by David Xavier
“Yeah,” I said. “Second-team fullback. Carries linebackers like children.”
“He’ll be something next year. He’s a sophomore. He’s in my drama class.”
“Nice guy?”
Emery nodded. “He’s one of the boys. Professor makes him sit up front where he can keep an eye on him. Likes to have fun.”
“You made it out of the rain.” The voice came from under me. I looked over his head first, then found him at my shoulder. It was Myles. Jude Miller was with him.
“Good to see you dry,” Myles said. He had his camera hanging from his neck, his fingers at the ready. “I thought you might have gills by now. I saw you from across the Quad. I called for you.”
“I’m Jude Miller.” He held his hand out to me.
“I know.”
He looked at me funny, not remembering me. Emery looked over at them and didn’t say anything.
“This your friend?” Myles asked, pointing to Emery.
“This is Emery. Emery; Myles and Jude.”
Emery shook their hands quickly and returned to his pockets. He watched the cheerleader. “She is something.”
“Who is?” Myles asked.
Emery motioned with his chin toward the girl.
“I love seeing you boys go whirling over girls.” He snapped a photo of the cheerleader. “It’s so funny.”
Emery just looked at him for a moment. He was about to say something, and I pointed to the stage to take his attention.
“Dillon versus Carroll,” were the words from the cone. A few students came forward. The crowd pulled back to clear a short field in front. The fullback handed the cone off and jumped down with the watermelon held in his arms. Three boys from Carroll Hall stood on one side, two students from Dillon Hall and the fullback faced them.
“Get more,” the fullback yelled. “More Dillon!”
“Watch this now,” Emery said. “Enter at your own risk.”
Two more students from Dillon Hall assembled among their mates. It was five on three. The crowd counted down 3-2-1 and yelled the signal, roaring together in a musical “Hut!” that seemed to carry like radio waves in the early air.
The fullback charged forward, going between his two blockers and the pile staggered. A student from Dillon fell and was trampled on, flailing upward with arms and legs to tangle among the feet. The fullback barreled through, Dillon Hall on his back, walking upright with casual effort. He walked across the chalk line with a student still grasping his waist like a child. The crowd of students roared with delight and the big man with hunched shoulders held the watermelon high.
The Dillon students gathered themselves off the grass like bucked rodeo cowboys and walked off.
“Are you going to classes now?” Emery asked me.
“Yes. I figured I should just keep moving forward.”
Myles turned to me. “Did a wise man tell you that?”
“Carroll versus Morrissey!” the cone spoke again. The fullback looked among the crowd for Morrissey students, pointing to one and beckoning him forward with a friendly smile. He put his hands on the student’s shoulders, facing the crowd, looking for more.
“The boy is an absolute madman,” Emery said. “An absolute ape. He’ll be something.”
“What a bunch of cavemen,” Myles said. “What’s the point?” He was standing on his toes to watch, his hand on my elbow for balance. Emery looked over.
“It’s tradition,” Emery said to him. He leaned in to me. “You know this boy?”
“A little,” I said.
Carroll versus Morrissey! Carroll versus Morrissey!
The green in the quad breathed with excitement as students from Morrissey came forward reluctantly, pushed by peers, and assembled on the short field. The fullback took his place again, the watermelon tucked tightly in his cradle.
“Boy’s games,” Myles said. “You could stop him.”
“No,” I said.
“Big guy like you. You could stop him.”
Emery looked at me. I could see the idea become concrete in his head. “You could stop him.”
“No.”
“He carried my friend here over his shoulder the other night with barely a sweat broken.”
The countdown from the crowd began again, six on three this time, Carroll Hall versus Morrissey Hall. “For the South Quad championship!” a student screamed through the cone. “Hut!”
Carroll and Morrissey collided, more fevered than before, bragging rights in the balance, and the fullback charged the line. He carried through, head above the tallest, walking like some sort of crazed, unstoppable beast, his big legs picking up and stomping as the Morrissey students grappled in the pile, one student punched at the melon, trying to cause a fumble. The melon popped and the fullback carried the dripping remains over the line.
“Carroll Hall wins!” The students cheered.
Myles gave me a shove toward the short field. “You can stop him.”
Emery agreed with Myles in both the statement and the urging. I stumbled between the crowd, the pushes coming from all around me then, and found myself on the field, standing there like an unchained prisoner on a gladiator’s court. The fullback looked at me with a triumphant smile. The student with the cone announced, “A challenger!”
The crowd roared. I turned to leave but the wall of students would not let me through, hands and forearms pushing me back. As Morrissey cleared away, I was alone on the field with the monstrous fullback. The cute brunette cheerleader handed me a watermelon and skipped away. I heard Emery yell out, “Get her name.”
The fullback walked up to me.
“Just games,” he said. He had a cheerful smile lodged in his rubble of stone, the baby fat still rounding out his cheeks. He patted my shoulder. “We’re all on the same team.”
He stood two inches taller than I did and I judged he had at least fifteen pounds on me. A large leprechaun pushed me to the centerline and the crowd began a long countdown from ten.
