I HAD NEVER HEARD BACK FROM Dad. I didn’t think he’d be here. But in a way, not knowing made me think I might play better. If he was out there, he’d be proud, and if he wasn’t, then I was basically right about everything I thought about him. I’d still be playing for Caroline . . . and, yeah, for Oakhurst Hall. If I got to play much.
It was freezing. The sky was silver gray, and the air smelled like snow. Prepworld covered the hillside and flowed right down to the sideline, like those old pictures of baseball games from a hundred years ago where the fans would stand right up next to the field.
Over at one end, there was a cluster of men and women in fancy leather coats with fur collars and hats: Will’s mom’s family had come over from Spain. Brothers, sisters, uncles. They were smiling and laughing. And for the first time this year, I saw could see local people out there—real people: men wearing baseball caps, townie boys with buzz cuts and Engleside Eagles sweatshirts, and their girls, wearing parkas from mall outlets.
There were even a couple of fat guys in their thirties roaming the sideline with notebooks: sportswriters from Concord and maybe even up from Worcester, because this game was news. A championship was on the line, even if it was a school that couldn’t give a damn what the Concord News-Times thought. A title is a title.
And just like Madden had said, there were a couple of older guys, standing next to each other, wearing baseball caps from Ohio State and Michigan. He hadn’t been bullshitting: Division I scouts.
Working out on the other sideline, the Essex guys looked big in their “evergreen and pewter” uniforms.
I scanned the hillside again and saw Ward’s perfect little kids sticking their tongues out to collect the first snowflakes of the year, giggling, running around, and chasing the flakes like puppies, probably dreaming of sledding and skiing and whatever else little kids dream of before someone tells them they can’t.
And then I saw Ward. He was walking toward me as I did leg lifts. With the clipboard. My stomach knotted. Okay. What the hell was this going to be about? He couldn’t cut me. I didn’t have any contraband in the room he could have found. He was not going to derail me. Not after almost three months of lifting. Three months of surviving. Three months of finding out who Jack Lefferts could be.
Just then, cheers started to spark up from the crowd: “Oak-hurst! Oak-hurst!” Then, from the grandstand on the visitors’ side: “Es-sex! Es-sex!”
Now Ward stood over me. But he didn’t look down. Just talked, fast. “We x-rayed Bannion’s knee,” he said. “Tore all the ligaments like they were string or something. Never seen one like that. Anyway, he’s toast. You’re starting. And we got no kicker.” Then he walked away.
Oh, man. Oh, man. Starting. But I was ready. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was dealing from strength.
And I didn’t have any more time to get nervous, because just then a different chant came up, sort of ragged, from a spot way down on the far end of the hill: “O-thers! O-thers!” I saw Josh and Danny and Simon. Sam and Seo Woon. And Caroline.
Turned out I was wrong when I told Clune that none of my family would be at the big game.
• • •
As the team gathered on the sideline, I ran in place to stay warm. The ground was hard, just a little forgiving. The earth was locking up, beginning the winter freeze. It would be tough to make sharp cuts on pass patterns with the plastic cleats. A slippery tabletop field would definitely favor the defenses. Runners would have trouble getting traction.
After we broke the pregame huddle, Madden walked over. Something about the captain looked different: he’d cut his golden locks off. His usual stony glare hinted at some nerves. This was his all-or-nothing moment.
“I’m going to go to you a lot today, if we can,” said the quarterback. “Right?”
“Right,” I said. “Totally.”
“Okay, then,” he said. “Let’s beat these motherfuckers, and then I can leave this fun house behind.” He snapped his chin strap like some guy flipping his Spartan helmet faceplate into place.
When it was finally time for me to lower my helmet over my head for the last time this season, I flashed back to the first day I’d put it on—how strange it had felt, how weird it was to see the world through that narrow slit.
This time, it felt comfortable, smelling of my sweat, as if I’d been wearing it for all the autumns of my life. This time, the view through the face mask wasn’t foreign. It was a clear view on a world where I’d earned a place. Where, at least for the next few hours, I belonged.
A few yards away, Zowitzki and Thorn were butting each other like elk. Then Clune lumbered over and slammed his hands onto my shoulder pads like twin hammers. “You ready, man?”
