The Corn Husk Experiment

by Andrea Cale

  “Next. Stop. Harvard Ave.”

  Teach quickly stepped off the squeaky train car and into a mix of hustling panhandlers, college students, and taxi drivers. There was much to prepare before the date, but the site of Blanchard’s Liquor Store on the corner made his unusually dry mouth thirsty for the Long Trail Double Bag his buddy had brought up during their sobering, promising conversation. With 7.2 percent alcohol by volume, Teach couldn’t resist grabbing a six pack to calm his growing nerves. What he didn’t know yet was how badly he was going to need it.

  A few hours, one beer, a shave and shower later, a polished Teach walked up to his compact car on Linden Street. He wore thin wool pants typically reserved for his attendances at winter weddings, a gray cashmere sweater that he saved for Christmases, and his signature black wool coat that he wore for all occasions. He cleaned up well whenever he put in the effort.

  A fluorescent orange parking ticket on the windshield waved a mocking hello.

  “Snow parking ban?” Teach said before stuffing the ticket in his coat pocket. “Come on!”

  He hoped the annoying slip wasn’t a sign of how the rest of the evening would go. He unlocked the trunk and placed a rose there so his date could receive it toward the end of the evening instead of the beginning. Then he worried if leaving it in the cold car would kill it. Fumbling with it in the restaurant would surely destroy the flow of the date, he decided.

  He slammed the trunk door with one hand and gave his car a gentle pat. The green vehicle was his first and only new car, purchased eight years ago in celebration of his University of Boston graduation and new teaching job. Back then, it might as well have been a Bentley. It had made him feel cool and accomplished to drive something new off the lot. On this day, though, with an exceptionally pretty girl expected soon in the passenger seat, he wondered if its practical look would be acceptable.

  He was running early—too early. The wheels slowly creaked against the snow in the parking spot as he left Allston for Somerville by way of a long-cut through the Harvard University campus in Cambridge. Despite the self-imposed detour, Teach still arrived at his date’s apartment too soon. He circled her block three times, hoping she wasn’t watching from her window.

  “Right on time,” she said when he finally knocked on the door.

  “Good to see you again.”

  She looked beautiful. She was the most beautiful date he’d ever had, he thought.

  “You look really pretty, as you have both times I’ve seen you,” he said. “As I’m sure you always do.”

  “Thanks.”

  Teach ended a long pause with small talk about the mutual friend who had set them up at a dinner party where they had been the only singles in attendance. He ended another quiet moment by asking her about school. He ended a third by bringing up the weather.

  On this cold night, as he opened the door of his beloved car and noticed a new scratch from parking on the street, Teach thought he heard a disappointed exhale come from the blonde beauty. He was certain he saw evidence of it from the cloud of breath near her lips that slowly disappeared in the frigid air.

  “So where are we going?” she asked.

  “I made a reservation at the East Coast Grille,” Teach said. “I noticed at the dinner party that you liked the seafood apps. I mean, not that you were eating a lot of them or anything. I was just paying attention to what you might like. Not that I was stalking you. Just do me a favor and please forget this whole rambling thing I’m doing here.” He hoped she’d find his attention to detail endearing. He hoped for a laugh to help set him at ease.

  “Oh, East Coast. How absolutely fabulous,” she said. “Love it there. Love it.”

  The restaurant was a safe choice for a date. Situated in Cambridge’s Inman Square, an up-and-coming neighborhood of hip restaurants featuring a variety of cuisines, East Coast Grille’s atmosphere was fun and classy. It made guests feel as though they were on vacation even though most diners needed to head back to their respective offices in the morning. The only downside for Teach was that the meal would easily cut into his budget for nights out with his buddies for the next month and a half. When he had made the reservation, he was sure the girl would be worth it.

  “So, you can order me a Cocktail Tranquilo when we get there,” she said.

