12 Yards Out

by Javi Reddy

  6 October 2013. The present

  It was James’ turn to hold Jay’s hand and crouch over him like a concerned parent, as the boy trembled once more on the couch, in Morningside.

  Jay eyed him, fatigued. It was frightening how much the nightmare still scared him even at the mere mention of it. Layla walked in with a bowl of soup. “Chicken soup! That’ll help you get your strength back,” James winked at him.

  “Actually, it’s vegetable soup which is still good for him.”

  “Sure, sure. You vegans all try to force your filthy, healthy habits on us. Shame on you.”

  “Mmmm, this is actually not bad,” Jay marvelled at Layla’s latest dish.

  “Let me see for myself.”

  James blew away the steam and took a spoonful. Layla and Jay waited for him to respond, both their jaws slightly ajar in anticipation.

  “Well, it’s not all that ghastly. Almost as good as something with meat in it. But why do you always cook with so many leaves?”

  James removed something green from his mouth. “Flavour, darling. Don’t be so bland.”

  Jay wolfed down the bowl and caught James staring at him. “What?”

  “Nothing. Well, it’s just that we’ve come a long way since that day you attacked me, in the back garden. I wanted to say that I’m glad we’re okay now. We are okay, aren’t we?”

  Jay took another gulp of the soup.

  “He was so scared. I think, he wet his trousers,” Jay told Layla, with his mouth full.

  “Cheeky! Want a rematch?”

  “I don’t want you to pull your back, old man.”

  “He is a dirty old man, isn’t he?” Layla laughed and pinched one of James’ cheeks.

  James shrugged his shoulders and made funny faces at them. After yet another splendid meal, Layla broke the unwelcoming news that they needed to go shopping. All that was really left in her pantry were two packets of Cheese & Onion Mini-Cheddars, a single sachet of Royco Country Vegetable Cup of Soup and a rather questionable naartjie1. Not even Layla could come up with some sort of culinary marvel with those ingredients at her disposal.

  “I’ll go. I’ll be back in under an hour,” Layla gripped her car keys and made for the door. “No. If you’re alone, Vinny could easily get to you.”

  Jay agreed with James.

  “So? He could have gotten to me all this while, but he hasn’t.”

  “Yes, but what is the point in giving him an easier chance?”

  “You keep answering my question with a question.”

  “Let me come with you.”

  “And leave Jay here, alone? I hardly think that plan’s any wiser.”

  “Actually, he should go with you.”

  Both Layla and James swung their heads towards Jay.

  “Well, like I was saying before, Vinny can’t really do anything to me. He doesn’t have the antler pendant, so he can’t dispose of me just yet.”

  “That’s very commendable of you,” James moved over to him and began massaging Jay’s shoulders, “But we need you in one piece, superstar. In all likelihood, he won’t kill you. But if he hurts you in any way, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “You can either babble on about it or you can follow her.”

  “Huh?”

  Layla had already made her way out through the front door. James could hear the coughing of the Toyota’s engine. He looked at Jay, astonished.

  “That look is becoming all too familiar. How are you going to keep her safe like that?” James made for the front door.

  “How am I going to stop her from running me over outside?”

  “You shouldn’t answer a question with a question!”

  Jay’s voice drowned out as James scurried down the driveway, daring to step out into the world with a lady who no longer feared it in the same way he did.

  * * *

  Naartjie – Citrus fruit grown in South Africa↩

  Chapter 25

  6 October 2013. 10:29 AM

  James and Layla streaked through the Johannesburg roads, darting across Rivonia Road before turning onto Sandton Drive and then, finally, dashing onto William Nicol Drive. The large Staffords retail chain was present throughout the continent, but Layla knew that the small Staffords store in Randburg would be the best place to visit, with it being fairly secluded. “Shouldn’t we make a list?”

  “Oh, so you do have an urge to write something again?”

  “You know there is such a thing as writers’ block. It exists, I promise.”

  “There’s also a thing called laziness.”

