by Tim Tharp
“Just me?” I asked. “They didn't say nothing about anyone else?”
“There isn't anyone else to talk about. We're a hell of a 4A team, Hampton. A hell of a 4A team. But unless someone really steps up huge here at the end of the season, I don't see anybody but you having much of a chance with any big-time college programs.”
I didn't know what to say to that—Coach didn't pass out compliments too much. But more than that, I didn't know how to feel. One part of me felt like jumping up on the desk and shouting hurray! But another part felt real let down. Football hadn't never been just about me. It was about the rest of the guys on the team too. And especially Blaine.
“So,” Coach went on, “the reason I'm telling you this right now is so you'll get out there tonight and play—not just like a 4A hotshot—but like the OU-caliber linebacker you are. You got that?”
“You bet, Coach.”
“All right, then.” He got up and come around the desk and shook my hand. “Finish off this game proud for us, son.”
When I come out of the office, Blaine was down by the water fountain, pretending to get a drink. He wiped his mouth with his forearm. “Well, what did he have on his mind?”
“Oh, nothing much.” I couldn't look him in the eye.
He stood there and studied me for a moment. “It was about OU, wasn't it? Coach heard back about that game film.”
I never did have much of a poker face.
“Nothing official,” I said. “Just that they kind of liked it.”
“You mean they liked you.”
I didn't say anything.
“Good for you,” he said, but there wasn't much enthusiasm in it. “That's great.”
“Coach said there was still time for someone to step up and maybe make a big impression.”
Blaine started walking. “I ain't even worried about that. Five undefeated seasons—that's all I got on my mind, son. Five undefeated seasons. There ain't nothing bigger than that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
There we was, under the lights again. A constant roar filled up the stadium. I bowled over two blockers, dodged a third one, and hammered into that Okalah tailback so hard I could just about feel the wind whooshing out of him. Five-yard loss. Okalah had to give up the ball. Again.
But Blaine was wrong. It was a game.
Or if you had to say it was something more than that, then it wasn't no war. Huh-uh. It was a song you could belt out at the top of your lungs, letting loose everything you kept inside and didn't know how to get out any other way. Whatever it was, I knew one thing for sure. I was having me more fun playing football than any time since grade school days.
“What're you smiling at?” Blaine yelled when I pulled my helmet off on the sideline. “We gotta get intense, son!”
I slapped him a good one on the back. “I am intense!”
Blaine tugged his own helmet down over his ears. “You better wipe that goofy-ass grin off your face before you fool around and lose us this game.”
I just laughed. I wasn't worried one bit. The more fun I had, the better I played. That whole first half I was all over the field, racking up one tackle after the other. Two pass deflections, four sacks, and one interception. Boy howdy. I hadn't never had a game to match this one.
That good old Kennisaw crowd went crazy with just about everything I done. I probably could've tied my shoe and they would've started chanting my name. Paper cups rained down, shoes and boots pounded against the stands, the band played wild, and the cheerleaders flipped end over end down the sideline. And best of all—better even than the news Coach Huff told me about OU—this time my mom was up in the stands, along with Tommy Don.
And the icing on the cake—Sara was up there too.
She had her a seat right on the fifty-yard line where I could look up and see her grinning any time I wanted. The way I figured it, win or lose, this right here was how football was supposed to be.
“Hey,” I yelled as Blaine started onto the field with the rest of the offense. “Have you some damn fun out there for a change, son!”
Blaine wasn't looking to have no fun, though, I don't guess. He hated them Okalah boys down to the last player, but he didn't hate no one as bad as number fifty-five, Covey Wallace, the outside linebacker. Covey was the big blond meaty kid he punched that night out at Wild West Days, and the two of them had been tangling it up since the first play our offense run and it was only getting worse now.
