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by John David Anderson

  The war had begun.

  THE CATCH

  A LONG, LONG TIME AGO, OR SO THE STORY GOES, SOME GUY named Adam was lounging around the garden nibbling on a fig when the Powers That Be told him he should start naming everything he saw. So he did. He went around putting labels on everything: you’re a cow, you’re a tree, you’re an ant, you’re a snake, and so on. It was the easiest way to start making sense of the world.

  He probably didn’t know it, but he started a trend.

  In middle school, everybody gets a label. It’s important. It makes it easier to spread gossip, to choose seats in the auditorium during school-wide convocations, to decide who belongs where.

  I was a nerd, tapioca or no tapioca. We were all nerds. The whole tribe. I wrote an award-winning poem once, which I guess made me a lifetime member. Deedee was in all accelerated classes and sometimes bragged about his 136 IQ. Not to mention the whole Gary Gygax thing. Even Bench was all aces across the grade book. We all earned our badge in one way or another. But only one of us was a genius.

  Truthfully, Wolf was closer to Amadeus Mozart than I would ever be to Robert Frost. I’d heard him play, a dozen times from the hallway right outside the door of his family’s living room, holding my breath so he didn’t know I was there, because as soon as he saw me, he stopped. As if somehow his talent was something he still wanted to hide, even though everyone in the entire school knew how good he was. For most people, it’s all they knew about him. Morgan Thompson: piano prodigy. But most of them hadn’t ever heard him play.

  He never made a mistake, at least not one that I could hear. Maybe he just knew how to hide them, move past them so quickly that nobody noticed. Playing the piano isn’t like writing poetry. You can’t edit. You can’t go back and erase. If you stop and start over, people will know. They will say to themselves, “Well, it was good, but it wasn’t perfect.” Nobody knows what the first draft of Frost’s poems looked like except for Robert Frost. When he showed them to the world they were just how he wanted them.

  Listening to Wolf was like reading Robert Frost. I would stand outside the door, my steps muffled by the Thompsons’ brown carpet, my eyes closed, dizzy with jealousy because he was still just a kid. We were all still just kids. Kids were supposed to make mistakes.

  I’d never actually heard him perform in front of a crowd. I’d never been to any of Wolf’s recitals. I would have gone if he’d asked me—we all would have—but he never asked. He only spoke of them after the fact, and then only when one of us noticed the new ribbon or trophy on the cherrywood mantel in his living room. They weren’t stashed in a closet like my You Showed Up! soccer trophy. Wolf’s accolades were on prominent display, visible from the foyer of their three-story house. You could see them through the prominent bay window that protruded like a blister from the front. It was a shrine. Blue ribbons and cold metal and dust. Two or three times a year Wolf would grab his sheet music and march off to conquer one competition or another, returning with another trophy for the shelf.

  Ask Wolf how he got so good and he’d tell you what you’d expect to hear: practice. And in a way that’s true, I guess. You have to want to practice that much. And Wolf did. But I think he did it mostly to please his parents. To give them something that they had absolutely no choice but to be happy about.

  I can appreciate that.

  I sometimes picture him up there at one of those recitals, everyone in the audience in stiff, scratchy black clothes, programs folded in their laps. I sometimes wonder what it was like for him under those blinding lights. Dressed in his suit, his eyes closed, body swaying, fingers dancing, the audience breathless, the music haunting. I wonder if he ever secretly wished I had been there for him, to cheer him on.

  I feel guilty about it. Or maybe it’s just regret. I’m not sure I quite know the difference yet.

  I’d never been to a single one of Wolf’s recitals. But I’d been to every one of Bench’s football games.

  And they were all ugly.

  It was the lone Friday game of the season, and this time it was under the big lights—or at least bigger than usual. The Branton High Cougars were away, so the Fighting Falcons of Branton Middle School had the high school field, which meant that the three hundred or so people who usually came to watch the middle school game were scattered among bleachers that could hold two thousand. Everybody could sit close to the action.

  Only we didn’t.

