THE NEXT DAY IN PRACTICE, I took the place of Bannion, the other receiver, for the second series. On the first running play, Thorn crack-backed with a dirty block on my knees. A sharp pain knifed up my thigh. I jumped up in the kid’s face. “What the hell was that about?”
He sneered from behind his face guard. “Suck it up, Lefferts. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
Now Madden called a buttonhook to me, but before we broke the huddle, Will said, “Hey, Vic, maybe you can throw it somewhere Lefferts won’t get killed?”
Everybody froze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Martin,” said Madden.
The rest of the offense exchanged glances. Clune broke up the freeze when he barked, “Okay, let’s just play some fucking football.”
I ran my pattern, pivoting on a dime. The ball was exactly where it was supposed to be. I pulled it in for an easy eight yards and turned upfield just as Ward blew his whistle to end the play. Then Zowitzki hit me low, at the knees. And Thorn hit me high, a helmet-to-helmet spear.
The ball went flying into the air. Zowitzki pounced on it, popped to his feet and spiked it. Then he and Thorn high-fived.
“One more fumble, Lefferts,” Ward said, “and you’re back down on the pond.”
And that was enough.
“The play was over!” I shouted. “You blew the goddamned whistle!”
The team was quiet. I glanced around at the faces and stopped when I saw Bruno looking at me with the usual stone face. The look felt like a green light.
Ward stared at me. “You challenging me, son?”
“I’m challenging the rules of your practices, sir,” I said. “They’re getting me killed. If you want me to catch passes, I can’t do it if I’m dead. If you want to get me killed, don’t bother. Just send me down to the pond.”
We stared each other down. Everyone else just sort of looked everywhere else. Then Bruno turned around and slowly walked in the other direction. Ward didn’t say anything. I had a weird feeling that I’d gained some ground. But Madden didn’t throw me another pass the rest of the practice. He didn’t throw one to Martin, either. Bannion was suddenly his favorite receiver.
After practice, Ward called me over. If the man wanted a showdown, I was so ready. But instead, he acted like nothing had ever happened. “A heads-up, Lefferts,” he said, eyes glued to his clipboard. “You’re in the game plan for tomorrow against Chelton. Be ready.”
Like I wasn’t always ready? “Cool,” I said, and walked away.
Score one for being yourself.
• • •
In the locker room, I asked Clune why Ward said I’d be part of the game plan.
“Chelton’s a football factory for second-chance kids,” he said. “So they probably paid some Hesford coach to fill them in on our personnel. You weren’t on the highlight reel. So maybe he figures it’ll mess them up if you’re part of the game.” He popped some of his horse vitamins. “Or maybe he figures they’ll break your leg, and he won’t have to worry about you anymore.”
“Thanks, Clune.”
“Anytime.”
• • •
All over campus Audis and Lexuses and Suburbans were parked nose to tail, on curbs, on paths. The stands and the hillside were packed. I looked through the sea of faces and prep clothes for Caroline, but all I saw was Carlton, dead center on the hillside, on a blue Oakhurst Hall blanket, sitting next to McGregor, the lacrosse-tie admissions guy.
As game time neared, linemen were smacking each others’ shoulder pads. Zowitzki and Thorn were actually punching each other in the stomach. I guess to make them even tougher. Madden was whipping passes to Bannion.
And Will was sitting at the end of the bench with a thousand-yard stare in his eyes.
Bruno called us in for a huddle before the kickoff. “Good luck, men—and give it your all,” was all he said. Then slapped my helmet as he walked away. Not real hard. Friendly.
Pick your battles to win your wars, right? Maybe I’d picked a good time for my first battle in practice the day before.
But then, I still didn’t know if it was Bruno who actually ran the team or Ward, who, of course, was hyped like a maniac.
“This is it!” he shouted. “This is the real thing!” he ranted. “There’s a lot of people on that hillside counting on you. Don’t let the Hall down!”
