Diego the Tornado

by Joachim Masannek

  If we had all that, we wouldn’t be just a bunch of ball-kicking little kids with supersize dreams, attracting Giacomo Ribaldo’s ridicule and Fabio’s contempt. No, we’d be a team even the Furies would have to take seriously.

  “What’s the verdict?” I finished. “You think we can do it?”

  “Of course we can!” Kevin answered. “Yes, but where are we going to practice?” Tyler threw in. “What about Larry? You forgot about Larry, Diego.” “No, I didn’t!” I answered. “I think this is exactly what Larry wants us to do. Get back on the warpath.”

  Tyler’s face burst into a huge smile and Kevin whistled.

  “You got that right,” he said and high-fived me.

  “All’s well that ends well,” he smiled.

  “No,” I grinned, “all’s well as long as you’re wild.”

  The others joined in. From that moment on, that would be our slogan. The slogan that marked the Wild Soccer Bunch.

  Never Give Up!

  We were busy the next few days. First, we needed a name. That was a no-brainer. We were the Wild Soccer Bunch. Both Kevin and Tyler were into the European teams who would always add a couple of letters to the ends of their names, like F.C. They thought it would be great if we had some letters at the end of our name too. “They call it an acronym,” he said, and we all agreed.

  But what?

  Tyler nailed it immediately: “a.u.” “A.U.?” Kevin asked.

  “No caps,” Tyler grinned. “The Wild Soccer Bunch a.u. “

  “I heard you, I have ears!” Kevin spat. “I’m asking you, what does ‘a.u.’ mean?”

  “Don’t you get it?” Tyler grinned. He loved teasing his brother, especially when he was boneheaded about something.

  “It means, ‘always united!’”

  Kevin whistled. “The Wild Soccer Bunch always united I have to admit, that is tight!”

  But then he furrowed his brow.

  “You don’t think it’s too much? I mean, if we won’t be together one day …?”

  “Heck we will!!” Tyler said. “And anyway, nobody but us is going to know what it means. Even you didn’t get it.”

  He smiled at Kevin, who really wanted to smack that demeaning grin off his face, but Tyler continued unfazed.

  “Listen. The a.u. will be our secret code to each other. It will give us power. Make sense?”

  “You are too much!” Kevin grinned, and so we all shook hands and agreed: we were officially the Wild Soccer Bunch a.u.

  Armed with a drawing pad and colored pencils, Tyler went off by himself to design our jersey, our logo, and our player contracts; he disappeared into the Camelot tower, which was really the upper floor of the tree house. We didn’t see or hear a peep out of him for two whole days, and he probably would have starved up there if it hadn’t been for Julian’s mother, who threw him some snacks and a drink every once in a while.

  Joey, Kyle, Danny, Alex, Josh, Julian, and Roger took off to find a sponsor. Divide and conquer was their motto, and so they paid a visit to every car lot and sporting goods store in the area, splitting into groups of two to cover more ground. They went off proudly, heads held high, eyes on their goal and hearts sure of their success. They argued over how many sponsors they’d find, and whether it was okay to advertise on one’s underwear.

  Kevin and I remained in our meeting room, preparing the Charter. We wracked our brains for two whole days until we finally nailed it.

  On the third day, we all reconvened in Camelot. We locked all the doors and windows and lit candles. Tyler stood in the center to show us his designs. His drawing was small, but fantastic. The jerseys were the one and only acceptable color: black as the night. The cleats were bright orange and the logo was a wild looking guy, simple and understated, like us. We were stoked. And we were even more excited about the player contracts. They looked like treasure maps, dark and mysterious. Naturally we signed them in fake blood. That was only fitting. Roger still had some left over from last Halloween. We even pretended it hurt, just to make it more real. After all, this was serious business. But first, Kevin and I read the rules of the Charter:

  Rule number 1: “Be wild!” And the reason for that was our slogan, which was set in stone in Rule number 2:

  “All’s well as long as you’re wild!”

  Rule 3: “Never give up!”

