by Pat Flynn
When they walked out of the office, the coach put his arm around Ozzie, fingers squeezing a shoulder. “Son, I hope to see you real soon.”
There was another boy waiting to come in.
The gathering at the Alpha Gamma Pi sorority house wasn’t called a party but a “mixer.” Whether this referred to people or drinks Ozzie wasn’t sure, because the under-twenty-one no-drinking law didn’t seem to apply. Every room was stocked with hard, soft, and middle-of-the-road liquor, the only restriction being that partygoers had to drink out of large red plastic cups. Girls wore makeup like war paint and guys raised two fists and screamed “YEE-AHHH!” when someone opened his throat and chugged.
“Athletes get a free pass to any frat or sorority party,” Andy said to Ozzie. “Just think, man. Next year this could be you every weekend.”
Andy disappeared for a minute. He brought back Julie. “Another Aussie,” he said. “A tennis player.” Andy swung an imaginary racket and nearly knocked the drink out of her hand. “She can really smack that ball.”
“G’day,” said Ozzie.
They shook hands. “It’s good to hear your voice,” said Julie. “I’m so homesick it’s not funny.”
A guy beside them chugged a full plastic cup and Andy raised two fists and yelled “YEAH!”
“You wanna talk outside?” Ozzie asked Julie.
She nodded.
They found a couple of seats near the pool. It was early November and the nights had become cool, but sorority money buys outside heaters that shine like giant cigarettes.
“How long you been here?” asked Ozzie.
“Two months. Just getting used to it. The first week I cried like a baby. Still do, some nights.”
“It’s different, eh?”
“Yeah, but not that different. I don’t know what I was expecting, but you walk down the street here and you see McDonald’s, KFC, Subway—it’s almost the same as walking down the main street of Wagga, where I’m from.”
“Except here you don’t see kangaroos jumping down the main street.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “You don’t have ’em in Wagga, either. Well, not every day.”
They laughed.
“Why do you miss home, then?” said Ozzie.
“I miss my mum and dad.” She sighed. “I miss other stuff, too. It is different here, I don’t know how, but it is.”
Ozzie looked at the pool and saw himself, the water a mirror.
“Why’d you come to America?” Julie asked.
“On an exchange.”
“Yeah, but why?”
He thought for a moment. No one had ever asked him that before. “I’m from a small place, and when my grandfather was my age he went overseas, to war. He always talked about it like it was this great adventure.” Ozzie looked back into the water. “I finished school and was gonna move to Brisbane, but …” He shrugged.
“Tell me.”
“My best mate and girlfriend were still around and I wanted to help my pop on the farm. This lady, Mrs. Allan, said I could stay in Yuranigh for the mustering season and come to America after that. It sounded like a good deal.”
There was a slight gap between Julie’s top two front teeth. Ozzie would never have noticed it back in Australia, but here he was becoming used to perfection.
“Why’d you come?” he asked.
“I wanted to see what America was like, I s’pose,” said Julie. “Every afternoon after school I used to watch Happy Days. I loved that show. They always looked so … happy.” She grinned and so did Ozzie. “I could’ve gone straight onto the pro tennis circuit. I won the Australian Junior title and everything. But I wanted to check this place out. All because of bloody Happy Days.”
“Aaaayyy,” said Ozzie, putting his thumb in the air.
Julie slapped him on the shoulder.
There were other small groups settled around the pool. Ozzie saw what looked to be one body lying on a long plastic deck chair slowly disentwine into two and stand up. The couple walked past, hand in hand, probably on their way to an upstairs bedroom.
The girl was stunning, her tangled hair only making her more beautiful.
The boy was Sam.
chapter 36
American steaks are different from Australian steaks. They’re thicker, tenderer, and a lot more fatty. While tucking into his prime rib, Ozzie asked the boosters why the steaks were like they were. He knew his grandfather would be interested.
“We pump steroids into ’em,” said the one sitting next to him, who owned a ranch.
“Really?” said Ozzie.
“You bet. Same as our linemen.”
There was a second of silence.
“That was a joke,” said the man.
On the other side of Ozzie was a younger booster, who did most of the talking, his favorite buzzwords being contacts and opportunity. Many of the boosters were businessmen who loved football and football players, he said. In fact, he was a football player himself, “walking on” to the team in the early nineties. He didn’t play a whole lot of football but he did do a whole lot of networking, and now he was making $250,000 a year “walking on” to businesses in financial trouble and taking them over. “You use your contacts while you are here, boys, and an opportunity will present itself. Just look at me.”
