But that wasn’t enough, because now Coach Ray was thinking about Gerard Brown and this never-ending shit storm that flared up whenever the fuck it wanted to, like right now, when he had some pussy with an iPad and a backpack standing in his locker room with that too many of our young men can pass a football but not a test smirk on his face. During the homecoming game.
Coach Ray knew he was supposed to have reported the Gerard Brown incident as soon as he’d heard about it. He hadn’t. It wasn’t like it was the first time a football player had gotten a girl pregnant. But then, when the player happened to be nineteen and the girl turned out to be fourteen, it suddenly didn’t matter that the girl dressed the way she did, and hung out next to the locker-room door, and did football players’ homework and a whole lot more, if the rumors were true. It was the player who lost his scholarships and became a registered sex offender. And yeah, the girl got called some names and had to change schools because people were threatening her, and Coach Ray could admit that the whole thing was a shit show for everyone involved. Still, he didn’t feel bad for pretending he knew nothing when the cops and news crews showed up. Whatever happened back in March had, in Coach Ray’s mind, existed in a gray area where the answers were different for men who did the world’s dangerous jobs—men who, unlike Daren Grant, would understand that coaches did not throw their players to the dogs.
Ray stepped closer to Rigby, until his mouth was just inches from the player’s nose. “You want to play Division One, right? And I’m talking to all these recruiters for you. What do you want me to tell them? He can’t play when girls are around?”
“No, Coach.” Rigby was saying the right things, but there was limpness to the exchange. Maybe it was that Rigby knew he was too good a player to take out of the game. Coach Ray wasn’t one of those coaches who would sacrifice a win just to teach a player a lesson. But, no, it wasn’t that. It was as if Rigby, or maybe the whole team, saw Coach Ray trying to talk like some… lady to avoid offending this newcomer.
Coach Ray tried to lock back in, looking hard at each player before he spoke. He’d learned from his own coaches that silence, when used properly, could intimidate better than yelling.
But there was no silence. Instead, there was the voice of Daren Grant, who on top of everything else was one of those high-efficiency talkers who felt the need to fill every pause. Apparently, he’d taken the moment not as a tactic but as a sign that the coach had run out of things to say and had decided to come to his aid. “The important thing is to do your best out there, guys! And remember, there’s more to life than football.”
Someone was gonna have to teach this kid something. Nobody talked to a team that belonged to another coach. In the locker room. During a homecoming game. When the team was down by twelve points.
Coach Ray imagined using Daren Grant to demonstrate the type of banned tackling technique that would have been flagged as a personal foul during a game. Then, just as quickly, he rechanneled his anger. Inner game face. In high school he’d learned that the best way to get the ball into the end zone was to push forward, blocking out all thought, until he heard nothing but the wind around his helmet—until it seemed as if he were moving full speed while everyone around him followed in slow motion. The kid wanted to see how the team worked? Well, let him see why the Killer Armadillos were an undefeated team. Let him type anything he wanted into that fucking tablet.
Coach Ray turned his attention to his players, ignoring Daren Grant’s comment as if it were a nonissue that had non-happened. “You better get ready to knock the shit out of them, or we ain’t done here.” He leaned his full weight on the word shit. Nobody was coming into his locker room and making him afraid to talk. “This is not motherfucking camp. This is not motherfucking cheerleading practice. If I see you going easy out there, I am personally whooping your asses, you hear me?”
“Yes, Coach!” Ray’s infusion of anger had pumped the team back up.
The Yes, Coach snapped Coach Ray fully back into himself. He’d found some of these boys in middle school, had gotten them addresses, still drove some of them home after practice. He’d spent hours in the kitchen of Jefferson Jean’s un-air-conditioned apartment, convincing his mother that even after the concussion, football could be Jefferson’s ticket to where she wanted him to go. And he’d glimpsed the heavy home life that weighed on O’Neal Rigby’s shoulder pads. These boys knew that there was no almost in football. There was no Just do your best. Football was a yes-or-no game, and the men who played it right weren’t afraid of pain. They were afraid of losing.