“Just for show,” he said to me. He patted my shoulder again and I could see the bulge of corded deltoid between his neck and shoulder. “I’m Pat Carragher. I’ll go easy.”
“Sam Conry.”
The countdown was at five.
“You’re a big Mick. What do you say?”
I looked around at the faces, the chanting riot, and back to Pat Carragher. “Don’t go easy,” I told him. “Let’s give them a show.”
He looked at me hard then, and I wished immediately that I hadn’t said it. He took the watermelon from my hands and stepped back with the 3-2-1 count. He crouched low and smiled.
I heard Emery yell encouragement from somewhere in the crowd. I lowered myself, and the crowd yelled altogether in a long, screaming, “Huuut!”
From his first charging step I knew he was not going to hold back. The turf under his shoes peeled away and flung into the air behind him. He came at me like a bull, the watermelon held in both arms, his shoulders lowered.
If you think about the hit you get hurt. You tense and stop and end up on your back. So I charged and lowered, under his shoulders, and drove hard with my legs. I didn’t feel the impact but I heard the air go out of him, and the watermelon exploded between us. I picked him off the ground with my shoulder in his belly and my arms wrapped around his legs. We went sideways, neither of us overpowering the other, a great collision of determination, and we fell as one to the gasps of the students.
I stayed still for a moment and realized I had no lungs. I looked at Pat and saw he was fighting for the same air. We blinked through red pulp, our faces dotted with black seeds, and rolled away from each other, staring at the sky. The crowd stood and watched like mutes for a moment, then exploded in cheers.
Chapter Six
I found out quickly that the student library was a place where peace and quiet were strictly observed and I could read class textbooks in the silence one might find in a warm cloud. Conversations were cut off in mid-sentence at the doors and books were set
down gently on the tables as if made of eggshells.
The sun was warm, cut intermittently by cool breezes that waved in the confused trees. The dying leaves and the chill of the season were on the air and I took my time walking to the library, the silence of it at the sidewalk’s end oddly as ominous as rolling thunder. A fatboy riding a small bicycle passed in front of a small girl, startling her into a jump. It was Liv, walking alone, her wool skirt about her knees, her blonde hair blonder in the light. She saw me and waited.
“Will you walk me to my class?” I asked her. “I’m scared to go alone.”
“You monster,” she smiled. “You’re on your own. Besides, it’s Saturday.”
“I know, but I need to catch up.”
“Catch up? In the first week of class? You are either a slacker or an overachiever.”
“Which would you guess?”
“I would say it depends on the day. You slack on Monday and overachieve on Saturday.”
“You have me figured out.”
“What happened to you?” She pointed under my eye. “A little Friday mischief with the boys?
“What?”
“Your cheek. You have a bruise.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess. With the boys.”
“I haven’t got you figured out at all. I thought you were studious.”
Standing a little taller, I said, “I am.”
“Studious boys don’t get bruises.”
“Well. My books were heavier than I expected.”
She had a sweet smile and a pleasant way of being embarrassed by charming small talk. She covered her mouth to hide her laugh.
“Did you find the girl you were waiting for?”
“Who?”
“The girl you were waiting for. That night in the rain. Boys who wait in the girl’s dorm aren’t just there to stay dry.”
I shifted my weight. “Are you going to take me to class or what?”
“Oh, brother. The minute a girl is mentioned you boys get shy. Are you seeing anyone?”
“No,” I said.
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s okay. I’ll just be on my way.” I put my arm around an unseen set of shoulders, walked a few paces, and kissed an invisible cheek. Liv watched me with a peculiar smile.
“And who’s this?”
“Hum?” I looked back with puzzled eyebrows and answered her with blinking eyes. I gestured to the leggy spot of air next to me. “Oh, this?”
She nodded and crossed her arms and did me the favor of humoring me. “Do you see anyone else around?”
“Oh yes. How rude of me to not introduce you, but you see, she’s shy. She’s the complete opposite of you. Falls to pieces in the rain. It’s her one flaw.”
“She seems nice.”
I shook my head. “Well, she isn’t. She disappears on me all the time. Doesn’t answer to a word I say. I’m beginning to think she was born without a tongue.”
“Some boys like quiet girls.”
“Well, I don’t.” I looked at her. “I like them blonde and blabby.”
She looked at the ground with her hands locked behind her and brought her head up finally to speak, as if she had been working up the courage. “How about you take me to the game later?”
I put my hands in my pockets and smiled. “Do you always panic and ask men out on dates when you run out of things to say?”
“Who said anything about a date? What sort of a girl do you think I am? I wouldn’t dream of asking.”
“Okay then, it’s not a date. It’s a coincidence. What game?”
“What game? You did say you were a student here. Season opener. Longhorns. Everybody goes to the games.”
“I don’t go to the games.”
“Why not?”
I shrugged. “I just don’t.”
“I lied to you. I didn’t think you were studious. I thought you might be a football player when I first saw you.”
“Why? Do you like football players?”
“Because you’re tall and you walk with a straight back.”
“No. I don’t play. I don’t play and I don’t go to the games. How’s that for team spirit?”
