by Carl Deuker
“Yeah, I saw it,” he said.
“Are you turning out?”
Some of the old Richie came back. “I told you—I’m the best.”
“So you really do play soccer.”
“Soccer is my game, Brock. It’s my only game, but it’s my game. I’m good.” His eyes got the crazy-funny look that I used to see all the time. He turned his face sideways, stuck his teeth out, and narrowed his eyebrows. “Fear the Fang,” he chanted, mispronouncing his own name. “Fear the Fang.”
I was glad he was trying out.
Here’s how I saw it. If he made the team, he wouldn’t just be the geek Chinese kid who played the violin, designed eco-buildings, played chess, and got straight As. He’d be an athlete. Guys on the soccer team would walk down the hall with him, hang out with him before and after school. Hunter would back off. Athletes don’t go after athletes.
When I reached the soccer field that afternoon, I formed a circle with J. J. from weight training, Franklin Garcia from Algebra, both the McDermotts, and a bunch of other guys from Whitman. Richie came later, but he immediately joined us. Usually you can’t tell much about a player from warm-ups, but with Richie I knew right away. Toe, heel, ankle, knee—it didn’t matter. He had total control of the ball. When someone passed to him, he would do a couple of nifty moves and then pop the ball to someone else. He was a player.
After a few minutes, Coach Jacklin blew his whistle and called us all to him. I’d seen Jacklin around the campus. He had a round belly, his hair and clothes were always rumpled, and his eyes looked sleepy. But guys who played for him said that even though he looked like a beer-swilling slob, he knew soccer inside and out. They also said that he was fair—meaning freshmen could make the team if they were good enough.
Four of us were trying out for keeper. On that first day of tryouts, Coach Jacklin had told us that he was going to keep two goalies on varsity and send two to the JV team. “You’re going to have to earn your spot. Nobody is given anything.”
As we went through various drills, I sized up my competition at keeper. Reese Palmer, a freshman like me, had decent hands but was slow and short. He was JV material.
That left three of us fighting for two varsity spots. Dustin Stoakes, a senior who had made the varsity team the year before, was a lock. If I was going to make varsity, I’d have to beat out Robby Cerac, a junior.
Cerac had the spiky hair and expensive clothes of the big soccer stars, and he had their cocky attitude, too. But he’d played JV, not varsity, the year before. Jacklin didn’t know him much better than he knew me.
That first day, I dived for a ball and ended up flat on my belly in the mud. At the drinking fountain during a break, Cerac came over to me. “Skip the showboating. I paid my dues on the JV team last year, and that’s where you’re headed this year.”
In the days before Richie, I’d have backed off, not wanting to make waves with a kid two years older than me. I’d have figured the JV team was good enough. But Richie had changed me.
He played soccer like he did everything else—all out. After one day, everyone knew he was going to make varsity. After day two, everyone knew he was going to start every game. After three days, we all knew he was our best player. If Richie was going to make the varsity team, then I wanted to make the varsity team. I wasn’t going to hand anything to Cerac; he was going to have to beat me out.
That week was windy, wet, and cold—what everybody thinks Seattle is like all the time. For five days, my hands were cold, my feet were cold, and my nose and ears were cold. The position guys could run to stay warm, but all the goalkeepers could do was hop up and down. Still, I fought to keep my focus, trying to play the way Richie played. Through every drill, I competed, diving for balls headed to the corner of the net, running out to cut down angles, making accurate passes and kicks.
Early on, Coach Jacklin had spent ten minutes with the four of us, explaining what he wanted in a keeper. “Be decisive. Don’t freeze because you’re worried about making a mistake.” I paid attention to every word. So did Stoakes and Palmer, but Cerac spent the time kicking at the grass in front of him, looking bored.
On the last day of tryouts, we played a game. I shared time with Stoakes in the net for the white team, while Cerac and Palmer traded off for the black. We rotated every ten minutes or so.
