Arrington gave Quinn a short look. Quinn knew that Arrington wouldn’t agree with him on this or anything else. Arrington was quick with a smile, a handshake, and a back pat for most any black man who came down to this field. And Quinn did like him as a man. But he felt that Arrington didn’t like him, or show him respect. And he felt that this was because he, Quinn, was white. Quinn had gotten that from some of the kids when he’d first started here as well. The kids, most of them, anyway, had gotten past it.
Strange turned to Quinn. Quinn’s hair was cropped short. He had a wide mouth, a pronounced jaw, and green eyes. Among friends his eyes were gentle, but around strangers, or when he was simply in thought, his eyes tended to be flat and hard. In full winter dress he looked like a man of average height, maybe less, with a flat stomach and an ordinary build, but out here in sweatpants and a white T-shirt, his veins standing on his forearms and snaking up his biceps, his physical strength was evident.
“Before I forget it, some women might be callin’ you, Terry. I gave them your number-”
“They already called me. Got me on my cell while I was driving over here.”
“Yeah, they do work quick. I brought you the information, if you’re interested.”
“Do you want me to take it?”
“It’s a money job for both of us.”
“It would mean more jack for you if you just took it yourself.”
“I’m busy,” said Strange.
The boys came back in, sweating and short of breath.
“Form a circle,” said Blue. He called out the names of the two captains who would lead the calisthenics.
The captains stood in the middle of the large circle. They commanded their teammates to run in place.
“How ya’ll feel?” shouted the captains.
“Fired up!” responded the team.
“How y’all feel?”
“Fired up!”
“Breakdown.”
“Whoo!”
“Breakdown.”
“Whoo!”
“Breakdown.”
“Whoo!”
With each command the boys went into their breakdown stance and shouted, “Whoo!” This running in place and vocal psych-out lasted for a few more minutes. Then they moved into other calisthenics: stretches, knuckle push-ups, and six inches, where they were instructed to lie on their backs, lift their legs a half foot off the ground, keep their legs straight, and hold the position, playing their bellies like a tom-tom until they were told they could relax. When they were done, their jerseys were dark with sweat and their faces were beaded with it.
“Now you’re gonna run some steps,” said Strange.
“Aw!” said Rico, the Pee Wee starting halfback. Rico was a quick, low-to-the-ground runner who could jook. He had the most natural talent of any of the players. He was also the first to complain.
“Move, Reek,” said Dante Morris, the tall, skinny quarterback who rarely spoke, only when he was asked to or to motivate his teammates. “Let’s get it done.”
“C’mon Panthers!” shouted Joe Wilder, sweeping his arm in the direction of the bleachers.
“Little man gonna lead the charge,” said Blue.
“They’re following him, too,” said Strange.
A few more mothers had arrived and stood on the sidelines. Joe Wilder’s uncle had shown up, too. He was leaning against the fence that ran between the track and the bleachers, his hand dipped into a white paper bag stained with grease.
“Humid tonight,” said Blue.
“Don’t make ’em run those steps too long,” said Strange. “Look, I gotta run back up to my car for a second. Wanted to give you the Midget roster, since you’ll be takin’ them permanent. Be right back.”
Strange crossed the field, passing Wilder’s uncle, not looking his way. But the uncle said, “Coach,” and Strange had to stop.
“How’s it goin?” said Strange.
“It’s all right. Name’s Lorenze. Most call me Lo. I’m Joe Wilder’s uncle.”
“Derek Strange. I’ve seen you around.”
Now Strange had to shake his hand. Lorenze rubbed his right hand, greasy from the french fries in the bag, off on his jeans before he reached out and tried to give Strange the standard soul shake: thumb lock, finger lock, break. Strange executed it without enthusiasm.
“Y’all nearly through?”
“We’ll be quittin’ near dark.”
“I just got up in this motherfucker, so I didn’t know how long you been out here.”
