Game Changers

by Mike Lupica

  The real truth right now was that he wished he’d never gone over to Shawn’s, that he’d stayed home and played video games. Or read a book.

  Sometimes when he was reading a book — Ben McBain loved reading almost as much as he did sports — he’d write down a sentence or two he wanted to remember. One time, he couldn’t remember the book right now, he’d written down this quote, just because it had struck him funny:

  “No good deed goes unpunished.”

  When he’d shown it to his mom she’d smiled at him and said, “You gotta be prepared for something, pal. No matter how much you think you’re doing the right thing, life can still take a wrong turn on you.”

  Like now.

  Before Ben had left he’d said to Shawn, straight up, “So, like, you’re going to keep playing quarterback even though you don’t want to?”

  “I just have to get through this season,” Shawn had said. “Then maybe I’ll figure it out after. I keep hoping that Dad won’t want to coach next season, that it’s not his plan to coach me every year until I get to high school.”

  Ben had said, “So you’re doing this for him?”

  “I can’t let him down,” Shawn had said, almost whispering even though it was just the two of them. “And maybe if I got a little better I’d be a little less afraid.”

  They had been walking back up the hill by then.

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Of letting everybody down.”

  “And you think I can help you?”

  “You have to,” Shawn had said.

  As he started up his block, Ben was thinking maybe he was the one who ought to be afraid, that maybe he’d finally promised something he wasn’t going to be able to deliver.

  Yeah, he thought.

  Definitely should have stayed home today.

  Ben had never thought there were certain things he had to do to be a quarterback, like some kind of to-do list, even in pickup games. Once the pickup games started, he just was a QB. Just let it happen. If the play broke down, he made up another one on the fly. He’d seen this one play on YouTube, another Flutie play, where Flutie got jammed up in the backfield and the only way for him to complete a pass was throwing the ball behind his back, the way you would in basketball.

  Make it up, if you had to.

  Just make the play.

  Shawn was different. Oh man. No matter what the situation against Midvale, no matter what happened after the ball was snapped, Shawn had only changed the play his dad had sent in as some kind of last resort. Coach O’Brien could talk all he wanted in practice about secondary receivers. Shawn would still get locked in on the guy who was supposed to be getting the ball. The way he’d locked in on Ben right before the interception the day before.

  It was almost as if Shawn was the robot like the one in his backyard, maybe thinking his dad was controlling him with a remote from the sideline.

  It was almost time for the McBain family’s Sunday lunch when he got back, the big bowl of fruit salad already on the dining room table. Sam and Coop and Lily were coming over to hang out later, after the Packers played the one o’clock game on TV, which meant Ben had some time before he had to explain to them why the Core Four might be about to become five for a while.

  He’d gotten Shawn to agree to this: Ben could tell Sam and Coop that they were going to do some extra workouts on their own. So that they could all become more comfortable with one another. It was a legit idea, especially for Shawn and Coop, because they had messed up that handoff against Midvale, and it didn’t matter whose fault it was, the ball still ended up bouncing around on the ground.

  And it was totally legit that Shawn getting extra practice throwing to Sam could only help, since Sam was clearly the best receiver on the team.

  Ben and Shawn agreed that the workouts would take place at McBain Field, even though Shawn’s field was a whole lot better, both Ben and Shawn agreeing that Shawn would be a lot more relaxed without his dad being some kind of eye in the sky at the top of the hill.

  Wanting to come down and help out.

  “I mean this in a good way,” Shawn O’Brien had said, “but my dad is already helping enough.”

  Ben was on his bed now, stretched out on top of the covers, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Thinking: It wasn’t just the game you were playing or the one you were watching that could turn around in a blink, sometimes it was your life.

  He had come into the season wanting one thing: To be a quarterback. When he saw that wasn’t going to happen, he just wanted things to be a little less complicated between him and Shawn, and now look where he was.

  He heard a small knock on the door, said “Enter,” saw his dad’s smiling face appear from behind the door. Never a bad thing.