  Rule 4: “One for all and all for one.”

  And the last rule, Rule number 5: “Whoever leaves the Wild Soccer Bunch is a traitor.”

  It got real quiet after that. It was so quiet we could hear our neighbor down the street arguing with himself. Our rules were tough but fair, and they shaped us into a tight group where everyone mattered. We knew we could rely on each other unconditionally. There is nothing more important for a team. And with our jerseys, the contracts, and our Charter, we were more than just a team. We were a band of brothers, like the Three Musketeers or Robin Hood’s men. With one difference: we wouldn’t be fighting with swords or bows and arrows. We’d be fighting with a ball on the soccer field.

  Slowly and silently we all rose together. And then solemnly, we all signed the contract. Then we formed a circle, held each other by the shoulder and swore that everything we had decided upon on this day would hold forever. And we swore to it with an earth shattering

  “1-2-3 wild!”

  We only had to deal with one more minor detail. We had to choose the sponsor who’d pay for our jerseys. We looked to the seven who had gone out looking for sponsors. But they remained somber.

  “No sponsors,” they said, finally spitting it out. They were embarrassed and couldn’t look us in the eye. They said they had tried everything. They had been to every single car lot and sporting goods store from Bushnell to Michigan Avenue. They had visited gas stations, laundromats, and coffee shops. Everywhere they went no one took them seriously. Some were polite and friendly, but some were downright mean. The worst guy was this fast food drive-thru owner who looked like he ate most of the junk he sold; an evil blubbery guy twice the size of Mickey the bulldozer with a voice like a bear with a sore throat. “I’m never going to be Mr. America and you’re never going to be real soccer players.” He laughed and laughed and food flew out of his mouth and they got out of there as fast as their legs would take them.

  Kevin, Tyler, and I couldn’t believe it. We had been so close, and now this. Then Roger started squirming in his seat and shot his hand in the air, waving it wildly, wanting us to call on him like we were in school.

  “I may know a sponsor,” he blurted out, and everyone hung on his next words.

  “My uncle is a butcher,” Roger continued, “and I’m sure he’d happily support us if we put his logo on our shirts. If we did that, he’d even give us all the hot dogs we could eat, every time we played.”

  Roger then proudly pulled out a drawing of his uncle’s logo. It was a hot dog on two legs with a pig face.

  Silence.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Kevin hissed at him, but Roger remained firm.

  “We could uh… sell the hot dogs,” he said seriously.

  “Sure we could.” Kevin couldn’t believe it. “And we could call ourselves the Wild Soccer Wienies.”

  It took him a while, but Roger finally got the picture.

  He saw the horror in our faces and lowered his head, mortified. “Okay, so maybe we just don’t get any jerseys.”

  That wouldn’t work either, but Roger was right. My mother’s plan had failed. We’d never be a real team without jerseys.

  “Whoa, wait a second, we can’t bail now,” Danny protested. “We just violated Rule number 1: ‘Never give up!’ We all swore to that.”

  Danny was right, too. Like I told you, he always knows what to do. He always finds a way out. The word ‘impossible’ is not in his vocabulary. Luckily for us, he had a plan this time, too. “I know this guy,” he said. “We’ll go pay him a visit tomorrow. All we have to do is bring our piggy banks. And put some gel in our hair and wear our shades. That shou
ld do it.”

  We had no idea what he was talking about. But it was Danny, so it didn’t matter. With Danny, we had blind faith.

  An Offer You Can’t Refuse

  The next day after school we followed Danny into town. We all put gel in our hair and wore black sunglasses -we were looking real cool. Under our arms we carried our piggy banks, tin cans, pillow cases, hollowed-out stuffed animals or whatever we used to stash our allowance. We still had no idea what Danny was planning, not until we stood right in front of the bank. Alex’s father’s bank. It was as fancy as his house on Woodlawn Avenue.

  Alex didn’t even stop. He turned around on the spot and backtracked the way we came. He had no intention of dealing with his father’s bank. To be honest, none of us did.

