QB 1

by Mike Lupica

  He didn’t hit every one, but hit most, his passes looking better now than when he’d gotten here. When he had been throwing with his eyes wide open.

  In a quiet voice only Jake could hear, Bear said, “You actually think he can do this tomorrow night?”

  Jake grinned. “Think I’ll close my eyes and imagine it happening just that way.”

  It was starting to get dark, they’d been out here in the pasture that long. Not that the fading light was bothering Casey any; Nate was the one having trouble picking up the ball now. So finally Troy Cullen said, “One more.” Nate started to back up, and Troy Cullen said, “Nah, let’s have some fun here ’fore we call it a night. We’ll split Jake out this time, like him and Casey here are both in the game runnin’ one of those fancy wildcat plays, kind where one QB throws it to the other one. Nate, snap it to him in the shotgun. Bear, pretend you’re the tight end. Jake’ll take off down the sideline and Casey’ll hit him deep. Wait and see, you boys’ll want to call up John McCoy, tell him to put it in his playbook.”

  “You want Jake to be a receiver, and for me to throw him a deep ball?” Casey said. “With my eyes still closed?”

  “Pretty much,” Jake’s dad said. “I know my boy can’t run like Calvin, but he can move it pretty good when somebody’s chasin’ him.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Jake said. “I think.”

  Casey said, “I don’t want to end the night on a miss.”

  “You won’t miss,” Troy Cullen said. “Like I said: Just trust it and let ’er go.”

  Casey did.

  The ball sailed through the twilight like a shooting star until it came down in Jake’s hands, Jake gathering it in, running about twenty more yards, spiking the ball. Pretending he was Calvin.

  “Lindell to Cullen,” Casey said. “Didn’t see that coming when I woke up today.”

  Troy Cullen said his work here was done and started toward the barn, until he stopped, turned, grinned at Jake, and said, “I still got it.”

  31

  THE HORSESHOE-SHAPED STADIUM AT HIGHLAND JUNCTION wasn’t as new or as nice as Cullen Field. But it seemed to be a little bigger, had a big scoreboard at the closed end, and, the Cowboys found out, a spacious visitors’ locker room that had a flat-screen TV and carpets on the floor. Texas high school football, Jake thought, with all the trimmings.

  Bear said, “Looks like we got all the comforts of home.”

  “All we need to make it better is pie,” Nate added.

  “Beat Sierra,” Jake said, “and I promise to buy you all the pie you can eat afterward.”

  Nate thought about that, his face serious, and said, “There isn’t that much pie.”

  Jake went and sat with Coach Jessup as his teammates started to get dressed, knowing the only part of his uniform he was wearing tonight was his jersey, over a pair of jeans. He came out about fifteen minutes later, walked over to Casey’s locker, and said, “We got this.”

  “We’re not playing behind your barn,” Casey said.

  “Just keep telling yourself that you are,” Jake said. “Tell yourself it’s like when you’re out playing in the yard or the street and you get called for supper and you don’t want to stop because you’re having too much fun. That’s the fun of it tonight. Playing to just keep playing.”

  Jake didn’t wait for an answer, afraid he might not like it, just went outside and walked around the field as the stands started to fill up, seeing the sky start to get darker, feeling the threat of rain in the air, worrying about a sloppy field and a sloppy game, then shook his head, like he was trying to get the worries about the conditions out of there before they could settle.

  “Control the things you can,” his mom had always told him, one of her favorite lines, “then leave the rest to God and Texas.”

  Jake walked by the cheerleaders now, where they were warming up, so he could say hi to Sarah.

  “You gonna be okay tonight?” she asked.

  “No, but it’ll be worth it,” he said. “Long as we win.”

  He walked slowly back to the locker room, feeling the night begin to start without him, stood just inside the locker room door as Coach McCoy addressed the Granger Cowboys, nobody knowing if this was his last season or not, Jake realizing that if it was, and they didn’t beat Sierra tonight, this might be Coach’s last game.

