#2 Breakthrough

by A. L. Priest

  “That’s good. Maybe in college you’ll learn that you can’t give more than a hundred percent.”

  “It’s just a figure of speech.”

  They’d moved to Troy because Efram’s mother had been laid off at the laboratory where she had worked in Blink. Money was an issue in every part of their lives, from shopping to the length of a hot shower. And if Efram was being honest with himself, their poverty seriously worried him. Other boys might have dreamed of girls or cars or what they might become when they were adults. When Efram lay in bed, he thought about money. He brooded on ways he could get it and make life easier on his mother.

  He saw how much time she spent clipping coupons. He saw that she denied herself new clothes. She had even begun to let her hair grow long. Not out of any sense of style but because the money that she normally would have spent on herself now went to the household.

  Efram didn’t have any burning desire to play football, though he’d enjoyed it well enough the few times he found himself in games growing up. What really made him want to play was the hope that he could ease some of the financial pressure on his mother. If he could do that by working hard and playing a game, Efram was bound and determined to do it.

  His mother looked at him closely. “Do you really want this, Efram?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  “OK,” she sighed. “Gimme the papers. I’ll sign.”

  Later, when Efram was alone in his room, he flipped on his Xbox, logged into Xbox Live, and fired up Trigger Disciples.

  After a moment, a message indicator popped up. You have an invitation from Flicktorious97, the screen read. Efram accepted it.

  Flicktorious97: Hey man, it’s time for a little Team Deathmatch.

  Efram smiled and pressed the join button. A few moments later, he began to play.

  Flick rode with Efram to school the next day. After chatting for a while about their Trigger Disciples game the night before, Efram said, “You got your Trojan T-shirt on, I see.”

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “Didn’t think you were much of a sports fan,” Efram said. “You know, mohawk. BMX bike. Attitude.”

  “Shows what you get for thinking, hoss,” Flick said. “What you’re really saying is you didn’t think I would like football because I’m small.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Efram said, trying to look outraged.

  “Man, my mom and pop are huge Trojan football fans. And, believe it or not, I am too.”

  “I just thought, with your hair and the—”

  “The what?”

  “The surliness, you wouldn’t be into team sports. Heck, I don’t know if I’m into team sports.”

  “Surliness?” Flick asked.

  “You know. Orneriness.”

  “What is this? The Wild West?”

  Efram fell silent, wondering if Flick was truly upset.

  “Hey, I’m just messing with you,” Flick said, flashing a mischievous grin. “I love football. Probably because of my deep love of Madden.”

  “Hey, I’ve got that one.”

  “All right, hoss, maybe tonight we can play, and I’ll take you to school.”

  “I’ve got practice from eighth period until five,” Efram said. “My mom signed the waivers.”

  “Hey, that’s good news! Well, I’ll hang out, do my homework in the bleachers, and see what we can see.”

  The thought of Flick watching and judging him made Efram a little nervous. “I’ve never really played football before. I hope I’m not a total idiot at it.”

  “Football is pretty simple in concept, man, but complicated in execution. But you’ll do fine.”

  Efram felt better about it after that.

  5/MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9—TROJAN FOOTBALL PRACTICE

  The day stretched out, each class a droning misery. Efram had always done well in English, though he didn’t have much passion for it. But math and hard sciences appealed to him, as they appealed to his mother. They rarely changed, and everything was quantifiable. Biology, chemistry—these subjects were the operating system of the world he inhabited. Novels and stories seemed more like guessing games about the human operating system.

  Throughout the day, Efram forced himself to concentrate, though his mind was elsewhere. Thinking about football practice, Efram found himself getting excited. Whatever his experience might be—the “granola” sports—he always looked forward to new things and a good workout. When the eighth period bell rang, he hopped up, stuffed his books in his backpack, and hustled down to Willard Auto Parts Field.

  A sour-looking man with a white beard stood clothed in the red-and-white Trojan colors. He sported a Trojan warrior logo on his windbreaker, a whistle around his neck, his hands on his hips.

