Penalty Shot

by Paul Bishop

Aside from Brisbane's photo there was another shot of a gaunt-faced man with raggedly cut straw hair and a nose which was sharp enough to core apples. The name under the photo was Niall Emmanon.

  Big black letters centered below the photo captions declared that the Irish/American Benevolent Association was proud to present sports entrepreneur Terranee Brisbane and recently released freedom fighter Niall Emmanon, speaking on "The Politics of Soccer." The event was a fund-raiser for the Irish Widow's and Orphan's Fund. It was scheduled for seven o'clock that evening at the Golden Harp pub in Santa Monica.

  The bottom half of the page was taken up with a political cartoon showing a motley group of English soccer hooligans driving a British armored car and firing soccer balls into an Irish Republican Army stronghold. The caption read: Run for it lads! This time they mean business.

  "Widow's and Orphan's Fund, my granny's bum." Pat was getting heavy into sarcasm, his Irish accent full and rich on every consonant. "The closest any money they collect tonight will get to a widow or orphan is after it's converted into guns or explosives and the widow or orphan knows how to pull a trigger or rig a timer."

  "I'm not following you," I said, although I had a very good idea what Pat was talking about.

  "Don't act like you've just stepped out of the bog. The Irish/American Benevolent Association is nothing more than a front to fund the IRA. They stroke idiots like old high-and-mighty Brisbane and other money men or media stars with talk of fighting the good fight and how Ireland must be united. They fill them full of all kinds of patriotic twaddle that hides the fact that innocent citizens are dying every day because of the people the association supports.

  "The IRA has killed twice as many people in Ireland as the bloody British army has, and twelve times as many as the incompetent RUC. But the bleeding-heart liberals still open their wallets and pocketbooks, and the next thing you know there is blood all over their hands and they don't even know it."

  ' 'If you feel that strongly about it why do you work for Brisbane?" I asked as I pushed open the door to the player's entrance.

  "I don't work for Brisbane. I work for his daughter and she knows firsthand what the costs of civil war are. She's one of the victims. And you should know better than anyone that soccer can transcend any war. I play the game because it's what I am." He pointed a finger at the flyer I was still holding. "If you come by the Harp tonight, though, you might see that I can also fight the war at the same time." He did his best to give me a cryptic grin and slid past me into the building.

  We spent the next hour in a cramped and overheated projection room watching films of the Houston Alamos destroying almost every opponent they came up against. The Ravens had already played the Alamos twice during the season. Early in the year, the Alamos had outscored the Ravens 10-2 with a very weak showing on the part of Pasqual Maddox. Six weeks later, though, the Ravens came away victorious after a shoot-out at the end of a 4-4 tie. Nick Kronos had been in goal for the shoot-out, and he smirked at me as we watched the replay.

  It was very strange watching Maddox on video. He was dead. Murdered. But he was still playing the game in a celluloid hell that showed his betrayal over and over and over. And it was a betrayal. After years of playing the game, and years spent analyzing the moves of other goalkeepers, I knew every angle there was. Now, watching the ten goals the Alamos scored in the first game against the Ravens, I knew Maddox was dogging it.

  Eight of the ten goals could have been stopped. Of those eight, six should have been stopped. And of those six, two were absolute blatant go-bys. Maddox just got out of the way and let the shots go by. He betrayed the team, himself, and the fans. But most of all he betrayed the game.

  I don't understand why he allowed the game to turn into a rout. It would have been just as easy to let the Alamos win by a goal. Whatever his reasons were, though, I still hoped he was roasting in hell.

  In the second game it was the same story. The score was closer only because our Ravens defense didn't allow the Alamos to get anywhere near as many shots on goal. I had no doubt we would have lost the game if Maddox had remained in goal for the shoot-out. Like it or not, Nick Kronos had saved the game.

  Now, we were set to go up against the Alamos again on their home turf. Only this time, I was going to make damn sure they didn't have an extra man on the field in a Ravens uniform.

