QB 1

by Mike Lupica

Jake didn’t. He just wanted to wait for Bear and Nate. They were going into town to just hang out for a little while, Jake meeting Sarah at Amy’s for ice cream.

  Yet he smiled at his dad and said, “Let’s go.”

  They walked out of the house and past the barn, Jake knowing it was as important to his dad to make the offer as it was for Jake to accept it.

  His dad said, “You don’t know how glad I am you’re feelin’ better, son. That you haven’t had none of those aftershocks I ended up with.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  His dad smiled now. “Don’t want you to end up like me.”

  “Wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” Jake said.

  Then Troy Cullen took the ball out of Jake’s hands and told him to go out, and make sure he didn’t step in any holes—it would be a shame to have his head back screwed on tight and then roll an ankle the night before the big game.

  An hour later, Jake was telling Sarah about it, the two of them sitting on their bench at the head of the park, watching the parade of Granger players walk past them, both sides of the street. Small-town Texas—Granger, Texas—the night before the state final.

  “He’s trying,” Sarah said. “Your dad.”

  “He is,” Jake said. “He always says we’re not that much alike, so it’s funny when you think about it. It took me getting dropped on my head to make us closer.”

  They sat there for a few minutes now, neither saying anything, until Sarah said, “You seem pretty calm.”

  “We call that misdirection in football.”

  “Don’t you think it’s crazy that a year later, it’s the same team playing us in the final, in the same place at Texas State?”

  “Been thinking it would be nice to see Boone Stadium again at this time of year,” Jake said.

  Sarah smiled. “Now you get to win the same game Wyatt did.”

  Jake smiled back, knowing she didn’t mean anything by it, Jake understanding—even here and even now—that if he was going to be compared to his brother, this was the best way.

  “He had his,” Jake said. “This one’s mine.”

  “You’re right,” she said.

  Jake said, “You know, all my life, there was a part of me wondering if I ever would get outside Wyatt’s shadow, no matter what I did. But I finally realized something this season.”

  “And what is that?”

  “You spend too much time worrying about somebody else’s shadow, you never have time to make one of your own.”

  It was only an hour’s drive to Boone Stadium at Texas State, Coach saying the bus would leave from school at four o’clock. The football players had been let out of school early, skipping their last classes, Coach telling them to go home for a couple of hours and shut off their phones and laptops and brains and start getting themselves ready for Fort Carson.

  “Because by seven thirty,” Coach had said, “you know the volume’ll get pumped up pretty much all the way.”

  Jake took Coach’s advice after school, went straight upstairs to his room, telling Libby Cullen he’d eaten at the cafeteria before he left school.

  At the bottom of the stairs, his mom said, “I’m happy for you, Jacob.”

  “Mom,” he said, “we haven’t won anything yet.”

  She smiled at him, like there was something else on her mind, but all she said was, “Didn’t say you had. Still happy for you.”

  Jake closed the shades in his room, stretched out on his bed, and closed his eyes, knowing it was impossible to shut off the football part of his brain, impossible to stop himself from imagining the first series of plays he already knew they were going to run tonight, already playing the game inside his head, when he heard his door open and saw his brother, Wyatt, come walking in.

  33

  “WAIT A SECOND,” JAKE SAID. “DON’T YOU HAVE A GAME TOMORROW night?”

  “Yeah, little brother,” Wyatt said, “but I believe you’ve got one tonight.”

  Then he explained that the ’Horns had practiced early today, finishing their day-before walk-through about one o’clock, and his coach had given him permission to go to Jake’s game as long as he was back in Austin, only ninety minutes south of Texas State, by midnight.

  “It’s not Coach’s first rodeo,” Wyatt said. “He knows that not one of us is in bed by midnight whether we’ve got a game the next night or not.”

  “Sounds like you and the coach are getting along better,” Jake said.

