When the Men Were Gone

by Marjorie Herrera Lewis

  “This ain’t powder-puff,” Roger shouted as he egged Willie on.

  The two had begun wrestling on the ground when I caught up to them. Meanwhile, the Winslow brothers had been shouting out instructions as if ringside at a Joe Louis bout.

  “Get up! Get up!” I shouted. “You’re acting like fools!”

  By the time the two boys stood up, they were surrounded by teammates. I walked into the center of the circle, straight to Willie and Roger.

  “As long as we have eleven players, we’ll play. Many of you are two-way players anyway. So that’s all we need. Eleven. And those eleven will play Stephenville on Friday. Now, I’ve done more than my share of begging just to stand here before you today. I’m done begging. If any one of you has doubts, feel free to leave and take those doubts with you. Frankly, I’m tired of this. I’m here to coach football. We’ve got three days to get ready. So stay or go. But if you stay, it’s time to get serious. Put away your reservations, because they’ll only hold us back.”

  I walked out of the circle and back to midfield.

  “Mama’s waiting!” Mac shouted.

  I didn’t look toward the Winslow brothers. Instead, I looked toward the boys. They appeared to be talking among themselves, but I couldn’t hear them. Moments later, they joined me.

  Again, I had the defense line up on one side and offense on the other. I looked around for the football, and when I spotted it on the track, I saw Moose a few yards off.

  “Moose!” I shouted. “Fetch the football!”

  Moose limped hastily toward the football, and I could tell by his expression that he knew: I had just named him my assistant. He picked up the football, and before he had taken three steps in my direction, I looked at him and jerked my head back. He nodded, and I knew he understood what I was after, so instead of walking the ball up to me, Moose threw a spiral with the velocity a peregrine falcon would envy. The pass was slightly high, so I leaned to my left, tiptoed, then extended my left arm skyward and caught the ball in the palm of my left hand. I pulled it in and gently cradled it as if holding a sleeping infant. I kept my eyes on the ball from toss to catch to cradle. I then looked up. Eyebrows were raised, jaws were dropped, and not even an eyelash fluttered. The Winslow brothers went mute.

  Bobby Ray broke the silence when he turned to Jake and said, “She can throw like that, too.”

  I didn’t react, but I knew I had an ally. Bobby Ray had already admitted to me when we discussed Little Women that he had a soft spot for strong women.

  “Before the skirmish, I watched you block,” I said to the offensive linemen. “And guess what? I didn’t like what I saw. Either you never have learned to block, or you’ve never cared to block. Regardless, you’re going to learn now, and you’re going to care.

  “So listen closely. Jimmy, Charlie, set up here.” I positioned the two boys at the fifty-yard line. I called out the names of the offensive linemen and instructed them to take their positions. I then did the same with the defense.

  I stood opposite Charlie.

  “Get in a four-point stance,” I told him. “Get ready to snap to Jimmy.”

  I then got into my stance from the noseguard position, opposite Charlie, and shouted, “Hut!” Charlie snapped the ball and I came up on Charlie, torqueing his body to his right. He wasn’t resisting, so I had little trouble moving him. But I grabbed hold of his T-shirt right at the neck and held it, making his eyes level with mine.

  “Nobody beats you. Got that?” I could tell he was stunned by my tone.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  I then turned back to the offensive line.

  “That’s what I want from each of you,” I said. “Stop straight-on blocking. Instead, come up on your rusher. Torque his body away from the play. Move his hips. Make him adjust. I guarantee it will give Willie an extra half second to hit the hole right up the middle. You’ll be amazed at how big a difference a split second means to a play. We need to improve our blocking if we’re going to take down Stephenville, right?” I then shouted toward the reserves on the sideline. “Did you catch that, fellas?”

  “Yes, ma’am!” they shouted.

  “Let’s do that again,” I said. Only this time, I had Charlie line up against Albert, our starting noseguard. I took Jimmy aside.

  “The gut will be wide open. Don’t hesitate on the handoff. Straight up,” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jimmy said. But I could tell he was confused by my certainty.