  James rolled his eyes.

  “Maybe, I should have stayed with Jay.”

  She kissed him and he slipped away from reality once more. He soon realised that neither of them had their eyes on the road.

  “Geez, woman! Focus!”

  He carefully helped her steer the car back onto the proper side of the road.

  “I’m sorry love,” she told him. “I know we haven’t had much time to be together recently. But we must be there for Jay. Once we sort this out, we can have our life together. The one we deserve.”

  James skimmed his finger across her hand. “What are you trying to say?”

  “I mean, let’s try. We have to try to get Amritha back for Jay and then, we have to try for ourselves. This has all made me realise that I’ve wasted so much time. I’m not saying that I want to be Mrs Tait. But I don’t want to live a life without being with you.”

  James couldn’t help but beam. This roller coaster period in his life kept turning up highs and lows that would drive any man insane. Luckily, he had already felt insane before the roller coaster turned up. He caught a whiff of a chance in the air. A chance that everything could come together. He’d get a job, and he and Layla would move in together. And Jay would have their love—the love they’d give to him as if he were their own. All three of them would start lives again. No, all four—they would get Amritha back.

  James kissed her cheek and it wasn’t lust. It was so much more. The Staffords was as they hoped it would be, dead quiet. They playfully pushed their trolley together down the aisles as newlyweds do so, when buying groceries together for the first time. He liked pepper, she liked chilli. He wanted mayonnaise, she reached for salad dressing. It was about compromise. James, like any other man with good sense, knew it was really about letting her win. And then using that as a bargaining chip when she put him into the doghouse.

  Layla paid for the groceries and that would be enough to emasculate most men. But it motivated him to get that job and to be someone for her. She even bought him cigarettes. He was in the company of soul-mate material. James carried the bags to the car and Layla skipped along with him, her arm wrapped in his. They noticed a big poster outside, pasted to the wall which read: STAFFORDS. PROUD SPONSOR OF THE GAUTENG HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL CUP.

  James stopped and gazed at it for a while. The poster was tattered and rain had moistened it, so that the ink had faded.

  “Are you okay, dear?” Layla locked her arms around his shoulders from the back. “I’m fine. I was just thinking about the first time I came to see Rosebank play…”

  24 August 2013. The semi-final

  So, this was high school. A far cry from James’ extra-mural activities as a pupil, which often consisted of passing a cigarette around at the back of the cricket nets, whilst each of his mates took a turn at kicking an empty can of soda around. This was what school football had become. A rock concert. Palpable expectation flooded the air as everyone squeezed themselves into the grounds. Anyone with Rosebank ties had pitched up for the semi-final. James recognised the butcher from Rosebank Meats as well as one of the firemen from the station, opposite the mall. This was the people’s team.

  There were only a few stands for spectators to sit on. The rest gathered alongside the pitch, standing snugly together with their flags and their banners.

  “Big game I’m assuming?”

  “No, dear. Big season.”

 
Layla was holding a white and blue flag, waving it joyously towards the sky with a swift flick of her wrist and a child-like excitement in her heart.

  “So, if this has been the type of crowd throughout the season, why don’t they put more stands out for people to sit on?” James pondered.

  “Are your feet hurting, princess?”

  The crowd continued to generate noise in the background. “It’s done on purpose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The more people can cram themselves in together like this, the better chance we have of creating the ‘Rosebank Rumble’.”

  “The what, now?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The opposition team led out first, in black and yellow kits. Pretoria High looked as though their rugby first team were storming out onto the field. Every single player was broad shouldered and had bulging muscles that threatened to tear through their kit. Even their shorter players were not small, but rather stocky in nature.

  “This is a damn physical team. They won’t give Rosebank much time on the ball. I just hope we don’t pick up any serious injuries if we make it to the final.”

  James looked to the side. He thought that the scrawny man with a few teeth missing and his trucker cap sitting snugly on his head, was talking to Layla. Clearly, he was addressing James, as his beady eyes searched for an answer.