  Teach laughed, thinking she was making an adorable joke. He felt happy she was so thrilled with the restaurant choice, until he looked at her fashionably smoky eyes and saw a very serious face to match.

  “I could call ahead and have it waiting for us,” Teach teased.

  “They would do that for me?”

  “No, I was just kidding. Sorry.”

  “Hmmm. We could try,” she said with an instantly disarming smile and a soft tone.

  “Um. Well. Huh. They’d probably want to see an ID and all—instead of trusting a guy like me over the phone—especially with my boyish voice and charm.”

  Still nothing. The girl must be book smart versus street smart, Teach decided. He thought he could still work with that. He knew she’d look great on his arm at a bowl game in a Falcons football jersey.

  “Do you like football?” he asked.

  “I’m more of a tennis kind of girl. Yuck, football? Anyway, why?”

  Teach suddenly felt her chances of earning what he thought was the ticket of the year fade fast. He answered her by lightly shading the truth.

  “Well, there is a very small chance that I might get some tickets to whatever bowl game the University of Boston ends up in. It’s such a small chance that I probably shouldn’t even be mentioning it.”

  Teach crossed his fingers over the steering wheel as he drove, knowing that acquiring the game tickets was certain. His buddies had their undeniable quirks, but when any one of them gave him his word, Teach could count on it.

  “The Falcons! They are hot right now. I don’t know anyone in this city who has mentioned a ticket to their, what is it called, Super Bowl?”

  “Bowl game.”

  “Close! I was close. Anyway, if you get the ticket, I would love it. Love it,” she exclaimed. She touched his arm as she spoke the words. Her odds creeped back up.

  Minutes later inside the restaurant, over grilled bread, mussels with ginger sauce, and a round of Cocktail Tranquilos, neither the conversation nor the chemistry progressed. It occurred to Teach that she hadn’t asked him a single question about his life. He questioned whether she had paid attention to any of his best stories. He had no idea whether she was having a good time. Her beauty, though, was hard to resist.

  As the date wound down over key lime pies, the thought of offering a bowl game ticket felt as serious and confusing to Teach as an engagement proposal. He looked at her with puzzlement. For once, she filled the silence.

  “O! M! G! Did you see that?” she whispered incredulously.

  “See what?” Teach whispered back.

  “That woman who just left. She had a picture of a cabbage on the T-shirt beneath her coat. A cabbage! What are these people thinking sometimes with their senses of style? Look, there! There she goes, Mrs. Cabbage Patch Kid.”

  Teach winced and thought of the morning’s events with poor Henry and the boy’s own ugly shirt.

  He suddenly knew what he would do with the tickets.

  “Shall we?” Teach asked, before driving his date home and accidentally forgetting about the flower left frozen in his trunk.

  CHAPTER 21

  JP

  The Destined One

  The December wind-chill on the hill in Syracuse dipped below zero. Knee-deep, lake-effect snow made the Marshall Street sidewalks and streets feel especially crowded. The sound of ice scrapers could be heard on nearly every city block. The frigid temperatures, however, did not deter boisterous tailgating in parking lots on and around M Street. It didn’t tone down the pre-game beers inside Faegan’s Pub, where fans dressed mostly in bright orange stood warmly shoulder-to-shoulder. It didn’t weaken the one-way movement of crowds toward the college s
tadium either.

  Syracuse College football fans felt overdue for a win that would land their team in a premier bowl game for the first time in years. National news on Coach Flash’s unexpected selection of the five-foot, six-inch JP to replace their injured star running back further amplified the buzz and anticipation before the game.

  Two especially nervous fans walked among the masses toward the stadium.

  “Wouldn’t you say this is the last opportunity to open up to me and fill me in on how you’re feeling about this matchup?” the SC professor of anthropology asked his wife. “You’ve barely made a peep all day.”

  “Oh, honestly, what do you think I’m feeling?” she said.

  The two parents stepped out of the heavy current of foot traffic. Fans continued streaming by, unaware that the couple they were passing had raised the player whom many of them were talking about.

