LIFTER

by Crawford Kilian

  Then we heard the announcer’s voice over the loud-speakers, and San Carlos went trotting out to the cheers and boos. A minute later it was our turn, and the place erupted with noise. Mr Forgarty ran the band through a new arrangement of “When the Saints Go Marching In”, with a heavy metal quality that gave me goosebumps. Our cheerleaders, on the far side of the field, were bouncing and gyrating and whipping the crowd into a stiff meringue. Banners lashed back and forth, signs flashed under the spotlights, and somebody began cranking a siren. Talk about sensory overload! You could get the same effect by putting your head in a bucket and letting a couple of guys try to knock it off with baseball bats.

  After that initial shock, the national anthem was a relief. But it didn’t last long; the yelling started up again as we headed for the bench. I looked up in the stands, searching for Pat and Melinda in the mob; Melinda was there, not far from Willy Preuzer, but Pat wasn’t with her. Two rows behind Melinda were Mr Bororwitz and Mr Randall.

  So much for trusting General Parrish, I thought. They were sitting there in duffel coats, one holding a video camera and the other a camera with a monster telephoto lens on it.

  Those weren’t the only cameras. Half a dozen photographers were standing on the sidelines, plus two camera crews from the cable company and an announcer-cameraman team from San Francisco. Flashbulbs were going off in the stands, too.

  Where was Pat? I settled down on the bench, right next to Gibbs, and wondered why she wasn’t with Melinda. She’d had dinner with us, and I’d driven down to school this evening thinking Pat would come with Melinda. Maybe she’d decided I might really get creamed, and didn’t want to see me carried off the field like Al Suarez.

  “Quit watching the crowd and pay attention to the game,” Gibbs said, his voice almost inaudible under the noise.

  So I sat and watched while San Carlos returned the kickoff for a touchdown. It was so fast I wasn’t sure it had really happened, but then they made the conversion. Just like that, 7-0.

  Well, something like that will rattle any team. We didn’t let them score again in the first quarter, but we didn’t exactly shine, either. It was hard, defensive football, not much fun to watch but better than getting scored against.

  Early in the second quarter, San Carlos scored again. It was a beautiful pass from their thirty-yard line. It came down into the hands of their right end, a tall black guy who outran everybody. Then they missed the conversion. We were behind 13-zip, and the crowd started yelling my number.

  “Seventy-seven! Seventy-Seven! Seventy-Seven!”

  My skin prickled, and I didn’t - couldn’t - turn around to look at the people in the stands. Gibbs ignored them.

  We just couldn’t seem to do anything right. When we got the ball, they sacked Mike Palmer. Then they intercepted a pass and ran it back almost to our end zone. We hung on, while people kept yelling, “Seventy-seven.”

  Sean Quackenbush came off the field and poured water all over his head as he sat next to me. Gibbs was up, limping along the sidelines and barking at people.

  “Why doesn’t he put you in?” Sean asked.

  I just shrugged.

  “Man, we got to have you out there. They’re wiping us.”

  Half time put us temporarily out of our misery. We shambled into the locker room and Gibbs limped up to his usual place by the blackboard.

  “Gentlemen,” he said quietly, “San Carlos is doing all the thinking in this game, so it’s no surprise that they are dominating us. We’re playing without any cohesion, without any confidence.” He dissected a couple of plays, and showed everyone what had gone wrong. Then he finished up by saying: “I’m not going to waste my breath giving you a big song and dance, win this one for the Gipper, that kind of stuff. You’ll win this game if you decide to win it, and I can’t really influence that decision. Only you can.”

  “Sir?” It was Sean Quackenbush, raising his hand.

  “Yes.”

  “Sir, can’t you put in Stevenson? We really need him out there.”

  Gibbs looked bleak. “When I have reason to believe that Stevenson is prepared to give us a hundred-percent effort, I will put him in.”

  Everybody looked incredulously at me: what in the world had I done to make Gibbs say something like that?