  He was sitting up on his bed, glad to see his brother, trying not to show him how much. Wyatt had pushed back Jake’s chair, had his feet up on Jake’s desk, wearing an orange ’Horns T-shirt, jeans, and sandals.

  Wyatt said, “He likes me better now that we’ve won three straight, even though it’s been more about our running than my passing.”

  “Well, somebody’s quarterbacked you all back into the top ten.”

  “Man,” Wyatt said, “it’s been a grind. I wouldn’t say this to Dad, because it would be the same as teeing him up for one of those motivational speeches he says would get him big money. But college football is hard, dude. I’ve never looked at this much film in my life.”

  “Not gonna lie,” Jake said. “I love watching film.”

  “I imagine it comes a lot easier to you than it does to me. The studying part always has.”

  “Come on,” Jake said. “None of this comes easier to me than it does to you.”

  “Gonna let you in on another secret,” Wyatt said. “I mostly just always wanted to play. Get out there and figure it out, and trust my arm to do the rest.”

  Jake sat there listening to his brother, the one he’d worshipped pretty much his whole life, talking about himself like he was just an older—and better—version of Casey Lindell.

  Wyatt said, “You were always more like Mom, the brains of the family. I always knew that, same as Dad did.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure he did,” Jake said.

  “No, it’s true. You want to know the by-God truth? I think he’s always been a little intimidated by you. He never thought he was much of a brain when it came to football, either, as much as he acts like a know-it-all. You’d do something in a game, far back as Pop Warner, and he’d say, ‘That’s the Libby in him showin’ itself right there.’ Mom being somebody who’s intimidated him since high school.”

  Wyatt paused and then said, “You can’t really understand our dad till you understand that. He’s supposed to be the big, loud star of everything in our family. Only he’s the one living in a shadow. Hers.”

  Quiet now in here. Jake looked at the clock radio on his nightstand. Maybe ten minutes until Bear would show up in his truck.

  “Long as we’re telling each other stuff,” Jake said, “Dad told me he thought you needed him more this season.”

  “Well, the old man had that one right,” Wyatt said. “I did. More than I ever thought I would. And another thing you got to know about our dad is, he needs to be needed. He just didn’t know you needed him till this year.”

  Jake said, “You came all the way from college to explain Dad to me? Coulda done that with an e-mail.” Grinning at his brother.

  “Hell’s bells, no!” Wyatt said, doing his dead-on impression of Troy Cullen. “I came here to be the one givin’ the motivational talk this time, so my brother can beat Fort Carson.”

  After that it was just football in Jake’s room, Jake telling Wyatt what he’d seen on film all week, Wyatt telling everything he remembered from last year’s game, breaking down Fort Carson’s tendencies, sounding to Jake like his own football brain was working pretty well.

  34

  TWO MINUTES BEFORE THE OPENING KICK, THE BIG SCOREBOARD at the closed end of Boone Stadium counted down the seconds, the Fort Carson Hawks having won the toss, and electing to receive.

  Jake was behind the Cowboys’ bench, alone,
taking it all in, more nervous than he’d ever been for any kind of game in his life, after all the times when he’d been praised for his calm. Guys on television were always talking about good nerves in sports, how you could use them, the way you could use your fear of failing. Jake didn’t know if the nerves he was feeling were good or not. They were just there.

  Same as his own fear of failing.

  So he looked around, hoping to calm himself down, or maybe store up some memories. He saw Sarah’s face, smiling at him from the end zone; his mom and dad and Wyatt in their seats, right above him at the fifty-yard line; Coach McCoy in front of him, squinting at his laminated play card; Nate and Bear, to Jake’s left, seated at the end of the bench, no jokes between them now, no laughter, the two of them just staring out at the field.

  Under a minute to the championship game.

  This, Jake knew, was what it looked like when you were on the inside of a night like this, not up in the stands where he’d been one year ago, in the seat next to Troy and Libby Cullen where Wyatt sat tonight.