  After the films, we stayed in the projection room while Stavoros gave us a straightforward chalk-talk on what our tactics would be. However, he apparently wasn't much on pep talks. That chore fell to Pat Devlin, who stood up in the center of the room and gave an electrifying speech about team unity and how the Ravens as a team were something special.

  He talked about putting differences between ourselves behind us and overcoming the obstacles which had been thrown in our path. He spoke of rising to a higher level of play through belief in ourselves and the purity of our effort.

  I'd heard these kinds of speeches many times before. Sometimes they fell flat and did little to spark a team's enthusiasm. Most often, they calmed nerves and rallied a feeling of kinship with your other teammates which lasted until kickoff. Every so often, though, the ritual of raising a team's espirit- de-corps became something special, and Pat Devlin had the ability to bring it off. His rich Irish accent seemed to touch something deep in all of us. The Latin players were also responding. For some reason they viewed Ireland as another struggling third-world country like the ones that still held their roots.

  Even Wagstaff was caught up in the oratory. He caught my eye and gave me a hard stare. It wasn't antagonistic, however, as there was no malice in it. His look acknowledged equal status, one predator recognizing the ability of another. I wasn't sure how I felt toward him. Anger still surged in me, but it could be dealt with later. After the Houston game was won.

  When we finally broke out of the projection room, we were in high spirits and hurried to get changed. Reporters from the local press were waiting for us in the locker room. They quickly got busy rounding up quotes for their next editions. We had all been told to be on our best behavior with the press, and after Devlin's speech we even felt like cooperating fully. There was a lot of humor flying back and forth between the two groups which was a good sign.

  Stavoros was holding court in one corner of the locker room with his two assistant coaches, Brian Doogan and Larry Durrell. Both assistants were expatriated Englishmen who had played in the English leagues before my time and loved the game more than life itself.

  Standing apart from all the activity, seemingly unaffected by the noise and confusion, was Nina Brisbane. She watched the proceedings with what I could only assume was an air of satisfaction. It is amazing how out of touch with a person's emotions you can become when you can't see their face. It was almost impossible to tell what was going on behind Nina's veil. You had to work at it, use whatever other subtle signs of body language you could pick up on to read her mood; hand movements, muscle tenseness, leg position, tone of voice, etcetera. By standing quiet and still, Nina was almost invisible. An omnipresent being, or a Greek chorus.

  At my locker, I was cornered by Alex Bowman, a feature writer for the top American sports slick. He'd been a middling-to-good pro golfer before turning to writing, and we hit it off right away. With my own sports and writing background, we had a lot in common. He picked my brains while I changed, but he didn't bother with unnecessary questions about my prior history or about my accident. That was the type of stuff he could pick up from other sources by doing his homework.

  He did, however, ask a couple of pointed questions regarding my feelings toward playing on the same team with Wagstaff. He obviously already knew about my accident and who had caused it. I verbally bobbed and weaved, not giving direct answers to the questions. Alex gave me a look which told me he'd let me off the hook for now, but he'd be back for the straight scoop later.

  Nobody asked about Maddox. This factor I put down to the American public's lack of interest in soccer and their being anesthetized to cr
ime in general. One goalkeeper or another didn't make any difference, and neither did one murder or another. Overall, though, I was impressed by the politeness of the reporters when compared with what I was used to from the Fleet Street scribes.

  Eventually, the well-orchestrated but casual press conference broke up and the players and coaches exited the locker room to get on with the final tune-up practice.

  I found Sticks and Bekka already out on the practice area. Sticks was being his usual cantankerous self, and Bekka appeared to be a joyous ball of enthusiasm. She had two or three reporters around her and was obviously enjoying the attention. She seemed to glow from an inner power source, and I was struck anew by the effect she had on me.

  When she saw everyone else enter the playing area, she broke away to join us and Sticks followed behind her.

  "This man is incredible," she told me excitedly, and nodded toward Sticks. "We've been practicing all morning, and I've already learned more in one day from him than from all my other so-called coaches put together."

