by Mike Lupica
But had he done that just now with Casey?
Or had he just looked plain old weak, no matter how good his intentions were, no matter how much of a team man he was trying to be? Had he looked weak when quarterbacks—especially Granger quarterbacks, especially Cullens—were supposed to look strong? When they were supposed to look like leaders?
In the moment when he had to decide, under the gun, how far to take it with Casey, Jake had decided that the worst thing for the team was a fight, right there in front of everybody, between the two guys fighting it out to be quarterback of the team.
He wasn’t afraid of Casey; heck, Jake hadn’t ever been afraid of Wyatt when the two of them would get into it, even when Wyatt was still a lot bigger and stronger. What was he afraid of, then? That people would think he was as cocky as Casey Lindell?
“One of the things I love the most about you, Jacob, is that you’ve always known who you are,” his mom once said. “Even before the rest of us knew.”
Inside Stone’s, Jake had known who he wasn’t, even though everybody who’d watched him walk out had to think that Casey had backed him down.
He’d taken the high road and then found out how much the high road could suck.
“Hey.”
He looked up, and there standing in front of him, having come up on him so quietly it was like she’d just appeared somehow, was Sarah Rayburn.
Nobody with her.
Just her and Jake.
“Hey,” he said.
“Nate and Bear were on their way out,” she said. “I asked them to give us a minute. I just wanted to tell you something.”
He waited.
“I just wanted to tell you I thought you did the right thing back there.”
“Really?” Jake said.
“Really. Everybody thought it was about to get out of hand, but you didn’t let it.”
“Thanks for saying that,” Jake said. “But I feel like I must’ve looked pretty weak in front of the team, in front of you. In front of everybody.”
“You’re wrong,” she said.
“Well, thank you,” Jake said. “I guess.”
“You’re welcome, I guess,” she said, smiling.
Past her, he could see Nate and Bear at the front door to Stone’s, underneath the Stone’s Throw sign, watching them, waiting.
Right now, though, there was just Sarah, just a few feet separating them, just air between them, Jake not sure what to say or do, just knowing he liked breathing that air.
But before he had to think of something to say, Sarah turned and ran back toward Stone’s, waving at Nate and Bear as she went back through the front door, taking all that air with her.
18
WHEN THEY WERE ALL IN THE TRUCK, JAKE WANTED TO KNOW what had happened in the back room after he’d walked out.
Nate said, “Well, I got up.”
“Never good.”
“Nah, not what you’re thinkin’,” Nate said. “Oh, I thought about gettin’ up on Casey and askin’ him, did he have anything he wanted to say to me? But I didn’t.”
“Would’ve looked like you were fighting a fight I didn’t want to have with him,” Jake said.
“Anybody who thought you were afraid of him is too dumb to play football,” Bear said.
“Anyways,” Nate said, “all I said was that we’re all on the same team and everybody on the team should keep that in mind or they would have to be dealing with me, in what I described as a permanent-type manner.”
“So you basically said what I should’ve said,” Jake said.
“No,” Bear said. “You did right. That guy didn’t care what you had to say, all he cared about was making you look bad, whether you tried to reason with his dumb self or not. No kidding, how does he even remember the plays, being as dumb as he is?”
Jake felt better, hearing it from his boys like this. He knew what Sarah had just told him, how she’d tried to pump him up. But she was a Granger cheerleader, not a Granger Cowboy.
They all sat in silence now, riding through the two-lane Texas night, on their way to the Cullen ranch, Bear finally saying, “Are we allowed to ask about Sarah?”
“Yes.”
“So how’d it go?”
Jake waited. Then he finally said, “Oh, you expected an answer, too?”
Bear said to Nate, “Boy must be starting to feel better. Thinks he’s funny again.”
“It went amazing,” Jake said.
“Care to be more specific?” Nate said.
“I do not.”
“Didn’t think you would.”
There was another silence now that took them through the gate to the ranch, up the long road to the house. As Jake walked toward the front door, he said he’d hit them up in the morning, they’d come up with a plan for what to do on Sunday.
Through his open window, Nate said, “Do me a favor? When you get inside, remember the way you played, not what happened at Stone’s?”
Jake said he’d try.
His plan was to head straight upstairs, get himself some quiet and calm, try to sort out the whole long day and night. Try to figure out whether he’d come out ahead on the day or not. Already telling himself that he had, that not even Casey Lindell or his dad could ruin a day that had started with a big win and ended with Sarah Rayburn.
But before he made it to the stairs, he heard his dad’s booming voice coming from his study.
“Jake Cullen,” he said, “get yourself in here and explain what all just happened at Stone’s.”
Troy Cullen was on his long leather couch, one of the Saturday night TV games on a flat screen that seemed to take up most of the far wall, Texas Tech against Kansas State, 24-all in the third quarter, Tech in those black jerseys of theirs, driving.