  I waited for Deedee and Wolf by the gates as usual, then we paid our two bucks and went to find a seat. I pointed to an empty section about three rows up and started that way when Wolf stopped me. “Not there,” he said. He looked up the stairs. “Let’s go sit at the very top this time.”

  I looked back at the spot he’d turned down and noticed what I hadn’t at first: Jason, Noah, and Cameron clumped together on the row below that. They were all huddled over Jason’s phone, laughing at something completely idiotic, no doubt. I obviously lingered too long. Cameron looked up and saw me, then elbowed the other two.

  “Look. It’s the Roman legion,” Jason said, which was hilarious, apparently, at least to the three of them. Jason proceeded to give some kind of salute, like he was karate chopping the sky. “Hail, Caesar!” he cried. More laughter.

  Wolf gave him a gesture back, much less obvious but more to the point, hand pressed close to his chest in case any of the adults were looking.

  “What was that all about?” I asked. I’d seen Wolf blow Jason and company off a hundred times, but I’d never seen him flip them off before.

  “Who cares?” Wolf said, turning back around and heading up the bleachers.

  I followed Wolf and Deedee up the steps to the very top where you could hear the flags snap. It was chilly, the kind of cold you don’t really notice until someone puts a mug of warm cider in your hands and you realize how stiff your fingers are (and not just the middle ones), how the first sip stings your lips. The night was clear though, star-studded, and it felt good to be out in the sharp autumn air, the smell of hot dogs and fresh popcorn and wet leaves. I sat next to Deedee, who sat next to Wolf, our butts nearly freezing to the metal bench.

  It was the fourth game of the season and the Falcons were 1–3, already an improvement over last year’s 0–11. Unfortunately, according to the roll on Deedee’s die, we were expected to lose again. According to everyone else you talked to, we were expected to get creamed.

  “Will we at least score a touchdown?” I asked, and Deedee rolled for it. There was no chance of anyone seeing him all the way at the top, but he still kept the dragon hidden in his palm. He rolled a two, which meant a 20 percent chance. That seemed about right. I looked over at Wolf, who seemed preoccupied with the crowd. Except he wasn’t looking in the direction of Jason Baker’s spiky blond head. He was looking for someone else. “Did she say she was coming?”

  “Who?”

  “You know who.”

  “I’m not looking for Rose necessarily,” Wolf said. “I’m just browsing.”

  It was a good word. It might make a nice line of poetry. Browsing the crowd for someone worth the price of a conversation. I knew I’d never remember it though.

  “Let’s see if any of the cheerleaders will screw up their somersaults,” Deedee said. He rolled. Seventy percent chance of cheerleader wipeout. At least that gave us something to look forward to. Not that I wished embarrassment on anyone in particular. Just that anyone falling on their rear was funny.

  Wolf was still scanning the crowd for not-Rose-necessarily. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see her lumbering up the steps to join us. In the span of one week, Rose Holland had not only navigated her way into our lunch table, she seemed to have stuck a harpoon in Wolf’s side and reeled him in. I still wasn’t sure what was up between the two of them, but I was glad to see Wolf out here with us, cheering Bench on.

  Wolf’s phone buzzed. He laughed at something, then sent a quick reply.

  “Was that her?”

  He nodded. “She says she’s sorry s
he couldn’t make it, but football’s not her thing.”

  I thought back to Rose’s first day, standing with Bench in the hall, watching her part the crowd. She’d make a good linebacker. Down on the field three little kids were chasing each other around. A referee shooed them away.

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it our thing,” Deedee said.

  The voice came on the speaker and began announcing the teams, starting with the visiting North Westchester Wildcats. We booed and told them just how much they sucked (so much that they were going to put Dyson out of business, said Deedee, earning him the award for lamest trash-talker of the night). The few adults closest to us gave us dirty looks, but they were still several rows away. A couple of weak, sputtering fireworks announced the home team’s arrival. We stood and cheered as the Falcons took the field. Deedee pointed. “Is that him?”