Hell, even I got caught up in the rush. But I was relieved that they kept me out for the first quarter, when neither team scored. The hits were a lot louder than last week. Most of them came from Zowitzki. In the first quarter, he made four solo tackles. He was like the Tasmanian Devil in those old cartoons—bouncing off blockers and slamming Chelton runners to the ground, including one kid who had to be helped off the field. Every tackle brought roars from the hill.
Ward—Bruno?—sent me in to start the second quarter. On the first play, Madden called a pass for me: a break to the sideline. This was it. This was time to prove I could do this, in front of everyone. Was she watching?
I ran the pattern perfectly. When I got close to their guy, I looked left, to fake him, and cut sharp to the outside . . . but when I tried to pivot, it was as if I was suddenly running in place, like in a dream. The cornerback had hooked his fingers into my pants. Madden had to throw the ball away.
“Lefferts, get your ass open!” he said in the huddle.
“He was holding my belt!”
“No shit, Sherlock,” grumbled Clune. “They’re dirty. Dirty ’em back.”
We had to punt. Back on the sideline, Will sidled over. “Slap his arms away before he can get his hands on you.” He did some karate-like thing, bringing his hands up together, then shooting them out. “They won’t call it.”
For the rest of the quarter, Addison kept pounding the middle, but he was getting nowhere. Chelton had a huge nose tackle who was shouting out the defensive formation with a weird accent. Like Russian. A prep school recruit from Russia? Clune had been right: prep football didn’t have many rules.
Our only long play was a slant across the middle to Will, who broke it for twenty-five. But it was called back because Bannion had lined up offside. So Ward put me in for one more series before the half.
We were driving. On a first down in Chelton’s territory, Madden called another square out. I slapped the cornerback’s arms away with my new martial-arts skills, broke right, and I was looking it into my hands—until the cornerback, playing me like Velcro, reached over my shoulder and broke it up.
As I walked back to the huddle, I heard Ward yell, “JEE-sus, Lefferts! Get separation!”
Which I ignored.
I knew I’d fucked up. I didn’t need a loser to tell me I was a loser.
It was scoreless at the half.
“These guys ain’t Hesford,” Anthony said as we walked over to gather beneath the goalposts for the halftime talk.
This interlude wasn’t going to be pretty.
Bruno stood to the side, head bent over a notebook. He could have been looking at notes on Sparta’s hoplites for all the expression on his face. Ward looked at us in disgust, as if we’d played so badly we didn’t even deserve to be ripped. As if Chelton weren’t a semipro team that pretended it was a prep school.
He shook his head. Then all he said was, “Go ahead. Let your parents down.” And drifted over to Bruno.
A few seconds later, Zowitzki broke the silence, loud enough to be heard by every tweedy alum up on the hillside: “FUCK THIS!”
He was out of control. He was red-faced. He was breathing hard and fast. Then he brought it down to a whisper. “I will not lose to these freaks because you assholes on offense can’t get your shit together.” Then he turned around and walked away.
Then Clune walked to the place where Zowitzki had been and looked at the ground. He was bouncing his helmet off his thigh pad. I thought I saw blood on his pants. The guy was playing his ass off. Then he looked up.
“It’s pretty simple, guys,” he said. “You gonna get beat by losers? Or you gonna play smart? This is Oakhurst Hall, man. Start playing like it means something!” Then he took the helmet, raised it up, and planted it on his head. We all did the same thing and followed him to the sideline.
The second half began like the first: no scoring, and big hits. Then, halfway through the fourth quarter, Zowitzki blocked a Chelton punt, picked it up, and ran it deep into Chelton territory.
And . . . Bruno sent me in with Anthony. On first down, Anthony ran a sweep behind me. I lowered myself and tried to lay a block on the cornerback, but the kid had size and momentum, and he bowled me over. The kid nailed Anthony—and the ball popped loose, bouncing crazily up the field, followed by a bunch of Chelton kids.
The thought hit me in a microsecond: I hadn’t just messed up . . . I’d allowed a fumble! But then, no more thoughts: time to act.