I nodded. Week after week, I’d seen my teammates’ faces enter into some kind of zone. Finally, I was there, too. I couldn’t wait for the game to start.
Will came over—wearing the goofiest, most relaxed smile I’d ever seen. “I love the snow,” he said. “I love playing in the snow. Good omen. The gods are with us.”
“We won’t need them.” I said, trying to pump myself up.
“You always need them,” Will said. “Big games always turn on something weird. Something fluky always happens that you never see coming.”
• • •
Ward had been right about Essex’s quarterback, Carson. The kid was a jackrabbit. After Mancini, enlisted into duty, kicked off by popping the ball more or less straight up in the air, on the first two plays, even with Zowitzki forcing him back to the inside, Carson scampered for first downs.
On the third play, Carson took the snap and, at the last second, pitched the ball outside to his running back. Everybody went for the running back, but before they could get there, he stopped and threw a pass to Carson, who had run downfield, unnoticed and untouched. Sixty yards later, it was 7–0, Essex.
“Check it out: the dude is wearing sneakers,” Clune said to me on the sideline. He was right. Carson was wearing black sneakers with good treads while we were wearing old-fashioned cleats. The ground was getting harder and more slippery.
We came out nervous and flat. Anthony fumbled the kickoff and just managed to fall on the ball as the Essex kids piled onto him. Then Addison fumbled on his first carry, and Clune saved him by jumping on the loose ball. Madden overthrew Will on a square out, and the Essex linebacker, O’Doul, sacked Madden on third down.
Ward wanted to scream. But Bruno stood next to him with his hands folded, wearing a gray hoodie, the John Deere cap, and the expression of a guy watching corn grow. My guess was that the big man had told Ward that, in front of every alum and his wife, screaming wasn’t the way to go.
When Essex got the ball back, Carson picked up where he’d left off, sprinting around the end, juking his way up the middle, eating up yardage. Essex was deep in Oakhurst territory when Carson turned the corner on a run. Thorn came up to try and tackle him, overran him on the slippery turf and reached back to clothesline him, ramming his forearm across the kid’s throat.
Carson went flying, Thorn was called for a personal foul, and Essex had a first down on our five. Ward just shook his head, like it was Thorn’s fault.
But this time we toughened up. Zowitzki forced Carson inside twice, where we stuffed him; he had no power once you stopped him. Then Mancini sacked him, bringing the full weight of his body to slam into Carson’s ribs on the ground: an old-fashioned wrestling body slam.
The refs let it go. Mancini got up . . . and didn’t pound his chest.
Now, on fourth down, Essex decided not to go for a field goal. Carson tried to sprint around the end and beat Zowitzki—but Thorn shoved him out of bounds—on the one-foot line.
We’d held. By twelve inches. The hillside went crazy.
“I don’t know about you guys,” Madden said in the huddle, “but I’m not gonna waste my shot at the Big Ten. We get it back—now. Ninety-nine yards. Start with Martin: down and in and under the coverage. Their safeties are deep. Line—give me time.”
Madden led Will perfectly on a crossing route, twenty yards downfield. As the receiver turned upfield, two Essex kids hit him high and slammed him to the turf. His helmet bounced on the ground.
“You okay, Will?” I asked in the huddle.
“Never better.” He grinned. “Hey, you think the snow’s going to stick?”
“Martin,” Madden said, “are you with us?”
Will winked at me. “I’m all here, Captain. Just get me the ball. Today is our day. We’ve both been waiting four years for this, right? Let’s do it.”
“Don’t worry about Martin’s head,” said Clune. “He can afford to lose a few brain cells.”
The mood had changed. And then, with it, the momentum. Addison pounded out a first down with a couple of runs, and Madden took advantage of Essex’s all-out blitz to tuck the ball in and slip up the middle for fifteen.
I ran a square in for five, catching the ball just as an Essex defensive back speared me, helmet-to-helmet—a retribution blow for Thorn’s clothesline. For some reason, though, he was the one who went down in a heap. Some Essex guys helped him off the field. He had the thousand-yard stare in his eyes: lights on, nobody home. Done for the day.
