Away Running

by David Wright

  (Later, Matt explained that the junior-team coaches were senior-team players. Even though they were older, most hadn’t played the game as long as him and me had.)

  At the end of practice, the coaches had us go to the goal line for wind sprints. Matt and the Arab Moussa (Matt called him “Moose”) made a point to line up beside me, and I was thinking, All right then, bring it. But the white boy had jets! The Arab too. I had to work so that they wouldn’t beat me, and on the last two, the Arab did.

  An older guy who had been watching from the sideline (turns out he was the club president, Monsieur Lebrun) came over when we were done, and the Arab introduced him to me. Monsieur Lebrun led me off from the others, a hand on my shoulder, Matt following behind. “You’re obviously a good player,” Monsieur Lebrun said. “Plus, you speak French. You could help our coaches. I’m sure Mathieu has told you, we have a good organization and…” He said something I didn’t quite get. Then: “You would make a good addition.”

  And I had an offer, just like that.

  A few coaches milled around, acting like they weren’t really paying attention to our back-and-forth when it was clear they were. The Arab stood a ways off too, but he was steady looking over toward Matt, like Matt was gonna give some signal of my response, like I was going to make a decision right then, right there.

  “Because you are a foreigner, we don’t have the right to employ you, of course,” Monsieur Lebrun went on, “but we could find you suitable lodgings, with board.”

  I didn’t mention the letter of intent or Iowa State. Instead I heard myself saying, “I am living with a host family in Paris. And I would have to ask the permission of my mother.”

  He lit a cigarette. “Well, I’m sure we could make arrangements with this family, as we have for Mathieu, if they are willing.”

  And I wondered if Georges and Françoise would even want me to stay.

  “As for your mother—yes, of course.” Monsieur Lebrun dragged lung-deep on his cig but blew the smoke straight up into the air, clear of us. “If rules pertain as with our American senior-team players, we will need to make arrangements with your school, or enroll you through the CIEE, for your continued eligibility to play in America.”

  “The CIEE?” I asked.

  “Your American organization for international exchange,” he explained, looking at me like I should know this. “But that should be no problem.” He smiled and offered his hand. “If you are interested, call me. Mathieu has my number.”

  Just like that. Two days before I was supposed to leave.

  When he walked away, Matt was all conspiratorial-like, leaning in close and whispering, like we would be getting over or something. “Excellent! You and I could tear this league up…”

  But all I could think was, Nope, it can’t be done. It wasn’t my commitment to Iowa State I was thinking about—or my boys Ahman and Juan and Jamaal at the bus stop, all Big-12 whooping, Huskies pride. I was thinking on Pops.

  The air force captain and the chaplain had turned up at our house in San Antonio the night after we’d Skyped with him. Dinnertime. Tookie was playing Xbox, Tina was in the kitchen with Mama. It was me that opened the door. What do you say to a man that tells you a thing like that?

  “Are you sure?” was what I finally managed. “I mean, we just spoke to him. Yesterday.”

  The captain did most of the talking, but not much that I held on to. An IED, all available medical resources deployed, something about funeral arrangements. Mama didn’t say anything the whole time they were there.

  I held her hand and nodded that we understood, and after they had gone I got Tookie to stop crying long enough to get him to his and Tina’s room and into his Spider-Man pajamas. He would kind of groan and swat at my hand as I worked the top over his head. “Let me alone,” he said, his eyes watery. Tina had already gotten in bed across the room, in this Huskies gray T that I’d given her—it fit her like a nightgown—and she said, “Tomorrow is fish sticks at lunch!” like she’d already forgotten what we had just learned. And when Tookie jumped up and ran to Mama’s door and started banging on it—“Mama, Mama, open up. Please!”—and I had to pull him away, holding him in my arms and shushing him, Tina tried to console him too. “It’s okay,” she said. “Poppy’ll come home when he feels better.”

  I pulled their bedroom door closed after finally getting them to sleep. I could see a crack of light under Mama’s door, but when I knocked she didn’t answer.