“I dare y’all to come to me talking about you did your best,” said Coach Ray. He wanted Daren Grant to understand how far he stood outside the bond between player and coach. “Now go out there and play like you want this. We’re not gonna do our best. We’re gonna pound these motherfuckers!”
With that, the players swarmed like hornets onto the lit field. When the first drive after halftime ended in an Armadillos touchdown, and when the kicker nailed the extra point that followed, Rigby didn’t even acknowledge the girls on the sidelines. The whole team remained as steadfast as Jefferson Jean. One wave of young men after another crashed into the opposing players with all their might.
It was the other team relaxing now. One of their star defensive players even had the audacity to blow a kiss to a girl in the bleachers, palming the lower half of his face mask and then extending his arm, spreading his fingers as if flinging his team’s chance of victory into the wind.
Or at least that might as well have been it, because right after that, their receiver dropped a perfectly good pass on third down, and from there it became anybody’s game. Bodies leaned forward from the lit stands. Coach Ray yelled from the sidelines, the rush of blood in his ears drowning out his own voice.
Finally, with less than a minute left on the scoreboard, Jefferson raised his mighty throwing arm and sent the ball sailing. Rigby jumped, catching it right between two defenders. The crowd exploded as Rigby crossed into the end zone with the ball under his arm, then got even louder as he made a dramatic show of placing it gently on the ground, pretending to pack dirt around it as if planting a football tree.
But Rigby wasn’t done. He raised his arms to the sky, turning slowly to face each section of the stands. The cheering grew. There were still a few seconds left on the scoreboard, but not enough to do anything that mattered. Rigby reveled in the moment until Jean and the rest of the team reached him, crashing into one another with happiness so intense it looked almost like rage. The excitement flared upward into the stands. Swarms of people jumped and shrieked and hugged and ran onto the field in celebration.
A burst of nostalgia mixed with Coach Ray’s pride. This was another thing that nonplayers like Daren Grant could never understand: wasn’t nothin’ better than being a star football player, on a winning team, in a town that loves football.
By the time the players had showered and changed out of their uniforms, most of the fans were gone. Dr. Barrios and a whole lineup of teachers had stopped by with congratulations, but then they, too, had drifted away. The players who lived nearby walked home with friends or family members. And Daren Grant hadn’t showed his face again since halftime, though Coach Ray sure did hope he’d seen the show.
In the end, the glowing field was empty. Only Jean, Rigby, and two other players remained. These were the players whose families lived too far, or worked too much, or missed games for other reasons that never got discussed. But for the moment, the boys were bursting with triumph. They joked, bragged, and cheerfully insulted one another as they climbed into Coach Ray’s truck for the long ride home.
THE NUMBERS
“CSOTD AND…?” Dr. Barrios reached into his memory, grasping for clues to what the letters might stand for. He sometimes suspected Mr. Scamphers, who was nearly bouncing in his chair on the other side of the big desk, made up these confusing acronyms as he went along.
“RBBPTWOTD. Research-Based Best Practice That Works of the Day. I’m creating form
s for teachers to chart each student’s progress on the CSOTDs and track which RBBPTWOTDs they’re using.”
Okay. So CSOTD stood for Curriculum Standard of the Day. And Mr. Scamphers was creating additional paperwork. All was as expected.
In the other chair, Mrs. Rawlins withdrew a small bottle of lotion from her purse. “My question,” she said, squeezing a dot of the lotion into her palm, “is why none of the teachers ask these low-performing kids why they’re failing. When a student comes into my office, I say, How you doing in your classes, son? How is everything at home? That’s all the best practices I need.”
