THE LESSON STARTED OUT OKAY. IT turned out that Hopper had the sheet music for the Gershwin preludes Jarvis had been playing in class, so we spent most of the lesson on the second one, where there was this part where you needed to be able to reach beyond an octave, and I could do it. It was one of the coolest pieces of music I’d ever heard. Definitely the greatest thing I’d ever tried to play.
“This is a good exercise, Jack.” Hopper nodded, gazing out the window. “Five sharps. Good for the fingers. Like calisthenics on your football field. So. Have you come up with your audition piece?”
I hadn’t given it a thought. So I said the first thing that came to mind. “Yessir, I think I have. These Gershwin preludes.”
He turned slowly and shook his head at me. How was he going to get the professional cred he deserved if his students played “Three Blind Mice”?
“Jack, these are very simple pieces of music. Afterthoughts for a master. Challenging, but simple. And rather short. Anyone can play them, with a little practice.”
“But I want to master them, sir,” I said. “I really like playing them.”
His face turned into stone. “Well, Jack,” he said, “you’ll have little chance of impressing me with an eight-minute set of preludes.”
I wanted to say, “Like you impress me by coaching the contestants, and then being the judge. Kind of rigged, no?” But I kept it zipped as he stuffed his briefcase with papers and stomped out of the room.
I stuck around and played a bunch of angry measures that sounded like pissed-off crows at dawn. Jesus. Who was the adult, and who was the kid? Did everyone think I couldn’t make any decisions for myself?
• • •
Our second receiver behind Will was a blond blazer kind of guy, a senior named Bannion, from a family that skied in Switzerland over spring break. He wasn’t all that fast, and he didn’t have great hands, but he could block, and the year before, under Ward’s run-heavy offensive scheme, he was good enough. He was our kicker, too, and he was so cocky that I figured he’d earned the spot just by acting like he deserved it, which was probably the way he’d live the rest of his life.
The next day in practice, Madden didn’t throw me a single pass, even when the play was called for me. We spent most of the day practicing runs: Addison and Anthony kept trying to take it up our defense’s gut, which was anchored by this huge nose tackle from Cleveland named Mancini. But he wasn’t just huge, he was athletic. I didn’t want anything to do with him. He reminded me of some bad guy in a Batman movie: he always had this lopsided smirky smile on his face after he made a tackle, and he liked doing these stupid dances whenever he planted Anthony into the ground.
After practice, Zowitzki walked up with EyeBlack streaming down his cheeks, like Marilyn Manson makeup gone mad. “So you on the program or not, chief?”
“Zowitzki,” I said, “you ever look at the ingredients on that stuff?”
“Lefferts,” he said, like he was talking to a little kid, “you know what’s in a can of SpaghettiO’s? That stuff’ll kill you quicker than creatine will. Hey, if you want to skip the soft stuff and go straight to the top, just let me know. Like I said, they don’t all need needles. But time’s running out. If we start cycling you now, you’ll be primed by the last few games. The beauty part, though, is that the attitude comes on a lot quicker than the abs. Juice gets wusses like you mad, you know? Why you think cops take ’em? No fear when the crackheads are comin’ at ’em!”
“I’m not afraid,” I said.
“You will be,” he said, laughing an asshole laugh. “Hesford’s gonna be easy on Saturday, but Chelton’s after that, and they’re dirty as crap. They clothesline, they hit you late, they lay the pain. They’re fucking madmen!” He grinned. “Literally.”
Then he laid a hand on my shoulder pad, all fake friendly. “Lefferts—it ain’t just me wants you on the program. That guy with the golden arm has a say in this thing too, dude. Don’t forget that he’s the one throwing the passes to you. Or not throwing them.”
• • •
The team bus was a high-end machine with tinted windows and a half dozen drop-down movie screens, showing the Adam Sandler remake of The Longest Yard. A couple of JV kids doing slave work were shoveling the equipment bags into the belly. I looked down, and the little quarterback, Alex, number 2, was waving up at me like a happy hobbit.
Bruno and Ward sat in the seat behind the driver, Ward with a clipboard, Bruno looking out the window. Madden and Addison sat in the other front seat. Zowitzki shared a seat right behind the quarterback, with Thorn. Clune took up a whole seat behind them, and Mancini a whole seat behind him. Most of the other players were watching the movie or listening to their iPods.
Martin was sitting alone halfway to the back, with his legs stretched across the empty seat next to him. He nodded, heavy-lidded, listening to his music. He lifted off the earphones. “Coltrane,” he said, and put them back on.
I found an empty row near the back and sat down in the window seat as the bus started to roll. “Hey,” Anthony said, dropping down next to me. He had a copy of Sports Illustrated. “You think maybe we get some playing time today?” Now we pulled onto the road, and brown cornstalks started to roll by out the window. “Addison says we should kill them. They won, like, one game last year.”
