Jane Two

by Sean Patrick Flanery

  “Hey, you gotta take your helmet off,” I said.

  “Shut up faggit,” came back.

  I truly couldn’t believe what I was hearing, looking to the benches to see if anyone else was as shocked as I was. Not that the Devil had called me a faggit, but that his helmet was still on. I wondered if anyone was going to do something. I wondered if they would stop the national anthem and have him remove it before starting it again. It was how I was raised. Not removing your lid was anathema to my values.

  “Hey, take it off right now,” I told him.

  “Duddn’t concern you, fuckin’ fag,” he shot back.

  No one was going to do anything about this kid. I placed my helmet on the ground, approached the Devil, grabbed his helmet, and started to assist him in its removal. Initially, he resisted, and everyone in the stands stood up for what threatened to be a two-team brawl. Both lines started to break up and move around like they were preparing for a fight, when I finally got that helmet off. Coach Gasconade yelled to get back in line, everybody obeyed, and I went right back in line and picked up my helmet as everyone else resumed the proper formation, palms over their hearts.

  When the anthem ended, I turned to go on back to my place on the bench, when the Red Devil kid clubbed me in the back of my head with his helmet. I dropped like a stone right there on my ass, dazed. As I was flat out on the ground and still gathering my wits, Grandaddy approached, breathing smoke, and my Mamau was yelling from the bleachers at Grandaddy to sit down, he’d get himself a heart attack, and Grandaddy yelled back that he ain’t sitting down ever, woman, in the name of justice.

  Then other coaches and parents started yelling, and a brawl ensued. That is to say, all the coaches and parents from the opposing sides came running off the bleachers cursing onto the field, pulling players apart, yelling about what’s right and who had offended whom first, all manner of what-in-hell-about-our-Great-Nation-goddammit.

  I heard Coach Lew keening above the din, “Get her mitts off my goddamn medals!” Lew was gnashing and frothing to shield his Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

  My parents reprimanded me, and Grandaddy sent everybody back to the stands when he signaled to James to blast the bullhorn, yelling, “Game on.” James’s horn was deafening and Lew hit the turf, shielding his head with his arms. When people had gone back to their seats on the bleachers, Grandaddy gave Coach Lew a gentle boot in his side to get with it, and Lew sprang to his feet, looking around to see if anyone had noticed his fit of panic. Then Grandaddy walked to the center of the field where I was finally getting up on all fours and picked me up with one hand by the center of my shoulder pads, nose to nose, dangling me like a whelp for everyone to see. From afar, with his big trigger finger pointing right at my nose, it must’ve appeared aggressive, like my Grandaddy was reprimanding me. Sometimes there was a difference in what my Grandaddy spoke and what he meant, and sometimes there wasn’t. But up close where only I could hear him, my Grandaddy always shared The Law.

  “Don’t you ever let me see you pick a fight with a little mouse-pussied fucker like that, but goddammit I’m proud of you, son. Ain’t the right thing to do, but sometime you gonna see ya Grandaddy being proud of you fer doing the wrong thing. ’Fore you older, you gonna know the difference. I’ll see to it. More recipe for my great-granbabbies. This part of the Boudin, so listen to me, boy. Just for today, I’m a let you pick any position you wanna play. So, you tell me…where you wanna be?” I blinked back at my Grandaddy as I saw James slowly making his way toward us, and again I knew what needed to be done…and it was the same thing that I wanted to be done. I told him, “I wanna play directly opposite of whatever position that little mouse-pussied fucker’s playin’.” My Grandaddy stared into my eyes until I saw the tiniest grin escape his face. He said, “Now don’t you tell ya Mamau, but ya Grandaddy gonna give you a PE on that one, ’cause that Devil is a little pussy. Okay, you see that piece’a shit on the field, you find him, line up opposite, and you crack him hard. So hard he remember that crack. You follow that little pussy even if he change positions till he leave the field. I love you, son. Now let’s show ’em who we are.”

  Grandaddy set me down, fire in his eyes, and yelled for the game to start just as James arrived. He stopped right in front of me and hacked something huge into his mouth from his lungs, then swished it around in his mouth before finally spitting it onto the field. “Nigger-cock, unnastand?” And I did.