The game had barely begun—no more than ten seconds had gone by—when Cerac let a ball go right past him and into the net. He’d had his back turned and was pulling on his gloves. “That doesn’t count,” he shouted, grinning. “I didn’t know we’d started.” Guys laughed, but Coach Jacklin changed the score on his slate board from 0–0 to 1–0.
At halftime, Jacklin’s slate still read 1–0. I’d made one good save and a half-dozen routine stops. Cerac, Stoakes, and Palmer had all done about the same.
I started the second half on the sidelines, but I was in goal with about ten minutes left in the game—and in the tryouts—when Richie, playing for the other team, took a ball at midfield, made a slick move to break free, and had twenty yards of green grass in front of him. He dribbled toward me, trying to make me commit. One of my guys was hustling back—I think it was Rory—taking the angle to cut him off. Richie saw Rory, stopped, and then ripped a shot on goal from about twenty-five yards.
The kick was chest high; I had a clear look at the ball. I moved to cut it off before it reached the goal, but it kept bending away. And it kept coming fast, too, not losing speed. At the last second, I laid out for the ball and felt it hit off my fingertips. I looked back and saw it cross over the end line just wide of the post.
“Great save!” Coach Jacklin shouted.
After the game, as Richie and I were about to head toward home, I heard Coach Jacklin call Cerac’s name. We slowed and watched as the two talked. Cerac must have given Jacklin some lip, because Jacklin’s face got red. Cerac said more, and then Jacklin said something that I couldn’t hear. While he was still talking, Cerac turned his back on him and headed off the field, waving his hand above his head. “You can’t put me on junior varsity,” he yelled, turning back, “because I quit.”
A week before the soccer season started, the Seattle Times ran a preview of the league. When I came downstairs that morning, my father was at the table, finishing his coffee. “There’s an article about your team,” he said, sliding the newspaper toward me.
My eyes flew down the page. Coach Jacklin said we were his best team in years. “We’ve got a great freshman class, kids that are used to winning,” he’d told the reporter. “We’re going to surprise some teams this year.”
“That’s you he’s talking about,” my dad said when I returned the newspaper to him. “You and the McDermotts and the other kids from Whitman. You guys are used to winning.”
“It’s Richie he’s talking about.”
My dad struggled to his feet, doing his best to hide that he was struggling. “Richie Fang? Your do-everything friend?”
“Yeah. It turns out he plays soccer too. He can dribble, pass, shoot. And you wouldn’t believe how far he can kick the ball. He’s our best player.”
As we rode over to our season-opening soccer game against the Roosevelt Roughriders, the defending city champions, Coach Jacklin still hadn’t named his starting goalkeeper.
The bus pulled into the parking lot, and guys piled out. I was side by side with Richie, who was talking nonstop. Once I stepped off the bus, Jacklin motioned for me to wait. “You too, Dustin,” he said.
Coach Jacklin waited for the other guys to move off before he spoke. “Boys, you have caused me some sleepless nights—you’re that even. Here’s what I’ve decided. Brock, you’re going to start in goal.” I tried to act calm, but my pulse went from eighty to one hundred eighty. I’d done it—I was the varsity goalkeeper.
And then I wasn’t.
“But Dustin will take over in the second half. If one of you wins the job, then it’s yours. But until then, you’ll split the time. You two okay with that?” Dustin n
odded his head and so did I. Jacklin smiled. “All right, then. Shut ’em out.”
In a season opener, both teams usually start out tentative, but there was nothing tentative about Richie’s play. He spent most of his time on the offensive side, pushing the ball hard and then looking to make a touch pass into the scoring zone. Most soccer plays fail—that’s just the way it is. After a good run that crashes, lots of guys drop their head and mope, at least for a few seconds, but Richie always hustled back, immediately looking to stop any counterattack.