  Playing it himself, at the end of a season when he really hadn’t pictured himself playing at all.

  Going up against the Fort Carson Hawks, so many of whom had been here a year ago in the loss to Granger, starting with their senior running back, Artis Dennard, the best back in the state this season, on his way to UT next season to play in the same backfield as Wyatt Cullen.

  “He’s their Calvin,” Nate said as they watched the kick teams for both sides lining up.

  “Nah,” Jake said. “There’s only but one Calvin.”

  From behind them, Calvin Morton said to Jake, “See, that comment right there shows me how much smarter you got since the start of the season.”

  Jake turned around, lightly pounded Calvin’s shoulder pads with both fists. “All you tonight, C.”

  Calvin shook his head. “Every year, I got to tell a Cullen the same thing,” he said. “I might as well be sittin’ up there in the stands if you don’t get me the ball.”

  “It’s like my dad says: I’m all bowed up and ready to go.”

  Calvin’s face was all business now, as they could feel the whole place rising as the ball was kicked into the air. “You remember what I’m tellin’ you, Cullen. Whatever it takes tonight. You got that? Whatever it takes.”

  “Let’s come out firing,” Jake said.

  Cap pistols, as it turned out. They couldn’t move it in the first quarter and neither could the Hawks, until Artis Dennard busted one sixty yards for a score with about five minutes left in the half. Then on the next Cowboys series, Jake did something he’d done a couple of times already tonight, bailed out against an all-out blitz, got rid of the ball way too soon, made this weak back-foot throw in Calvin’s direction that seemed to float in the air like one of those television blimps.

  The cornerback covering Calvin said thank-you-very-much, stepped in front of him, returned the ball thirty yards for a touchdown without being touched.

  In about a two-minute span, the Cowboys had managed to get themselves behind 14–0.

  When Jake came out after the pick, Coach Jessup was waiting for him, as hot as Jake had seen him all season.

  Just not about the throw.

  “There hasn’t been a single part of this that’s scared you from the start,” he said. “Don’t you start playin’ scared now. If you’re afraid of gettin’ hit again, tell me right now.”

  “I’m not scared of getting hit,” he said.

  “Then show me,” and walked away looking at his laminated play card.

  When Jake turned around, Nate was there, saying, “Man might have a point.”

  “You think I’ve been playing gun-shy?” Jake said.

  “Little bit,” Nate said. “Bear said you’ve had those happy feet going in the pocket a few times.”

  “Remember when we talked about how Casey had to be afraid of what he was wishing for?” Jake said. “Maybe I’m that guy now.”

  “How’s about we just do a better job of givin’ you time, and you do a better job throwin’ that thing?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Jake said.

  He nearly got the Cowboys into the end zone on the very next series, mixing runs and quick passes, killing the clock a couple of times with spikes when they got under a minute. But then with the Cowboys out of time-outs, he tried to get some extra yards, give Bobby a chance at a field goal, and didn’t run out of bounds when he had the chance at the Fort Carson fifteen. Then he couldn’t get his teammates lined up in time so he could spike it.

  They ran out of time and went to the locker room still down two scores. Jake was not entirely sure, with the way he’d played, that he’d get to start the second half, thinking that Coach McCoy, with one half left in the season unless they ended up in overtime, might reshuffle the deck with his quarterbacks one more time.

  But he did not.

  What he said when everybody was inside: “You boys don’t need me to tell you that we broke bad out there. But it wasn’t so bad that we can’t fix her in the time we got left. Now y’all know I’m not much for making predictions, but I’m gonna give you one right now: We may not play plumb perfect the second half, as my grandma used to say, but we’re gonna be perty near. We’re gonna get the ball to start the second half, we’re gonna make it 14–7, and then look out for the Cowboys after that.”

  Never a rah-rah guy, not one now. Not raising his voice—talking to them like he was talking on the telephone, looking at them and saying, “Anybody else got anything they’d like to add?”