  I played a position that I’d never played before just to line up across from that Devil—downs that involved me completely disregarding the action at hand and solely focusing on cracking that little pussy as hard as I could. He was on the field a total of six plays that day, and spent the remainder of the game on the bench.

  * * *

  “Hey, you all right?” Lew Hoagie was extending his hand down to me, flashing a clear prediction of more rain.

  Albeit covered in mud, I had padding and a helmet. Back then no one was too concerned about concussions unless you were dead on the football field. I lay down on the bench every time the other side had the ball, and held ice on my head.

  The scoreboard read Angleton Red Devils 35, Braeburn Bears 0, and parents and spectators were hooting and hollering all around at this possible shutout. Lew dragged me into the huddle around Grandaddy and Coach Gasconade, my Grandaddy sending smoke signals with the cigarette and toothpick, a little bonfire dangling from his lips.

  “Listen up, ya little shits! We’ve got about a minute and a half left in this season, so we ain’t gonna win this one, but any you folks thinkin’ we gettin’ shut out in this game get the hell off this field right now.”

  My Grandaddy would’ve kept yelling at us, but Coach Gasconade cut in. “Let’s get some touchdowns here!” hollered Coach Gasconade, interrupting my Grandaddy—which, incidentally, no one ever dared do—and attempting to tone down The Language.

  But my Grandaddy cut him off before Coach Gasconade could wax eloquent. “Or, get used to bein’ where we are, wallowin’ in pig shit!” yelled Grandaddy. “But I’ll be DAMNED if my BEARS are gonna be shut out like a buncha pussies!”

  “Ain’t no way!” bellowed Lew taking a drag on his unfiltered Camel.

  “Now it’s time you men asked yourselves how bad you really want it.” Grandaddy’s voice got real low. “Life wears a cup, so you kick that fucker straight in the balls, men! Y’hear me? Yeah, that’s right, you ARE men, you’re not boys, so I’ll talk to ya like men!” Coach started to open his mouth but Grandaddy just plowed right through his intentions, and then I saw James give Gasconade a look that was sure to shut him up for good. “It’s time to shit or get off the pot! ’Cause otherwise you’re gonna regret it your whole life. This is when you decide if you’s a winner or a loser. This is when you reach inside yourself and you pull somthin’ out that you’ll take with you the rest of your lives.”

  Grandaddy spat out his toothpick and took a long, slow drag on his cigarette before he spoke again. Every one of us teammates hung on his every word. “Let you tinies in on a little secret…tell you how you gonna beat a team that may be bigger, faster, hell, even stronger. Sometime talent gonna get you in trouble, make you fat if you ain’t got no heart. Heart gonna beat the shit outta talent every goddamn day. Maybe they capable of playin’ at a level ten and you’s only capable of a nine. But heart gonna determine how much’a that ten they gonna grab out they pockets every day. Pullin’ it all out take heart, desire, discipline; shit my Bears got in spades. Yep, maybe they capable of ten, but I look in they eyes and know they only got the heart to call on eight of they ten, day in and day out. I look in each of you eyes and goddamn if I don’t know each and every one’a you gonna demand all nine of your nine…every goddamn day. Sometime the talent you ain’t worked for breed pussies, and that what you seein’ right now in the eyes of them little shits in them red jerseys ’cross from you. Know it. Today they only grab eight. You squeeze yer nine tight and you go out and you destroy them pussies!! You do this today wit
h your nine, and someday when you finally earned and grew into yer ten, you gonna be able grab it anytime you need it…and ain’t nobody gonna stand a good goddamn chance.”

  “Sing it, Charlie!!” chorused Lew, swigging his Miller.

  “Hear it now, ’cause Charlie know!” James’s deep, rich baritone reverberated.