  “‘Bout five minutes until lunch,” he said.

  “You need help setting the table?” Ben said.

  His dad tilted his head to the side, frowning, trying to look confused. “Well, the boy definitely looks like Ben McBain,” his dad said. “And he sounds like Ben McBain. But if he’s talking about laying out forks and knives, he can’t possibly be Ben McBain.”

  “No kidding,” Ben said, “sometimes you and mom really are funnier than TV parents.”

  “Well,” his dad said, “you’re nice to notice.” Then: “How’d it go at Shawn’s? Your mom told me you were heading over.”

  “It went okay, I guess.”

  “Just okay?”

  He wanted to tell his dad all of it, tell him how maybe the only way to save the season was to help Shawn get better — and get more confidence — playing a position he didn’t even want to play. Ben wanted to ask his dad for advice, totally. But knew he couldn’t.

  All he said was “He’s one of those guys who just wants it so bad it makes him play bad.”

  No lie there.

  Then Ben added, “Dad, does that make any sense?”

  “Actually,” Jeff McBain said, “it makes perfect sense.” His dad smiled at him again, the kind that could feel like a hug even from across the room. “It’s the kind of thing that happens to parents all the time when they become too parental. Sometimes we want to be great parents so much we end up acting like idiots, and if you tell your mom I said that, no dessert.”

  “What is dessert, by the way? She wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Banana cream pie.”

  “I won’t talk.” Ben sat up. “Dad, I gotta find a way to prop him up. I’m just not sure I know what’s the best way.”

  The whole truth there, nothing but.

  “Maybe you can convince him that he can help the team more by wanting it a little less,” Ben’s dad said. “Does that makes sense to you?”

  Ben nodded, smiling back at him, because it did.

  “Mom says Lily’s the genius,” he said. “Actually it’s you.”

  “Now that you can tell your mother,” his dad said.

  He wasn’t going to lie to his buds, he was just going to leave some stuff out, basically. He didn’t think Shawn’s secret — about not wanting to play quarterback — should be that big a secret. But it was. Because it was Shawn’s secret.

  And Ben had promised.

  His mom would tell him sometimes when she was going over one of his English papers, it wasn’t what you put that made your writing better, it was what you left out.

  And Coop talked all the time about what he called the “Bro Code,” what guys were allowed to do and say and what they weren’t, Ben and Sam just rolling their eyes when he did, knowing he was just making up rules as he went along.

  One time Ben pressed Coop on what he thought was the single most important part of the Bro Code and Coop thought about that for a minute and said, “Having each other’s backs, no matter what.”

  Sam and Coop both knew Ben would have their backs, no matter what the situation. But this situation was different: For now, Ben had to have Shawn’s back, too. He was already hoping that when Shawn started to see how much he could trust the Core Four, he’d
tell the others that he was only playing quarterback to please his dad.

  Ben knew that no matter how much he could justify what he was doing, he and Sam and Coop had always told one another everything. If they got their feelings hurt later because Ben had been holding back on them, Ben would have to deal with that. Maybe that was the real Bro Code.

  For now, though, he needed to keep it simple: Shawn was too tight, they had to find a way to loosen him up.

  When he explained that to Sam and Coop in his basement, Coop said, “And this is our job … why?”

  They had decided not to watch a movie after the Packers game, had been playing Madden on the big screen instead. When Lily found out there was no movie, she called and informed them her idea of fun wasn’t watching them lose their minds over a video game, but she might wander by later if there was time before supper.

  “It’s not our job,” Ben said. “He’s our teammate, and he asked for our help. So it’s like when you help a teammate up after he gets knocked down in a game.”

  He looked over at Sam, down at the other end of the long couch. Waiting for some backup. Only this time it wasn’t coming.

  “Count me out,” he said.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Sam said, “You’re the one that must be kidding. If I’m gonna do some extra work, it’s not gonna be with him. Or for him.”