I was fine. Maybe it was just physics: he hit me at the wrong angle.
I trotted back in just as Martin was calling a play for Madden. “Try that crossing route to me again, only, Jack, see if you can pick off that new DB who just replaced your other guy. He’ll be scared shitless.”
Madden led Martin perfectly, just as I crossed over to blindside the sub. I launched myself into midair, like some old-time football card. I’d look like an idiot if I missed the kid—but I didn’t. I hit him square, he went flying, and Martin had acres of space. He sprinted the final thirty yards, untouched, for the tying touchdown.
The sound from the sideline was as sweet as symphonies get.
• • •
The snowfall was getting thicker. By the middle of the second quarter, both offenses began to stall, spinning their wheels. No one could get any footing on the field, because it was now nearly frozen. In the final minutes of the first half, Zowitzki cost us a touchdown: he sacked Carson, but yanked on the kid’s face mask, twisting his head sideways. The flag flew: it’d be a fifteen-yarder.
As the linebacker rose, three Essex linemen surrounded him—and Zowitzki completely lost it. He went insane, shoving two of them, hard, then butting another with his helmet. A second flag flew. For once, I understood.
The referee marked off thirty yards.
“Goddammit,” Ward said. But he didn’t throw the clipboard or go nuts. He kept the kid in. It was a mistake. On the next play, Zowitzki blew into the backfield, out of control, trying to kill Carson—who calmly sidestepped him, took off down the field, and outran everyone for his second touchdown. It was 14–7, Essex, at the half.
• • •
As we gathered in the end zone for the final halftime huddle of the season, the snow was coming down steadily. The crowd was stamping its feet, hugging themselves to keep warm.
I didn’t feel the cold. I just wanted the ball.
Bruno stood before us, eyes scanning the team, waiting patiently until he had everyone’s attention. Then, in a quiet voice, the mysterious head coach began to speak.
“It’s a funny thing,” he said, “how life gives you second chances. There’s the first act and the second act.”
It was so silent I swear I could hear the flakes landing on my shoulder pads.
“Two more quarters,” said the man. “Two quarters left until you meet your destiny. Use them more wisely than you did in the first half.” He didn’t look at Zowitzki. He didn’t have to.
“We’re doing all right,” said Zowitzki. I think he’d overdosed on something. “If we can take out that fucking quarterback, we can win this game.”
“Only a fool thinks winning has something to do with a score,” Bruno said, as if he hadn’t even heard Zowitzki. “Trust me. I’ve been there. I’ve coached teams that won a lot of football games. In a lot of ways. But there’s only one right way: playing for the men on each side of you.”
Now Bruno looked Zowitzki right in the eye. “This game is not about you. It’s not about those people on that hillside. It’s not about bringing glory to your school. It’s not about your own personal glory. It’s about the guy on each side of you. Doing right by him. Because he’s the one who got you here.”
He paused. I don’t know about the rest of them, but he had me hooked. Then he started up again.
“Time was, I was blinded by the same light you’re staring into, Mr. Zowitzki. But you have an advantage. You have a chance to step out of it. You have a chance to learn from the mistakes of the people who came before you. You have a chance to walk off this field as a winner. You all do.”
Then Bruno turned to Ward. “Anything to add, Mr. Ward?”
The Clipboard Coach shook his head.
• • •
I pulled on my helmet. I was eager to get back into my personal cave. I ran in place for a few seconds and noticed the mountain looking down at me. Snow was starting to frost the branches, like powdered sugar. I trotted back to our bench and heard a voice behind—and slightly beneath—me.
“Hey, Jack?” Alex was standing in front of me with a backpack. “Hey, listen, maybe one of these will fit,” he said. “I just went from room to room in my dorm.” And the little kid spilled a half dozen pairs of sneakers at my feet.
I grabbed a real fancy new pair with a good, thick, tread, and laced them on. Good enough. Actually, just about perfect.
“Maybe they won’t slip as much,” Alex said. I tossed him a football from the bag, ran a quick five yards, pivoted, felt the sneakers grab the hard turf. I took his pass in stride, then tossed the ball back to him.
“See you on the field next fall, right?” I said.
His bobblehead nodded. “Right!”