  “You must be the new kid Coach Zachary was telling me about.”

  “Efram James,” Efram said. “I’ve got my forms.” He unslung his overstuffed backpack and began rummaging through it.

  “Do I look like a secretary, kid?” the man asked. “You’ll need to drop those by the main office. Later. Right now, we’re gonna get you into some gear.” He pointed to a concrete awning under the bleacher seating with the word HOME set into the stone. “In here, Cinderella, and we’ll get you into your ball gown.”

  As they entered sloping concrete entrance to the Trojan locker room, the dank smell of anti-septic cleansers, Pine-Sol, and fifty years of teenage sweat assaulted his nostrils. Inside, the tiles echoed with the sounds of clattering plastic shoulder pads and cleats on concrete.

  “Come on,” the sour man said, waving Efram forward. “You’ll be able to wear these temporary pads until we figure out if you’ve got the right stuff.”

  It was hard to imagine how many boys had worn these same pads before him. Efram felt uneasy in the borrowed gear. The man gave him a plastic-wrapped mouth guard and said, “All right, kid. You now owe the Trojan football program three dollars.”

  “What for?”

  “The mouthguard.”

  “But—”

  “Save it. Come on.”

  In a short while, Efram was standing on the football field. He wore a slightly oily and heavily scarred helmet, a musty practice jersey stretched tight over shoulder pads, and some padded and yellowing pants.

  Efram couldn’t help but think Sportsball! as Coach Zachary spotted him and trotted over. He called to the sour man and a younger man in Trojan colors and made introductions.

  “Hoss, this here’s Al Whitson, our offensive coach. You’ve already met Jim Colby, our defensive coach.” Zachary gestured at the sour man that had given Efram the moldy gear.

  A steady stream of players came from the locker room onto Willard Auto Parts Field, most of them holding their helmets under their arms and drinking water from squirt bottles. Coach Zachary clapped his hands and said in a loud voice, “Trojans, let’s go, let’s go! Get out on the field!”

  Everyone quickly took position on the field in a loose grid formation and they swiftly began a warm up routine. The team ran through all the standards: form run, side lunges, picking cotton, forward lunges, high-knee butt kicks. Efram could feel the tension leaking from his body as he limbered up. His mood was improving.

  Next the coaches instructed the boys to run yard lines back and forth until they were breathing heavy, heart rate up. It wasn’t too taxing—Efram was in good shape—but getting used to moving in the pads was something he had not planned on.

  Eventually Coach Zachary called out, “Hoss! Let’s see what you can do.”

  Holding a football in the crook of his arm, Coach Whitson waved him toward the coaching staff. Zachary looked Efram over. “You’re too tall to be an effective running back. You need bulldogs who can power through the line. But you are big. We’ll see if you can work as a tight end. Can you catch a ball?”

  “I think so,” Efram said.

  “Shane!” Coach Whitson called. “Throw this guy some balls.”

  Shane, a good-looking blond kid, ran over with a foot
ball.

  “’Sup, man,” Shane said, putting out his hand.

  Efram introduced himself as they shook hands.

  Shane smiled, “Tell ya what, you run about fifteen yards and hook right toward the yard line. We’ll do that a few times, see what’s up.”

  “Sounds good,” Efram said.

  “On ‘hut.’”

  Efram and Shane positioned themselves a few feet apart, on a yard line, and tensed.

  “Hut!”

  Efram took off downfield and hooked right, turning to look back at Shane. The helmet blocked some of his vision, so he was surprised to find that the football was already in the air and coming straight for him. It struck Efram in the right shoulder and careened off to the side.

  They reset, and on the second try, Efram caught it.

  Efram wasn’t totally ignorant of football. He’d watched enough at his uncle’s and had played enough Madden to understand the basics. The game had seemed so easy. That was part of why he had never been that interested in it. But out on the field, trying to catch a ball and run in pads and helmet, Efram began to realize football wasn’t as easy as video games had made it look.