  “Same,” Coop said. “It might be your idea of the Code to prop this guy up. Not mine. You heard the way he called me out yesterday?”

  “Everybody says stuff they don’t mean,” Ben said. “You’ve done it plenty of times.”

  “Dude,” Coop said. “Trust me. He meant it.”

  “The only guy on the team who doesn’t think Shawn is a jerk is you,” Sam said.

  “He’s not that bad,” Ben said.

  “You say,” Coop said.

  “You’re really not gonna do this?” Ben said.

  Feeling himself starting to get hot.

  “I’d do almost anything for you and you know I would, because I have,” Coop said. “But I don’t feel like playing today. And I really don’t feel like playing with him.”

  “I’d do it for you guys,” Ben said, “if you asked.”

  Sam said, “I wouldn’t ask.”

  Ben knew he had to drop it. They never fought. And he didn’t want to fight over Shawn O’Brien. And could feel them getting close.

  Or maybe they were already there.

  “The guy’s a teammate, that’s all I’m saying,” Ben said.

  Like he was back to talking himself into something, convincing himself he was doing the right thing, as hard as it was.

  Sam and Coop were at the bottom of the stairs now, on their way out. Sam looked at Ben and said, “He’s our teammate? Maybe you could tell him to start acting like one.”

  Ben waited a few minutes and then went upstairs himself. He still needed one more player to give Shawn the kind of workout he planned, and he knew where to find one.

  Ben was throwing the ball around with his dad when Shawn showed up on his bike. When Ben had told Jeff McBain what he had planned for Shawn, his dad had said, “Love it.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “I tell you all the time,” his dad said. “I can still run straight ahead. I just can’t go backward anymore.”

  Without telling his dad more than he should, without breaking his promise, Ben said, “I think he could use a little break from his dad, but he didn’t say anything about mine.”

  Ben told Shawn it was a simple drill. His dad would rush him as hard as he could. Shawn had to get his pass off to Ben before getting touched. But instead of the three count or five count you usually gave the quarterback in touch football, Ben said Shawn wasn’t getting any count.

  “Instead of one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi,” Ben said, “I’m sort of giving you no-Mississippi.”

  “I’m not feelin’ you on this,” Shawn said.

  “My dad’s bigger than anybody who’s going to rush you,” Ben said. “And he’s gonna give you less time than you’d get in a game even if there was this almost perfect-o blitz. And you’re gonna find out if you can still stand in there and complete passes.”

  “I tell Ben all the time,” Ben’s dad said, “that part of the fun of sports is finding out you can do things you didn’t know you could.”

  Ben said, “It’ll be fun.”

  “Maybe for you.”

  Ben said, “Nah. For both of us. You don’t need to make perfect throws every time. But I’ll bet you make more than you thought you would.”

  Ben’s dad didn’t rush Shawn as hard as he could, but did come at him pretty hard, even yelling his head off sometimes as he did. At first Shawn tried to get rid of the ball too quickly, missing Ben on short patterns, the ball flying all over the place almost like he was throwing it away on purpose.

  “See what I mean,” Shawn said to Ben. “I even stink here.”

  Ben could see him working as hard as he could to control his temper. Not for Ben’s benefit. For Ben’s dad.

  Ben said, “Relax, dude. You’ll get better at it.”

  Ben wasn’t sure he believed that. But thought it sounded good.

  Slowly, though, Shawn did get better over the hour the three of them were out there. He wasn’t Ben Roethlisberger standing in against the rush until the last possible moment. Or Rodgers or Mike Vick throwing accurately on the run. But he started connecting on his passes. Ben’s dad would end the play by getting a hand on him once in a while. Just not as often the longer they stayed at it.

  Ben had already called “last play” a couple of times, wanting Shawn to end with a good throw, like they were shooting hoops and Ben wanted to make sure Shawn made his last shot.

  But Shawn had underthrown Ben on one pass, then threw the next one wide and outside.

