Just A Game

by Dustin Stevens

  “Are you stalking me?” Clay asked as he walked up.

  Without looking over Natalie smirked and said, “Some guy showed up in the middle of the night a couple of days ago. It was kind of endearing, thought I’d give it a try.”

  “And how’s that working out for you?” Clay asked, elongating his stride to step up onto the first row and slide to a stop beside her.

  “Eh. I don’t have his delivery, feels like I’m rushing it.”

  Clay matched her gaze out at the ping-pong players and said, “Yeah, maybe a little, but you can’t take it personally. Trying to match panache with someone as skilled as this mystery man would be like trying to paint the Mona Lisa your first time touching a brush.”

  Natalie coughed beside him and turned. “You call that the Mona Lisa?”

  Clay’s faced broke into a laugh and he jabbed Natalie’s arm with the side of his fist. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  Clay laughed again and asked, “So to what do I owe the pleasure of two midday visits in a single week?”

  Natalie extended her arms in front of her in an exaggerated stretch and said, “Same as last time, just got here.”

  “Car troubles again?” Clay asked, rooting around in his bag and removing the banana. “You know I would have stopped by this morning.”

  “Yeah, I know. Mom and I decided to go for breakfast. We ended up sitting and talking a couple hours before she dropped me off here.”

  “Everything alright?” Clay asked, peeling back the top of the banana.

  “Oh yeah, great even. We were just hanging out, talking about next year and stuff. Time got away from us.”

  “Ah,” Clay said, tearing off a piece of fruit and tossing it into his mouth. He held it out towards Natalie, who shook her head and waved a hand at it. “So you thought it would be an optimal time to come in and harass me again is what you’re saying.”

  Natalie pursed her lips and bobbed her head. “Pretty much. I wasn’t hungry and figured we could hang out before your guard dog showed up.”

  “My guard what? Oh, never mind.” Clay instantly corrected, gathering she was referring to Chelsie. “She’s not a guard dog...”

  “She’s just a little jealous,” Natalie finished. “I know. You’d think after four years now she’d be used to us.”

  Clay exhaled and shook his head. “You’d hope anyway.”

  “Just think, if I ever get a boyfriend you’ll be able to make them jealous too!”

  “I hardly think I’m the type anybody’s going to be jealous of,” Clay said, finishing the banana and tossing the peel in the bag. He removed the sweet tea, placed it on the bleacher beside him and dropped the protein bar in his lap.

  “Oh please,” Natalie said and grabbed the protein bar. She opened the wrapper, pulled a chunk off the end and popped it in her mouth. “Oof, how the hell do you eat these things every day?”

  Clay tore off a large piece and stuck it between his teeth. “You get used to it. By protein bar standards, this is like eating a Snickers.”

  “You mean it gets worse?”

  “Oh, much.”

  Natalie grabbed the tea and took a swig. “Alright, now that we’ve got our energy levels up, what say we challenge Mutt and Ike to a little mixed doubles action?”

  Clay stuffed the last of the protein bar into his mouth and chewed quickly, gazing over at the two phys ed teachers casually hitting ping-pong balls back and forth. Ms. Mutterman taught PE and health and coached basketball and softball, though to her students she was known simply as Mutt. Mr. Ikeman was in his first year of teaching, a Huntsville graduate barely five years removed from being a student himself.

  “You think?” Clay asked.

  “What, you scared?” Natalie asked, already climbing down from the bleachers.

  “Only of the fact that I have a game tomorrow.”

  “And you think the big strong football player will get hurt playing ping-pong?”

  “I’m just saying, my back still hurts from piggy backing you last time we played.”

  “Ooh,” Natalie said, clenching her jaw in indignation. “Get your butt down here boy.”

  Clay chuckled and stuffed the protein bar wrapper into the bag. He wadded everything into a ball and tossed it into the garbage as Natalie laid down the challenge behind him.

  “Now, if you guys are scared, we understand,” Natalie said as Clay jogged over, coming up beside her and draping a lazy arm across her shoulder.

  “See, I told you they wouldn’t go for it,” Clay said.

  “Oh, did you now?” Mutt asked. “And what made you so sure of that?”

  “Simple, nobody likes losing,” Clay said.

  Both Mutt and Ike laughed and Mutt circled around to join Ike. “Grab some paddles then.”

  Natalie and Clay both went to the old milk crate resting beside the table and grabbed paddles, taking their place across from them.

  “Ready for PING?” Mutt asked.

  “Just like that? No warm-up or anything?” Clay asked.

  “Hey, you guys laid down the challenge. Figured you’d be ready to go.”

  “No, that’s fine,” Natalie said, tapping her paddle against Clay’s arm. “Serve it up.”

  Mutt tossed the ball across the net and said, “P.”

  Clay hit it back across and said, “I.”

  Ike returned the lob and said, “N.”

  Natalie returned the ball a little harder and said, “G.”

  Mutt rifled the next shot into the corner back at Natalie, past Clay’s outreached paddle. She laughed triumphantly and said, “Our serve chumps.”

  She took the ball in her hand and served cross court to Clay, who promptly smashed it back at her. “1-0, chumps.”