  We were thinking about being grounded for life, the kind of punishment banks dish out for breaking windows. We all wanted to leave with Alex, but that didn’t work. Escape was impossible. Alex didn’t get far either.

  “Stop, Alex. Not another step!” Danny’s voice boomed and made Alex stop dead in his tracks.

  “We all swore to uphold our Charter. So rules number three, four and five are now in effect. You didn’t forget them already, did you?”

  Alex shook his head. He looked desperate as he inched his way further and further from us. Danny watched him for a few endless heartbeats. Then he said loudly, but calmly: “Rule number three: Never give up! Rule number 4: One for all and all for one. Rule number 5: Whoever leaves the Wild Soccer Bunch … is a traitor.”

  Alex took two more steps. Then he stopped and turned around, stared us down for a moment, then came back to the rest of us with his head hung low. Danny smiled. He waited until Alex stood right in front of him. Then he put his arm around his shoulder: “Alex, my man, it won’t be that bad. I promise, we’re not going to rob your dad’s bank.” He grinned. “We’re going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

  Then he turned to us.

  “Okay, and the rest of you, you’re going to do what you always do when you are as scared out of your mind as I am. You’re going to look cool. And leave the rest to me. Trust me, I know what I’m doing. My dad told me this story. How The Rolling Stones – one of the most famous rock bands in the world – got the best record deal in history.”

  We had no idea what he was talking about. Most of us never even heard of The Rolling Stones. And that was the beauty of the plan. We didn’t need to know. We just needed to look cool.

  Danny opened the door to the bank and started whistling again the song his father would always whistle whenever he was scared: ‘knock, knock, knocking on Heaven’s Door.’

  We were scared, all right, but we had no choice. we needed our jerseys.

  When we marched in, the bank clerks looked at us as if we were demented. I could totally understand. Roger stood next to me; his hair slicked back, shades low on his nose, a polka-dotted pillowcase full of allowance under his arm. I’m sure they never saw anyone like us before.

  The bank fell quiet in an instant and the only sound that broke the silence was Danny, whistling his tune. He looked from one clerk to the next, furrowed his brow, scratched his ear and finally let the whistle die down.

  Now it was really quiet and mortifying. But mortifying situations are Danny’s specialty. This was no exception, and as always, Danny dug out his irresistible smile.

  “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” he said with polite resolve. “You may not believe this, but we’d like to see the manager.”

  One of the clerks choked trying to hide his sense of alarm. He coughed and gagged and finally spat up an answer: “I’m sorry, but the manager is a very busy man.”

  “Aren’t we all,” Danny answered with confidence. “Why wouldn’t he be? He’s under a lot of pressure. Fortunately for all of us, we have an appointment.”

  “Oh really!” the clerk mocked us, looked at his colleagues and rolled his eyes. “An appointment with the manager?”

  “Precisely,” Danny responded, unfazed by the mockery. “I’m glad you’re able to keep up.”

  The clerk gagged again, gasped for air, and wanted to say something, but Danny cut him off. “Would you please be so kind and announce our presence?” Danny grinned. “Just tell the manager that the gentlemen from the W.S.B. a.u. have arrived.”

  The clerk was flabbergasted, but Danny’s determined smile didn’t allow any objections. The clerk obeyed and staggered into the manager’s office. And because the manager was also Alex’s dad, we were terrified.

  “Have you completely lost your mind?” I whispered. “What are you talking about, we don’t have an appointment!”

  “Incorrect, Diego, my man,” Danny smiled. “I called Alex’s dad yesterday explaining that our company wanted to settle right here in this fair city.”

  “I see. And which company would that be?” I asked.

  “Why, the Wild Soccer Bunch, of course,” Danny answered. “I just used a slightly abbreviated version of our name – W.S.B. a.u. kapiche?”

  “And he bought it?”

  “Yes. Well, I disguised my voice, of course. Like this .” Danny dropped his voice an octave. “You know, Mr. Alexander, there are several banks we are looking at, but.”

  “But.?” I interrupted impatiently.