  “It’s just too much for his little shoulders,” she said.

  “Oh, come on, Mum. This is not a time for puns.”

  She swatted him.

  “What?” he asked. “Seriously, now. You spoke with the boy this morning. I did not. What did he say?”

  She cried, and her own shoulders shook gently, but not from the outdoor chill.

  “That bad, huh?” asked the anthropology professor. “He’s wigged out, as the kids call it?”

  “No. He was trying to calm me. He said not to worry. He told me that no matter what happens, he’ll never regret going for it on this exact day. No matter what I may overhear people say, he is more than tough enough to handle whatever comes. Or so he claims.”

  “Well, you and I both know all of this to be true. He wasn’t just saying those things, you see? That’s really him. Did he mention anything else?”

  “He said he is going to help get them the win,” she said.

  “Well, then. What are we waiting for? Let’s get to our lucky seats.”

  Long before JP had become a member of the team, his parents had taken turns bringing the little boy to SC games. Neither of the parents had cared much for football back then, despite working for the college. Their boy had loved the sport, and that was all that mattered.

  Gripping each other’s hands, the professors reentered the flow of an electric crowd. They walked silently toward the stadium’s revolving doors that made their ears pop upon entry. They walked past the booth that kept the premium tickets safe for athletes’ friends and family members whose names were featured on a special master list. Instead, like everyone else, they waited in line to hand over their season tickets and walk through the turnstiles. They made their way up flights of exhausting stairs to the pair of seats the professors had alternated sharing with JP for years.

  They settled themselves in the familiar pair of seats, unfamiliarly next to each other.

  “This is weird. I’m used to sitting here with JP as a father-son duo. Now I’m going to watch him take this field. Well, I’ll be damned. The boy actually got his dream. He’s somethin’ isn’t he?”

  “It’s just hitting you now, huh?” JP’s mother snapped.

  The sound of the marching band, the sight of the massive number of seats inside the country’s largest on-campus facility, and the cameras lining the sidelines frayed the woman’s nerves even more.

  JP’s father had decided much earlier in the day that he would be giving his wife’s mood swings a pass.

  “I think I need a refreshment,” he said. “Care to share some nachos and pseudo cheese with me, Mum? Maybe a nice hot pretzel with humungous pieces of salt and some fluorescent mustard?”

  “Sounds appetizing. I can’t eat, but I’ll take a draft.”

  “A beer?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea, Mum? You haven’t had barely a bite to eat all day. Not to mention the fact that you don’t drink brew-ha-ha.”

  “Beer, please,” she insisted with a hint of frustration.

  “Are you going to fare OK by yourself for a minute?”

  “Of course, but hurry back.”

  JP’s mother sat alone as the Orange and Navy took the field with the most fanfare and support from the crowd she ever remembered hearing. From a few dozen rows up, like only a mother could, she scanned her son’s body language to see how he was handling the pressure. To her, and only her, he looked like he felt a bit out of place. He looked like the energy in the stadium was beyond what he had imagined. He looked the same as he had on his first day of elementary school, when the mother and son of two contrasting colors had held hands with all eyes of parents and kids alike on them.

  There were more eyes on JP on this day than anyone else on the field, and they were all taking in his size for the first time.

  “Snap out of it,” his mother whispered to him as if he could hear. “You’ve got this.”

  After a few more minutes of stressful observations, her husband returned with a pair of beers and his favorite stadium snacks.

  “I missed seeing them take the field,” he said. “How’d our boy look?”

  “He looked scared. He looked as though he feels he’s over his head.”

  “Oh, Mum. There you go again with the puns. Look at those big bruisers. They’re all over his head.”

  The glare the professor received from his wife made him quickly change the subject.

  “Hey look, there’s that roomie of his.”

  “Whistler?”

  “Heading toward the ref at the center S.”