• • •
In the first huddle, Madden was calm. We were only down by one TD . . . but scoring was going to be hard in the snow. “Okay, let’s get it back, quick. Jack, remember the flanker screen pass against Anglican? Do it again. Line up behind Martin, come back in toward me, and when you get it, just take off. Clune, you know what to do. Seal the lane. Will, pull that cornerback with you outside.”
Madden took a quick drop, turned, and fired the ball to me. This time, I didn’t bobble it. I cradled it and cut inside behind Clune’s block on the linebacker as I crossed the line of scrimmage. Martin had lured the cornerback. Now I saw the safety take aim—until out of nowhere, Madden himself was there to tie the kid up.
I was heading for them full speed, so I cut upfield. The sneakers held.
Madden and the safety slipped to the ground.
I turned it on.
No one would catch me today.
As I sprinted toward the end zone, I heard nothing but the sound of my breath echoing in my helmet, as if someone had turned off the rest of the soundtrack.
Then I was in the end zone. Touchdown. And someone turned the soundtrack back on: I heard the hillside erupt, as background noise; the solo came from the girl whose face was almost completely hidden by her hooded gray sweatshirt, both fists thrust into the air. “Yeah, number eighty-eight!”
I acted like I’d been there before—tossing the ball to the ref before Martin gave me a bear hug. Back on the sideline, Bruno did a little fist-pump when I looked over at him. Anthony high-fived me . . . and Mancini, of all people, gave me a head-butt that nearly knocked me down.
• • •
It was a tie game, and by now, the snow was sticking. It seemed for sure that the next team to score would win, and things looked good when we took over on our own twentyyard line with three minutes to play. But on the next play, Essex’s linebacker O’Doul forced Addison to fumble, and Essex recovered the ball on our fifteen.
But the defense held. On third down, Mancini reached up and swatted down a pass. Essex lined up for a field goal from about thirty yards out: a tough kick through the swirling white confetti.
I watched from the sideline as the kick arced through the snow, came down—and, impossibly, bounced right onto the crossbar. Then it flipped straight into the air, came back down, hit the crossbar again—and rolled over the bar, into the end zone.
The ref’s hands shot up: it was good.
It was the fluke that Martin had predicted. The unpredictable moment. The trick of the Football Fates—probably pissed off at Zowitzki.
Essex led 16–13, with just over two minutes left. We needed a touchdown to win.
• • •
Anthony shed two tackles and returned the Essex kickoff to the forty. The snow was driving. It was going to be hard to even see the ball on pass plays.
“Okay,” Madden said in the huddle, his frozen breath puffing out in clouds, “here’s the word—we pound it out. Can’t risk the turnover. We try and run it down their throats. Right up the middle.”
“Line!” barked Clune. “Let’s blow ’em away!”
And for the next half dozen plays, Clune’s boys did their jobs. We were down at the Essex twenty-five-yard line. But now Essex held. Two straight runs went nowhere.
“They know it’s coming,” Madden said in the huddle. “The run won’t work anymore.” He looked at me. “I’ll hit you on a square out. They won’t expect it.”
Will turned to me. His voice had an extra edge. He was hyped. I realized that the goofiness was partly an act; this really did mean everything to him. Dartmouth beckoned, then probably med school or politics. This might be the last kid moment of his life.
“You gotta bump the corner first,” he told me. “Stay on your feet. Get him off you. Then run the pattern. So line—you have to hold the blocks, give Vic time.”
We broke, and trotted out and lined up across from he Essex corner. The blankness in his eyes was spooky.
Now, it hit me how much this meant. The Reservoir, Outward Bound, the months of Ward’s whining . . . I’d do more than bump the kid.
Madden barked the signals for what seemed like forever. Come on, come on! Then, finally, I broke at the snap, running as hard as I could, and met the kid head-on. Our helmets collided—clean, legal, and brutal, a stars-flashing blow, a millisecond of nothingness in my head.
Then everything came back into focus. The corner was still on his feet, but backing up, trying to get his footing. I broke to the outside, turned, and saw the ball coming at me. It was fast, it was high, and it was behind me—and a whole season of instinct took over as the ball whirled through the snow.