There wasn't but a couple minutes left in the first half, and we got us some decent field position on the forty-five-yard line after Okalah muffed their punt. Our first play was a screen pass into the flats to Blaine. The timing was perfect. He caught it at a full run and made it around right end untouched. Last year, he would've ripped it for a long gainer, maybe even a touchdown, but not now. Covey Wallace tracked him down before he gained ten yards and laid him out flat. That wasn't all, though. He took his sweet time getting up off of Blaine, and before Blaine could pull hisself off the ground, damn old Covey tromped down on his knee— the bad one—on purpose. Man alive, it hurt me to watch it, and there wasn't no doubt Blaine would be out for revenge after that.
Back in the huddle, he took to jawboning Darnell so fierce you could practically see the spit fly. Sure thing he wanted the ball again, but it was too late. Coach done called for a pass to Jake. Blaine's job was to play decoy receiver, but there wasn't no way he'd settle for that right now. Instead, he charged straight into Covey Wallace, and this time Blaine was on top when the whistle blew the incomplete pass dead. He took advantage of it too, grinding his knee so deep in Covey's stomach it's a wonder that Okalah boy didn't break in half.
Dirty gets dirty back. That was Blaine's motto from the get-go.
Didn't help the score none, though. Darnell got bottled up for a loss on the next play, and we was back in punt formation our own selves.
Halftime score: 0 to 0.
While we was in the locker room waiting for Coach to come in and give his speech, Blaine couldn't talk about nothing but Covey Wallace.
“You know what that fool said to me out there?” He slapped a backhand across my chest like it was me he was mad at. “He said, 'How's it feel, Keller? You ain't so tough when you can't get a sucker punch in first.' Sucker punch! I'll tell you what, that wasn't no sucker punch I laid on him. I hit him straight-on in the mouth with him looking right at me. It's not my fault he don't know how to duck.”
He was more than just a little worked up. I had to tell him, “Look, don't let that kid get to you. We ain't just playing one guy out there. We're playing a whole team.”
“Yeah, well,” he said. “You bite the head off a snake and the snake'll die.”
I didn't know what to say to something like that. Didn't matter anyways. Coach marched in about that time, and I don't believe I ever seen him look so grim. He didn't even face the team but stood over by the row of lockers with his back turned. Even the back of his neck looked mad! For a long time, he kept real still, not saying a word, like he was studying something on the metal locker in front of him, something serious, like an epitaph.
Then finally, without turning around, he started summing up the first half in a real soft voice. I swear, it was scarier than any yelling he could've done. The way he told it, you wouldn't have thought a solitary soul did a lick of good out there, but he gave it to the offense worst of all.
“It looks like the newspapers are right,” he said, not a drop of emotion in his voice. He could just as well have been talking about the weather. “We might have a halfway decent team if we had any offense at all. But truth is, we don't, not tonight. I wonder if that's gonna be the story in the paper again tomorrow. I wonder. Is that gonna be what this whole town's talking about for the rest of the year?”
Then a little steam started to build up in his voice. “What am I saying? That's what people's gonna be talking about for a lot longer than a year. They'll be hashing it over till a good hard rain comes and washes the whole town clean out
of these hills. 'Cause you don't get chances like this but once every thirty years. Five undefeated seasons in a row. That's what it's all about right here and right now. I wonder, are we gonna blow that chance?”
There's where he usually would've gone into the old call-and-response routine, tossing out lines like a Baptist preacher and waiting for the congregation to throw the answers back. Building it up more and more, making us repeat our answers louder and louder till we're yelling our heads off, chanting, “Fight, Knights, fight!” But he didn't do that. This time, he just turned and walked out the door, leaving us with our mouths hanging open.
Blaine was the first to stand up. “Well, boys, he left it to us. We gotta figure out our own selves whuther we're gonna win this game or not. And there ain't but one way to do it, and that's to bring it to 'em hard and mean. We gotta roll out like thunder and come down like fire.”
I always said it. Blaine was a natural-born leader. “Whatta we gonna do, boys?” he yelled.
And we come right back with, “Fight!”