Mr. Scamphers, who was as tightly wound as the spring on a mousetrap, was eager to clamp down on any initiative that scrambled close enough. Mrs. Rawlins, on the other hand, had the relaxed demeanor of someone just waiting for the world to catch up with her simple, commonsense solutions. Now, having shortened Mr. Scamphers’s acronym to a phrase of her own choosing, she massaged the lotion slowly into her hands as if they were sore from the effort of keeping things so simple and commonsense.
The two assistant principals resented each other, annoyed Dr. Barrios, and were blights upon the teachers of the school. Yet he needed them more than ever right now. The fearsome Office for Oversight of Binders and Evidence of Implementation was sending their people for a midyear audit.
Or maybe people was not the right term. Auditors from the OBEI office showed little interest in human-style interaction. It was not clear whether this was an actual requirement or a by-product of the personality needed for the job, whose level of tedium no ordinary mortal could bear. OBEI officers tunneled through paperwork like worker ants, poring over professional-development sign-in sheets, attendance rosters, and test-material storage records, unearthing tiny crumbs of data that might signal the trail to a violation. Dr. Barrios could not imagine what would ever make someone willingly take such a job.
Except for one thing: OBEI officers had power.
They reported directly to the school board, which made them as terrifying as the superintendent himself. Dr. Barrios didn’t know of anything he’d done wrong, but the thought of such scrutiny made him feel like he must be guilty of something.
His chest tightened as he read the assistant principals the list. “They’ll be looking at attendance, parental involvement, teacher participation in professional development, discipline—although discipline should still look good.”
Mrs. Rawlins nodded confidently. “It’s just like I always say: children don’t care what you know until they know that you care!”
Dr. Barrios tried to keep from massaging his temples. Everyone knew the real reason discipline numbers looked good: Mrs. Rawlins was the assistant principal in charge of discipline, and she rarely enforced any actual consequences. This not only kept suspension numbers low, it also meant few teachers bothered to fill out referral forms in the first place—and these were the two ways the district calculated discipline numbers. It was, of course, these same two tendencies that caused actual student behavior at the school to skid downhill, but this was no time to make changes to the one set of numbers that felt assured.
Mr. Scamphers, not one to be outcomplimented, was sliding steadily forward in his seat. “We also have the PHCDMADC meeting next month. I’ll document anyone whose data binder doesn’t reflect a sense of urgency regarding the pre-test scores.”
“That will be great, Mr. Scamphers.” Later, Dr. Barrios would try to figure out what PHCDMADC stood for. But for now, how to bring this up delicately? He had made no move whatsoever to assign Believer Scores to teachers. “We are running a little behind on the Believer Scores, if one of you wanted to…”
Mrs. Rawlins leaned backward, suddenly quite busy squeezing another dot of lotion into her palms.
Mr. Scamphers, on the other hand, was now almost hovering in front of his chair.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT
ANY OTHER YEAR, Maybelline wouldn’t have pushed the subject of Allyson’s birthday party. The birthday fell in the weeks before the state football playoffs, and Coach Ray had once explained the life of a football coach like this: “If you’re having dinner with your family on Thanksgiving, it means you lost.”
Of course, the Killer Armadillos rarely lost. How could they? Coach Ray recruited the best players from middle schools all around the city. Then he helped them lie about their addresses so they could play on his team. He even picked some of the players up in the mornings and drove them to school, just so they could help him win football games.
The only reason Maybelline had mentioned all of this in front of Allyson was to show that the Killer Armadillos’ homecoming victory wasn’t really about good coaching: it was just about getting around the rules. But Allyson had reached a different conclusion. Ever since the conversation, she’d been wondering aloud what would happen if she couldn’t go to Grumbly Elementary anymore. She’d have to go to school closer to home, she reasoned, and this would be on her father’s way to Brae Hill Valley. Maybe he’d pick her up, too.
It wasn’t an empty threat. Allyson’s grades had dropped, and low grades triggered the type of address-checking schools did as testing season closed in. Maybelline was now on the receiving end of the your child has not done his or her homework calls she so flawlessly documented in her own parent-contact binder.