In my head, I was back on the quad on that first day, so long ago, gathering in the wild pass. I was back on the field for that first JV practice, catching everything that came my way. I was back in my first varsity practice, taking Zowitzki’s hits. I was back in the touch games with Alex.
I leapt into the air, leaned back, and pulled the ball into my chest just as the cornerback slammed me out of bounds. I rolled on the hard turf, cradling the ball. I’d gained fifteen yards.
It was first down on their ten-yard line. Through the snow, I could see the lightbulbs of the scoreboard: 0:58. We had one time-out left.
Madden called Addison’s number on runs, twice in a row, but they were keying on him, and with the slippery field, we couldn’t move the pile. No yards.
On third down, Madden tried a pitchout wide to Anthony, who ducked under a kid’s swipe but got shoved out of bounds on the six-yard line.
Madden called our last time-out with eleven seconds left. It had come down to one play. All or nothing.
I looked over to the Essex bench. The other team was screaming its lungs out. In the grandstand behind them, the visiting crowd was on its feet.
On the Oakhurst hillside, the cheers had blended into a single roar. In front of our bench, Ward was waving frantically with his clipboard for Madden to come over and get the play.
But Madden wasn’t going anywhere. He turned his back on Ward and called us together for the final play of the season.
“Okay, Lefferts, the first pass I ever threw you is gonna be the same as the last pass I’ll ever throw you: down and in. Hold on to it. That O’Doul kid’s gonna cream you. Pretend it’s Zowitzki in that first practice. Piece of cake, right?”
Piece of cake. I knew I’d make the catch. Everything had been leading to this: one play, everything on the line. This play belonged to me.
Or did it?
All of a sudden, I knew what the real, unseen tip of fluky fate had to be.
“No,” I said.
“What?” Madden said.
Ten sets of eyes fixed me in their stares.
“Martin,” I said.
Madden couldn’t believe it. “Lefferts, what the hell are you doing?”
“This one belongs to Will,” I said. I turned to number eighty-five. “It’s your last play here, and it wins a championship. You already told me this is your day, remember?”
Martin smiled at Madden. “You heard the man,” Will said.
Madden stared at us both. Then he said, “Okay. What’s it going to be?”
“That linebacker’s gonna blitz you,” he said. “So we have to do this quick. Jack and I flank wide, side by side, me to the outside. Jack breaks first, drifts to the sideline, draws the corner with him. I cross in behind him. The safety will be on me, but get it to me quick enough, high enough, it’ll work.”
Madden looked at Will. Then he looked at me. Then he nodded. “Martin on a slant, on one,” said Madden. “Break.”
Eleven pairs of hands clapped as one.
We broke the huddle. Will and I trotted to our positions. As Madden called the signals, Will and I looked at each other. We both nodded. This was it.
Madden took the snap. I broke to the outside, and the corner followed me, just like Will said he would. Will took off toward the middle behind me. I turned just in time to take it all in.
The Essex linebacker had broken through our line on a blitz, and he was twisting Madden down by his legs. But as he fell, Madden zipped the ball—fast, rising, a rope.
Will reached up and pulled it in.
The safety slammed into the big kid’s thighs, flipping him. Will fell to the ground—and cradled the ball with both hands to his chest.
Touchdown. Championship.
I was the first one to reach him. We were engulfed, swarmed under a pile of limbs and bodies, rolling around as one, to the tune of the roar of the hillside. Sweet, sweet music.
As I untangled, I looked over at our sideline. Bruno’s fist was thrust in the air. High. It stayed there. For everyone to see.
On the sideline, Ward was whooping, darting from player to player, pounding helmets, slapping butts.
Clune was hugging about a dozen different Dorchester homies.
Will’s family—Guillermo’s family—was dancing.
Zowitzki, with no one left to hit, was on his knees, pounding his helmet into the ground like a hammer, again and again, a kid possessed: “Yeah! Yeah!”
Thorn was lying a few yards away, doing nutsoid snow angels.
Madden was carrying Lucy over his shoulder, like a caveman with his woman, while she pounded his back with her fists, happy as hell.
