by Carl Deuker
It had to be Richie.
The next day, I brought my football. Richie looked at it as if it were a huge dog turd. “What’s that for?”
I explained.
He scowled. “I don’t get why you go out for football.”
“I’m fast and I can catch. Hauling in a long touchdown pass—it’s even better than scoring a goal.”
His eyebrows went up. “And how would you know what scoring a goal feels like?”
“Very funny, Richie.”
He shrugged. “All right. I’ll throw to you, but I’m telling you right now I’m going to suck.”
He was right. His hands were so small, he could barely grip the football. He also had a weird arm motion, almost sidearm. After five throws, we both knew it wasn’t working.
“I told you,” he said.
“How about you kick some?”
“What good will that do?”
“It’ll give me practice watching the ball into my hands. Punts are hard to catch.” He looked doubtful. “Really,” I insisted. “It’ll help.”
I didn’t know if it would. And when Richie’s first kick was a shank that traveled five yards forward and about thirty yards to the right, I was even less certain.
“Let me throw it to you,” he said after I’d run the ball down and tossed it back to him. “I don’t know how to kick one of these.”
“Kick it a few more times,” I called back. “It’s not all that different from kicking a soccer ball.”
“It’s completely different,” he said, but on his third try he made solid contact with the ball, sailing one way over my head. And after that, kick after kick was high and deep. Okay, he missed some—even great kickers miss some—but not many.
It was a windy day, so the ball was blowing around, forcing me to concentrate. Catching kicks wasn’t like running patterns for Hunter, but it was something.
That night, when I was on Minecraft with some guy in South Africa, I replayed Richie’s kicks in my mind. The ball came off his foot, traveled about ten yards or so like anybody else’s, and then seemed to rocket through the air as if it had afterburners. I tried to figure out how far his punts had gone. There were no yard markers at Gilman, but it seemed like they went at least thirty-five yards, and maybe forty or forty-five.
Whenever I’d thought about Richie back at school walking the hallways, I’d get so sick to my stomach that I’d start burping this acid stuff that tasted like vomit. Hunter and those guys would go after him again, just like they’d gone after Jerry Jumper. They never backed off once they’d started.
Unless.
The next day, as we walked to Gilman, I put my idea to him.
His eyes went wide. “Me, the kicker for the football team? You’re joking, right?”
“Why not give it a try? I know you don’t want to go home right after school. Football would give you something to do. Besides, you’d be good.”
He shook his head. “Hunter Gates doesn’t want me on his team. And I don’t want to be on his team.”
“It’s not his team, and he will want you on it. You kick the ball ten yards farther than anybody we’ve got, and your kicks are higher, which makes them easy for the punt team to cover. You’ll be first string—I guarantee it. You’ll be good at field goals too. They’re closer to soccer kicks, and you can win games kicking field goals. Just picture it, Richie. It’s the last play. Everybody is up on both sides, screaming their lungs out, and you split the uprights with a field goal to win the game. The stadium goes berserk. You’re the hero, and your picture is in the paper and your kick is on YouTube.”
The chance to be a star pulled him. I could see it in his eyes. He didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no, either. Once we reached the park, we didn’t spend even a minute with soccer. It was all punting. Richie must have been concentrating more, because he’d didn’t have a single kick go off the side of his foot. When he was tired of punting, I held for him and he tried placekicking. Most of his attempts were low line drives that could get blocked, but coaching and practice would fix that.
“I’ve got a joke for you,” he said as we headed off the field. “Ready?”
“Go ahead. I’m ready.”
“Okay. Harry Potter, the GEICO gecko, and Taylor Swift walk into a bar. The bartender looks at them and says, ‘What is this? A joke?’”
He told a couple more that were slightly funny, and I told a couple that weren’t funny at all. After that, we walked in silence until we reached his house. “So what do you say?” I asked. “Will you try out?”
He took the football from me and squeezed it a couple of times. “You really think I can do this?”
“All the NFL kickers were soccer players first. You kick a soccer ball better than anyone in the school. You know you do. It’ll be the same with a football, once you practice.”
A little smile crept across his face. “Walking down the center of the hallways at Crown Hill as a football star—that feels perfect, like living out an O. Henry story.” He paused. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
I high-fived him and then gave him a chest-high fist-bump. For a moment, everything was perfect.
Once everything ended, people told me that what happened wasn’t my fault, and I guess it wasn’t. But I was the one who talked Richie into trying out for the team. That’s on me.
The night before tryouts, I played chess with my dad. I was thinking about football more than the pieces, so he checkmated me in fifteen moves. “Another game?” he said automatically.
I was about to say no—automatically—and head upstairs, but something made me look into his face, to really look. He was pale and his skin sagged, but it was the hurt in his eyes that froze me.
I’d let him down with my shoddy effort, not just in that game, but in most of our chess games. He could have been angry. You hear about sick people who lash out, but he wasn’t that way, and I couldn’t see him ever becoming that way. “I sucked in that one,” I said. “I’ll give you a better game this time.”
He smiled, surprised, and he rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “I’ll take black again.”