  Before the snap, I shouted to Albert. “Looks like you’ve never lined up against a four-pod, triple-quint option,” I said. I made that up.

  Albert looked puzzled as he looked up at me.

  “If I were you, I’d move about a foot to my left,” I said.

  Albert moved.

  Jimmy called for the snap, handed off to Willie, and we all watched as Willie hit the gaping hole up the middle and ran forty yards into the end zone. I then looked at Charlie.

  “It’ll work. Once,” I said. “Use it.”

  The boys began laughing. Willie, running back to the line, thumped his chest with his right hand while holding the football up with his left. Albert just looked down and shook his head.

  I continued to focus on individual skills while running plays. Occasionally, I would draw up a play in the dirt track, just to remind the boys where they were supposed to be at any given time. It wasn’t too difficult, considering the team had run plays from one basic offensive formation. I had the defense split time practicing both zone and man-to-man coverages.

  Once I was convinced I had the attention of the boys and that the Winslow brothers were no longer a nuisance, I had the boys return to their field-clearing chores. I went back to my spot with the linemen. I started pulling and softly singing a little ditty.

  “‘New San Antonio Rose’?” Charlie asked upon recognizing the tune.

  “That’s right, Charlie,” I said. Then I leaned in as if to share a secret with him.

  “My college minor was voice,” I said.

  He smiled, and I sensed we just bonded over something no one else knew.

  “How’d you come to know football?” he asked me, prompting the other linemen within close proximity to look on.

  I glanced up at Charlie, smiled, then turned back and continued pulling weeds.

  “I was a little girl when I first watched a football game. On this field. My father and I rode my favorite horse to the game, and I’m pretty sure I was hooked from the coin toss on.”

  The boys laughed.

  “Seriously,” I said. “I borrowed a wooden nickel from my father that night and practiced the coin toss until my mother heard me knock that coin against my bedroom window. She came to my room and caught me flipping the thing midair. She made me go to bed, but it was the first time I fell asleep thinking about football.”

  I told the boys that I was five years old, and I not only practiced the coin toss, I reenacted nearly everything I had seen. With the flip, I’d whisper, “Tails!” Being that I’d win each toss, I’d next whisper, “Offense.” With my small baby doll doubling as a football, I’d cradle her in my arms and weave from one side of my room to the other. As I’d approach my bed, I’d fall as if having been tackled.

  “I was trying to keep quiet so as not to get caught by my parents. It had been well past my bedtime.”

  They laughed.

  I went on to tell the boys about my father-daughter nights and how my father had taught me everything I knew and appreciated about the game.

  “There’s something special about Texas football,” I said. “I truly believe that. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at a Texas sunset only to see a goalpost cut through the yellow and red splashed across the sky. Can’t say that I figured I’d coach it someday, but I promise you, boys, I’ll give you all I’ve got.”

  Finally, practice ended, and once the boys had cleared out of the locker room and only Wendell, Moose, and I remained, the three of us took inventory of first-aid sup
plies: tape, bandages, rubbing alcohol, liniment, and cotton swabs.

  I decided to head to the downtown pharmacy to pick up a few extra supplies and asked Moose to join me. As we drove through the high school’s surrounding neighborhood, Moose told me he felt more comfortable working with me rather than leading the team himself. He thanked me for the second chance and promised not to let me down. I believed him.

  “You know, I woke up this morning and thought I had nothing to look forward to,” he said.

  “Now you do.”

  We made a turn onto Fourth Street, a tree-lined, narrow road of modest wood-sided houses—bicycles in nearly every yard either leaning on the porches or lying flat on the lawn. I was accustomed to seeing the bicycles in the yards, but two caught my eye—army brown with red seats—official military bicycles used for dispatch and messenger services and typically mounted in town only to dispatch devastating news to families. Everyone was known to avoid eye contact with the “soldiers on the bicycles.” These bicycles were parked in front of Ida Mae’s house.