Now Bruno was sitting on the bench. Alone. Leaning back with his arms spread, and smiling. I was anxious to get up onto the hillside. But I had to know. I sat down next to him and pulled off my helmet.
“Hell of a game, Jack,” he said shaking my hand. “Congratulations. Next year that’ll be you catching that pass.”
“Congrats to you, Mr. Bruno. Hey, can I ask you something?”
He slowly turned to look at me, and I could see near-tears gathered in the crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes. Maybe this championship meant more to him than any of us. “Shoot.”
“Did you know about the juicers?”
He looked back at the field and the celebrations, and nodded. “I had a feeling a few weeks in. Then, when we got Zowitzki’s liver scan back, that more or less sealed it. But his numbers are low. He should be all right—as long as he gets off them. Which he will. And so will the others.”
“But why didn’t you stop it early on?”
He was silent, his expression calm. It was the look of a guy at peace with himself. I didn’t want to ask the next question, the obvious one: Had he ignored it to win the title?
He’d read my mind. He looked back at the field. “Not so we’d win games, son. Trust me on that one. And don’t think I didn’t give it some real thought. But for one thing, I knew it was a handful of them, and that if I called them out on it, they wouldn’t listen. Kids don’t. They’ll do the opposite of what we tell them. That’s how you guys are wired.
“Plus, we didn’t have any kind of real testing procedures in place. If I’d made Mancini piss in a cup, it’d have been two weeks at the earliest if we used a legit lab. Even then, the results could have been flawed. And there’s stuff out there no one’s got the tests for. More every year. On top of which, truth is, they may make you stronger, but they don’t make you better. Bottom line?” He looked at me. “What is it they say in the Bible? ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone’?”
It took a second for that one to sink in. “You mean, you . . .”
He nodded. “You must’ve heard about my incident back in the day. Normal coaches don’t slug their kids. Rage coaches do.”
But he wasn’t even a player. Coaches?
He read my mind again. “It was a big thing in D-III, back in the Alleghenies. Coal-country football. In our league, whoever could scream loudest and coached like a madman won the most games. That’s how I used to coach. With a little help from the same stuff my players took.”
It was almost all too much to take in. “But then shouldn’t you have warned—”
“Wasn’t my place,” he said. “Education isn’t about lectures or threats. It’s about teaching how to learn. They’ll learn when they’re ready. Not before. Zowitzi wasn’t ready to learn. Me, I learned a lot of things. Like when to turn it on, and when to let it be. You’re learning. I think you know that. And don’t worry. Next year’s team won’t have any Zowitzkis—even if Williamton and Essex will be just as juiced as always. Now, get out of here. Your friends are waiting for you.”
He slapped my thigh-pad. I stood up. “And one more thing, Jack. Zowitzki and Addison and Thorn and Mancini didn’t win this trophy. You and Anthony and Will and Clune did. Have a nice Thanksgiving. See you in class.”
• • •
And then, up on the hillside, I was surrounded.
“Nice game, number eighty-eight,” said Caroline. “You’re a star.” I had to fight back the impulse to kiss her.
Seo Woon ruffled my hair. Josh said, “Pretty cool, dude. But they shoulda thrown you that last pass.”
Sam said, “That was exciting. Who won?”
• • •
There was bedlam in the locker room—shouts echoing out of the showers, kids tossing equipment at one another. I sat in front of my locker, still in full uniform, letting the joy soak in.
“That was a big-time move, Lefferts,” said Clune, holding out a meaty paw. “Couldn’t believe it when you said it. That’s gotta be a first-timer for old Oak.”
“Not bad for a couple of JVs!” Garver shouted, high-fiving me. “Can you believe this?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I can believe it. I can definitely believe it.”
Will drifted over and offered me a firm handshake. “I owe you, little man. Big time. You know you’re looking at being captain next year, right?”
Next year? “I just figured we had a better chance throwing the ball to our best receiver,” I said. “Someone who’d been there before.”
“Well,” he said, “now it’s your turn. Tonight’s the real pressure, right? Clune told me what to do.” He grinned. “Look out, Oak-land.”
“You sure you want to do this?” I said. “We’re all gonna catch some major shit.”
“We’ve got your back,” Martin said. “No worries. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. You just better play your asses off.”