  “Now there ain’t a doubt in my mind that if y’all want to put seven up there on the scoreboard, there ain’t one of them corn-fed tub o’ shits in them red jerseys gonna stop you! You’ll finish the season eight and two, which ain’t bad, but you’ll be the only little shits that put seven on them pussies! You let them shut you out, and they’ll take a piece of you home with them that you ain’t never gonna get back. This is a fork-in-the-road moment for all of you tinies. What you do here’ll change your path moving forward for better or worse. Up ta each ’n’ every one’a you. This is the moment that you got a lot more to lose than any of them fuckers. The crisis of them little shits taking home a piece’a you gonna give you access to the best parts of each one’a you, should you be willing to grab it. They fat right now with thirty-five on the board. This is y’all moment to make them think for a whole fuckin’ year about seein’ my Bears next season, and wonderin’ if y’all gon’ play next year like you played the last few seconds of this game. You make them afraid of the Bears they about to see next year, and put seven on those cocksuckers…or you get shut out, and spend the off-season missing a pretty important part of each one of you. You either want it, or you don’t. But if you WANT IT, well I know that you all capable of sticking seven on those cocksuckers right here…and RIGHT NOW!!”

  Every team member and Coach Gasconade had long since gone silent at Grandaddy’s profanity, uncertain if it was okay to appreciate this tactic.

  Then from the back of the huddle I heard a rumble, “Seven!”

  I glanced back.

  “Seven! On the cocksuckers!” Clatterbuck the freckled Bolshevik, with snot running out of his nose and mud everywhere, was yelling at the top of his lungs.

  “Don’t you never let me hear y’all yellin’ like that when they’s ladies in earshot, y’hear.” Grandaddy glowered. “Not ya momma, not ya sister, not ya girlfriend, ’cause you, Clatterbuck, you gon’ have lotsa them, and one’s gon’ matter to you, so watch ya goddamn tongue.” Grandaddy looked long and hard at Clatterbuck.

  Clatterbuck’s eyes welled and his jaw dropped under the scalding reprimand of Grandaddy’s Law. Then with a steely-eyed smirk, my Grandaddy roused the chorus of boys’ voices. “Now, ’tween us men, Clatterbuck, and don’t you fergit all them women waitin’ fer ya in ya future, you tinies say all the cocksuckers you want, but only ’tween us men—’cause that some man talk right there. You ain’t failures till you either quit, or you start blamin’ somebody else. Now, you tell me right here and right now. Y’all gonna put seven on them cocksuckers?”

  Bewildered, Clatterbuck’s tears turned to joy, and slowly we all started chiming in, one by one, timid at first, with seven and cocksuckers, till we had going there a ripping chant. “SEVEN ON THE COCKSUCKERS!”

  While the parents were getting over the shock of it, Trent, the quarterback, entered the huddle and issued the play.

  “Okay, Mickey, it’s you.…Thirty-eight pitchout on two, ready…break!”

  “Wait,” I said.

  “You don’t wait me, shit head.” Trent was pissed, but I continued.

  “Well…it’s fourth down. If this is gonna be our last play of the year, let’s do it like we do it in our backyards.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, dork?” Firefly burst in.

  “Shut up! Firefly!” Trent seemed to understand.

  So I explained my plan. “I’ll sweep around the end, same as usual, but if I’m gonna go down, let’s have someone follow me close…that I can lateral back to.”

  “We ain’t got anybody else that’s that fast,” Trent objected, and I countered.

  “They don’t have to be fast, it just has to be someone they can’t tackle.”

  “Yeah, well, who we got on the team that can’t be tackled by one’a them huge fuckin’ Red Devils?” asked Firefly incredulously, and he and the whole team looked at me like I was completely crazy.

  “T. rex the fuckers, Firefly,” I whispered across the huddle.

  “Holy shit, he’s right,” exclaimed Trent.

  And the team hollered, “Firefly, Firefly, they can’t tackle a fuckin’ T. rex!”

  His eyes lit up with pride that we all thought he could do it.

  “Okay, thirty-eight pitchout with a T. rex follow, on—?” Trent looked to me.

  “On FOUR! We’ve never hiked on four,” I said.

  “Okay…on four, READY…BREAK!”

  As the team took to the line of scrimmage, everything seemed to slow down and all the sound around me came to a complete halt. I noticed the red Firebird parked in the adjacent field. Kevin was sitting on the roof as always, watching and grinning at me. Scrawny Clatterbuck, still feeling the power of yelling cocksuckers, drew my attention back to the game when he yelled in the face of his opposing lineman, a demonic thug twice Clatterbuck’s size.