  When he quieted them down and had their attention, Coach said, “Sometimes, you get to this point in the season and realize you got nothin’ original left to say. So I guess all I got tonight is a question: You boys done yet?”

  In a good, loud voice, the Granger Cowboys shouted, “No, sir!”

  Coach said, “Good, ’cause I sure ain’t done,” and that was it, all he had. He turned and walked out the door. The Cowboys followed him, Jake high-fiving as many as he could as they walked past him, waiting until all the guys who were playing the game were out of the room, every last one.

  Then he followed them. This was going to be the hardest game of his life. And he wasn’t even playing in it.

  The Sierra Broncos had led their league in scoring, done that by a lot, mostly riding the arm of their senior quarterback, Tommy Chavez, son of a famous tie-down roper named Freddie Chavez. Tommy had already committed to Baylor next season, people saying he was going to light it up there like he was the second coming of RG III.

  But it was all throwing with him; he couldn’t run like RG III or Johnny Manziel. Couldn’t run to save his life. But Tommy Chavez had thrown twenty-eight touchdown passes in ten games, the Broncos having won nine of those games, seven by double digits. Coach J told Jake they didn’t have just one stud receiver like Calvin; Tommy had thrown touchdown passes to seven different players.

  He was six four, looked like he went two-twenty easy, and wore number 1, just like Calvin—like it wasn’t just a number on his jersey, it was a grade.

  “What I hear about Tommy,” Nate said, “is he thinks God has to check with him before the sun rises in the morning and sets at night.”

  “Whatever,” Jake said. “My money’s on our number one tonight.”

  “All’s we need is somebody to throw it to him,” Bear said.

  “Casey’ll be fine,” Jake said.

  “How you gonna convince us of that,” Bear said, “when it sounds like you haven’t even convinced your own self?”

  It wasn’t that Jake didn’t think Casey couldn’t come out of his slump tonight. He just didn’t want this to turn out to be a quarterback’s game, because if it did, then the Cowboys were going to be in trouble—Tommy Chavez was that good.

  Yet for all the pregame talk about him on the radio and in the newspaper, all the talk about what an aerial circus this game was going to be, it was the defenses, from both teams, that dominated early. The defenses and nerves, actually. Even from Tommy Chavez. Especially from him. Making a prophet, in the first half anyway, out of Coach J, who’d said to Jake before the game, “Tommy’s a talented kid. But he’s still a kid.”

  Melvin intercepted him on the Broncos’ first series of the game, the Broncos having driven to the Cowboys’ thirty. Then it was the Cowboys driving, Casey hitting his first three passes, all short ones, the coaches trying to get him into the flow of the game that way.

  But the first time he tried to stretch the field, like the coaches were ready to get him off training wheels, he eyeballed Calvin all the way, same as he had at the start of the season. The Broncos’ strong-side safety read the play like a book, stepping in front of Calvin for the interception, breaking some tackles, getting all the way back to midfield.

  Three Tommy Chavez passes and a couple of runs later, the Broncos were up 7–0.

  Casey started missing now, forcing throws even when everybody in the place could see his intended receiver was covered. It was one three-and-out after another for the Cowboys, out of the first quarter into the second. Jake thought that
even if their defense could continue to contain Tommy Chavez, the best the Cowboys could hope for would be going into the locker room at halftime down a touchdown.

  But with under a minute left in the half, third-and-two from the Cowboys’ thirty-five, Coach Jessup decided to put the ball—and the game—into Calvin’s hands in a slightly different way.

  Jake was standing with Coach J and Coach McCoy when he heard the play call, then Coach J turned to him and winked and said, “More than one way to skin a Bronco.”

  Casey spun away from center, stuck the ball in Spence Tolar’s belly for what looked like a simple off-tackle play, sold the fake a lot better than he’d been throwing the ball, pulled the ball out and flipped it to Calvin Morton, flying around from where he’d split out wide on the left.

  An end-around.

  First one they’d run all season.