I concentrated on every move, and it was forty minutes before I could see there was no way to keep him from promoting a pawn.
“Good game,” I said, reaching across the board to shake his hand.
“It was, Brock. Thanks.”
The next morning, Richie and I walked to tryouts together. We reached the field early, but other guys were already milling around. I spotted Hunter on the far side of the field, tossing a football to Colton.
Coach Lever was in the middle of the field, up on a little platform. He sounded a bullhorn and motioned for all of us to gather around him.
“Here we go,” I said to Richie as we headed toward the platform.
Colton saw Richie first. He nudged Hunter and pointed, and then their faces broke into big grins. Hunter looked to the side and called out to somebody I couldn’t see. “Look who’s trying out.”
More faces turned toward us; more fingers pointed; more guys gaped. “Look, Fag’s here!” somebody called out.
Coach Lever heard. “Knock that off,” he shouted, striding toward the group. It was the first time I’d seen him angry. Hunter and the guys in his posse fell silent.
Ten minutes later, we were doing warm-up drills. My eyes went to the freshmen kids. Some acted tough, but they were all scared. They were me a year ago.
Coach Lever made pushups, jumping jacks, and stretches both harder and more fun with his loud music and his crazy prizes. For a few minutes at the end, we actually played Mother May I?
Once we were loose, the assistant coaches and the adult volunteers pinned numbers to our shirts and timed us in the forty-yard dash. After that, we broke into position groups, Coach Lever shouting out where we were to go. I was directed to follow Mr. Gates to the north end zone. I took a step, but then I saw Richie, standing by himself, looking lost. Was there a parent or coach in charge of kicking? I grabbed him by the arm an
d led him to Coach Lever.
“Coach,” I said, talking really fast so he wouldn’t interrupt, “this is Richie Fang. He doesn’t really play football, but he can kick.”
Coach Lever looked Richie up and down.
“How far can you punt it?”
Richie shrugged.
“Fifty yards,” I said, jumping in. “With good hang time.”
“Fifty yards? And with hang time?” Coach Lever pulled on one of his diamond earrings and smiled. “Shouldn’t he be trying out for the Seahawks?”
“Really,” I insisted. “Not all the time, but sometimes. And we’ve got no kicker, right?”
He considered. “All right, we’ll give him a look.” He turned to Richie. “Tell me your name again.”
Richie told him.
Coach Lever turned to one of the parent volunteers. “Mr. Breuner, I’d like you to take Richie over to the baseball field and have him punt for you.” He turned back to Richie. “Can you placekick?”
“Sure.”
Lever turned back to the parent. “And have him kick from a tee, too.”
I raced down the field to catch up with the receivers and quarterbacks. Mr. Gates was holding the set of directions he’d gotten from Coach Lever. I got in the receivers’ line and did the drills. At first, I was afraid I’d be miles behind Colton, but my morning workouts at the track had kept up my speed and endurance, and my hands still drew the ball in like a vacuum cleaner sucks up dirt.
When I wasn’t running pass routes, I peeked at Richie. He was positioned just behind home plate, and Mr. Breuner was standing behind second base. Richie would take a step forward and boot the ball. The kicks looked good, but it was hard to tell how far they were going.
Then, for the first time in my life, I used some of the geometry I’d learned. It was ninety feet from home to first and another ninety from first to second. Home to second was the hypotenuse of a triangle. That made it around forty yards. All of Richie’s kicks were past second base. That meant over forty yards in the air, and they all soared high—not good enough for the Seahawks, but plenty good for high school.
I ran a deep post pattern, caught the pass, and jogged back to the back of the line. The next time I looked over, Coach Lever was standing with Mr. Breuner. Hunter threw a pass to one of the freshmen. I moved forward in the line, my eyes still sneaking peeks at Richie. I watched him kick a ball high and deep. Coach Lever walked over and put his hand up, and Richie high-fived him.
“Brock, wake up!” Mr. Gates screamed at me. “Deep out. Go.”
I ran the pattern, caught the ball, and trotted back. Aiden stepped into the QB spot; Hunter stepped aside to rest his arm. As I worked up the line, I saw Hunter look over at the baseball field to watch Richie kick.
The receiving drills ended, and then came agility, strength, and quickness drills—all done with hard rock blasting across the field, but all done with precision. At the end came the gassers—a series of wind sprints. Whenever I thought I couldn’t do another one, some old Credence or Stones song would come rolling across the grass, and I’d run again.
When the bullhorn sounded, everyone was drenched in sweat. “Good work, men,” Coach Lever called out. “Really good work. See you tomorrow.”
Richie and I headed off the field. We were just about down the steps when I heard Colton’s voice behind us. “What are you doing here, Fag?”
“Just keep walking,” I whispered.
Richie stopped. “I’m not running, Brock.”
He turned and faced Colton and Hunter and the others standing with them.
“You talking to me?” Richie said with a New York gangster accent. Richie was mocking Colton, but Colton didn’t get it.
“Yeah, I’m talking to you,” Colton said. “Unless there’s another Fang-Fag around.”
“Shut up, Sparks,” Hunter snapped.
Colton looked at Hunter, stunned. “What?”