And there it went. We was the congregation again. No doubt about it. We was the congregation, and Blaine was the preacher, sparks in his eyes and his fist pounding the air. Only it wasn't salvation he was hollering about. It was winning. But I guess for Blaine them two things was pretty much the same.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Back out on the field, we took the first kick of the second half, and our boys bucked and elbowed their way clear down to the Okalah twenty-yard line before finally stalling out. On fourth and six, we tried us a field goal, but the ball slammed into the right goalpost and bounced off to the side, no good. Blaine collapsed down on his knees and shook his fists. Just a few feet in front of him—I seen it plain as day— Covey Wallace looked down and blew him a kiss. If Covey hadn't turned around and run off right quick, who knows what Blaine might've done to him.
Through the whole third quarter, the score didn't change. Us defense boys stood our ground and kept Okalah on their own side of the field, and their defense, truth be told, didn't play all that hot, but they didn't need to with our offense misfiring like a forty-year-old pickup truck. At the end of the quarter, Blaine shouldered up to me, his hair sweat-pasted to his forehead, his eyes full to the brim with tired, and said, “What else can I do, Hamp? I'm giving it everything I got, but the team's not there for me. No blocking, bad timing, Coach calling the wrong plays. What do they expect me to do—win the damn game all by myself?”
I just popped him one on the back and told him to hang in there, figuring he must be clean wore out. It wasn't like him to put the blame off on other folks that way.
Finally, a couple minutes into the fourth quarter, our offense got her shifted into gear. Darnell zinged a perfect pass into tight coverage, and Jake scooped the ball up right before it hit the ground. It was about time we went to taking chances, and Darnell pulled it off with an amazing throw. Coach sent in the next play. Do it again.
Just like he was supposed to do, Blaine run out into the flats in case Darnell needed a safety-valve receiver, but it would've been better if he'd stayed in the backfield to block. Two Okalah linemen broke through and chased Darnell out of the pocket. Downfield, Jake was covered just like the play before, but this time Darnell was off balance with four big hairy arms reaching out to wring his neck. He tried to force the pass anyways, but as soon as it left his hand I knew it was a mistake.
The Okalah cornerback intercepted the ball at a full gallop, heading in the opposite direction. The sideline was wide open. There wasn't no one fixing to catch him now, but Blaine tried. I knew the pain in that knee had to be tearing through him from top to bottom, and you could see the hitch in his get-along worse than ever, but that boy had heart. Then out of nowhere a red and white jersey flashed through the air, a diving block that sliced straight across his thighs, sending him plowing face mask–first into the grass. The Okalah cornerback was already dancing in the end zone when Blaine pulled hisself up and seen what I already knew. Covey Wallace'd cut him down.
Okalah missed their extra point try, but still, that touch-down sucked every ounce of energy there was out of our stadium. Even the electric lights seemed cold. But I didn't give up. Not even near it. If Okalah's second-rate defense could score six points, then ours could score twice that, and I was just the man for the job. All I needed was one good chance.
Okalah wasn't fixing to give me one, though. It was like their coach read my mind. They didn't do nothing but play conservative, running three safe plays and then punting the ball away down the field. They must've figured they'd ruther give the ball up to our offense than let our aces on defense get too close a look at it.
Then, finally, with a little over two minutes left in the game, I got maybe not a good chance, but at least a halfway decent one. Okalah had to punt from deep in their own territory again, and this time their line didn't play it safe enough. The gap couldn't have been more than two feet wide and only opened for a second, but that was enough. I hit it running full speed, but in my mind all the action slowed down: the ball reaching the punter's fingers, the punter's two big steps, his left foot planting in the grass, his right leaving the ground, the black shoe pumping into the brown leather of the ball.
Too late. I'd done blasted off already, flying over one blocker and then the one behind him, my arms stretched out full length, my eyes trained on nothing but that ball. It hadn't no sooner left the punter's foot than I smacked it down with my forearm and sent it whirligigging off across the field. Jerseys—red and white and black and gold—flashed towards it in a blur. Whistles blew like crazy. When the officials finally got that churning dog pile pulled apart, my heart just about jumped out of my chest. There he was, smiling like it was his birthday, little old Tommy Nguyen with the ball wrapped up in his arms.