  It was a little hard to tell. We’d sat too far up to be able to pick Bench out from the crowd. So we waited for the starters to put their helmets on and huddle up. Bench was easy to spot once he’d assumed his customary position—number 80, sitting by himself on the end. The opposing team looked a lot bigger than us, galumphing across the field like a crash of rhinos.

  “At least if it’s a blowout, Bench’ll get a chance to play,” Deedee said. The ref blew the whistle. The Falcons fumbled the kickoff, giving the visitors the ball at the fifty.

  “Yeah. There’s always that,” I said. I sat and watched with my hands tucked between my knees.

  It wasn’t a blowout, though. By halftime the score was only seventeen–zip, which was better than I thought it would be. Deedee’s die was right about the lack of home team touchdowns. Then, during the halftime show, one of the cheerleaders fumbled through her flip and planted in the grass, laughing and shaking her head.

  “The die rolls true,” Deedee said, doing his best Gandalf imitation, though I couldn’t remember the white wizard ever saying that. Deedee’s dragon was two for two so far, though. I was about to ask it what my mom’s chances of winning the lottery were (she got one ticket every week), but on the ensuing kickoff the Falcons ran it all the way back for a touchdown, proving the die wrong. The crowd whooped and hollered. We banged on the bleachers. Deedee celebrated by buying us a bag of popcorn to split, careful to take the stairs all the way on the end so that he didn’t get too close to where Jason and company sat. Wolf sent Rose updates on his phone. Or maybe he wasn’t texting her about the game at all. Another touchdown at the end of the third put us within three. It was close.

  Number 80 sat on the edge, helmet in hands, waiting, like always. “Definitely not going to play now,” Deedee said. There was too much at stake.

  At least we could tell him we came, I thought. That we were all pulling for him. All three of us. At one point he turned and looked at the crowd and Deedee and I waved, but he must not have seen us because he didn’t wave back. Deedee finished off the last of the popcorn, then finished off the last of my Sprite. The score stayed the same through most of the fourth quarter, with neither team making any progress. With two minutes left we were forced to punt, still down by three.

  “That’s it,” Deedee whined. “Game over. Seriously . . . why do we even come to these things? I can watch Bench sit on his butt at school if I want.”

  Except not anymore, I thought. Not at lunch anyways. I didn’t say it though. Just cheered halfheartedly for the losing team.

  The Falcons kicked the ball. The Wildcats’ player fielded it at the forty. Returned it ten yards. Then twenty. It looked like he might break free and put us out of our misery. The rest of the Wildcats were on their feet.

  Then, the kid dropped the ball. Or maybe it was wrestled away from him. Either way, it squirted free, ping-ponged off a dozen hands and feet before getting buried under an avalanche of jerseys. Whistles trilled. Referees rushed over to the pile. Deedee muttered to himself, “We didn’t get it. There’s no way we got it. We never get it.”

  The mountain of players slowly peeled away, and a kid in a white-and-blue uniform popped up, holding the football like he’d just found gold.

  The crowd exploded. The Branton Middle School Falcons had possession with a little over a minute left and sixty yards to go.

  I looked at the home team sideline. Bench was standing with his teammates, cheering the starting offense as it ran back on the field. The first play, a run, went nowhere. Then our quarterback, a kid named Trevon Miller, who everyone called Tre, took the snap and made a quick completion in the middle of the field, hitting one of his receivers for ten just as the kid got blindsided, steamrolled by two Wildcats slamming him to the ground.

  There was a hush. The kid who caught it didn’t snap right back up. The Falcons called their last time-out with twenty seconds on the clock while the assistant coach helped the kid limp off the field. The shook-up receiver waved to show he was all right.

  “You don’t think . . . ,” Deedee said, fishing in his pocket, but he didn’t have time to roll for it. We saw Coach Mallory point. Saw number 80 jab his thumbs at his chest. Deedee and I started to holler. Wolf put away his phone.

  Bench was off the bench.

  I scooted to the edge of the bleacher as number 80 lined up in the slot on the right. Just about everyone below us was standing, the crowd’s screams failing to fill the cavernous stadium. I spotted Bench’s parents leaning over the bottom rail, his father clapping his hands above his head.