  “Okay,” Ben said. “Last last one, and this time I mean it.”

  “Good,” his dad said. “Because now I can’t even run straight ahead.”

  Finally Shawn delivered the goods. It looked like Ben’s dad was on him, but then Shawn pump-faked, got Ben’s dad to go flying past him, scrambled to his right, motioning with his left hand for Ben to go deep, planting and throwing and delivering a perfect strike at least thirty yards down McBain Field.

  Money.

  Money, money, money, Ben thought.

  Ben reacted as if they’d gotten a do-over on the end of the Midvale game, sprinting back and jumping in the air and giving Shawn a flying chest bump, nearly falling down in the process.

  “Okay,” Ben said, “now that sucker we can quit on.”

  Ben’s dad said, “Throw like that against Hewitt on Saturday and we’ll be just fine.”

  “I’ll try,” Shawn said.

  “See, that’s the thing,” Ben said. “Don’t try. Just let it happen.”

  Shawn smiled and said, “Okay, I’ll try that.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Ben’s dad said to him. “And now I am going to go across the street and spend the next several years in a hot bath.”

  Just Ben and Shawn on the field now. Shawn reached out with his fist and Ben tapped it. He didn’t know if this was real or not, if this was the real Shawn, the way he wasn’t sure if the Shawn he’d been with at the O’Briens’ field was real.

  But he’d go with this one for now. And found himself wishing that Sam and Coop had stuck around.

  “Thanks,” Shawn said.

  “What friends are for,” Ben said.

  Shawn got on his bike and left. When he was out of sight down the street, Lily Wyatt stepped out from behind the maple tree and said, “Hey, you.”

  “Hey, yourself,” Ben said, surprised to see her. “How long have you been here?”

  “Long enough.”

  “You’ve been spying?”

  “Observing,” she said. “Huge difference.”

  She raised an eyebrow on him, the way she did sometimes, knowing she was good at it. When Ben tried to practice the same look
in a mirror, he just looked confused.

  “What?” he said.

  “Nothing,” Lily said.

  “You’re giving me a look.”

  “What look?”

  “You know what look.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lily Wyatt said. “But I will make one observation, off my observing.”

  Ben waited.

  Lily said, “Nobody gets that happy in a pretend game.”

  “The guy made a great throw.”

  “Even I could see that,” Lily said. “But you acted as if your new friend had just won the championship of the entire universe.”

  “Well, maybe we did get a little too excited,” Ben said. “We’re just trying to prop him up on account of the way yesterday’s game ended.”

  He saw her staring at him now. Giving Ben what he thought of as her “big eyes.” When she did that, Ben usually found himself wanting to hide his own thoughts.

  “Anything you’re not telling me?” Lily said.

  Ben and Shawn were able to work out a couple of more times at McBain, after school on Tuesday and Friday. Just the two of them. Both times Ben asked Sam and Coop to join them.

  Both times Sam and Coop said no.

  Ben asked them why they were so dug in on Shawn, and Coop said, “I don’t have to know who I don’t want to know.”

  “But you really don’t know him.”

  “Well, then, problem solved,” Coop said.

  “What about you?” Ben said to Sam.

  Sam said, “I’m waiting to see if he’ll be as good a friend to you as you are to him.”

  Then Sam said, “It’s hard enough acting like I’m happy to be catching passes from him — when he gets one anywhere near me, that is — when I know it should be you. It would be even harder for me to pretend I want to be his friend. I’m not a phony.”

  Ben said, “I know that.”

  “I should be catching passes from you,” he said. “Then the season would be as fun as it’s supposed to be.”

  Ben kept trying to find fun ways for football to be more fun to Shawn, but to also get him throwing better under pressure. On Friday, Ben’s dad hung a tire from the maple tree at McBain. When Shawn got there after school, Ben rushed him like a crazy man, and told Shawn they were staying out there until he could either put the ball through the tire, or at least hit it.