I tried to read The Bacchae, a play about the god of wine by an old guy named Euripedes, for history, but I couldn’t concentrate. I wondered if I’d get a shot today. And if I did, could I pull this whole insane thing off?
A few minutes before we got to Hesford, Ward stood up in the middle of the bus and switched off the movie.
“All right: listen good. You know we’re only playing six games this year because the little old ladies running the goddamned conference have decided that this sport is too dangerous for their precious little boys. So what’s that mean for us, Addison?”
“Means we can’t let a single one get away,” Addison said.
“You got it. Listen to the Texan stud, boys. Heed those words. You look past these gals today, next thing you know, we’re out of it—right out of the gate. So let’s get it done, and let’s get it done early. Don’t look past ’em. Run right through ’em.”
• • •
The Hesford campus was old and small. Their team was just as small, and slow, and didn’t want any part of us. I stood on the sideline, half wanting in, half glad to be ignored. I wanted to contribute, but I also didn’t want to mess up. So I spent a lot of time scanning the Hesford bleachers and the big lawn next to them on the home side, where parents sat surrounded by their dogs, watching their sons get whupped.
Out on the field, Addison was gaining about eight yards a carry, and Madden completed almost every pass he threw in the first half to Will and Bannion. Will caught two for TDs. Bruno didn’t call a single pass play in the third quarter, showing a little mercy. I figured it was Bruno doing the calling because Ward would have wanted to score 117 points.
Anthony played a half dozen series, including a twenty-yard gain up the middle when he broke two tackles. On the sideline, I cheered him on and kept looking over at Ward, but I was nowhere on the radar until halfway through the fourth quarter, when he was suddenly next to me. “Next series, you’re in for Bannion,” he said, without looking at me. “Stay with your blocks. And don’t screw up.”
I slipped my helmet over my head, like I’d been doing for two weeks, but this time it took me three or four tries to buckle the chin strap. Bannion wandered over. We hadn’t said a word to each other in the two weeks since I’d been on the team.
“The corner’s pretty slow; block him low,” he said, like he was maybe relieved he didn’t have to play anymore.
I trotted into the huddle, leaned in to hear Madden’s call. I was high, only it was a high I’d never felt. A real game. On a prep-school varsity team. Number 88. Me.
The play was a simple run for Anthony, to the left, over on Martin’s side, so all I had to do was half block the corner. I thought about what it might feel like in a few months, playing at home, in the Essex game, with Caroline watching from the hillside.
I fired out at the cornerback, who looked at me like I was insane, because the play was way over on the other side. He backed off like a matador, and I fell down without him even touching me. Anthony had gotten a few yards. I heard Ward shout angrily, but when I looked over, it was Addison coming in to replace Anthony, not Bannion to replace me.
Madden called the next two plays to my side, with Addison running. I didn’t exactly wipe out the cornerback, but I was so wired, I managed to tie him up enough for Addison to get some yardage. I was smacking him as much for me as for him. It felt good to make a statement with my body, even if it wasn’t a very loud one. When the cornerback shouted to a ref, “Hey! He’s holding!” I took it as a good sign. I was on the legal edge. I was playing football.
Now we were on the Hesford ten, knocking on the door again. Anthony ran in with the play from the sideline. There were just a few minutes left in the game, and I figured we’d run out the clock. But Anthony told Madden that Ward wanted a ten-yard square in—to me.
The call made no sense: totally piling on Hesford; it was already 31–7. But that was cool—the pressure was off, because we didn’t need the score. All I thought was, I can do this. I lined up, looked over at the corner, then at the goal line, where I’d turn to catch the pass, and everything seemed crystal clear, almost floodlit. I was about to catch my first pass for Oakhurst Hall—for a touchdown no less.
I sprinted ten yards and hooked just as Madden fired the pass, but it wasn’t anywhere near me; it was way too high, and worse, it was a few yards behind me. I reached back as the ball sailed way over my head. Then I relaxed, figuring the play was over. And that’s when the cornerback I’d been blocking all day hit me full speed with his helmet in the back of my shoulder, like a battering ram.
I hit the ground. For a second, I couldn’t breathe, but I’d be damned if I was going to lie there like some beached fish. I got up and staggered in a circle.
Time had run out. The team huddled, cheering each other, slapping pads. I was on the outside of the cluster, leaning in, as the chant of “OAK-hurst HA-all” rose from the pack. Then the coaches gathered us at the end of the field, underneath the goalposts.
Bruno stood with his arms folded and slowly scanned the team. “Good win, men.” It was the first time I’d heard his voice at full volume. “Good concentration. Good start. Be proud.” Then he moved away, and Ward took over.