  "Don't let Stavoros hear you say that, or you'll never get in a game," I warned her in half-seriousness.

  I heard Sticks mumble something about Stavoros under his breath which I didn't quite catch. He obviously hadn't been fatigued by his early session with Bekka because he started right in with me on a vigorous series of stretching exercises. He also seemed to have come to an unspoken agreement with Stavoros to take over as the goalkeeping coach. He roped a reluctant Nick Kronos into our group. Within no time, Nick and I had both broken a sweat, and I could feel all of my joints and muscles getting into the groove. Bekka joined us as soon as we were warmed up, and practice went into high gear.

  While Stavoros and the assistant coaches put the offense and defense through a light, pregame workout designed to bring them to the cutting edge of their abilities, Sticks drove the three of us with a relentless determination that was tough even by his standards.

  Sweat poured in rivulets as Sticks put us through one routine after another. I wondered at first what in the hell he was up to, but then it dawned on me that he was trying to determine who was the better goalkeeper; Nick or Bekka. Ability-wise, I would have put them on an even keel. Nick had the strength, but Bekka's reaction time and anticipation were incredible and more than compensated. Attitude, however, was making all the difference in the world between them.

  Bekka put everything she had into the practice. Her desire was obvious to anyone. She wore it on her sleeve in place of her heart.

  Nick, on the other hand, tried to cruise through the practice as if the whole idea of effort was beneath him. He did as little as possible and alternated between whining and sneering. He was about as fun as a canker sore.

  Eventually, Sticks put the two of them into head-to-head competition. The practice had been running for almost two hours, and the other players were about to be cut loose to the showers, when Sticks had the team's equipment manager set up two indoor soccer nets about six feet apart. Both nets faced out toward the center of the field.

  Stavoros came up to stand next to Sticks. He looked worried. "I hope these will do the trick for you," he said, and indicated two contraptions being wheeled onto the playing field. "Ms. Nina borrowed them from the Rackets tennis team."

  The two contraptions turned out to be tennis cannons. There was a bucket of tennis balls at the back of each one which fed into the contraption's innards before being fired out of a long tube. On a tennis court, the balls would fly across the net so a player on the other side could practice service returns, ground strokes, or other shots, over and over until they became second nature.

  The two cannons, which were quickly set up about twenty feet away from the two side-by-side goals, were state-of-the-art. They could be adjusted to fire balls not only to the same spot time after time, but also to random spots at varying speeds.

  "Get in one of the goals, Ian," Sticks said to me, "and show them how this works."

  In England, I'd played a version of this drill, only without the high-tech approach of using the tennis cannons. Players would line up at the edge of the penalty area and throw tennis balls for me to stop. To succeed in the drill, reaction time and concentration had to be tuned to their highest peak. Strength and endurance would also be tested to the maximum as you were required to bounce off the ground again and again, flinging yourself around the net with abandon.

  I waited in the goal for Sticks to get the hang of the remote-control box which operated the cannon. When he finally got himself set, he hit the trigger button. The first two balls zinged straight by me and into the back of the goal net. I saved the next three straight, and by the time twenty balls had been fired I was into the rhythm and my concentration was pinpointed.

  The movements of my head, which I used to supplement my depth perception, were second nature now. I couldn't believe that out of embarrassment I had spent a year trying to hide them. Cages of our own making are always the hardest to escape.

  When the last of the bucket of eighty balls was fired, I was wrung out like a limp dishrag. I had nothing left. There were twenty-eight balls in the back of the net. I'd saved forty-two, and ten had gone wide. It was a tough exercise, but I knew that any saves over fifty percent were an excellent showing. Sticks gave me a rare smile.

  The other players had gathered around to watch the odd proceedings, and they catcalled and yelled encouragement as Nick and Bekka were called down for their turn.