  And it caught the Broncos completely by surprise, Jake seeing what everybody in the stadium at Highland Junction saw: that nobody was going to catch Calvin once he got to the edge and turned upfield. The Cowboys’ number 1, on his way to the house.

  It was 7–7 at the half.

  Jake stayed away from Casey in the locker room, stayed away from everybody, just took his place by the door. Part of the night but not part of it; in the locker room with his teammates but feeling like some fan who’d snuck in. Listening as Coach McCoy said there was no doubt in his mind, none, that the boys on defense were just going to keep bringing it, saying they were going to keep mixing it up on Tommy Chavez, dropping extra guys into coverage, blitzing him enough that he didn’t get too comfortable.

  “We’re tied with those boys on the other team,” he said, “and we haven’t even taken our cuts yet.”

  As the Cowboys were walking out of the room, Casey Lindell came over to Jake.

  “I’m letting you down,” Casey said.

  “No, you’re not,” Jake said. “Like Coach said, we haven’t come close to playing like we can, and it’s still seven to seven.”

  “I’m probably making your dad want to close his eyes,” Casey said.

  “You made some great throws,” Jake said, trying to do anything to pump the guy up.

  “That fun you talked about?” Casey said. “When does it start?”

  Put his helmet on, walked past Jake.

  Not good, Jake thought.

  Not good at all.

  But it was still tied at the end of the third quarter, 14-all. Tommy Chavez had put the Broncos ahead with a ten-yard bullet, but with the Bronco defense over-playing the run, Casey suddenly found his form, nothing to indicate that he was about to do it, hitting Roy, Justice, and Calvin in succession. Then, with the defense loosened up and looking for a pass, Spence ran twenty-five yards, straight up the middle for a touchdown, on a draw, nobody touching him. So the game was even again. One quarter to go.

  The rainstorm blew into Highland Junction then. Jake had been thinking that as bad as the sky looked, maybe the storm would hold off until the game was over, but it came now, came hard and fast and mean, the way storms did in Texas, the rain howling, blowing across the field in sheets. What Troy Cullen called Bible weather.

  Tommy Chavez got hit, fumbled the ball, and Michael Pinkett recovered it for the Cowboys.

  David Stevens fumbled it right back, the ball coming out of his hands as he was running free around right end. The aerial circus everybody had predicted just turned into mudball now, both teams still trying to throw, but neither having much success.

  Meanwhile, the clock kept moving, Jake wondering what kind of shape the field would be in if they had to keep playing into sudden death overtime.

  Late in the fourth quarter, the Cowboys got the ball back at the Broncos’ forty-seven. The Broncos’ punter had slipped in the mud as he planted his lead foot and had kicked the ball only twenty yards, nearly getting blocked by Bear Logan.

  Two minutes left.

  “What are we gonna do?” Casey asked Coach J.

  “That end-around to Calvin where you roll to your right and he comes behind,” he said. “Then hope the misdirection makes ever’body slip ’cept Calvin.”

  It worked just like that, Casey flipping Calvin the ball as he came behind, Calvin putting the ball in his left hand, making the turn without sliding around, running twenty yards until a safety knocked him out of bounds. Just like that, the Cowboys were in business at the Broncos’ twenty-seven.

  Then, Coach J brought Calvin into the backfield—first time they’d done that all year. Casey pitched it to him, and Calvin ran ten more yards until he got shoved out of bounds.

  Jake said to Coach J, “You think we could kick a field goal if we had to?”

  “No,” Coach J said. “No way we can get off a snap, hold, and kick in these conditions. We need a score.”

  “You got something good?” Jake said.

  “I got Calvin, is what I got.”

  They ran Calvin again from the backfield for six, down to the Broncos’ eleven. Then, everybody on defense watching for Calvin, the Cowboys ran a direct snap to Spence, who ran for five more. They were at the six-yard line now, with under a minute to play, first and goal to go.

  Casey rolled out, hoping to find Calvin in the end zone, but Casey was pulled down from behind, Jake nearly dying as the ball came loose before it slid out of bounds at the ten.