“But we should have shut them out,” he said. “If we play like this against Chelton on Saturday, you’re going to embarrass the whole school. I want more dedication, better blocks, better tackles. But hey, we got the W, and that’s what it’s all about. Hit the bus.”
• • •
“That was bullshit, man,” Anthony said, flopping down beside me. “Cheap hit.”
“Not as bullshit as Madden throwing it behind me,” I said.
“You think he did it on purpose? No way. Everyone throws a bad pass sometimes. He may be a jerk, but I don’t think he’s an asshole.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Zowitzki’s an asshole,” Anthony explained. “Madden? I don’t think anyone ever told him he wasn’t a stud. High-school star in Ohio. Got here with his arm. So he acts like one. But there’s gotta be a normal guy in there somewhere. He just hasn’t had to be one yet.”
• • •
The sermon was Ecclesiastes: “To every thing, there is a season,” Carlton chanted from his wooden cherry picker. “Like the seasons, you will always return to the lessons you’ve learned here. And many of you will return to this campus many times over your adult lifetimes. Turn, turn, turn.”
“Great song by the Byrds,” Sam whispered.
It seemed like just another stupid sermon—until Carlton dropped the bomb. “But speaking of the campus, I have noticed a very disturbing trend lately: you are all strolling our beautiful grounds with earplugs plugged in your ears, listening to what could be called music, by some, while ignoring God’s beauty all around you. You are longer speaking to each other. No longer exchanging ideas. It has disturbed me to see this student body become so antisocial, and I am prepared to do something drastic. I am prepared to confiscate your iPods should I see this alarming trend continue.” A collective groan spread through the chapel—the first sign I’d seen that there was a soul inside Oakhurst Hall’s walls. Carlton ignored it. “It hardly strikes a scholarly image to visiting parents if they can’t see students engaged in debate and discussion on our spacious campus.”
What was funny was that he was talking about people listening, and by now, no one was listening to him.
• • •
“Notice that he didn’t say ‘prospective students,’” Sam said, as we walked up the path. “Dude knows where the honey flows from.”
“Hey, how come you know more about our music and movies than I do?”
“We have to know everything about everything,” he said, deadpan as usual. “That’s our secret assignment. They send us here to spy on your country, then we take everything we’ve learned back home and try to get it right. As opposed to what you guys do, which is mess everything up. Ever notice how none of you are smiling around this place? Unless you’re high? And we smile? And none of us get high? It’s all a game. Like the man said, ‘No matter where you go, there you are.’”
I tried to figure that one out. Then I got it: Wherever you are, that’s where you are, so you had to deal with it. “Buddha?”
“Peter Weller. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension. I can’t believe you don’t know any of this stuff.”
The pretty Korean girl from English joined us. Sam introduced her as Seo Woon Bae. “Sang-Ook’s told me a lot about you,” she said.
“All bad, I hope,” I said.
Seo Woon stopped in her tracks and looked me straight in the eye. “Yes, I’m afraid. All of it. I’m so sorry. He really does not like you, not at all. But he’s too polite to say so.”
Then they walked on ahead, holding hands.
I wanted their lives.
• • •
I found a bench-press place in a far corner, away from the half dozen other kids—a few linemen, Anthony—and away from the mirrors. No music was blasting, just the rhythmic clank of Anthony’s reps on the Universal across the room, which made a melody start to noodle in my head.
It was moody and waterfall-y. Sometimes music wrote itself.
Within a couple of minutes, the knot in my back was gone, and when I was done—thirty reps at sixty pounds—I waited for my muscles to complain, but they didn’t. I was getting in football shape.
I had just walked out of the gym on a definite—and natural—endorphin high when I saw Jarvis walking across the quad, head down, piles of books cradled under one arm. He looked up, preoccupied. “Hey, Jock,” he said, smiling, not slowing down, so I hurried to fall in with him. There was something about Jarvis that felt like it was worth following. “How’s football going?” he said.
“I could do without some of the kids who play it,” I said. “They’re not exactly my type. Whatever that is.”
Jarvis laughed, a little nervously. Jarvis did everything nervously. “Everyone fits in somewhere. Some of us have to look a little harder to find where, is all. So you enjoying the class?”
“Yeah, I really am. I’m not sure I get everything, though.”
“Well, if you don’t understand something, for God’s sake, ask someone who does. Just not me,” he said, and walked away down the long entrance drive.
The carillon bells rang, signaling the hour—the cheery B-G-A-D, D-A-B-G which always sounded so hopeful—until the drone: dong, dong, dong . . . twelve minor notes that didn’t even sound like musical notes. By the end, it felt like getting hit over the head with a rubber mallet.
Carlton music.