  The two sides played back and forth for the next half hour, Mutt and Ike claiming the first game and Natalie and Clay soon knotting the score at one. As they played the gym filled in around them, people filtering in and settling on the bleachers.

  Curious onlookers wandered over to the table as the game progressed, starting quietly but soon swelling into boisterous cheering. In the second set when Mutt pulled her hair back into a ponytail the crowd took notice and before the third when Natalie pulled off her hoodie and began to play in a t-shirt it noticed again.

  Chelsie and Goldie were among the students to join, Goldie talking trash to both sides and Chelsie offering praise to Clay at every break in play. The game waged into the third set, a sweat starting to form as Natalie and Clay wove in and out of each other to track down every shot Mutt and Ike sent their way.

  With the score knotted at 20 each, Mutt offered to end it all in a dead tie. The crowd booed loudly at the suggestion and Natalie turned to Clay. “What do you think?”

  “There are no ties in ping-pong, as there are no ties in life,” Clay waxed. “Win by two?”

  Mutt smiled and said, “Works for me.”

  Goldie and Chelsie both cheered and offered encouragement as Natalie turned her head and whispered, “Did you just quote She’s Out of My League?”

  A smile grew cross Clay’s face. “You know I love that movie.” He settled in diagonally from Mutt, who served it across. Clay returned it deep into the far corner, where Ike tracked it down and sent it straight into the net.

  A cheer went up as Clay said, “21-20, match point.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Mutt said and again sent the serve bouncing towards Clay. Clay put the ball back into the same exact spot as before, though Ike had anticipated it and was a half step to his right for the return. The ball still almost sped past him and he looped the return high up into the air.

  “Here we go,” Goldie called as the ball bounced high off the table and Natalie smashed it hard back across the net.

  A loud cheer went up as Clay slapped high fives with Natalie, followed by Goldie and a handful of other watchers. He gave a fist bump to Mutt and Ike and wrapped a tight arm around Chelsie as the crowd dispersed from the table.<
br />
  “That was fun,” she said as they headed towards the hall and their next class.

  “Yeah, it was,” Clay agreed. “And here I didn’t even think you liked ping-pong.”

  “Well I don’t like to play, but I like being a part of stuff like that.”

  “Stuff like that?”

  “You know, random people all together. Everybody’s happy, talking back and forth, cheering for one another. It’s fun.”

  Clay rolled the statement around for a moment and realized what she was saying could be applied to a lot broader spectrum than just a game of ping-pong.

  “Yeah, it really is,” he had to agree.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  In football, unlike basketball, the home team always wears the dark colored jersey and the visiting team always wears white. As part of their preparation for the season, the Hornets all received two practice jerseys each year. They wore blue ones on the weeks of homes games and during pre-season camp and white ones for away games.

  Clay flipped the hood on his Huntsville football sweatshirt over his head and slid his blue practice jersey on, then shifted the hood back down on to his neck. He tugged at the sleeves of the jersey a few times to get it to sit right, picked up his helmet and headed for the door.

  Goldie and Matt were already waiting by it, several juniors and sophomores standing just behind them.

  While practices on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were without fanfare and an exercise in physicality, Thursday was an entirely different beast. Instead of heading directly out, players lined up by the door to walk out as they would the next night. They walked single file from the locker room, through where the fan tunnel would be and grouped up on the edge of the field. From there they broke into a full rendition of their pre-game warm-up, only with a much longer period of running through plays.

  “Who’s got the lead this week?” Goldie asked as Clay approached. Each week, a different senior got to be the first in line and the first through the tunnel. Normally this privilege rotated among the three or four elected captains of the team, but since there were only six seniors they had all been named captain.

  “Beats me,” Clay said. “Who all hasn’t gone yet?”

  Matt looked up on the wall where the varsity schedule was painted each year as a reminder to players working out what they were working towards. “Well, let’s see, we’ve had four home games so far.”

  “I went the first week,” Marksy said, pulling on gloves as he approached.

  “I went week four,” Goldie said.

  “Week five,” Matt said.

  “And the Little’s went together last week,” Marksy pointed out.

  “So gee, who does that leave?” Goldie said mockingly.

  Clay rolled his eyes and bit back a retort. He had known in the back of his mind that this was his week to go, but was hoping he’d find some way around it.

  A loud clap originated in the back of the locker room and Coach Bellick stormed out of the coach’s office. “Alright boys, get ‘em buckled up. We’re on in two!” He kept clapping as he bounded through the locker room slapping players on the back or atop their helmet as he made his way to the front door. He stopped just short of the threshold and said, “You know what to do,” to the seniors, then pressed his back against the door latch and disappeared outside.

  Two minutes later the unmistakable sound of the Huntsville fight song split through the air and Goldie said, “There it is. Showtime!”

  Without saying a word Clay pressed open the locker room door with his left hand and slapped the word TEAM stenciled above the door with his right. He exited into the afternoon air, followed in line by each of the seniors, all of them silent in their blue jerseys and helmets.

  A handful of students still drifted through the parking lot and away from the building and many of them stopped to stare as the team filed past. A few even clapped their hands or shouted encouragement.