  “Watch out for T. rex, you fuckin’ tub of shit!” Clatterbuck screeched.

  I looked out at the whole field, and into the faces of each player as the play was called, and Clatterbuck’s opponent clearly had heard him, and was seething. A flag went up as Clatterbuck’s opponent flattened him, and was drawn offside by our new “hut-four” snap call. Grandaddy smiled his dragon grin, exhaling a lungful of smoke. The next play’s snap was called, and Trent pitched out to me as I swept around the eighth hole in between two defenders. I found myself running downfield along the sideline, occasionally looking left as defenders came into view until I outran them all. But one sole Red Devil defender had an angle on me. I kept on going, with widemouthed fans, parents, Mom and Dad yelling nothing, until I turned to see the defender right there. I stopped in my tracks, sending the defender flying right by, and spun completely around to find Firefly approaching fast, but still about ten yards behind. I looked at another looming defender approaching at light speed while I stood still. I waited until Firefly was finally close enough, and I lateraled the ball to him about a millisecond before I got hit, hard! As I went down, I could see Firefly continue to the end zone with two defenders on his back, his cleats churning up earth. Looking at them sideways as I fell, amidst all the sea of helmet grilles that crossed my field of vision, I recognized her. Jane. She was there. She had to be there. And she wasn’t watching Firefly tear down the end zone. She kept her eyes on me…until it all went black. When I came to, I tracked the stands for her, but only my parents and James and Mamau and Grandaddy and Lew and a lot of litter remained.

  “Sug, let’s get you home for a hot shower,” murmured Mom, soft palm on my brow.

  * * *

  Jane,

  I scored today. I saw you. I was Number 24.

  * * *

  I stole a stamp out of Mom’s butcher-block drawer in the kitchen and walked over to The Dancing Mailbox on the corner of Bentliff and Sandpiper. Mailing letters to Jane at a made-up address was like throwing a ball into the stratosphere and waiting for it to come back down. My rationale was that if she was meant to get it, then grace would step in, and the postman would do the right thing and reroute it accordingly. I was hopeful. I never told anyone about my affection for this tempestuous creature. She moved me so much that I kept on going. I learned at an early age that there were seventeen important people in the universe, and that Jane was nine of them. She was more than half…just like my Grandaddy said.

  Chapter Four

  One, two, three, four, five, let’s go!” There was that counting again. Something was always starting on the count of five. And it was something that I was growing accustomed to not being invited to.

  I got dressed and picked up yesterday’s clothes off the floor, uncovering four of my favorite 45s all stuck together with pink goo. My stom
ach recognized the substance on the records even before my brain could, and I immediately tried to keep my belly intact, but my sister’s chewed, cigarette smoke–infused Bazooka bubble gum had undeniable power. I pinched my lips together as hard as I could and ran for the kitchen sink to remove the sticky glob from my records before her death smell claimed a win. I had my belly fully in control until I rounded the corner into the front hall and saw my mother speaking to the mailman at the front door. Victory was in sight if not for the bundle that the postman was handing to my mom. My heart withered as all the balls of hope I had thrown so high crashed down around me in the form of one brown-wrapped package of letters stamped RETURN TO SENDER ADDRESSEE UNKNOWN. I don’t know if it was my hatred for that postman or my disgust at Lilyth’s dirty “smoke” gum on my 45s, but I could no longer combat my belly’s urge. I just made it to the kitchen sink as all of my stomach’s contents left me.

  “Sug, you okay?” I heard my mom yell.

  I wiped my mouth, laid my gooped records down, and set out to face my hatred. By the time I got down the hall, Mom was wrapping up the conversation at the front door and holding the bundle. The bundle I did not want to see. The postman stared past Mom at me, foreboding like the Grim Reaper. My eyes widened in gnawing fear. It was too late for me to hide from the postman’s inquisition.

  “Sug! Sugar? Come say hello. The nice mailman returned eight letters to you that you have addressed to a…Jane. Sug?”

  My brain imploded on my cottonmouth, and yet from the ether I mustered an answer.