  He began to grin.

  After a few more passes—most of those he caught—Coach Whitson smiled.

  “Well, you’re not a receiver, that’s for sure,” Whitson said. “But you can move. Maybe defense?”

  After a moment, he walked over to Coach Colby, who was yelling at a player. Together they set up a scrimmage line. Coach Colby drew Efram aside and said, “All right, kid. Here’s the deal. Offense, it’s running plays, trying to move the ball down field. In some ways, they’re in charge. They’re acting. The defense is reacting. Understand?”

  “Sure.”

  “Shut up,” he said. Efram wanted to say, But you just asked me a question. “Since defense is reacting to the offense, it’s more of a thinking game. You’ve got the look of a linebacker to me, but you’re fast and don’t seem too stupid. We’ll try you as a safety. Hopefully you’re not cranially deficient.”

  “Uh, what do I do?”

  Coach Colby rolled his eyes. Efram thought it was strange that a man whose job it was to coach players got so irritated when the players asked to be coached. He put another checkmark in his mental tally of Things I’ll Never Understand about Adults.

  “If he throws the ball, you knock it out of the air or catch it. You watch the line and tackle the crap out of the guy with the ball. I mean really stick it to them. Got me?”

  “Yes,” Efram said.

  “Shut up and get on the line.”

  Efram positioned himself in the linebacker position with some assistance from another boy. Behind the offensive line, Shane called out a series of colors and numbers. The linemen assumed their three-point stances and the center placed his hand on the ball.

  Once, the summer before his move, Efram had been mountain biking when his front wheel blew out. The rim dug into the hill and the bike began to flip. In that moment, everything became slow motion, like suddenly he’d plunged into water. He’d had time to tuck his head and roll instead of face-planting into the hard earth. When he’d asked his mother about it, she said that sometimes people’s perception can speed up in times of need. In that moment, it feels as if everything has slowed. The body and mind are reacting that fast. As Shane approached the center and barked ‘Hut!’ Efram felt the same thing happening.

  Shane took the ball in his hands, quickly falling back a few paces. He turned his torso toward Efram like a cocked pistol, yet he looked the other direction. The defensive line came together in a crush, shoulder pads clattering together. The boys grunted and chuffed through their mouthpieces.

  The two players behind Shane moved outward.

  The fullback and halfback, Efram remembered.

  Shane turned and appeared to hand the ball to the nearest of the other players. The guy clutched something to his belly and took steps toward an opening at the edge of the defensive line. But Efram continued to track Shane, who was spinning back the other way. He still had the ball and placed it in the gut of the halfback. The halfback’s legs began churning forward.

  Without thinking, Efram leapt into action, following the movements of the halfback.

  The impact was thunderous. Efram outweighed the other player by at least thirty or forty pounds. When he rushed forward, he knocked the halfback a good eight yards backwards. The ball rolled out of bounds, along with the other player’s helmet.

  Efram heard whistles as he disentangled himself from the fallen player on the ground. Time had resumed its normal speed. The coaches were running toward him. The player on the ground moaned, so Efram held out his hand to help him up.

  “Holy crapoli, son!” Coach Zachary said. “I think we’ve got a safety, gents. One hoss of a safety!”

  Coach Colby frowned. “I guess you’re right. Don’t know if he’ll be able to fill Willett’s shoes, though.”

  A rushing sound filled Efram’s ears. He felt incredible, every fiber of his body alive. All he wanted to do was to run another play.

  “Shane! Put on your helmet back on! There aren’t any cameras pointing at you now! Let’s run some plays,” Coach Zachary bellowed.

  An hour and a half later, Efram was pleasantly exhausted. The Trojans had run plays for a long while. Efram had a natural ability to determine what the offense was going to do. And he was strong, big, and fast, which Coach Zachary had reminded him at least twenty times. On the other hand, Efram had a hard time understanding why Coach Colby was so rough on him. Why would someone who so obviously unhappy dealing with other people take a job in which he had to interact with them all day long?