Lorenze smiled. Strange shifted his feet impatiently. Lorenze, a man over thirty years old, wore a T-shirt with a photograph of a dreadlocked dude smoking a fat spliff, and a pair of Jordans, laces untied, on his feet. Strange didn’t know one thing for certain about this man. But he knew this man’s type.
Blue called the boys off the bleachers. Exhausted, they began to walk back toward the center of the field.
“I’ll be takin’ Joe with me after practice,” said Lorenze. “I ain’t got my car tonight, but I can walk him back to his place.”
“I told his mother I’d drop him at home. Same as always.”
“We just gonna walk around some. Boy needs to get to know his uncle.”
“I’m responsible for him,” said Strange, keeping his tone light. “If his mother had told me you’d be comin’, that would be one thing…”
“You don’t have to worry. I’m kin, brother.”
“I’m taking him home,” said Strange, and now he forced himself to smile. “Like I say, I told his mother, right? You got to understand this.”
“I ain’t gotta do nothin’ but be black and die,” said Lorenze, grinning at his clever reply.
Strange didn’t comment. He’d been hearing young and not-so-young black men use that expression around town for years now. It never did settle right on his ears.
They both heard a human whistle and looked up past the bleachers to the fence that bordered the parking lot. A tall young man was leaning against the fence, smiling and staring down at them. Then he turned, walked away, and was out of sight.
“Look,” said Strange, “I gotta get something from my car. I’ll see you around, hear?”
Lorenze nodded absently.
Strange walked up to the parking lot. The young man who had stood at the fence was now sitting behind the wheel of an idling car with D.C. plates. The car was a beige Caprice, about ten years old, with a brown vinyl roof and chrome-reverse wheels, parked nose out about four spaces down from Strange’s own Chevy. Rust had begun to cancer the rear quarter panel on the driver’s side. The pipe coughed white exhaust, which hovered in the lot. The exhaust mingled with the marijuana smoke that was coming from the open windows of the car.
Another young man sat in the shotgun seat and a third sat in the back. Strange saw tightly braided hair on the front-seat passenger, little else.
Strange had slowed his steps and was studying the car. He was letting them see him study it. His face was impassive and his body language unthreatening as he moved along.
Now Strange walked to his own car and popped the trunk. He heard them laughing as he opened his toolbox and looked inside of it for… for what? Strange didn’t own a gun. If they were strapped and they were going to use a gun on him, he couldn’t do a damn thing about it anyway. But he was letting his imagination get ahead of him now. These were just some hard-looking kids, sitting in a parking lot, getting high.
Strange found a pencil in his toolbox and wrote something down on the outside of the Pee Wees’ manila file. Then he found the Midget file that he had come to get for Blue. He closed the trunk’s lid.
He walked back across the lot. The driver poked his head out the window of the Caprice and said, “Yo, Fred Sanford! Fred!”
That drew more laughter, and he heard one of them say, “Where Lamont at and shit?”
Now they were laughing and saying other things, and Strange heard the words “old-time” and felt his face grow hot, but he kept walking. He just
wanted them gone, off the school grounds, away from his kids. And as he heard the squeal of their tires he relaxed, knowing that this was so.
He looked down toward the field and noticed that Lorenze, Joe Wilder’s uncle, had gone.
Strange was glad Terry Quinn hadn’t been with him just now, because Quinn would have started some shit. When someone stepped to him, Quinn only knew how to respond one way. You couldn’t answer each slight, or return each hard look with an equally hard look, because moments like this went down out here every day. It would just be too tiring. You’d end up in a constant battle, with no time to breathe, just live.
Strange told himself this, trying to let his anger subside, as he walked back onto the field.
chapter 6
THE Pee Wee offense said “Break” in the huddle and went to the line. Strange saw that several of the players had lined up too far apart.
“Do your splits,” said Strange, and the offensive linemen moved closer together, placing their hands on one another’s shoulder pads. Now they were properly spaced.
“Down!” said Dante Morris, his hands between the center’s legs. The offense hit their thigh pads in unison.