  » » » »

  Matt was still jabbering on as the Diables Rouges cleared the field, folks walking into the locker rooms, some already coming out dressed in street clothes. Most were Arabs, with jeans slung low and in oversized Ts, some wearing hoodies, a few in knock-off letter jackets. And I couldn’t help wondering, Was the Arab who planted the IED that killed Pops a kid like me too?

  Matt just went on and on. “I’ve been here almost two weeks, and they’ve been the best two weeks of my life. No parents, no school, just the City of Light…” He was smiling, like that was what this was about, like running off from your responsibilities was such an all-damn-good and easy thing, the best thing that can happen in your life.

  DIABLES ROUGES V. JETS

  JANUARY 31

  MATT

  Our six-game conference schedule kicked off a week after Freeman joined the club, against the Jets from Neuilly-sur-Seine. It was as unfriendly a game as there could be.

  US Football ranked the Jets the top team in the country. Where the Diables Rouges were a mishmash of North African and African sons of resident aliens and illegal immigrants, and of foreigners like me and Freeman, the Jets looked pretty much like their suburb, well-to-do Neuilly-sur-Seine: mostly rich white kids with professional parents from industry and government. (Kind of like me too, I guess, on the parents part—well, the white part too.) The poor/rich, black/white thing added to the bad feelings between the two teams.

  The Diables Rouges hated the Jets—just hated them. They also hadn’t beaten the Jets before ever, which was a big part of the reason why Monsieur Lebrun had decided to hire outside help: Freeman and me.

  Our field wasn’t much of a field. Freeman called it “the Beach.” The only patches of grass were inside the twenties, near the end zones. The rest was like a sandlot, with pebbles and all. In the French Under-20s, teams could only play one foreigner at a time, and foreign quarterbacks only for one half. (They claimed our presence would stunt the development of French QBs because we’d hog all the playing time.) It meant I had twenty-four minutes—two quarters—to make things happen.

  And I did. I came out blazing. I threw two scores in the first quarter: the first, a deep flag to Moose; the other, a 5-yard dump-off that Mobylette turned into a 68-yard touchdown.

  In the huddle toward the end of the second quarter, Mobylette told me, “Moi vouloir ballon encore”—Me want ball again—his French rougher than Freeman’s. (Mobylette’s real name is Amadou. His family—his parents and something like eight kids—had only recently arrived from Mali, a few months before the start of the season.) It was the first play of what was probably my last drive before I had to sit to let Michel, my backup, “develop.”

  “Bientôt,” I told Mobylette—Soon.

  Apart from feeding him the ball, I had to find a way to get Sidi back in the game. After Moose, Sidi was probably the best athlete on the team—all five feet nine inches, 160 pounds of him. But he was also one of the biggest contradictions. He was reliable, as long as you didn’t rely on him.

  Like during that game. He was on early. He caught everything I threw his way, five or six passes, until, with the score 14–0 for us, it was like he realized we might actually win, and the catches began to really mean something. After that, he just bricked. He dropped three passes in a row, including one on third down, a perfect spiral that sailed right through his hands and bounced off his chest. We had to punt.

  The Jets kept two defensive backs on Moose and were stacking the box to stop Mobylette. With three minutes l
eft before halftime, I needed Sidi to step up. We all did. We could go into the half leading by three touchdowns.

  The guys realized our potential advantage too, and they were fidgety in the huddle, nervous like Sidi, looking off toward the Jets sideline, up at the spectators in the stands.

  “Listen up!” I barked.

  Everyone snapped to, eyes on me.

  “Twins right. Action pass 3-1-4. On two, on two. Vous êtes prêts!” Ready!

  “Break!” they shouted back in English.

  I nodded to Sidi. “This one’s for you. Just remember to watch the ball all the way into your hands.”

  He nodded back vigorously and sprinted to his position in the slot (his show of enthusiasm broadcasting to the Jets where I intended to go with the ball).

  I lined up behind Jorge, my center, and started the cadence. “Red 99. Red 99. Ready. Set, hut…”

  Sidi jumped offside. The referee blew his whistle and threw a flag.