  Calvin, who’d been sitting on a long bench between Melvin and Justice, slowly stood up, came over, and stood next to Coach McCoy in the middle of the room.

  “I got another year of Friday nights,” he said. “But not everybody in this room does, and that might even include Coach. And I was thinking, listening to him just now, that when you start playing high school ball, you never think you’re gonna run out of Friday nights like this one. Not one of us has any guarantee that we’re ever gonna get another like this. So I say we go back out there on that field and make this the kind lives forever.”

  Then he led them out of the room, Calvin Morton as sure of himself as ever, even in a two-touchdown hole.

  On the first play of the second half, Jake stood tall and strong in the pocket, would have stayed there all night if he had to, threw a strike to Roy Gilley over the middle even though he got popped good as soon as he’d finished his follow-through. He was on the ground when he heard the Granger side of Boone Stadium tell him, big and loud, that Roy had made the catch.

  Nate pulled Jake up. “How’d that feel?”

  “You want to know the truth, big man?” Jake said. “It felt plumb perfect.”

  Jake scrambled for another first down on the next play. Then he hit Spence Tolar in the flat for a gain of eight. Stayed in the pocket and threw a deep post to Calvin—no nerves now, good or bad, no fear—put it right in his hands even though the cornerback was running with him stride for stride.

  Calvin did the rest from there, forty yards on the play. Bobby made the kick. 14–7.

  On the next Fort Carson series, Bear hit Artis Dennard from the side on a sweep, Melvin hit him head-on at pretty much the same moment, and the ball came loose. Melvin fell on it. Cowboys’ ball.

  On the very next play, Jake looked at Calvin the whole time, suckered the defense that way, then turned at the last moment and threw one into Justice’s hands a yard from the back of the end zone.

  It was about to be 14-all, a brand-new game at Boone Stadium, until Bobby Torres caught his spikes stepping into his kick and hit a low, ugly hook that went so wide, Jake thought it might be on its way to Dallas.

  So it was 14–13 instead.

  When Bobby came off the field, Jake grabbed him and said, “Don’t worry about that point. It won’t mean nothin’ in the end.�
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  But that point kept getting bigger as the defenses started playing bigger. Both offenses were still moving the ball, but neither side could close the deal.

  Calvin dropped a sure completion from Jake on one third down. Punt.

  Then Fort Carson’s tight end, their best receiver, had a drop of his own. Another punt.

  It went like that out of the third quarter, into the fourth, the score still 14–13, Jake starting to feel as if the seconds on the clock were racing down again, the way they had before the start of the game. Then Artis broke another long one, this one for fifty yards, and even though the Cowboys’ defense kept them out of the end zone after a first down at the five-yard line, their kicker made a field goal that was barely longer than an extra point, and Fort Carson led 17–13.

  It stayed that way until the Cowboys stopped Artis on a third-and-one and the Hawks punted one last time. The Cowboys took over at their thirty, with two minutes and ten seconds left.

  When Jake got to the huddle, before he told them the play and the count, he tipped back his helmet, smiled at the Granger Cowboys, and said, “How about we play ourselves some football?”

  He was going to Calvin. The defense knew it, too, had to know it. Didn’t know the call was for an inside cut. But the corner covering Calvin, the safety helping, they had to know the ball was coming their way. And this was a moment when it was about Jake’s brain, about all the time he’d spent in the film room with Coach J. Slowing the game down, even in the pocket, trusting your blocking the way you trusted yourself, having the patience to stand back there and look off the defense until the last second, trick them into believing that what they knew was the obvious call—Calvin—suddenly wasn’t.

  So that is what Jake did, even feeling the pass rush, eyes locked on Calvin, body angled toward Calvin’s side of the field, counting down the few seconds he knew he had to release the ball, finally turning at the very last second to where Justice had broken free in the middle of the field, Jake’s arm taking over now, putting the ball right on him, money.