In the twentieth minute, Peter Lee, one of our wingers, raced upfield on the right side as Richie came up the middle. Richie had twice made spot-on passes to Lee, but this time he faked the pass and then blasted a shot from twenty yards. The goalie was slow to react, so all he could do was watch as the ball slammed into the upper-left-hand corner of the net. While the other guys on our team chased after him, Richie raced around in a semicircle, a huge grin on his face, screaming, “Fear the Fang!” and shooting imaginary six-guns. He made the whole thing into wild fun, though I don’t think the Roosevelt players saw it that way.
After our goal, Roosevelt pressed the attack. For the next ten minutes, the ball lived on our side, but Richie and the McDermott twins slowed the breakaways, made steals, and boomed the ball downfield out of the scoring zone. Still, their pressure stayed on.
Finally we made a mistake—Peter mishandled what should have been a pass across the middle. A Roosevelt forward took control of the ball and made a clever move past Tim. Suddenly two Roughriders were coming at me. Pass—pass—shoot! I had a clear view, so I saw the ball all the way. At the right moment, I leaped, just as I’d leaped for a pass from Hunter. The ball slammed hard into my hands, but I hung on. On the sidelines, Coach Jacklin jumped up and down, and Dustin stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. I booted the ball to the right side and returned to the net. Then I thought of my dad.
I wished he had seen that play.
My save took the fire out of Roosevelt for the rest of the half. Right before halftime, Richie stole a sloppy pass and was off. A few yards outside the box, he fired a ball toward Peter, leaving him with a point-blank shot that no one could miss. Peter didn’t, pushing our lead to 2–0.
During the break, Jacklin’s jaw was tight. “I’ve lost to these guys eight straight times. I’m so sick of their coach saying ‘Nice game’ in that smug way of his that if I hear it again today, I swear to God I’ll smack him in the face. So you’d better finish these guys or your coach will end up in jail.”
Dustin took my spot in goal for the second half. I didn’t like it—no one wants to come out of a game—but I’d done my part.
Down by two goals, Roosevelt had to keep taking chances. You take risks, you risk getting burned. Rory scored on a breakaway, pushing our lead to 3–0, and that’s how the game ended.
Anya had stopped her campaign against the coal train and had switched to a Yes Means Yes campaign. It was anti-rape stuff, so she didn’t ask any guys to sit at the table with her. That was okay by me. Rape is not something I wanted to talk about.
The day after the Roosevelt game, she told me about the party. “For Pie Day,” she said. “You know. Friday is Pie Day.”
I looked at her blankly.
“Three point one four. Pi. If you write it as a calendar day, it comes out as March fourteenth. I know it’s kind of nerdy, but Friday night we’re going to bake some pies and then eat them. You want to come?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, trying to hide my eagerness. “What time?”
“Eight or so.”
When I knocked on her door, Anya answered and led me into the kitchen, where two other kids were standing around a table. There were three pie shells on the table, and bowls of cut-up apples, frozen strawberries, and canned cherries. “I have to pat the shells down,” Anya said, “and then we can spoon the good stuff in.”
I didn’t know the other kids, so Anya introduced me. The girl, a tall blonde, who was on the basketball team, was Leslie. The guy’s name was Elon. They were both older, at least sophomores, maybe juniors. I figured they were in Symonds’s class, too.
Elon was standing right next to Leslie, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. They were a pair. I went over to Anya’s side of the table and helped spoon the fruit into the shells. Next, Anya rolled out more pastry dough and explained how to make a latticed top.
Once the pies were in the oven, we went downstairs into a basement rec room. Mainly the conversation was about Symonds’s class. That was okay, though. I could just nod my head and not have to worry that I’d say something stupid.
Two of the pies were great, but we forgot to put sugar in the one with cherries, so it tasted terrible. Anya had a can of whipped cream, and we took turns making mounds on top of our pieces of pie. “It looks like a perfectly shaped female breast,” Elon said when he finished his, and Leslie whacked him in the arm.
We each ate two pieces of pie and then went back downstairs. After a few minutes, Anya’s younger brother, Sam, joined us. Anya tried to chase him away, but he ignored her and set up a golf game on a Wii. “Who wants to play?” he asked once the screen came to life.