After lunch he showed Ozzie and Sam his new supercharged SVT Ford Mustang Cobra. Under the hood was a 390-horsepower, V-8 engine, and in the trunk were presents. “By law we can’t give you much, but here’s some things we can give you,” he said, taking high-top basketball shoes, T-shirts, and hats out of the trunk. “Sometimes other gifts have a way of showing up, too. If they do, don’t ask why, just take ’em. Whether you boys decide to come here or not.”
On the bus ride home Ozzie tried on the shoes. The right one was a perfect fit, but his big toe rammed against something hard in the left. It was a black box. Sam found one, too. Inside the boxes were watches, with Rolex written on them, and because the second-hand moved smoothly and quietly around the face rather than tick, second by second, Sam knew they were real. “Holy crap,” he said. “You know what these are worth?”
“A few hundred?” said Ozzie.
“Try five thousand.”
“But doesn’t that make us professional?”
“Only if someone tells. And I don’t think those guys will, do you?”
Ozzie looked out the window. A little girl sitting on a tricycle waved at him. “A lot of bullshit goes on in America, doesn’t it?”
A woman in front turned round and gave Ozzie a stare.
“Sorry, ma’am,” said Sam. “My friend needs to watch his mouth.”
“He surely does,” said the woman. “Some of us passengers are Christian people.”
She turned around and Sam raised a middle finger to her back. “What do you mean?” he asked Ozzie.
“People here say one thing and do another. Like, you’ll probably go home and tell Unity you love her.”
“I do love her.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.”
“It’s just …” Sam lowered his voice. “Goddamn America, man. There’s so many women.”
“The land of opportunity?”
The irony was lost on Sam. “Exactly. I’ll marry Unity one day, you’ll see. But right now I’m young and … You have a girlfriend back home?”
“Yeah.”
“You love her?”
Ozzie looked out the window again. A little boy pointed a toy gun at him and pretended to shoot. “Yeah.”
“Does she know about Angela?”
Ozzie felt his new watch. Gold was heavier and softer than he thought it would be. “No.”
“Then you know what I’m talking about.”
Ozzie slipped on the Rolex. It felt cool on his skin. Suddenly he realized he’d lost his old watch, the one Jess had bought him before he left. Did he leave it in Mexico? At the Denham pool? He had no idea. He’d lost it without even realizing it was gone.
It felt wrong losing a coin toss. Although no one said it, everyone thought the same thing: perhaps it was God’s will? And if so, why? But tonight wasn’t a time for answers. The band played “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” the cheerleaders’ skirts flew around their waists, and the team assembled for the last time. Some Hopettes, seated behind their players, had already caught the red-eyed bug, because not to cry on a night like tonight would be like not loving God or America, like not loving football.
Coach McCulloch stood up to speak and the crowd rose and clapped like fans at a rock concert demanding an encore. No one in Hope—besides his wife—knew, and he certainly didn’t intend to announce it here, but there wouldn’t be one. He’d impressed enough of the right people to be offered a college coaching job. In the interview they’d asked him almost exclusively about the new offense he invented, and of course he humbly took the credit and confidently promised results. The Line Formation was his ticket up in the world of football. It was the break he’d been looking for and now he was hoping to recruit one person to help him succeed. The problem was that he couldn’t recruit until he officially resigned as head coach of the Shooters, tomorrow. He just hoped that Ozzie didn’t sign with Justice University before then.
The crowd sat.
“Ladies and gentlemen, when I stood here in August I looked into y’all’s eyes and could see that some of you didn’t believe.” Because he was resigning the coach had nothing to lose. “There were doubts about whether or not I could coach, whether or not the team could win even a few games.” He paused to make people feel uncomfortable, then, “I must admit, even I wasn’t entirely sure.” Laughter broke the tension. “Well, the young men sitting to my right proved me and all y’all wrong. It’s my privilege to be standing up here today to celebrate an eight and one season. A season that should still be going if it weren’t for a rigged coin toss.” There was more laughter, people not realizing that the coach couldn’t have been more serious. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Hope Shooters.”
The coach pointed to the team and the crowd stood again. The cheering lasted for minutes, and the Hopettes cried some more.
The three captains, Sam, Tex, and Malivai, went to the podium. Sam spoke first.
“This season has meant more to me than y’all can imagine. I always thought that as quarterback I had to win every game on my own. I tried to carry the world on my shoulders and it got real heavy. But a couple of things happened, a couple of people happened, and I learned to trust others, let ’em help me. No man is an island. I’m sure many of you knew that, but I didn’t.”
Tex was next. “One thing I’ll never forget is the look on those Armadillo faces when we scored the last touchdown and beat their asses. Man, that’s something I’m gonna cherish for the rest of my life.”
Malivai was last. He leaned his crutches against the podium and didn’t say a word, just stood in front of the microphone and did what he did best. He sang. What was once a traditional gospel song had become a call to end racial disharmony, and now it seemed to sum up a town and a people who wanted more than they’d got.