Troy Cullen: big iced tea in his hand, boots off, gesturing with his glass at the game, saying, “Tech’s gonna be trouble for us when we play ’em, wait and see. They got more speed on the corners than those sprint cars.”
Now he looked at Jake, pointed to the easy chair to his right, Jake’s game-watching chair when his dad was around, and said, “Sit.”
Jake did.
“I already heard Bobby Ray’s version,” he said. “Now I’d like to hear yours.”
“Mr. Stone called you?” Jake said. “You’re kidding.”
“Actually, I called him, wanting to make sure he didn’t give away my table next Saturday night, your mom and me and the Leylands are going,” Troy Cullen said. “I know Bobby Ray’d throw people out of his place for us, but I always feel better having my name on the list, less people think I’m getting special treatment.”
Jake smiled at what they both knew was a harmless lie. Truth was, his dad lived to get special treatment; it was part of the fun of being Troy Cullen in Granger, a way for him to feel like the football star he used to be.
His dad put his drink down, careful to make sure it was on a coaster and not the antique coffee table, like Jake’s mom was in the room with them even though she wasn’t.
Jake wished she was.
His dad said, “Bobby Ray said the other boy gave you some pretty good lip in front of half the town, and that you just took it from him.”
Jake thought, He said he was calling me in to hear my side, but maybe he just wants me to hear his.
“I did what I thought was best for the team,” Jake said. “Didn’t think it was the right time or place to make a scene.”
“Think you didn’t make a scene?”
Jake waited, until his dad said, “It’s been my experience that sometimes you don’t get to pick the time or place if somebody calls you out.”
“Dad, it wasn’t like one of your old westerns, the two of us drawing on each other in the middle of the street.”
“Maybe it was more like that than you think.”
&nb
sp; “He was just blowin’ off steam, is all.”
“Blowin’ off steam at you. In front of your teammates.”
“At the situation,” Jake said. “At us sharing time. That’s what’s really making him hot, not me.”
“And I’m not hot at you, son, I’m not, just trying to understand how you could just walk away like Bobby Ray said you did.”
“It’s what I’m trying to explain to you, even though I don’t seem to be doing much of a job at that,” Jake said. “It was about me not making a bad situation worse.”
“See, right there, that’s what I’m worried about: that whatever your intention was, you made things worse for yourself.”
“By not fighting him?”
“There wasn’t a way to handle it without fighting?”
“There wasn’t a way to handle it without me acting as dumb as he was,” Jake said.
His dad started to say something, and Jake surprised himself—kind of the way he had been surprising himself, one way or another, all day—by putting up a hand and stopping him. Knowing that the only person who got away with interrupting him in this house was his mom.
“I’m just a freshman, Dad,” he said, “but I’ve been on teams my whole life, and I know how easy it is to rip one apart, even in Pop Warner. Casey and me had a chance to do that tonight. But if he was going to do that, I sure wasn’t going to help him.”
“So you don’t think you looked like somebody just takin’ his ball and goin’ home?”
Jake said, “Anybody thinks that doesn’t know me.”
Wanting to add: Do you?
He saw his dad staring at him now in the glow from the flat screen, this curious look on his face, even though his dad was always sure about everything.
Jake kept going. “It was you who always told me and Wyatt that being the real leader of your team meant making tough calls only you could make. Well, I reckon I made one tonight.”
His father stood up now, groaning like he did when he’d been sitting for a long time, pointing the remote at the TV set, now the only light in the room but for a slash of it coming through the half-open door from the front hall.
His dad looked down at Jake, and suddenly he smiled.
“Well, you found out something for sure, and for your own self tonight,” Troy Cullen said. “Being the quarterback of the Granger Cowboys isn’t a job that ends when the game does.”
“No, sir,” Jake said. “It does not.”
“Ask you something before we drop this and I drag myself up the stairs?”
Jake nodded.
“What do you think your brother would have done, he found himself in the same situation?”
Always back there, to Wyatt.
“I honestly believe he would’ve done what I did.”
“You know something?” his dad said, that curious look still on his face, right eyebrow raised a little, still smiling at Jake. “I believe you might be right.”
Then he walked slowly toward the door, saying he felt one of his headaches coming on, what he called one of his Blue Ribbon Specials, saying he needed aspirin and sleep, in that order.
But over his shoulder he said, “You done good.”
Jake wasn’t sure now whether his dad was talking about the game or about Stone’s. Wasn’t sure in that moment if he really cared. Just feeling as if he’d won a small victory in this room, even if he wasn’t quite sure who he’d beaten.
Or what.
19
BY MONDAY, PEOPLE WERE CALLING THE RADIO STATION, MORNING host J. D. Frederick’s show, J. D. having announced he was going to conduct a weeklong poll on which quarterback the listeners wanted to be the starter.
The town choosing up sides, even in a place where there was usually only one side: behind the Granger Cowboys.
On the way to school Friday morning, in Bear’s truck, windows down, the air clean for a change, not like some kind of furnace, Bear had J. D.’s show on as people were calling to cast their votes.