“Were you at the pep rally?”
I hesitated for a moment. “I saw it from a distance.”
“You’re not doing too well. But I like you.” She twirled her skirt. “Don’t blush.”
“It’s the sun. It brings out a rare color in me.”
“Well…?” she said. “The invitation may expire.”
“An invitation to a coincidence. There’s something new. Okay, how many guys would I have to fight off?”
“I’m flattered. How many would it take?”
“I would fight off the entire football roster to get a date with you.”
“It’s not a date. If you don’t take me to the game then I shall be forced to spend the rest of the day finding someone who will.”
So I took her to the game.
Notre Dame football holds an untouchable mystique that other schools reach for and fail to grasp. Some can touch it. Their fingertips can give a fleeting caress to it, whatever it is, but no school holds it the way Notre Dame does.
The students march together to the field, under the tunnel, flags held high, pride swelling, the marching band out front and the drumline rolling their never-ending tat-tat-tat.
Through the parking lot we strolled, Liv taking my hand in hers with a bubbly smile, through the impeccable flower garden, grass neatly trimmed, the murmur of the crowd vibrating through the steel beams of the bleachers. Into the entrance the pit of the field opens wide below as you approach the rail, the shades of green, patterned light and dark between the crisp white yard lines, and the smell of perfect grass, an immense crowd above, the seats filled, colors brightly waving.
Then the golden streak of players charges from the tunnel, spreading out into the field, players lifting their arms in encouragement like birds in flight, players living their boyhood dreams. The crowd responds and the stadium quakes with cheers. Quiet mother’s boys raise their arms and join the shrieks, their timid shells shirked for the day. Pride turns over in your lungs, your heart quickens its beat, and you scream a golden litany with those around you, unashamed of your volume or the hoarseness that rattles your throat. You are a part of a team, a deep tradition, and your yells become mute whispers among growls, heard only as a buzz in your own ears.
With each crushing tackle, each sprawling catch upon the turf, every run through the guards, the students roar like lions. The echo of the play-by-play man on the speakers drowns away, and touchdowns are a stomping madness in the stands. Shirtless, painted students lean over the rails to their thighs, arms waving, controlled by brief lunacy. The stadium is braced and each face is distinguished in the stands. It feels on the verge of collapse with each crossing of gold in the end zone, the moment caught forever with the flash of newspaper photographers, going off in a dozen simultaneous blinks, and over it all are the gilded back and forth of the trumpets in the stands, blaring the world’s most recognizable fight song.
Legends are made on the Irish green.
I listened to the hysterical shouts of victory from the parking lot.
Chapter Seven
I saw Elle Quinn in church the next day.
The morning sun breached the basement window as I lay on the cot. I was content to stay there, but the silent shame that chased me across the pillow tore at my conscience, my only escape was to rise and sit up.
Autumn shivered under my jacket as the basilica doors closed to darkness behind me. The familiar smell of incense and the mustiness of church walls took me from head to chest and through the shoulders as I crossed myself with fingertips wetted from the concrete seashell.
Kneeling in silence, a wall of a dozen suit jackets and wool sweaters ahead of me, I saw her across the aisle. A doily capped her waved hair, the cascades pinned modestly at her shoulders. She made all the motions, knelt at the right times, her lips whispered
the Latin responses, her hands folded at her tucked chin throughout. She appeared undaunted, deeply religious, her faith still whole.
Peter used to say that leaving a bad impression with somebody was among the worst sins of a Catholic. It sticks on the mind of the impressed until they question not only the impression, but the roots from where it grew. To represent our Father in a bad light is the same as showing one how to be an atheist. If there was an eleventh commandment, that would have been firecarved upon the stone. I could hear Peter saying it.
Besides that, she had once belonged to my brother, maybe she still did, and the sin was magnified.
I passed the basket without dropping a dollar and I stayed seated during communion. At the door, Father Donnelly shook hands with everyone on their way out. He held my hand for a moment longer than a greeting, and looked at me. He was young and smooth-skinned without a trace of a beard. He must have shaved very close and it made him look younger. I thought we might be in the same decade.
“Good to see you, Sam.”
“You too, Father Donnelly. Excellent sermon today.”
He didn’t let go of my hand. “What was your favorite part?”
I remembered his opening lines, the one piece that stuck in my head. “The part about Jesus being a fan of Fighting Irish football.”
He released his grip on me and held his arms up to signal a touchdown. A big smile appeared on his face and I could see the wheels in his head turning, an idea sparking behind his eyes. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
I spent Monday’s class session sitting atop the wet bleachers. She appeared on the sidelines, hidden under a raincoat and jotting down notes on a notepad.
In keeping my eyes on her, I let my feet find their own way and slipped as I hopped off the bleachers. I put myself into a half-run on the grass to regain my balance, my book and notepad leaping out of my hands as if they were a live thing, landing butterflied against the back of her ankle. I sauntered on new feet to stand next to her with little dignity left.
Her immediate reaction was to ask if I was all right, and she knelt down to gather my books as she spoke. When she stood and saw it was me, she was almost startled. Her throat went up and down in a swallow.