“Set!” The offense clapped their hands one time and got down in a three-point stance.
“Go! Go!”
On two, Rico took the handoff from Dante Morris, bobbling it a little, not really having possession of the ball as he hesitated and was cut down by two defenders behind the line.
“Hold up,” said Quinn.
“What was that, Rico?” said Strange. “What was the play?”
“Thirty-one on two,” said Rico, picking some turf off his helmet.
“And Thirty-one is?”
“Halfback run to the one-hole,” said Joe Wilder.
“Joe, I know you know,” said Strange. “I was askin’ Rico.”
“Like Joe said,” said Rico.
“But you weren’t headed for the one-hole, were you, son?”
“I got messed up in my head.”
“Think,” said Strange, tapping his own temple.
“You had your hands wrong, too,” said Quinn. “When you’re taking a handoff and you’re going to the left, where’s your right hand supposed to be?”
“On top. Left hand down at your belly.”
“Right. The opposite if you’re going right.” Quinn looked to the linemen who had made the tackle. “Nice hit there. Way to wrap him up. Let’s try that again.”
In the huddle, Dante called a Thirty-five. The first number, three, was always a halfback run. The second number was the hole to be hit. Odd numbers were the left holes, one, three, and five. Evens were the two-, four-, and six-holes. A number larger than six was a pitch.
They executed the play. This time Rico took the ball smoothly and found the hole, running low off a clean Joe Wilder block, and he was gone.
“All right, good.” Quinn tapped Joe’s helmet as he ran back to the huddle. “Good block, Joe, way to be.”
Joe Wilder nodded, a swagger in his step, his wide smile visible behind the cage of his helmet.
CLOSE to dark, Strange blew a long whistle, signaling the boys into the center of the field.
“All right,” said Blue, “take a knee.”
The boys got down on one knee, close together, looking up at their coaches.
“I got a call today,” said Dennis Arrington, “at work. One of you was asking me how to make his mouth guard from the kit we gave you. Course, he just should have asked me before he did it, or better yet, listened when I explained it the first time. ’Cause he went and boiled it for three minutes and it came out like a hunk of plastic.”
“Tenderized it,” said Blue, and some of the boys laughed.
“You put it in that boiling water for twenty seconds,” said Arrington. “And before you put it in your mouths to form it, you dip it in some cold water. You don’t do that, you’re gonna burn yourselves fierce.”
“You only make that mistake one time,” said Strange.
“Any questions?” said Blue.
There were none.
“Want to talk about somethin’ tonight,” said Strange. “Heard you all discussing it between yourselves some and thought I ought to bring it up. One of your teammates got himself in big trouble at school today, something to do with a knife. Now I know you already got the details, what you heard, anyway, so I won’t go into it, and besides, it’s not right to be talkin’ about this boy’s business when he’s not here. But I do want to tell you that he is off the team. And the reason he is off is, he broke the deal he made with his coaches, and with you, his teammates, to act in a certain way. The way you got to conduct yourselves if you are going to be a Panther. And I don’t mean just here on the field. I’m talking about how you act at home, and in school. Because we are out here devoting our time to you for no kind of pay, and you and your teammates are working hard, sweating, to make this the best team we can be. And we will not tolerate that kind of disrespect, to us or to you. Do you understand?”
There was a low mumble of yesses. The Pee Wee center, a quiet African kid named Prince, raised his hand, and Strange acknowledged him.
“Do you need to thee our report cards?” said Prince. The boy beside him grinned but did not laugh at Prince’s lisp.
“Yes, we will need to see your first report card when you get it. We’re especially gonna be looking at behavior. Now, we got a game this Saturday, y’all know that, right?” The boys’ faces brightened. “Anybody hasn’t paid the registration fee yet, you need to get up with your parents or the people you stay with, ’cause if you do not pay, you will not play. I’m gonna need all your health checkups, too.”
“We gettin’ new uniforms?” said a kid from back in the group.