As the day crept slowly toward lunch, she checked her e-mail again. Coach Ray still hadn’t answered her message.
Instead, there was an e-mail from Mr. Scamphers, addressed not to the whole faculty but directly to her.
Well, the OBEI people checked all the administrative binders today and left very happy. I’m sure you can guess who spent yet another day covering for our “wonderful” principal.
Maybelline swallowed hard. A few days earlier, Mr. Scamphers had stopped by her classroom to talk about the Office for Oversight of Binders and Evidence of Implementation, which audited administrators for signs of ethical violations, testing irregularities, and neglected tasks. Never had she imagined such a place existed. Ever since, she’d fantasized that the auditors might venture into the rest of the school, too. Perhaps they would visit her classroom and flip through her shelves of perfectly aligned binders the way Dr. Barrios never had. They would marvel at the way every column balanced. They would give her a perfect score.
Just the thought of it had given her the courage to e-mail Coach Ray.
But now, as she read Mr. Scamphers’s description of the visit, all she could pull from it was a single devastating fact: the OBEI auditors had already left. Everything they cared about was in the principal’s office.
Her earlier confidence drained away. There would be no auditors to notice her exceptional effort. Maybelline Galang was just a regular teacher, working in this regular classroom, right down the hallway from the source of her biggest miscalculation.
When the lunch bell rang, Maybelline closed her eyes, mentally preparing herself for the walk across the hallway. Did you read my e-mail? That was the way she planned to start. She took pride in not having asked Coach Ray for much over the years. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to ask him out loud to come to the birthday party.
“Miss?”
Maybelline’s eyes snapped open as she realized she wasn’t alone.
Jennifer Reyes, from fourth period, had stayed behind after the bell. “Is it okay if I check my grade?”
Maybelline opened the grade book on her computer. “You have a C.”
Jennifer did not turn to leave.
“No makeup work,” Maybelline reminded her.
“Miss—I think I’m pregnant. I mean, I am.” Then Jennifer sat at an empty desk, put her head in her hands, and began to sob.
Maybelline took out a box of tissues. This would take a while. It had always been clear that some students knew she and Coach Ray had a child together. Maybelline could not be sure whether this information was passed down through successive years of students or whether Mrs. Friedman-Katz or Mrs. Re
ynolds-Washington spread it anew each fall. All Maybelline knew was that nothing she did as a teacher should have suggested she wanted to hear about students’ personal problems. Most days, she directed them to open their books and silently follow the directions on the board for as much of each class as possible. And yet, every year, girls who “thought” they “might” be pregnant ended up crying next to her desk. It was as if they expected her to provide some equation into which they might plug the variables of their lives and answer the one question they couldn’t ask aloud. The whole idea was ridiculous. What would such an equation even look like?
On one side:
You have a boy who is telling you he wants this baby and that this will work out. Or maybe you have a boy who is telling you he doesn’t want this baby, but you are sure he’ll change his mind.
Your sister or your best friend or your cousin had a baby last year, and look at all the attention she’s getting.
You believe a baby at any stage of development is a tiny little life. You have always imagined abortion clinics as dark, dirty places in which expressionless men hack at your insides and leave you with a lifetime of guilt.
Others have warned you that a baby will change everything. But when they do, a small voice inside you whispers that you have always wanted everything to change.
But then, on the other side:
Your child will need food, and time, and health insurance, and so many other things you don’t know if you can provide.
Your mother will be angry. Worse than that, she will be ashamed. And even when the anger and the shame are through, you will watch her come home older and older in her thick white nurse’s shoes. She says she wears them because they are comfortable but still rubs her feet as she watches TV in the apartment you share. It is only slightly bigger than the one you grew up in. Meanwhile, your sister’s family lives in a big house with high ceilings and wedding pictures in frames.
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