I couldn’t sleep. I opened my green notebook and read what I wrote for Joey Derossi the morning after the Glendale game.
This Is Why
The moon is a great, bright eyeball staring down from blackest space. Below, stadium lights make the colors vibrate. Yellow uprights. Green field. White away jerseys. Cardinal-and-gray home. The marching band warms up, one minute to halftime. The guys on the tenor drum sets pound a rhythm that bursts inside Isaiah’s chest. Boom. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Bada boom boom. Tick, tick, tick, tick . . .
This is it. Where he has belonged. Out on that green field with the eyeball looming, with the percussion exploding his chest.
He can’t help it. He looks up. He says, “Thank you.”
And then Isaiah locks in.
The quarterback shouts numbers. Isaiah checks out the action in the backfield. His opponent is faking a run play. Seriously. Pretending. “Be ready for pass. Be ready!” Isaiah cries.
Simultaneously, the opponent quarterback yells, “Hut!”
No run. Isaiah nailed his call. The quarterback drops.
“Pass! Pass!” Isaiah shouts.
The slot receiver goes off the line slow, like he’s not even in the play. But suddenly, like the kid is hit with a bolt of electricity, he explodes forward. Tries to break out of the jail Isaiah built for him. And the kid does get behind Isaiah.
So Isaiah swivels, sprints after.
The quarterback jacks the ball high into the air. Isaiah sprints. The ball must be reaching apex. Isaiah sprints. Must be falling, spiraling, nose down toward the slot receiver’s outstretched hands. Isaiah sprints.
Then he digs in deep.
Leaps.
And he grabs that damn ball a millisecond before the slot receiver can.
Gathers, tucks, rolls on the turf.
Comes to a stop. Breathes. There is silence. His sinuses drain.
The sound of the ocean comes. The sound of the wind ripping through ditches on the razor-backed ridges.
He leaps up, ball over his head.
“Bluffton interception,” the away-game announcer says.
“Thanks for running that route,” Isaiah says to the slot in all seriousness. “That was a close call. Nice try.”
“Shut up, dude,” the slot says, walking away.
The drums reverberate in Isaiah’s chest. He runs to his screaming team on the sidelines and leaps into their arms.