“You think I could call in, if I gave a fake name?” Bear said.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Enjoying it?” Bear said. “Dude, I love it!”
“They’re not talking about you like you’re a horse at an auction.”
“J. D., that old boy, hasn’t given out the vote count all week,” Bear said. “Said he’s going to announce the winner at the end of today’s show, right before ten o’clock, but we’ll be in class.”
“Shame.”
“But I got a strong feeling you’re gonna be the people’s choice.”
“You think?” Jake said. “I’m Wyatt Cullen’s brother; I’m Big Troy’s son. Like some of those boys say: I’m a Cullen in Cullenville. You act like it’ll be some kind of upset.”
“You don’t think it might have anything to do with people in town thinkin’ you’re the better football player?”
They listened as a caller, who said his name was LeRoy, started out by saying, “Now, I’m not here to tell you little Cullen is the player his brother was, or his daddy, but just off what I seen so far, he does seem to have some of that Cullen DN-of-A workin’ for him when he finds himself in a big spot . . .”
Jake reached over, shut off the radio.
Bear said, “Hey, it was just gettin’ good. I thought that guy was gonna talk about what kind of blood type you are.”
“More likely, people are trying to turn this into one of those blood feuds out of the Old West,” Jake said. “Over high school football.”
“You know what they say,” Bear said. “You’ve got your football, and then you’ve got your Granger football.”
“I feel like it’s all people are talking about.”
“It’s all people ever talk about,” Bear said.
Friday’s practice was like all the others this week, which meant Jake and Casey didn’t speak. Neither one of them made a big show out of that, and the fact was there were a lot of guys on the team Jake could go days without speaking to; that was just football. And when it was football coached by John McCoy, it wasn’t like you had a lot of chances to chat, anyway.
Jake still felt like the other players could sense the tension between them. You always heard about healthy competition in sports, from the time you first started competing. Only this didn’t feel all that healthy to Jake.
Every day at practice, every single one, seemed to produce the same kind of pressure games did. Only that was good pressure, if you really loved to compete. That was fun.
Nothing fun about this.
And the thing that Jake didn’t want to happen, the thing that made him walk away at Stone’s—guys choosing up sides—was happening anyway. You could just tell which ones were Jake guys and which ones were Casey guys.
Like the players on the team were just more callers to ol’ J. D.’s radio show.
“You think Coach is gonna play us like this the whole season?” Jake said to Nate a few minutes from the end of practice, the two of them walking back to the huddle, Jake getting the last snaps of the day.
“Unclear,” Nate said. “For now I think Coach is just seeing what the rest of us are, that this all is bringing out the best in both of you, much as I hate to admit it about him.”
“I feel like all eyes are on us, every play.”
“Well, yeah,” Nate said, dragging out the last word like a piece of gum he was stretching out of his mouth. “Both of you boys are quarterback of the Cowboys, so you can’t be surprised at people looking at you, because Granger High’s no different than Granger when it comes to their quarterbacks: They’re fascinated by where you spit.”
“I don’t want it to be like this,” Jake said.
“Like what? Hard? Boo hoo.”
Jake’s last throw of the day was to Spence Tolar, left sideline, Spence having snuck out of the b
ackfield like a decoy. Jake led him perfectly, Spence gathering the ball in clean, running into the end zone.
Coach McCoy blew his whistle, motioned for everyone to come gather round him.
“Good work today,” he said. “In fact, good work all week. See y’all tomorrow.”
He started to walk away, came back, and said, “By the way, I think we’ll change things around, let Jake start tomorrow.”
Then he walked away from them for real.
Two games into his freshman year, Jake was the starting quarterback for Granger High, at least for one game.
In a low voice, Bear said to Jake, “All those people callin’ the radio all week, and in the end there was but only one vote that counted.”
Nate and Bear said they had to do something to celebrate. Jake said only a plain fool would celebrate the night before the game. Nate said he just meant they should all go out and get something to eat.
Jake said, “I sort of knew you meant eating,” but explained to both him and Bear that he’d promised to eat at home with his mom tonight; his dad was already in Austin for the UT-Baylor game tomorrow afternoon.
“If I rally after dinner,” Jake said, “you and Bear can come get me.”
The three of them were outside the locker room, Jake not even having bothered to shower, trying to do his level best to stay away from Casey Lindell. The last thing he wanted today was another scene.
“Dude,” Bear said, “you got the job. You’re allowed to at least look happy.”
“I am happy,” Jake said. “But it doesn’t mean squat if I can’t do the job.”
They all went and piled into Bear’s truck. Sometimes Jake thought that when he remembered high school, he’d remember the front seat of this pickup, squeezed in between Bear and Nate, as well as he’d remember school or sports.
His mom was in the kitchen, cooking up some of her mean Texas tacos, when Jake walked in. Soon as he did, she looked over at him and said, “Sweaty, dirty boy.”
“Had to make a fast getaway after practice.”