Away Running

Our six-game conference schedule kicked off a week after Freeman joined the club, against the Jets from Neuilly-sur-Seine. It was as unfriendly a game as there could be.

US Football ranked the Jets the top team in the country. Where the Diables Rouges were a mishmash of North African and African sons of resident aliens and illegal immigrants, and of foreigners like me and Freeman, the Jets looked pretty much like their suburb, well-to-do Neuilly-sur-Seine: mostly rich white kids with professional parents from industry and government. (Kind of like me too, I guess, on the parents part—well, the white part too.) The poor/rich, black/white thing added to the bad feelings between the two teams.

The Diables Rouges hated the Jets—just hated them. They also hadn’t beaten the Jets before ever, which was a big part of the reason why Monsieur Lebrun had decided to hire outside help: Freeman and me.

Our field wasn’t much of a field. Freeman called it “the Beach.” The only patches of grass were inside the twenties, near the end zones. The rest was like a sandlot, with pebbles and all. In the French Under-20s, teams could only play one foreigner at a time, and foreign quarterbacks only for one half. (They claimed our presence would stunt the development of French QBs because we’d hog all the playing time.) It meant I had twenty-four minutes—two quarters—to make things happen.

And I did. I came out blazing. I threw two scores in the first quarter: the first, a deep flag to Moose; the other, a 5-yard dump-off that Mobylette turned into a 68-yard touchdown.

In the huddle toward the end of the second quarter, Mobylette told me, “Moi vouloir ballon encore”—Me want ball again—his French rougher than Freeman’s. (Mobylette’s real name is Amadou. His family—his parents and something like eight kids—had only recently arrived from Mali, a few months before the start of the season.) It was the first play of what was probably my last drive before I had to sit to let Michel, my backup, “develop.”

“Bientôt,” I told Mobylette—Soon.

Apart from feeding him the ball, I had to find a way to get Sidi back in the game. After Moose, Sidi was probably the best athlete on the team—all five feet nine inches, 160 pounds of him. But he was also one of the biggest contradictions. He was reliable, as long as you didn’t rely on him.

Like during that game. He was on early. He caught everything I threw his way, five or six passes, until, with the score 14–0 for us, it was like he realized we might actually win, and the catches began to really mean something. After that, he just bricked. He dropped three passes in a row, including one on third down, a perfect spiral that sailed right through his hands and bounced off his chest. We had to punt.

The Jets kept two defensive backs on Moose and were stacking the box to stop Mobylette. With three minutes left before halftime, I needed Sidi to step up. We all did. We could go into the half leading by three touchdowns.

The guys realized our potential advantage too, and they were fidgety in the huddle, nervous like Sidi, looking off toward the Jets sideline, up at the spectators in the stands.

“Listen up!” I barked.

Everyone snapped to, eyes on me.

“Twins right. Action pass 3-1-4. On two, on two. Vous êtes prêts!” Ready!

“Break!” they shouted back in English.

I nodded to Sidi. “This one’s for you. Just remember to watch the ball all the way into your hands.”

He nodded back vigorously and sprinted to his position in the slot (his show of enthusiasm broadcasting to the Jets where I intended to go with the ball).

I lined up behind Jorge, my center, and started the cadence. “Red 99. Red 99. Ready. Set, hut…”

Sidi jumped offside. The referee blew his whistle and threw a flag.

Back in the huddle, Moose snapped at him, “Get your head in the game!”

“The Canadian said it was on one,” Sidi yelled back.

The others grumbled and shifted about. From the sideline, Coach Thierry signaled timeout. “Sidi!” he shouted. “Get your butt over here. You too, Moussa.”

“Call your huddle,” I told Jorge, and I followed them over.

“What’s wrong with you today?” Coach Thierry said.

Sidi started up again. “The play was on one, the Canadian called it on one…”

Moose cut him off. “You’re supposed to watch the ball, not listen to the cadence.”

“Let’s go, les gars!” Coach Thierry said. “Pull your heads out of your asses. We have them by the throat. Don’t let up now.”

The referee tapped his watch. “Thirty seconds left.”

Freeman, who had wandered over, whispered to me in English, “You’re only as good as your last play.” He nodded toward Sidi, who stood there with his head hanging. Freeman seemed to be saying, Forget Sidi—he’s out of it.

But I needed Sidi. Michel, our French QB, would too in the second half.

Back in the huddle, I used what Freeman had said on the others. “We’re only as good as our last play.” I adjusted my chinstrap. “So come on!” And to Sidi, who’d been trying to throw me under the bus, I said, “Step up!”

I called the same play as before, but on one this time.

“Vous êtes prêts! Break!”

I hit Sidi on the quick slant-in. He juggled the pass at first but tucked the ball under his arm and fell forward, and we gained eight yards.

Second down and two yards to go for a first down.