  Flick greeted Efram on the way out of the locker rooms, smiling.

  “Dang, you really took to football,” he said as they walked over to their bikes.

  “You were watching?”

  “Yep. Nearly howled with laughter at the look on their faces when you stuck it to Devon. They weren’t expecting that!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he’s their—our—best halfback. They thought he’d bowl you over, make mashed potatoes out of you. But you did it to him!”

  Flick looked extremely pleased with himself.

  “You sure do seem to know a lot about the team,” Efram said.

  Flick narrowed his eyes. “Man, this is Troy, Ohio. The whole town eats, breathes, and sleeps football. My mom and dad aren’t any different.”

  “And you?” Efram asked.

  “I’d give my left eye to be as big as you,” he said. Flick said it jokingly, but Efram could hear some real emotion behind it.

  “Man, I need to get home,” Efram said, stomach rumbling. At six-foot-five, thick and muscular, he was always hungry. He didn’t know how to respond to Flick’s remark about his size. Did it really matter, anyway? Flick was smart and funny and likable.

  In Blink, Arizona, Efram’s friends had celebrated diversity. But not so much in Troy, Ohio. Lots of white faces. Everyone looked similar, wore the same clothes. And Flick, for all his differences, stuck out like a sore thumb.

  I guess I do too, Efram thought.

  “Well, let’s go!” Flick sped off on his BMX, and Efram pedaled to catch up.

  6/THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19—PREGAME DAY

  Efram’s first game took place the following week. He sat in school desks that were almost too small for his large frame, running plays in his head, thinking about the strange rush that came with stopping an offensive play.

  One night, as Efram and his mother were clearing the dishes from the dinner table, a knock sounded at the door.

  Efram answered it. There was a police officer standing on the stoop.

  “Uh, can I help you, officer?”

  “You must be Efram!” the police officer exclaimed. “I’m Gary Sloan.” He extended his hand to shake.

  Efram took his hand and shook it, tentatively. “Did we do something wrong, Officer Sloan?”

  From inside the hous
e, Efram’s mother said, “Who is it?”

  “A police officer,” Efram said, turning to look at his mother. She had an alarmed look on her face.

  When Efram’s mother joined him, Officer Sloan raised his hands. “It’s OK, folks. I’m not here in an official capacity for the Troy Police Department.” He stooped to pick up a wicker basket by his feet. “I’m here in an official capacity as a board member of the Friends of Troy Football.” He offered the basket to Efram.

  “Thanks, uh, Officer Sloan.” Efram took it. “What is it?”

  “It’s a bunch of grilled chicken breasts and a casserole my wife made. You gotta keep your strength up for the game!” he said.

  Efram’s mother was astonished. “It’s very generous …” she said. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t have to say nothing!” Officer Sloan exclaimed, turning to walk back to his cruiser that was parked on the curb. “We’re here to make sure our players are in tip-top shape for competition!” He stopped, thinking. “Oh, say, we’re having a player get-together tomorrow night at Doyle’s Pizzeria! Be sure to come!” He hopped into his police car and took off down the street.

  Efram looked at his mother. “This town is weird,” he said.

  She took the basket from him and peeked under the lid. “I think it’s a good kind of weird.”

  The next afternoon, Coach Colby explained grumpily that the practices before the games were light so the boys could conserve their strength. Efram’s mom dropped him off at Doyle’s Pizzeria later that day, promising to pick him up at ten o’clock. Wally Doyle, a tall, silver-haired man with a smiling red face, greeted Efram at the door. Looking Efram’s tall frame up and down, he said, “You’re a Trojan if I’ve ever seen one.” He patted Efram on the shoulder. “Head back to the party room.”

  Efram soon found himself in a banquet room, surrounded by his teammates. A party spread lay before them. Coach Zachary, Coach Colby, and Coach Whitson were at the restaurant as well. Some members of the cheerleader squad sat nearby, a number of them clustered around Shane and the wide receiver, Orlando Green.