I bounced up, raced toward the ball, and pounced on it at the same time as a Chelton kid. Now we were both grabbing at it. But for me, something primal was taking over. Trying to capture the football, I was suddenly fighting out at everyone who thought I couldn’t do it. I was throwing my elbows, and I might have even bitten the dude’s arm. I just ripped the sucker out of his hands, and when bodies started landing on top of me, I held on to it even harder. No one was going to get this football.
At the bottom of the pile, I felt one hand grab for my balls and another scratch my forehead, trying to peel my helmet off backward. And my head with it.
But when the refs pulled the pile away, I still had the ball.
We’d actually gained ten yards.
“Shitty block. Nice recovery,” said Clune back in the huddle. “Also, you’re bleeding.”
I reached up to my forehead, felt blood. Licked it off my fingertip. I liked the coppery taste. Football.
Maybe Madden knew I’d be pissed. He called the same play, and this time, I tied up the cornerback and Anthony bounced off a linebacker and got twelve, and a first down.
Anthony and I came out. On the next three plays, Addison plowed up the middle for good gains. We were down to Chelton’s eight-yard line.
“Lefferts!” Ward shouted to me. “Get in there. Tell Madden to call an RV-80.”
I had no idea what an RV-80 was. Madden looked at me, nodded to the huddle. “Reverse to Lefferts. Martin, take out that linebacker. Addison, you got the cornerback.”
A reverse? We’d never practiced a reverse.
“Break back, come around behind Madden going the other way,” Will told me, as we went to the line. “You take the handoff. Just follow me.”
It was time to turn on some speed. On the snap, I took one step forward to freeze the cornerback, then turned around and ran back to Madden, who turned to hand the ball off to me.
But just as I got ready to take the ball, he pulled it back in to his stomach.
I kept running a few yards, empty-handed, and looked back to see Madden run straight up the middle into the end zone, untouched. Touchdown.
I heard the hillside erupt in cheers as a Chelton linebacker laid me out with a clean hit, shoulder pad to helmet. Pissed-off payback. Then he kneed me in the ribs as he climbed off.
I got up just in time to see the team mobbing Madden.
On the sideline, Will gave me a friendly slap on the helmet. “That so had to be planned. A Bruno special. Madden was never going to hand it off to you, but only Madden and Bruno knew that. The perfect fake. We all blocked it like you were going to get it, and Chelton followed us. That’s what they got Bruno for, I guess. He sure as hell knows how to call a play.”
Bannion kicked the extra point, and in this game, no one was going to get any more points. They’d be lucky to get out alive. There were two fights in the fourth quarter, and Zowitzki was limping. But we won, 7–0. At the final gun, while the team celebrated, I was standing on the outside of the victory huddle when Anthony gave me a high five. “Thanks for saving my ass on that fumble. And nice fake on the reverse.”
“It wasn’t a fake,” I said. “I thought I was going to get the ball.”
So that’s what Ward meant about me being in the game plan. Great. I was the varsity decoy.
Still, when I walked up the hill, parents I didn’t even know reached to slap me on my pads. Not mine, but parents anyway. And I had some blood to show for it.
• • •
A half hour later, Caroline was there to meet me coming out of the gym. “That didn’t look like a lot of fun,” she said. “I mean that fumble.”
“Yeah, well. I guess it’s part of the game,” I said. As if I was some pro.
“You’re going to need another bandage on that,” she said, as we walked toward the quad, and pointed to my forehead. “Well, I guess if there’s something you want, and you want it badly enough, it’s going to be painful to get it sometimes, right?”
“I guess,” I said. I was hoping she might want to change the bandage herself, but she walked me to the library, where she paused, then closed her eyes and said, “‘The thing about life is that you must survive. Life is going to be difficult, and dreadful things will happen. What you do is move along, get on with it, and be tough. Not in the sense of being mean to others, but being tough with yourself and making a deadly effort not to be defeated.’”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Gatsby.”
“Nope, Katharine Hepburn. My hero. Did you know she had a fire going in her fireplace in Connecticut every day of the year? That’s my idea of hearth and home. See you later.”
Mine too, as of, like, now.