  Back in the huddle, Moose snapped at him, “Get your head in the game!”

  “The Canadian said it was on one,” Sidi yelled back.

  The others grumbled and shifted about. From the sideline, Coach Thierry signaled timeout. “Sidi!” he shouted. “Get your butt over here. You too, Moussa.”

  “Call your huddle,” I told Jorge, and I followed them over.

  “What’s wrong with you today?” Coach Thierry said.

  Sidi started up again. “The play was on one, the Canadian called it on one…”

  Moose cut him off. “You’re supposed to watch the ball, not listen to the cadence.”

  “Let’s go, les gars!” Coach Thierry said. “Pull your heads out of your asses. We have them by the throat. Don’t let up now.”

  The referee tapped his watch. “Thirty seconds left.”

  Freeman, who had wandered over, whispered to me in English, “You’re only as good as your last play.” He nodded toward Sidi, who stood there with his head hanging. Freeman seemed to be saying, Forget Sidi—he’s out of it.

  But I needed Sidi. Michel, our French QB, would too in the second half.

  Back in the huddle, I used what Freeman had said on the others. “We’re only as good as our last play.” I adjusted my chinstrap. “So come on!” And to Sidi, who’d been trying to throw me under the bus, I said, “Step up!”

  I called the same play as before, but on one this time.

  “Vous êtes prêts! Break!”

  I hit Sidi on the quick slant-in. He juggled the pass at first but tucked the ball under his arm and fell forward, and we gained eight yards.

  Second down and two yards to go for a first down.

  “You want ball more?” I asked Mobylette, imitating his staccato French.

  “Me want ball,” he answered.

  “Pro left. Inside trap 32.”

  The Jets showed an inside blitz—the opposite of what I’d expected. I needed to change the play at the line of scrimmage, call an audible to another play so that Mobylette didn’t get killed, but the Diables Rouges didn’t know how to. We’d never practiced the audible. I called the cadence—I didn’t have a choice; it was either that or waste our last time-out—took the snap and handed the ball off to Mobylette.

  He broke a first tackle and slipped a second before ramming his helmet into the sternum of the Jets safety. First down, inside their 40.

  Mobylette was a natural. And with just a month of American football!

  The stands were rocking—only five hundred people, maybe, but all of them stomping their feet and chanting, “Olé! Olé-Olé-Olé!”

  The Beach didn’t have a scoreboard. The ref told me, “Thirty seconds left in the half.”

  The Jets defensive players were in disarray, sniping at each other. Now was the time to go for the jugular. I called the deep flood pass, an all-or-nothing play that sent Moose and Sidi up the left sideline. It was a sure touchdown if the Jets didn’t adjust.

  I scanned the Jets defense as I walked to the line of scrimmage. They were showing cover 2, perfect for the call. (I hoped Sidi had seen it too.) I called the cadence, took the snap from Jorge and made a five-step drop. I pump-faked to Moose, who was cutting toward the flag, and launched it toward Sidi, who broke open inside their ten, right where he was supposed to. I watched the ball sail through the air, could hear our players on the sidelines, first “Aahh!” then “Ooooohhh…”

  Sidi had dropped the ball.

  I looked toward our bench. Coach Thierry was holding his head in his hands. Freeman just shook his back and forth. Then I heard a commotion coming from the other sideline.

  Instead of returning to our huddle, Sidi was across the field, in front of the Jets bench, swearing at them. I couldn’t make out his words, but their players and fans stared at him, kind of dumbfounded. The refs too. Everyone just stood and watched.

  But then someone started laughing, and Sidi really lost it. Utterly and totally. He kicked dirt in their direction, shot them the bird with both hands, grabbed his crotch.

  Coach Thierry and Moose rushed over and grabbed him. Aïda had come down out of the stands. They dragged him from the field, Sidi spitting insults all the while, even at our own fans, who were laughing now too.

  “Dang,” Freeman said when I got to the sideline.

  Dang was right.