  Tre called for the snap, dropped back, sidestepped a defender, scrambling, buying time. The seconds ticked. Down to eighteen. Rolling right. Another missed tackle. Fifteen. Looking all over the field. Twelve seconds. Desperate. His receivers were all covered. Two red jerseys for every white.

  Except for the one.

  In the middle, as open as the Pacific Ocean. The other two receivers were blanketed along the sideline, but there was Bench at the twenty, putting his hand up, calling for the ball. Nobody was covering him. He had somehow slipped through the cracks. Even from way up at the top of the stands I could sense the quarterback’s hesitation, but there really was no other option. Tre pulled the trigger.

  The ball flew out of his hands, a torpedo tearing toward Bench, a flying brown prayer launched into the sky, and I thought, there’s no way. No way he catches it. Because that’s not how the universe works. Movies, maybe, but not real life. Not for people like us. Not for the outliers. The benchwarmers. But I’d been wrong before.

  By magic or magnetism or just sheer luck, it dropped right into Bench’s waiting hands and nestled there, perfect.

  There was half a second, maybe less, when I swear Bench looked down at the ball in disbelief. Then he started to run.

  The defense, suddenly solving the equation, tried to converge. Some were taken out by blockers. Others were too far away to get there in time. But one closed in, had the angle. He went for the knees, determined to bring Bench down and end the game, but number 80 leaped, legs brushing against outstretched fingers, hurtling over the would-be tackler. He left the kid grasping and spinning in the dirt behind him. Rumbled down to the ten. Then to the five.

  The night split with the whistle’s shrill cry. The ref thrust his arms into the air.

  Four more pathetic fireworks briefly lit up the field. Fans started dancing and jumping in the aisles. Deedee turned and gave me a high five. “Un-freaking-believable,” he said, which kept me from having to say it. Because it really was.

  And in the midst of it all stood Bench, alone in the end zone. Unable, it seemed, to let go of the ball, even to spike it. Until his teammates mobbed him, crushed him, swallowed him whole. I looked to the scoreboard for confirmation, because sometimes you need to see it in writing.

  Branton Middle School Falcons 20. North Westchester Wildcats 17.

  Wolf stood beside us, shaking his head. “That’s it then,” he said, and even though he was smiling, his voice wasn’t quite. If anything, he sounded a little disappointed.

  Almost as if he’d seen it coming.

  We pushed throug
h the crowd on our way down to the field, hoping to get a chance to see him at least, to say congratulations, but Bench was already lost in the sea of white jerseys. They actually lifted him up and carried him, two dozen hands propelling him halfway across the field, away from where we stood. We could have gone down by the locker room, I guess, waited outside for a glimpse of the night’s hero, but Wolf said, “We’re never going to get his attention now,” and led us back to the front gate instead.

  He was right, of course, but I still wish we had the chance to say something. In two years Bench had never had a moment like this one. Never. This was his poem. It was his fifty-dollar gift card.

  “Some catch, huh?” Deedee said. “Did you think he was going to drop it? Because I kind of thought he was going to drop it.”

  I shook my head. “I knew he’d catch it,” I lied. All around us we heard people, mostly adults, murmuring about what a terrific play it was. Someone asked, Who was that kid? and I almost told them, but I fumbled with what to say—J.J.? Bench? My best friend?—so I ended up not saying anything. We walked through the gate and stood out in the parking lot. The cold had gone from nipping to gnashing. I shoved my hands under my armpits to keep them warm.

  “You know,” Wolf said, “you never see them carry writers like that.”

  I gave him a strange look. “Huh?”

  “Writers. You know, like famous ones? They’ll do a reading or something, and when they are done everybody will just clap politely and that’s it. They don’t come over and lift the guy up and parade him through the bookstore on their shoulders. Or surgeons. You never hear about a team of nurses surfing a heart surgeon out of the operating room. And why not? He just saved a man’s life. He should be carried around. Not to take anything away from Bench, but all he did was catch a ball.”

  I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “Sure, but could you have caught that ball?” I asked.