  I knew Ida Mae’s husband, Ernie, was out of town. He spent much of the workweek in Midland. He was a roughneck, had been for nearly twenty years. Their son, Nick, had been drafted a year earlier, halfway through his senior year, and I hadn’t seen him since.

  As Moose and I approached Ida Mae’s home, I downshifted, took my foot off the accelerator, and slowed to a crawl.

  “I think you need to pull over, Miss Tylene,” Moose said, a sense of urgency in his voice. “I’m about to get sick.”

  As I did, Moose jumped out and ran behind the pickup. I heard him coughing and dry heaving, and then I saw Ida Mae sobbing, sitting on the top step of the walkway leading to her front porch. I pounded the palm of my right hand against the steering wheel, looked up, closed my eyes, and fought back tears. For a moment, I couldn’t move. But I knew I had to pull myself together. Moose was physically reacting to news of Nick’s death, and he needed me, and I knew I had to get to Ida Mae. I took a few deep breaths, ran my right forefinger beneath my eyes to wipe away my tears, and got out of the truck. First, I checked on Moose.

  “Am I looking at Eldridge Cooper’s mom?” he asked.

  “Deep breaths, Moose. Take deep breaths.”

  Moose was sweating profusely, and as he rubbed his forehead with his right forearm, he apologized.

  “Don’t apologize, Moose. I’d expect this kind of reaction. Look, I know Ernie is out of town, so I’m going to check on Ida Mae. I’ll bring you a glass of water.”

  Moose nodded and got back into the truck. He sat inside with the door open.

  As I approached, the soldiers, just ahead of me and seemingly unaware of my presence, boarded their bikes and began to ride off. Ida Mae had remained seated on her front step. I walked up, sat beside her, and put my arm around my friend’s shoulders. Ida Mae leaned in and rested her head on my shoulder. She startled me when she suddenly stood up and marched into her house. I followed her.

  “Look,” she said, reaching for a piece of paper resting on the dining table. “A letter from Nick. I got it today. You don’t just die the day you mail a letter. It’s not possible. Who do I call? How do I get this corrected?”

  She started toward the telephone, but stopped and turned toward me.

  “Should I write instead?” she asked. “Who do I write to? Or would a call be better?”

  “Ida Mae,” I said softly.

  “He’s not dead, Tylene! Where’s Ernie? Did you see Ernie?”

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t seen Ernie.”

  “I need to find Ernie. He has to take me to the Western Union,” she said. “I have to go get Nick. He’ll be back. His brother came back. He’ll come back, too. I know he’ll come back!” Ida Mae’s voice amplified with each declaration.

  Ida Mae kept shouting, “He’ll be back!” She spoke so loudly and so often that it eventually wore her down. She collapsed on the couch and began to cry uncontrollably.

  “Will he come back, Tylene?” she whispered through sobs.

  I sat beside her and rubbed her shoulder.

  “He has to come back,” she whispered. “He’s my baby. My Nick. He has to come back. He has to come home.”

  I walked to the front porch and signaled for Moose to come up. I then went to grab him a glass of water. He took it and waited for me out on the porch.

  I stayed with Ida Mae for about thirty more minutes. I had called her older son, Fred, and I waited for him to arrive before Moose and I left.

  As Moose and I headed to the pharmacy, I sensed that Moose preferred to be alone with his thoughts. Only once did he speak up.

  “Will she be okay?” he asked.

  Instinctively, I wanted to say no. I wanted to tell Moose that I, too, had lost a son, Billy, who didn’t live long enough to take more than a handful of breaths from this glorious earthly world. I wanted to tell Moose that from a mother’s perspective, there is nothing worse than the loss of a child. That Ida Mae would spend the rest of her life living through Nick’s friends—the experiences, the milestones—when they married, when they had children. I wanted to tell Moose that every mother, myself included, would do anything within her power to see to it that the boys her son once knew or would have known would get all the opportunities in life that her son could not. But I did not want Moose to harken back to Eldridge Cooper’s mother, so I kept my reply simple.

  “In time.”