Kennisaw's ball on the Okalah fifteen-yard line.
It was like someone turned the electricity back on in our fans. The chant started up again, “Hampton! Hampton! Hampton!” I went over and put my arm around Tommy's shoulder to let that crowd know they needed to spread the love around some more, and sure enough they done it.
“Tommy! Tommy! Tommy!”
You better believe, running off the field, I was pumped up higher than a hot-air balloon. Crossing paths with Blaine, I grabbed ahold of his jersey. “Fifteen yards,” I hollered. “Just fifteen yards and an extra point, and we got this sucker wrapped up in Christmas paper.”
“Don't worry, son,” he hollered back. “I got that fifteen yards in my hip pocket.”
But just for a second, a shadow flitted over his eyes, and I wondered if he done flashed on the same memory as me. The time, not too long ago, when he said the same thing about Rachel Calloway.
All his years of playing football, Blaine wanted to be the one with the chance for glory. If a first down needed to be made, if a pass needed to be caught, if the team had to have one more score, you can bet Blaine wanted the job. But a feeling in my gut told me right now, with the pressure hanging over the stadium like a big black thunderhead, he was wishing Tommy Nguyen'd recovered that fumble in the end zone instead of on the fifteen-yard line.
First play was a quarterback draw with Darnell following Blaine up the middle for four yards. Then Blaine took it off-tackle, gaining three more. Third and three. Darnell took a keeper into the middle again, but this time the Okalah line held tougher than a barbwire fence, and he didn't get as much as an inch. Fourth down.
Blaine got the call.
The thought crossed my mind that I should ask Coach to put me in as a blocker like Sawyer done with big bad James Thunderhorse, but I decided against it. Last thing Blaine wanted, besides losing the game, was to score a touchdown right now and still have the crowd go to chanting my name.
The play clock ticked down as Darnell stretched out his count, trying to draw Okalah offsides. When that didn't work, he gave it one more hut, and Sweetpea snapped the ball back. Blaine ripped forward, grabbed the handoff, and smashed into the line, head down lo
w and knees pumping up high. Just like the old Blaine. Then for a second, his legs went traitor on him, and he stumbled, almost went down, but somehow found his balance and plunged on ahead, twisting and grinding, taking a hit from first one side and then the other, Okalah hands punching and poking and grabbing from every direction, before he finally crashed to the ground. A four-yard gain.
First down.
He done it, I thought. Wasn't no one going to keep us out of the end zone from this close now. But you know what they say. It ain't over till it's over.
Half the Okalah team must've been on top of Blaine, and they wasn't in no hurry to get off. Finally, looking kind of woozy, he set up and shook his head back and forth like he needed to rattle his brain back into socket. In front of him, an Okalah player reached down a hand to help him up, and right then's when the bad feeling hit me.
Don't take that hand, I thought. Don't take it.
But he did, and next thing you knew, he was standing face to face with Covey Wallace.
Now, from where I was, I couldn't see everything, but I'll take Blaine's word for it. Covey grinned a big ugly grin, leaned in, stared Blaine in the eye, and puckered his lips together. But he didn't blow no kisses this time. This time he spit a big juicy gob smack in Blaine's eye.
Blaine went off like a bottle rocket. Slammed his fist into the side of Wallace's helmet and kept on swinging—crazy roundhouse punches, first into one side of that red helmet, then the other, into the face mask, shoulder pads, anywheres he could make solid contact. Whistles blew right and left. Officials scurried up in a panic and pulled Blaine away. Yellow flags dove to the ground. The whole stadium froze solid.
Darnell and Jake run up from behind and hustled Blaine off down the field while the officials rounded up the Okalah captain for a conference. There wasn't no doubt what the outcome was fixing to be, though. Unsportsmanlike conduct. Fifteen-yard penalty. One minute and twenty-seven seconds left in the game and the end zone as far away as a cold Martian moon.