  Clock stopped, forty-one seconds left.

  Pitch to Calvin, smothered, no gain.

  The Cowboys called their last time-out.

  Coach J decided to throw for it. The play was for Calvin to push the corner and the safety on him a few yards deep into the end zone, then curl toward the sideline. Casey was supposed to roll with the pocket to buy some time in the mud and get it to him somehow.

  Before Casey went back on the field, Jake went over to him and said, “You can do this.”

  “Don’t tell me with my eyes closed.”

  “Not gonna,” Jake said. “You got hot before. Get hot for one more throw.”

  Nate snapped him the ball and Casey moved carefully to his right behind Nate and the right side of the line. Calvin drove the guys covering him into the end zone, planted without slipping, started back for the ball.

  Then for the first time, he slipped and went down. Worst possible moment, just as Casey was about to release the ball. Somehow Casey, even with that wet ball in his hands, was able to hold on to it and stop his throwing motion. He pulled the ball down and kept rolling to his right, buying himself more time, waiting for Calvin to pick himself up.

  Locked on Calvin one last time.

  Calvin got up. Problem was, his momentum had brought him all the way out to about the three-yard line now. Casey let the ball go anyway, threw the best pass he had all day even if it was a short one, a tight spiral through the rain that landed in Calvin’s hands.

  As soon as Calvin had his hands on the ball, he was already turning his body, squaring himself up, knowing he was short of the end zone, knowing he had to get there somehow.

  And it made the cornerback closing on him miss, go sliding past. Now there was enough room and time for Calvin to lunge forward with the ball, doing whatever he had to do to get it to cross the plane at the goal line.

  Just as he did, the linebacker closest to Calvin hit him from the side, put a great lick on him, direct hit.

  The ball came loose. And squirted into the end zone.

  Jake saw it all the way, even from where he was, saw the ball go skidding along the ground until it disappeared underneath the rain and mud and two Texas high school football teams.

  The refs went running in. Jake heard a whistle over the noise of the rain and wind, saw the refs trying to separate bodies, see who had the ball at the bottom of the pile.

  Jake should have known.

  Should have known that the man with the ball, the last man up, showing the refs and the
world that he had the ball, was the strongest guy Jake had ever met.

  Nate Collins.

  Nate, who got up and signaled touchdown before the ref closest to him did, the touchdown that meant Granger had won this game, that meant Granger was back in the state finals.

  When Nate finally got to the sideline, covered with mud and as much pure joy as Jake had ever seen on a football field—and after what he was pretty sure was the first touchdown of Nate’s whole career—he took off his helmet and hugged Jake, covering Jake in mud now.

  Nate pulled back now, still smiling, and said to Jake, “I believe you owe me some pie.”

  32

  JAKE GOT THE CLEARANCE TO PLAY FROM DOC MALLOZZI ON Monday, right after school, and his mom took him straight from Doc’s office to practice. Jake set a world’s record getting his pads on and into uniform, began to prepare himself for Granger’s rematch with Fort Carson in the 1AA finals, even though he’d been preparing himself since Nate recovered that fumble in Highland Junction.

  Jake didn’t care if it was last year’s opponent or not, whether Wyatt had been the quarterback in that game or not. This was his own season now, this was his game.

  There was no rust on him after a week off; he came out firing on Monday, had a good day throwing, had a good week throwing at practice, and an even better week in Coach Jessup’s office looking at film on Fort Carson.

  “Coach McCoy tells me even your brother didn’t spend as much time at the movies as you,” Coach J said when they finally called it a night on Thursday, nothing more to see on Fort Carson’s defense, or say about it.

  “I told you all along,” Jake said, “I want to learn.”

  “You’re ready for your final exam,” Coach J said. “Now go home and relax.”

  “Well, that’s not gonna happen,” Jake said.

  He ate dinner with his parents. When he and his dad were cleaning the table, Troy Cullen poked him and said, “You want to go out in the pasture, throw it around for a little?”