We shall overcome, we shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe We shall overcome some day
The Lord will see us through, the Lord will see us through
The Lord will see us through some day
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
The Lord will see us through some day
We’re on to victory, we’re on to victory
We’re on to victory some day
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
We’re on to victory some day
We’ll walk hand in hand, we’ll walk hand in hand
We’ll walk hand in hand some day
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
We’ll walk hand in hand some day
We are not afraid, we are not afraid
We are not afraid today
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
We are not afraid today
The truth shall make us free, the truth shall make us free
The truth shall make us free some day
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
The truth shall make us free some day
We shall live in peace, we shall live in peace
We shall live in peace some day
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
We shall live in peace some day.
When the captains sat down, the band played the school fight song and the pep rally should have been over. But the crowd wanted to hear one more person, so they started a chant: “Austin! Austin! Austin!”
He walked to the podium and there was silence. After Malivai’s song hardly an eye was dry, but from Ozzie’s no tears had fallen. When his dad left, his grandfather had told him to be a man and that men don’t cry, so he never had.
But looking out at the people—at Unity, Sam, Angela, Malivai, Jose, Tex, everyone—something inside Ozzie snapped. There was so much emotion in this place. He could handle the gruff rebukes of Pop, the playful punches of Johnno, and the gentle but firm hand of Jess. He could recognize that as love. Maybe not the love of Hollywood movies he and Jess watched at the Yuranigh cinema on Saturday nights, but love all the same. But this? People who didn’t even know him chanting his name because he could play footy? Crying because a football season was over?
Ozzie didn’t say a word and he certainly didn’t sing. The dam inside burst and the water exploded out and he had no idea why.
That night, Pop was driving a tractor and Ozzie was running alongside, trying to keep up. It must have been turbocharged because no matter how fast he ran, the tractor kept pulling ahead. Pop yelled at him to hurry the hell up, but the tractor got too far in front and Ozzie chased and chased until he couldn’t see or hear Pop anymore.
When the phone woke him, he knew who it was and why they were calling. It could have been simple deduction—only someone living in another hemisphere would ring at three a.m. And when people ring at three a.m. it’s usually bad news, unless they are drunk. But part of him already knew. He’d felt it at the pep rally and seen it in a dream.
Pop was dead.
POST-GAME
chapter 37
Unity came to say good-bye, although she didn’t know it was good-bye until she saw the bags. “Where’re you going?”
“Home,” said Ozzie.
“You’re coming back, aren’t you?”
“Dunno. My grandfather, he’s …” Ozzie couldn’t say it.
They hugged.
“Listen,” said Unity. “Next year, I’m going to Justice University.” She looked him in the eye. “Come.”
“Is Sam going?”
She looked away. “I don’t know, and right now, I don’t really care. We were out the other night and someone sent him a text. I think it was another girl.”
Ozzie was quiet.
Her hands reached around his waist. “I know this isn’t Australia but it’s a great country, Austin. Not perfect, but still great. I think you’d be happy here.”
Her lips brushed against his, the first stroke of a masterpiece. He felt like he’d died and gone to heaven.
“We all knew Jack Freeman,” said Wazza, standing in front of a coffin.
The crematorium was one of the few air-conditioned buildings in Yuranigh. It seemed to be okay to let the kids sweat at school but not for the stiffs to sweat before their bodies were reduced to a pile of ashes. But right now the forty or so live bodies squeezed into the room, dressed in black, were extreme
ly grateful.
“The only reason I’m up here is that, being the owner and bartender of the local pub, I probably heard him rant and rave more than most.”
A few laughs.
“He was a good bloke. Went away to war in 1941, though if you listened to Jack he spent as much time wandering around Europe AWOL after a win at the two-up as he did fighting krauts.
“Married Jean when he returned, had a daughter, Kathy, and spent his life playing and watching footy, running beef cattle, and growing a few crops—when it rained. Liked a drink, can’t deny that, but wasn’t a violent drunk. Except when someone tried to say Aussie Rules was a better game than League.”
Laughter again.
“But to those who knew him well, his life really turned around in the last ten years. He was always a good bloke but he became something special when young Ozzie moved in. Didn’t drink much after that, stopped smokin’, and started acting more mature. You’d think at that age he already would’ve been mature, but he always called himself a late bloomer, did Jack.”
More a chuckle this time. With a few sniffles from the women.
“He loved nothing more than to watch Ozzie run out on the field and play footy, and I’ve never seen a prouder man than when Ozzie scored the winning try against Golda, even if the bloody ref was blind.”
“Hear, hear,” said a few voices.
“He said to anyone who’d listen that Ozzie’d play for Queensland Country one day. And he said it’s because he taught the little bugger everything he knows.”