  “Erm, ja you’re right. Go Rosebank!”

  The scrawny man wriggled away to the front for a clearer view. Layla giggled. “Each game becomes more important. Each victory is a stepping-stone towards a world that they’ve been dreaming of for so long here.”

  “So much for doing your homework after school.”

  Everyone started stamping the ground twice, then clapping. They kept that movement going at a slow and steady pace. Why had Layla made him join this cult? The movement slowly started to quicken. The earth beneath him began to quake and James felt his heartbeat gradually accelerating. Without thinking, he joined in the stamping and clapping. Then, a deafening roar emanated from the crowd.

  Rosebank’s team boldly took to the field as they were ushered in with the ‘Rumble’. It was electric, and James was part of it. The belief within this auditorium of mass energy and delirium had shifted towards his slouching shoulders and had surged him upwards.

  Rosebank moved the ball slickly. They also took up intelligent positions off the ball that were not easy for Pretoria to track. Pretoria were fit though. Super-fit. They did not stop running and being tired was not an option for their players. Ironically, their coach was a skinny man with a tracksuit jacket that was two sizes too big for him. But his presence was anything but minor. He boisterously made himself heard from the sideline as he barked out orders in Afrikaans: “Vang hom! Hardloop, vinniger!1”

  They were well organised, keeping their shape with an unwavering discipline. What they lacked in skill, they more than made up for in orderliness. Rosebank continued to spray the ball around and every time it came to Jay, James could feel the crowd halt their breathing ever so slightly—a boy who slowed down the gravity around his supporters as they floated around his majestic abilities. James couldn’t believe that this was the boy he’d seen, struggling to keep it together on Layla’s floor, days earlier. No bad dreams today—only nightmares for those trying to stop him from getting to goal. He called for the ball when his teammates looked for an option. And he ran with it when no one else wanted to be the option. James, finally, saw Jay Chetty.

  The semi-final had become explosive, with Pretoria making themselves felt. They tackled hard, with steel in their challenges. The Rosebank boys had no answer. As long as the ball was won properly, it did not matter how it felt on their bodies. Some members of the home team were even beginning to lose their confidence. With each tackle made, Rosebank feared running with the ball. But not Jay. Pretoria couldn’t tackle him. He kept running at them, but the keeper had been equal to most of his attempts on goal.

  The one time Jay had beaten him, the underside of the crossbar came to Pretoria’s rescue. The crowd roared to convince the ref that the ball had crossed the line, but the man in the middle kept his cool and rightly ruled it as no goal. The game looked as though it would be heading into half-time as a stalemate. Then, one of the Rosebank midfielders got absolutely smashed in the middle of the park by a Pretoria player, who clearly did not win the ball. The ref was about to blow the whistle and issue the first card of the game, when Jay collected the ball that had ricocheted out to him.

  He ran with it towards the Pretoria goal. The ref, with his lips on the whistle, did not blow. He held his hands out to play an advantage for the home side. Two defenders darted towards him, but Jay had a good enough lead over them. There was just one left in front of him to beat. That defender went to ground to make a slide tackle, but Jay chipped the ball over his leg. He was in on goal.

  The keeper stayed on his line, trying something different, anything that could thwart Rosebank’s number seven. Jay buried the ball anyway. He went low and hard, to the keeper’s right, for anything high would have probably been tipped over by the tall, athletic stopper. As the ball crashed against the net, so too did one of the chasing defender’s studs into Jay’s right ankle. His momentum could not stop him from colliding into Jay. But Rosebank’s number seven’s adrenaline would not stop him from getting up and peeling away to the crowd to celebrate.

  The ground erupted like Vesuvius and James himself indulged in the frenzy that had besieged him. Everyone hugged anyone. Strangers embraced each other through their universal pleasure. James felt like he had the best seat in the house. Jay ran over to hug Layla when he scored and somehow James got dragged into it as well. Layla’s camera could not take a picture of the three of them locked in what could only be described as an immortal click, but James kept the memory stored, deep in his mind.