  Nick gave Sticks and Bekka a dirty look. I could tell he felt he was being set up but didn't know what to do about it. Both he and Bekka took positions in one of the goal mouths and faced the tennis cannons as if they were to be the victims of a firing squad. It was clear that this exercise was a showdown. High noon on the soccer field.

  On my way off center stage, I passed Bekka. "Don't get mesmerized by the cannon tube," I told her in a quiet voice. "Wait for the balls to fire before you react and use your body to block them when you can instead of trying to catch them. You don't have to worry about the rebounds, so it's safer." The advice wasn't much, but it was the best I could do. Nick saw me talking to Bekka and gave me his standard sneer. I would have given him the same advice, but I knew he would ignore it.

  Sticks gave the remote-control box for Bekka's cannon to Stavoros, who was looking very apprehensive. I had a feeling that the Ravens' head coach knew his son was not going to fare well in this drill. He might appear on the surface to be blinded to his son's shortcomings. What parent isn't? However, he was also an experienced enough coach and player to recognize he was about to be slapped in the face with a dose of reality. Even the mood of the other players was a telling factor. Nick had not endeared himself to the team with his attitudes, and he was about to be made painfully aware that he was going to have to do more than be the coach's offspring if he wanted professional acceptance. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost, but not quite.

  Stavoros shot out the first ball, which caught Bekka off guard and flew into the back of her net. While Nick was busy sneering, Sticks fired a ball past him. Bekka gave a little laugh which brought high color to Nick's cheeks, but after that they were too busy flinging themselves at the tiny green spheres to pay attention to what was happening in the net next to them.

  By the time ten or so balls had been fired by each cannon, both Bekka and Nick and the crowd were beginning to get into the spirit of the drill. The other players oohed and aahed as the cannons fired ball after ball at the goals. Stavoros was desperate to put the balls past Bekka and kept the machine moving at top velocity and firing speed. Sticks on the other hand, was sending the balls more skillfully at awkward angles toward Nick.

  After twenty balls, Nick had only stopped eight, but Bekka had only stopped four. After forty balls, though, Bekka had captured the rhythm and pattern of Stavoros' firing. She had started to stop more and more balls and had evened things up with Nick.

  With sixty balls fired, the crowd was really getting into the act. Every time Bekka made a save they shouted an
d cheered her on. Nick's natural ability, though, was pulling him through. If he had put his heart into the drill, I think he could have put Bekka away. She was tiring and getting sloppy, the constant bombardment of balls almost overwhelming her. But Nick couldn't stick with it. At seventy balls fired, he cracked, his pride, not Bekka, defeating him.

  "This is stupid!" he yelled as two balls in succession bounced into the net just out of his reach. Nobody paid any attention to his outburst and a third ball zipped past him. The crowd was cheering Bekka on as she kept her concentration and stopped another tennis ball.

  "Screw it!" said Nick, and he gave Sticks a rude two-fingered gesture before storming away and down the player's tunnel toward the locker room.

  Stavoros continued firing balls at Bekka, but Nick's capitulation had given her a second wind and she stopped seven of the last ten balls. Meanwhile, with a self-satisfied grin, Sticks fired every one of the last seven balls in his cannon into the back of Nick's unguarded net. When Stavoros' cannon ran empty, Bekka fell to the ground, exhausted. She was quickly surrounded by me and the rest of the team as we helped her up and patted her on the back in congratulations.

  There were forty-three balls in the back of her net. There were fifty-two in the back of Nick's. Even without the last seven freebies which had gone directly from Sticks’ cannon into the back of Nick's net, Bekka had still beaten him by two.

  "Viva La Gata Bianca!" called out Pepe Brazos. He used the occasion to pat Bekka's backside.

  The rest of the team cheered in response, "Viva La Gata Bianca!"

  The White Cat. It looked like Bekka had earned herself a nickname. She had definitely arrived.

  Chapter 15

  At dinner that evening, Bekka was animated and full of laughter. Her victory over Nick during the practice session had left her on an emotional high. The congratulations showered on her by the other players had been hugely gratifying. Payment for her long hours of effort.