  Clay nodded to each of them as he passed, the sound of the fight song deafening as it rang through the stadium PA system. The four banks of lights lining the field flipped on as the team entered the tunnel, the halogen bulbs barely noticeable in the afternoon light.

  Clay reached the grass edge of the field and jogged straight across the back of the end zone to the goal post. He stopped his jog and walked out a few steps as the other seniors filed in behind him in a row five across. Behind them, the juniors and sophomores filled in the lines with five people each.

  When the last player had reached the team and taken his place in line Clay started a slow and steady clap. The team fell in with him, the beat growing slowly but incessantly stronger. As it reached a fevered pitch Clay jogged straight into the group and buried his face mask between Rich and Lyle’s.

  The next night he would follow the same cadence that captains had been following for years, leading the team in a rhythmic chant. Today though, he told the team to focus, look sharp, and get ready go out as winners.

  From there the team broke towards their position coaches, going through the same form running and stretching routines they would just one night later. As he stretched Clay noticed a few dozen parents and fans sitting in the bleachers. Many of them held cameras in their hands and snapped endless photos of everything that unfolded.

  One of them was, of course, his mother.

  Sitting three rows deep directly across from him, she was seated next to Susan Marks. Each of them had cameras around their necks and wore blue sweatshirts under their coats. As Clay watched they took turns snapping photos and waving about with their hands.

  Overhead the fight song ended and transitioned into a steady cacophony of crowd noise. It ebbed and flowed from one moment to the next, interjected with the band playing and cheerleaders chanting, just like the players would deal with the following night.

  After stretching Stanson blew his whistle and Clay and the other quarterbacks went straight to the end zone where they began throwing short and intermediate pass routes with receivers. On the opposite side of the field the linemen worked through blocking schemes together, every single person on the team doing something simultaneously.

  As the players did this the crowd drifted down towards the end zone, the cameras beginning to flash in the graying afternoon sky.

  Ten swift minutes passed at this pace, with Clay firing passes to whichever receiver happened to pop in line for him. Official time ticked off on the scoreboard. The first ten minutes was allotted for stretching, the next ten for pass routes.

  At exactly the twenty minute mark Stanson blew his whistle again and the quarterbacks and receivers were joined by the running backs and began running a skeleton offense against a scout team defense. This continued for the next ten minutes and at the thirty minute mark, another whistle brought the entire team together.

  The next thirty minutes were devoted to team offense. Freshmen and sophomores wore gold jerseys over their blue ones and acted as Sentinel’s defense while the offense ran the full array of their offense against them. Each five minute segment was devoted to a different game situation, ranging from third-and-long to goal line.

  Clay moved briskly through the plays, barking signals and taking special notice of any wrinkles Sentinel might throw his way. He blocked out the deafening crowd noise being piped into the stadium and paid no heed to the flashbulbs from a few dozen cameras going off around him.

  When the clock on the scoreboard reached sixty minutes the two sides switched and the starting defense ran through all of their schemes to face various game situations. Despite the cold temperature, sweat formed on the brow of many players and Clay pushed the sleeves of his sweatshirt to his elbows for some relief from the building heat.

  At the eighty minute mark, the entire team came together and made a single run through of all special teams. Given the cold weather and the lack of warm-up time, no punts or kickoffs were made. Rather, a check was done to ensure that everyone was where they were supposed to be and knew their assignments.

  The
final act of practice occurred each week at the eighty-nine forty-five mark on the clock. At that time the team began counting backwards towards zero as the field goal team rushed out onto the field. Clay as the holder would wait until there were three seconds remaining, then call for the snap and Austin would kick it through.

  Every Thursday practice ended at exactly the ninety minute mark, as the clock and crowd noise both stopped abruptly. The quiet in the wake of an hour and a half at full volume was in many ways just as loud and those on the sidelines stood looking around, wondering what had happened.

  Stanson blew his whistle one last time and the team gathered around. He ordered them to hit a knee and said, “Alright boys, good practice today. Liked the focus and the intensity I was seeing out here. I hope you all realize that is exactly the kind of focus we need to have tomorrow night, from the time you start getting dressed until the time you walk off this field. You with me?”

  “Yes, sir,” the team said in unison.

  “Alright. Now I’ll have more to say about tomorrow later on tonight, but for the time being let’s get inside. Take a shower, get changed, do what you need to do and be back here tonight by six. Meet in the cafeteria. The boosters have put together a nice dinner for you—“

  Beside him Clay heard Goldie whisper, “Oh boy, rubbery spaghetti and salad.”

  Clay smirked as Stanson continued, “—so be in the cafeteria at six sharp. Line up according to class, no dress code or anything like that. What time?”

  “Six o’clock,” the team said in unison.

  “Good,” Stanson acknowledged. He raised his right hand high in the air and said, “Alright boys, bring it in.”

  The team rose as one and gathered in, the ones around Stanson raising their hands to his and the ones further out resting their hands on the man in front of them.

  “Hornets on three,” Stanson said. “One, two, three!”

  “Hornets!” the team exclaimed in unison as players broke into several directions. The freshmen ran to collect the footballs and gold jerseys scattered around the field as many of the sophomores and juniors began jogging for the locker room.