Elon shook his head. “Not me.”
My dad had taught me a little about how to swing a golf club, which made me an expert in that room. “I’ll play,” I said.
Sam knew less about golf than I did. We played three holes, and I thrashed him. When we finished, Anya jumped up. “Show me how to swing,” she said.
Her brother handed her the controls. I stood behind her and reached my arms around her. My hands were on her arms, close to her breasts. My face was close to her face.
Just then the door flew open, her father stepped into the room, and we both froze. He stared at us. “You stop that,” he ordered.
Anya and I jumped apart. Her face turned bright red. “He was just showing me how to play golf on the Wii.”
Her father glared at me. “He can show somebody else.”
When her father went back upstairs, we stayed motionless for a long moment, and then we all burst out laughing, including Anya, though her face stayed bright red. Mine was burning too.
For a while, everything was good. My father was doing better, or at least not getting worse. Richie’s mother was getting stronger, and Hunter and Colton had stopped hassling Richie. I’d been right: Athletes don’t hassle other athletes.
And Richie was an athlete. Against Franklin, he made a great pass with a back header. In the Garfield game, he bent a corner kick like Beckham, just like he said he could, and Peter headed it in. Richie was nearly as fast with the ball as without it and—even though he was small—he never let guys out-muscle him on contested balls.
It’s weird: not many kids play football, but lots of kids go to football games. With soccer, it’s just the opposite. Everybody plays; nobody goes, except parents and girlfriends. Still, news of our victories spread through the school. Crown Hill hadn’t had a first-place team in any sport for years, so a top-notch soccer team was a big deal, which meant that Richie was a big deal.
Richie never bragged about how good he was in music or chess or math, but he bragged like crazy about his soccer feats. His voice was loud as he described his wondrous plays to anyone who was listening and to lots of kids who weren’t. As he talked, he spread his arms wide and his cheeks went rosy. “Fear the Fang!” he’d say when his story came to an end. “Fear the Fang!”
We didn’t win every game. That just doesn’t happen in soccer. We hit a spell where no breaks went our way, but even then our team won three games, tied two, and lost only one. I gave up a couple of goals, but none of them were cheap. All season long, we were either in first or second place.
The cheer team stuck posters celebrating our victories in the main entranceway to the school. And Mr. Spady, in the morning announcements, gave the final score and the names of anybody who’d had a goal or an assist. Kids in the hallway or at lunch would see Richie and chant “Fear the Fang.” Whenever that
happened, Richie would raise his hands above his head, boxer style, and try to look fierce, which just made kids laugh more.
It was all good.
Then the Suzanne Friend stuff happened.
I’d known Suzanne since kindergarten. She lived with her mother in a small brown house halfway between my home and Gilman Park. Nobody ever used the word retard in front of teachers, but that’s the word that got used when teachers weren’t around.
Beginning in second grade, Suzanne spent the mornings in the special ed room for reading, writing, and math. In the afternoons, she was in regular classes like art and social studies. Nobody thought much about her. She was just a slightly strange girl who spent most of the day in special ed.
Then, in middle school, she got breasts. She got them before any of the other girls. Beautiful breasts. Movie star breasts.
In middle school, girls with no breasts at all wore bras, but Suzanne didn’t. You could see her breasts moving as she walked, her nipples poking against her too-small T-shirts.
Eventually Suzanne figured out that boys were staring at her body. Other girls didn’t like being stared at, but Suzanne did. Probably it was the first time anyone paid attention to her, the first time she had anything on the other girls.
In high school, it was more of the same, only now the guys staring at her were bolder, and she was bolder too. Once, she caught me eyeing her. She smiled. “You like them, don’t you?” And then she shook her breasts, a big smile on her face. I watched them move under her shirt, and she laughed.
She shook them for lots of guys. Every time she did it for me, I felt guilty. I never once asked her to do it, and she seemed to like it, but watching her didn’t feel right.