“I said shut up.”
Colton motioned toward Richie. “You want him on the team?”
Hunter didn’t answer.
“Get a clue, Colton,” I said. “Richie can kick. Nobody else can. So back off.”
Hunter glared at Richie. “Just don’t screw up, Fang. Understand? Nothing like how the soccer season ended. No crap like that.”
Richie glared right back. “You’re telling me not to screw up? That’s a good joke. How many interceptions did you throw last year, Gates? Was it fifteen or sixteen? Or did you lose count?”
Hunter’s hands balled into fists. He looked as if he wanted to spring down the stairs and pound Richie into the earth. Then his hands relaxed. He walked down the stairway, brushed past us, and headed off the field, the other guys trailing behind him.
When they were fifty yards ahead, I turned to Richie. He was smiling, and I realized I was grinning too.
“How did you know about his interceptions?” I asked.
“It’s in the newspaper archives. I know all his numbers. He’s not that good.”
I shook my head. “Actually, he’s great. He throws tight spirals. He’s tough as nails. He understands the game. He just needs a receiver who can get deep and a kicker who can flip field position for him.”
Richie snorted. “So you and me are going to help him snag a scholarship to Ohio State? Is that what you’re saying?”
I punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Remember, we’ll be stars too.”
Nobody called out “Fag” as Richie walked across the field before tryouts the next day. Hunter had put out the word—leave Richie alone.
We did the warm-up drills together, but after that Richie worked with Mr. Breuner, while I was with Mr. Gates. Bob Rohas, the long snapper, spent time practicing with Richie. Some days, Breuner brought guys over to simulate a rush. Richie wasn’t flustered; he caught the ball and kicked it no matter what was going on around him.
The year before, if you screwed up, you heard about it from the coaches. Now, because of Coach Lever, it was all about the next time. “Next time, keep your head up.” “Next time, don’t let the pass get into your body.” “Next time, make the cut sharper.” With stuff that couldn’t be fixed right away, Lever still stayed positive. “Put in the effort and you’ll get there. The way we practice is the way we’ll play.”
“It’s because of the Seahawks,” my dad said at dinner. “Their coaches are always pumping their guys up, and the Hawks are winning, so your coaches are trying it too.”
One thing we didn’t do at practice was tackle one another. Instead, the coaches worked us on sleds and tackling dummies, teaching both how to deliver a hit and how to take one without getting a concussion.
The lack of contact bothered me. I was a deep threat, a game breaker, and a lock to make the team. But when you’ve got the tag of wuss hanging over your head, you want to get rid of it. The quickest way to prove I wasn’t gutless would be to take a big hit from a safety or a linebacker, pop up, toss the ball to a referee, and trot back to the huddle as if nothing had ever happened. But how could I do that if I never got the chance?
The night before the big scrimmage, I lay on my bed and relived the humiliations of the year before. The hits, the drops, the short arms, the vomiting. After I’d played that horror movie in my head three or four times, I walked down the hall to the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. I was bigger, taller, and stronger—no doubt about it. I told myself I was ready, that I could take a hit and hang on to the ball, that this year was going to be different. Then I looked again and saw the same scared kid as before.
As we neared the field on the last day of tryouts, Richie started whistling. “Aren’t you even a little nervous?” I asked.
“Nope. Free, like my birds in Nanjing. Full leg extension, relaxed muscles, let it go. I do that and the ball soars high and deep. If I worry, my muscles get tight and the ball goes short and sideways, so I can’t worry. Did you ever see a worried bird?”
“But you didn’t have any birds. You made that all up.”
/> He smiled. “Sure, I had birds. Twenty-three of them, and they flew around my room pooping on my head.”
Coach Lever had posted the depth chart on a fence near midfield. I was the number four receiver on the Red Team—Hunter’s team. My spirits sank—I thought I’d be no lower than three, and maybe number two.
I started the game on the bench, watching—my body aching for action—as Hunter led the Red team down the field, mixing runs and passes, chewing up yards. I was sure he was going to lead the team in for a score, but on second-and-four on the Black twenty-yard line he fumbled the snap and lost three yards. “Get in there,” Coach Lever shouted at me. “Eighty-eight down and out.”
I pulled on my helmet and raced onto the field. I was so nervous that when I repeated the play call, my voice squeaked like a girl’s. Nobody noticed. “Everybody got that?” Hunter yelled. “Okay. On two.”
The guys broke the huddle.
“Hut! Hut!”
I took off, driving downfield five yards. Then I pivoted, breaking toward the sideline. The pass was supposed to arrive when I was five yards from the sideline, and Hunter was perfect with the delivery. I hauled the pass in and looked upfield—open space. If I turned, I’d gain five more yards, maybe more, before the safety hit me. I wanted to turn; I wanted to take that hit, to scratch out the extra yards; but—and here’s where I don’t understand myself—I didn’t take on the safety. Instead, I ran, untouched, out of bounds. It was the decision my mother would have wanted me to make.
Had Coach Lever noticed? Had Hunter? Had anyone?
I flipped the ball to the ref and trotted back to the sidelines.