  AFTER PICKING UP supplies from the pharmacy, I returned Moose to his pickup at the school, and I stopped by the auto shop to let John know he was on his own for dinner.

  “I’ll be out late,” I told him while sitting in my truck, parked behind an occupied garage.

  “What time should I expect you?” he asked.

  “Depends on how long it takes me to convince Rowdy Black to stop talking nonsense.”

  “You’re going to Stephenville? Now? It’s sixty miles away.”

  “Looks like I’ve got to,” I said. “He’s already dismissed me once. It’d be too easy to dismiss me again, especially over the phone. I’ve got to force him to talk to me.”

  The sound of the engine hummed.

  “Let me take a quick look,” John said, and added a little motor oil.

  Just before heading off, I handed him written instructions on how to warm up the leftover casserole. I even included instructions on how to turn on the oven. I felt guilty as I left him behind, but soon after, my mind began to wander as I drove along the two-lane dirt road to Stephenville. Occasionally a car heading in the opposite direction would come my way. We’d honk and nod at each other as we passed. But mostly, I saw longhorns. Lots of longhorns. If the wind swirled and I got caught in a gust coming from my northeast path to Stephenville, I was reminded of just how many longhorns there were.

  I had the radio going for a bit, and when Ernest Tubb’s “Soldier’s Last Letter” came on and I heard the words, I became even more resolute.

  As I drove through Dublin and passed by the home of the Dr Pepper plant, I thought of how nice it would be if Coach Black had a cold Dr Pepper on hand. But my focus was on my boys, and I knew I had to rein in my anger. The long drive gave me enough time to cool down. By the time I arrived at the Blacks’ home, I still had no idea what I was going to say, but I did know this: I was going to speak from the heart.

  When Hazel Black answered my knock at her door, she was wearing her apron, and I feared I had interrupted the family’s supper. She told me she and her husband had finished their evening meal, and she was simply cleaning up.

  Hazel was a tall woman, and I had to crane my neck to speak to her. She had salt-and-pepper hair and big green eyes. She looked either worn down by life in general or by life with Rowdy Black in particular. In either case, Hazel said that Rowdy was sitting out on the back porch, and then she left the room to inform her husband of my unexpected arrival.

  I was standing in the living room, close enough to overhear them.

  “Rowdy, Tylene Wilson is here, t
hat lady coach from Brownwood,” she said.

  “Dadgum it, why’s she here?”

  “She said she needs to talk to you.”

  “I got nothing to say to her.”

  Then the volume of their voices dropped. I heard some whispering, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. When Hazel returned to the living room, she offered me a seat on one end of the sofa. She sat on the other end. We had little to say to each other, so it was quiet and particularly awkward.

  Finally, she spoke. “I helped out some at the plant for nearly a year. Didn’t go over well with Rowdy, even though we both knew the help was needed.”

  I nodded. I figured it was her way of letting me know that her husband didn’t believe in a woman doing a man’s job even during a time of war. I appreciated her comment.

  When it became apparent that Coach Black was in no hurry to meet me, Hazel offered me a Dr Pepper. Shortly after I was handed a frosty mug, Coach Black entered the room. He stood in front of me, but I remained sitting, hoping he would sit, too. Because his size was so imposing, I didn’t want him to take on a position of superiority.

  “Look, lady—it ain’t personal, but you’re wasting your time,” he said.

  I looked up at him and asked, “Tell me then, why do you coach?”

  He sat on the sofa, catty-corner to my left.

  “I know where you’re going with this, and it ain’t going to work. Look, lady, this whole thing is strange. It’s strange for me, and it’s strange for my boys.”

  “Have you thought about my boys?”

  “That ain’t my job.”

  “I think it is.”

  “Look, it’s mighty fine you want to help out, that you want to get those boys on the field, but it’s flat-out silly, and I want no part of it.”

  “What bothers you? Playing against a woman, or losing to one?”

  “Losing?” He laughed. “That ain’t never crossed my mind.”

  “Then what is the problem?”