  The tide turned in the second half. The Jets just bullied our defense. Their running back, a strong-legged nineteen-year-old Algerian kid, ran the ball down our throats. (Moose said he was a ringer they’d brought in from the high-rises in Saint-Denis, the suburb next to Villeneuve.) Freeman did his best to limit the damage, but they lined up their American on one side of the field, to draw Freeman over (Moose had googled the kid: he was a wuss receiver who’d graduated high school in California the year before), and then they ran their Algerian ringer in the other direction.

  Our 14–0 became 14–7, 14–14…By the fourth quarter, we were trailing by twenty points, 34–14, with only two minutes left. I couldn’t do anything about it. I had to watch from the sideline.

  “What’s wrong with Freeman?” Monsieur Lebrun asked. “Why can’t he stop them?”

  We were standing at one end of our bench.

  “He shut their offense down in the first half,” I said. “They figured out he’s American. They adjusted.”

  Monsieur Lebrun kicked an empty Evian bottle. “Merde! So that’s what our opponents are going to do all season? That’s what we’re paying for?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  With less than a minute remaining, Moose called our last timeout. The rest of us huddled around him on the sideline.

  “This isn’t about winning or losing anymore,” he said. “It’s about pride. We have to make these rich bastards pay. Tax them a little something for their time spent in Villeneuve!”

  I wasn’t sure Freeman had understood what Moose said, but he sure acted as if he did. On the next play, the Jets ran a fake to Freeman’s side, their big running back an obvious decoy. Poor kid. Freeman tagged him anyway—drove the crown of his helmet under the guy’s chin—right in front of our bench. The kid was out cold before he hit the ground, his arms limp at his side, his helmet knocked off and skipping down the sideline.

  There were only maybe fifty or so fans left, freezing their butts off on the metal bleachers, but they all popped up, roaring. Even the gangbangers in sunglasses and hoodies who watched from the oak tree at the far end of the field hooahed and cheered.

  Flags flew, Jets and Diables Rouges players started shoving one other, and I heard Freeman yelling at the running back, “Fucking Al-Qaida motherfucker!” He had his finger in the kid’s face. He was like Sidi had been, like he’d lost his mind!

  I grabbed him by the face mask, jerked his face to mine. “What’s wrong with you!” I said in English, hoping none of our guys had heard what he’d said, or if they had, that none had understood.

  He tried to wrestle free of me, lunging for the unmoving Jet.

  “Cut it out!” Moose p
ulled us apart. “The game is over.”

  MATT

  There’s a locker room but no lockers at the stadium, so we had to carry our gear in bulky bags, and the strap was digging into my shoulder. Freeman and I were waiting at the corner to cross the street, on our way to catch the RER back into Paris after our loss to the Jets. It was dark and cold and had started to drizzle. We passed through the Cité des Cinq Mille and Freeman again removed the big ring he wore and put it in his jacket pocket. (Like anyone would want to steal that.)

  At the RER station, we slipped our tickets into the turnstile, pushed our bags through ahead of us and passed inside. The electric board said the next train would arrive in two minutes, but it barreled into the station as we stepped onto the platform, and we got on. Freeman sat in an empty bank of seats. I sat across from him.

  Freeman croaked his French more than he spoke it. “I am with regrets for what I did at the finish of the game,” he said.

  We usually spoke English to each other, except when we were around French people, so I shifted back. “Forget it,” I told him.

  But really, it had been bothering me since it happened. Part of me wanted to write it off as bitterness, as just a heat-of-the-moment thing, because of the loss. But it was like he didn’t recognize that most of our teammates were North African—“Arabs,” as he, like most French people, called them. My best friend on the team and his greatest advocate, Moose, was too.

  I wasn’t so sure Freeman and I would become friends. It could be kind of hard to like him sometimes.

  I said, “But Al-Qaida motherfuckers? Really? What’s up with that?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Why just single out the Arabs? Because they’re kicking your butts in Iraq?”

  “Ain’t nobody kicking our butts,” he shot back.

  “It’s time you stopped believing Fox News.”

  Freeman moved his bag from his lap to the empty seat beside him and stared into the dark outside the window. “Don’t mess with me about stuff like that,” he growled.