to offer her a hand, but she’s already up.
“Race you to the gym,” she says. And she starts running before I can react.
I catch her halfway there and look over with a big grin as I pass her. She grits her teeth and opens her mouth like she’s putting everything she’s got into it, but I can tell she’s kidding around. I stop three feet from the gym door and let her get there first.
“See you in class,” she says, still running as she reaches the hallway to the locker rooms.
“Wait!” I say. I have no idea why I say it, and I have nothing to say when she stops.
She looks at me like she’s waiting for something important.
“I went to Woodstock,” I finally say.
She shrugs and smiles. “Cool.” And then she goes into the locker room.
I head into the bathroom and run the water until it turns cold, then splash some on my face and wipe it off with the front of my T-shirt. I look at myself in the mirror. Feeling good.
The game-winning touchdown. And great teamwork.
I’m starting to like junior high school.