  “Long story short, he cancelled three appointments to meet with us. I’m telling you, he can’t wait to meet us. Check him out!” Danny grinned.

  Alex’s father stormed from his office, his back still turned towards us while he read his employee the riot act.

  “I don’t care for your behavior one bit, Mr. Weber. Your attitude is detrimental to our business. Of course I’ll meet with the gentlemen from the W.S.B. a.u.”

  With that, he spun on his heel with a big grin plastered across his face. And then he saw us, and froze in place, his jaw slack.

  “Weber!” he yelled. “What is happening here?”

  We froze, too, and wanted nothing more than to blend into the marble floor. Josh fussed with his stuffed animal and Roger chewed on his pillowcase. But Danny was unfazed. He was one cool dude.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Alexander!” he said with a voice too deep for his size, grinned, and then spoke in his normal boy’s voice. “It’s very generous of you, indeed, to spare a moment of your precious time. Come on, guys,” he said, and then he marched right into the manager’s office.

  We followed him with buckling knees. Alex’s father was the last to slip into his office, closing the door behind him.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he hissed. “Do you realize who I am? I can’t imagine what my employees are thinking of me right now!”

  We flinched, but Danny stayed cool.

  “Why Mr. Alexander, that’s exactly why we’re here,” he smiled. “But first I have to explain a few things. Why don’t you take a seat? All we need is ten minutes of your time. I promise we’ll have an agreement by then.”

  Alex’s father gasped for air. I cringed, expecting him to spit fire and burn us to a crisp, but instead of blowing us away, Alex’s father was hypnotized by

  Danny’s irresistible smile and did as he was told, sat right down behind his desk.

  “All right. Ten minutes. Not a second more.” Danny didn’t waste any time. He told him the whole story, about Fabio, Ribaldo, and Larry, who had doomed us to hell, and the game we had to play against the Furies. He told him about our soccer club, the contracts and the Charter, and the urgent need for our own jersey. He explained that jerseys were necessary for the Furies to take us seriously, but that we were caught in a serious dilemma. We needed sponsors to buy us the soccer gear, but the sponsors needed us to win a big victory before they could justify plunking down their cold hard cash for our soccer gear. That, Danny explained, was why we were there, at the bank, and in his office.

  Danny paused dramatically and Alex’s father leaned back behind his huge desk. For a second, we thought Danny had impressed him. But instead, Alex’s father looked at his watch and said: “That w
as eight minutes. You have two left.”

  Danny took a deep breath. Then he said simply: “Ok. You’re right. Let’s get down to business. I have three estimates for the soccer gear. One seems reasonable. $800. We have $400. Guys, piggy banks on the table.” We all slapped our banks on the table and the office sounded like a line of slot machines going off.

  “You will fund the rest, and by you, I mean your bank, but only until we play the game. For the game, we invite all potential sponsors, especially those who didn’t believe in us. After our victory, they will be stepping all over themselves to cover out debts.”

  Danny paused again and waited for the adulation, but Alex’s father only looked at the mountain of piggy banks, tin cans, cigar boxes, hollowed out stuffed animals and pillowcases on his desk.

  “And what if you lose?” he asked coldly.

  “Well, there is … that risk,” Danny smiled politely. “There’s never a deal without a risk.” We all smiled and nodded dumbly.

  Alex’s father smiled, too.

  “You have one more minute. But I might as well tell you right now: that’s no risk, it’s a death sentence.”

  Danny nodded, and thought for a moment.

  “I see, I understand,” he said. “I really do.”

  But then he sighed deeply.

  “But we have to come to an agreement anyway. You know, we don’t want to be cruel or anything, but we really have no choice. We need the soccer gear . And so, it is my duty to remind you of your employees. I can imagine they’re out there making fun of you right now, as we speak, because you’ve been negotiating with us for quite a long time. What would they say if they knew your son broke two living room windows and you never punished him, and all because your daughter was dancing like an insane cheerleader? Do you really believe that would nurture your managerial authority?”