  With the team’s star running back off the active roster, Whistler was left as the most experienced captain to represent Syracuse College for the coin toss. He won the flip, but deferred the choice of receiving the ball in the first quarter to Tennessee.

  Coach Flash knew it was going to be a close game. No one had to remind him that it was going to be an important one. He had instructed Whistler an hour earlier that if he won the toss, he should pass up the chance to have the ball in first quarter. They would take a risk and open the game with SC’s solid defense to buy the Orange and Navy’s newly shaken offense some much-needed confidence. They’d choose starting off the second half instead.

  The opposing team’s quarterback began the game with one incomplete pass followed by a second. The Syracuse crowd was wild and hungry for a third. Most of them fetched keys from their pockets and began shaking them, a signature move in the stadium whenever an opposition’s third—and hopefully final—down was about to fail. This year’s defensive players were so successful at stopping their opponent on third down attempts that the fans and Syracuse media fondly referred to the Orange and Navy defense as The Keys. They also called Whistler the Master.

  At the start of the third down, the deafening noise within the stadium made it difficult for the visiting quarterback to communicate his play to his offense. He caught the snap and scanned the field for an open man. The quarterback spotted one, but it was SC’s Whistler who plowed him over for a sack. The sea of fans dressed in orange looked and sounded as though they were on fire.

  JP’s parents joined the crowd in celebration, exchanged high-fives, and screamed Whistler’s name. JP’s mother relaxed just a little, just for a moment. Coach Flash, Whistler, and the entire defensive line had done their opening work for the Orange and Navy. It was now her son’s turn.

  The stadium quieted to dull chatter and sporadic cheers when JP took the field with the rest of the Orange and Navy offense. Coach Flash and the offensive coordinators still planned to buy JP some time and get him comfortable on a field where he had experienced zero game-time minutes. They called two passing plays in a row, and the offense successfully moved its way close to a first down. The refs brought out the chains to measure whether they achieved it, and the Orange crowd ignited again, as though their support would make the difference.

  It didn’t. The head ref signaled the down as third and inches. Coach Flash and just about everyone else in the stadium knew that the ball would finally have to go to JP. JP’s mother had watched enough fo
otball games to know it too.

  “Here we go,” she whispered, clasping her hands and closing her eyes for a moment to wish her favorite boy in the world well.

  As the Orange and Navy broke from the huddle and lined up for the snap, the ball shot from the quarterback to JP. The hype around the small running back made the opposition especially hungry to stop him. JP’s blockers were trapped. There was nowhere to run. JP fell on the ball to prevent a fumble. It was a wise play, even though it made him look bad.

  “Oh, what the hell,” yelled a man sitting directly behind JP’s mother. “C’mon, coach. He had his shot now, let’s pull the pipsqueak out!”

  “Hold it together, Mum,” JP’s father warned his wife. “You’ll have the last laugh. You know you will. Just ignore them. Remember what JP told you this morning.”

  The heckler’s views represented a majority of the fans’ wishes throughout the stadium, but following another three-and-out led by an unstoppable Whistler and the Orange and Navy’s tireless defense, it was quickly time for JP to take the field again.

  Coach Flash and the offensive coordinator opted to give JP an opportunity to run the ball immediately on this drive. They thought it might help get the nerves out with a play that didn’t carry quite so much pressure.

  JP’s quarterback caught the snap. He quickly and accurately tossed it to the small running back. JP was used to running against players twice his size, but he wasn’t feeling himself on the field. He felt just as he did in the classroom whenever a teacher called on him and he replied with, “Can you please repeat the question?” Instead of listening to the question again and thinking about a solution, he often found himself outside of his body, thinking instead about how he was being perceived. He wondered what people were thinking now. He wondered if he was fitting in.

  On the field, the break in concentration made JP miss a defensive end coming at his rear, right side. This time, the failed drive would be his fault. As the defender drove JP to the ground, the ball popped out from under his small, chiseled chin. A Tennessee Volunteer landed on top of it for a fumble.