“Not this season,” said Strange. “I must answer this question every practice. Some of you just do not listen.” There were a couple of “Dags,” but mostly silence.
“Practice is six o’clock, Wednesday,” said Blue.
“What time?” said Dennis Arrington.
The boys shouted in unison, “Six o’clock, on the dot, be there, don’t miss it!”
“Put it in,” said Quinn.
The boys formed a tight circle and tried to touch one another’s hands in the center. “Petworth Panthers!”
“All right,” said Strange. “We’re done. You that got your bikes or live close, get on home now before the dark falls all the way. Anyone else needs a ride, meet the coaches up in the lot.”
THERE were about ten parents and other types of relatives and guardians, dedicated, enthusiastic, loving, mostly women and a couple of men, who came to every practice and every game. Always the same faces. The parents who did not show were too busy trying to make ends meet, or hanging with their boyfriends or girlfriends, or they just didn’t care. Many of these kids lived with their grandparents or their aunts. Many had absent fathers, and some had never known their fathers at all.
So the parents who were involved helped whenever they could. They and the coaches watched out for those kids who needed rides home from practice and to and from the games. Running a team like this, keeping the kids away from the bad, it was a community effort. The responsibility fell on a committed few.
Strange drove south on Georgia Avenue. Lamar and Joe Wilder were in the backseat, Wilder showing Lamar his wrestling figures. Joe usually brought them with him to practice. Lamar was asking him questions, patiently listening as Joe explained the relationships among all these people, whom Strange thought of as freaks.
“You gonna watch Monday Nitro tonight?” asked Joe.
“Yeah, I’ll watch it,” said Lamar.
“Can you come over and watch it?”
“Can’t, Joe. Got my sister to look after; my moms is goin’ out.” Lamar punched Joe lightly on the shoulder. “Maybe we can watch it together next week.”
Strange brought Lamar along to practice to keep him out of trouble, but he was also a help to him and the other coaches. Both Lamar and Lio
nel were good with the kids.
Next to Strange sat Prince, the Pee Wees’ center. Prince was one of three Africans on the team. Like the others, Prince was well behaved, even tempered, and polite. His father drove a cab. Prince was tall for ten, and his voice had already begun to deepen. Some of the less sensitive boys on the team tended to imitate his slight lisp. But he was generally well liked and respected for his toughness.
“There’s my office,” said Strange, pointing to his sign on 9th. Whenever he could, Strange reminded his kids that he had grown up in the neighborhood, just like them, and that he owned his own business.
“Why you got a picture up there of a magnifying glath?” said Prince. He was holding his helmet in his hands, rubbing his fingers along the panther decal affixed to the side.
“It means I find things. Like I look at ’em closer so other people can see better. That make sense?”
“I guess.” Prince cocked his head. “My father gave me a magnifying glath.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. One day it was thunny, and me and my little brother put the glath over some roach bugs that was outside on the alley porch, by the trash? The thun made those bugs smoke. We burned up those bugs till they died.”
Strange knew that here he should say that burning bugs to death wasn’t cool. But he said, “I used to do the same thing.”
Prince lived on Princeton Place, in a row house in Park View that was better kept than those around it. The porch light had been left on in anticipation of his arrival. Strange said good night to Prince and watched him go up the concrete steps to his house.
Some boys hanging on the corner, a couple years older than Prince, made some comments about his uniform, and then one of them said, “Pwinth, why you steppin’ so fast, Pwinth?”
They were laughing at him, but he kept walking without turning around, and he kept his shoulders erect until he made it to the front door and went through.
That’s right, thought Strange. Head up, and keep your posture straight.
The light on the porch went off.
Strange returned to Georgia Avenue, drove south, and passed a small marijuana enterprise run by a half dozen kids. Part of the income made here funneled up to one of the two prominent gangs that controlled the action in the neighborhood. South of the Fourth District, below Harvard Street, was a smaller, independent operation that did not encroach on the turf of the gang business up the road.
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