“You want ball more?” I asked Mobylette, imitating his staccato French.

“Me want ball,” he answered.

“Pro left. Inside trap 32.”

The Jets showed an inside blitz—the opposite of what I’d expected. I needed to change the play at the line of scrimmage, call an audible to another play so that Mobylette didn’t get killed, but the Diables Rouges didn’t know how to. We’d never practiced the audible. I called the cadence—I didn’t have a choice; it was either that or waste our last time-out—took the snap and handed the ball off to Mobylette.

He broke a first tackle and slipped a second before ramming his helmet into the sternum of the Jets safety. First down, inside their 40.

Mobylette was a natural. And with just a month of American football!

The stands were rocking—only five hundred people, maybe, but all of them stomping their feet and chanting, “Olé! Olé-Olé-Olé!”

The Beach didn’t have a scoreboard. The ref told me, “Thirty seconds left in the half.”

The Jets defensive players were in disarray, sniping at each other. Now was the time to go for the jugular. I called the deep flood pass, an all-or-nothing play that sent Moose and Sidi up the left sideline. It was a sure touchdown if the Jets didn’t adjust.

I scanned the Jets defense as I walked to the line of scrimmage. They were showing cover 2, perfect for the call. (I hoped Sidi had seen it too.) I called the cadence, took the snap from Jorge and made a five-step drop. I pump-faked to Moose, who was cutting toward the flag, and launched it toward Sidi, who broke open inside their ten, right where he was supposed to. I watched the ball sail through the air, could hear our players on the sidelines, first “Aahh!” then “Ooooohhh…”

Sidi had dropped the ball.

I looked toward our bench. Coach Thierry was holding his head in his hands. Freeman just shook his back and forth. Then I heard a commotion coming from the other sideline.

Instead of returning to our huddle, Sidi was across the field, in front of the Jets bench, swearing at them. I couldn’t make out his words, but their players and fans stared at him, kind of dumbfounded. The refs too. Everyone just stood and watched.

But then someone started laughing, and Sidi really lost it. Utterly and totally. He kicked dirt in their direction, shot them the bird with both hands, grabbed his crotch.

Coach Thierry and Moose rushed over and grabbed him. Aïda had come down out of the stands. They dragged him from the field, Sidi spitting insults all the while, even at our own fans, who were laughing now too.

“Dang,” Freeman said when I got to the sideline.

Dang was right.

The tide turned in the second half. The Jets just bullied our defense. Their running back, a strong-legged nineteen-year-old Algerian kid, ran the ball down our throats. (Moose said he was a ringer they’d brought in from the high-rises in Saint-Denis, the suburb next to Villeneuve.) Freeman did his best to limit the damage, but they lined up their American on one side of the field, to draw Freeman over (Moose had googled the kid: he was a wuss receiver who’d graduated high school in California the year before), and then they ran their Algerian ringer in the other direction.

Our 14–0 became 14–7, 14–14…By the fourth quarter, we were trailing by twenty points, 34–14, with only two minutes left. I couldn’t do anything about it. I had to watch from the sideline.

“What’s wrong with Freeman?” Monsieur Lebrun asked. “Why can’t he stop them?”

We were standing at one end of our bench.

“He shut their offense down in the first half,” I said. “They figured out he’s American. They adjusted.”

Monsieur Lebrun kicked an empty Evian bottle. “Merde! So that’s what our opponents are going to do all season? That’s what we’re paying for?”

I didn’t know what to say.

With less than a minute remaining, Moose called our last timeout. The rest of us huddled around him on the sideline.

“This isn’t about winning or losing anymore,” he said. “It’s about pride. We have to make these rich bastards pay. Tax them a little something for their time spent in Villeneuve!”

I wasn’t sure Freeman had understood what Moose said, but he sure acted as if he did. On the next play, the Jets ran a fake to Freeman’s side, their big running back an obvious decoy. Poor kid. Freeman tagged him anyway—drove the crown of his helmet under the guy’s chin—right in front of our bench. The kid was out cold before he hit the ground, his arms limp at his side, his helmet knocked off and skipping down the sideline.

There were only maybe fifty or so fans left, freezing their butts off on the metal bleachers, but they all popped up, roaring. Even the gangbangers in sunglasses and hoodies who watched from the oak tree at the far end of the field hooahed and cheered.

Flags flew, Jets and Diables Rouges players started shoving one other, and I heard Freeman yelling at the running back, “Fucking Al-Qaida motherfucker!” He had his finger in the kid’s face. He was like Sidi had been, like he’d lost his mind!

I grabbed him by the face mask, jerked his face to mine. “What’s wrong with you!” I said in English, hoping none of our guys had heard what he’d said, or if they had, that none had understood.

He tried to wrestle free of me, lunging for the unmoving Jet.

“Cut it out!” Moose pulled us apart. “The game is over.”