  The half-time whistle sounded and the teams peeled off to their respective coaches. Coach Zondi offered his boys words of encouragement, patting them on the back of their heads as they made their way off the field and into a huddle. Pretoria’s coach looked as though he wanted to wallop his players. He yelled at them with a combination of Afrikaans swear words that were streaming out at a blistering pace. James wondered whether the boys even knew what he was mouth-blasting at them. The words were irrelevant. The coach’s tone left the message. ‘Wake up and wake up NOW.’

  Truthfully, it wasn’t a bad performance from Pretoria. No side could be labelled a disgrace if they finished second to this Rosebank team. If not for the resilience from the Pretoria soldiers, Rosebank’s artists would surely have been further ahead by now. The Pretoria boys were slightly apprehensive after their coach’s scathing attack, but they were not in the least bit tired. James looked over to Rosebank’s team circle and many of them had their hands on their knees and were breathing heavily, as their coach gave them their orders for the second half.

  A gruelling season was finally creeping into their fitness levels. Jay stood up straight like a pin and maintained eye contact with his coach the whole while. The second half got under way, and James cheered as loudly as he could. He was now as much a part of the ‘Rosebank Rumble’ or any other form of Rosebank racket that spurred the boys on. Pretoria started to move the ball a little better than they had done so in the first half. Earlier on, they were clumsy and over-ran it when going forward. Now, they started making better passes in the final third and the Rosebank keeper was forced into action on a few occasions. It wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. He was theatrically making the saves as he’d been bored stiff in the first half. He’d probably wished that he hadn’t been so foolish.

  From a resulting corner, one of Pretoria’s towering centre-backs headed past the stranded goalkeeper into an empty net. Pretoria had scored. The split-second of shattering silence was promptly accompanied by a roar of approval from the home crowd. The ref had blown for a foul on one of Rosebank’s defenders who had been mounted illegally in the build up to the Pretoria boy’s jump
. No goal. It was the sort of kick up the rump the home side needed.

  They’d switched off since the start of the second half. After that, normal service resumed. Rosebank started to dribble better and ran at the Pretoria boys a lot more. Pretoria were finally showing signs of fatigue and Rosebank—both the players and the supporters—smelt blood. It was surely only a matter of time before the second goal would come.

  Two minutes later, Keith beat two defenders on the far right who he’d haplessly left behind. The final ball that he put into the box wasn’t his best. It was too low and slightly behind everyone. Jay, with his home crowd behind him and his sheer determination pressing him forward, was sprinting towards the box. He flung himself at it and he meant it. He did not close his eyes and gamble. It was a calculated plummet, a measure of a boy who had a total oneness with his surroundings. He crept over the ball like an Olympic athlete and met it with the perfect touch to caress it on the half-volley past the despairing Pretoria keeper. He raced towards the boy who had crossed it, to embrace him. Two boys fighting the fight for their local team. And it meant the world to them when that goal went in.

  The noise levels had become deafening once more. James was doing his part to be heard. He had never made this much noise…sober. It was an unusual pleasure he had found flowing through him. There were ten minutes left. Ten minutes that separated Rosebank from a historic appearance at Ace Sports Arena. The scarves were being waved around the grounds. The heavens had been embellished with blue and white Catherine Wheels as the crowd spun them around feverishly.

  Whilst Rosebank were living off their latest high, Pretoria moved the ball upfield. One of their strikers was given a little space by Rosebank. He was fairly far out from goal, possibly even 25 yards, but he still had space to shoot. It was a thunderous shot, hit more out of desperation than anything else, yet the goalkeeper was clearly caught out. He woefully tried to scuffle backwards to tip the ball over, but it was all in vain. The crowd were instantly hushed and even the striker’s teammates were a little astonished when the ball crashed into the back of the net. It took them a few seconds to realise that they were now just a goal away again.