  I cleared my throat and said: “Sir, I’ll do my best. But I can’t promise miracles.”

  “Well, then,” said Mike Palmer, “that should be good enough, Mr Gibbs.”

  Gibbs studied me. “I’m not asking for miracles, Stevenson. I don’t believe in miracles. I’m just asking for whatever you’ve got in you.”

  “I’ll do my best, sir,” I repeated.

  For a long moment, Gibbs didn’t say or do anything. I began to understand the bind he was in: if he kept me on the bench he might face a mutiny from the team, but if he put me on the field I might screw up royally.

  “Okay, you’re in.”

  Everybody cheered and applauded and thumped me, and I felt surprised by the sudden change in mood. These guys really liked me. And I really liked them, too; I didn’t want to let them down, but I didn’t want to let myself down, either.

  The bands finished their half time performance (ours was a lot better than theirs), and out we went again. This time the “seventy-sevens” were really loud, and a few people launched rolls of toilet paper out of the stands. When I went out onto the field, people yelled a lot and I saw the cablevision TV camera lock on me. Mr Borowitz and Mr Randall were no doubt locked on me, too.

  Our first chance with the ball took us well downfield on a run by Sean. As we were sorting ourselves out, a couple of San Carlos players brushed past me.

  “Going to kick your arse, man,” muttered number 41. “You are goin’ nowhere.”

  On that cheery note, I took the ball on a hand-off from Mike and ran like crazy around the left end. That gained us all of three yards before they pulled me down. In the pileup, somebody gave me a knee to the kidneys.

  It hurt. A lot. No one had seen it, but as I got up I saw number 41 grinning away behind his face guard. Rubbing my back, I hobbled back into the huddle. Somewhere far away the crowd were screaming a lot and the cheerleaders were doing cartwheels. For three lousy yards.

  It didn’t get much better; in fact, it got worse. Whenever I got the ball, the San Carlos guys swarmed on me. On defence we did alright, and they never got close to our end zone, but we couldn’t gain any yardage. When Mike tried passing to me, I couldn’t get out there fast enough, except for one time when he connected and they tackled me instantly.

  Near the end of the third quarter, Gibbs called me off the field. “You’re trying all right,” he said, “but you’re just not fast enough.”

  I nearly mentioned the knee in the kidneys, but kept my mouth shut. My reputation with Gibbs was low enough without being a whiner.

  “Give me a chance to catch my breath, Mr Gibbs. I’ll be okay.”

  “I’m sorry, Stevenson. We had a deal, remember? And no hard feelings.”

  When he said it, he sounded very sad.

  I felt worse than sad. I didn’t like letting him down, letting the team down. But they’d come to depend on something I couldn’t deliver any more, and Gibbs was right: without it, I wasn’t enough of an athlete to be much good.

  The crowd didn’t know that, though, and they started booing and yelling “Seventy-seven!” again. I just sat hunched inside my shoulder pads and watched as San Carlos ground away at us some more. At least, sitting on the bench, I had time to reflect on how sometimes you try to do the right thing and everything seems to go wrong.

  Then the booing and yelling paused and the crowd said “Woh!” and fell silent. I couldn’t understand it; nothing in particular was going on in the game. Then they said “Woh!” again, louder, and started clapping.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Nothing much seemed to be happening, except that four cheerleaders - two girls and two guys - were going through a routine. Then I saw that the rest of the cheerleaders
were just standing on the edge of the track, staring at the four with their mouths open.

  It took me that long to recognise them: Eustis Bowson and Mason Reeves, and Angela Battenbury and Pat Llewellyn. They were dressed just like the others, right down to the girls’ tasselled boots and pleated skirts, and they were doing a pretty good job of strutting their stuff. Pat was prancing and kicking, without her brace, and when I realised that I stood up.

  They got to the end of their routine, yelling, “Come on, team, give us a goal!” Then they all went straight up in the air about eight feet, somersaulted, and floated down like four feathers.

  “Oh no. Oh no,” I muttered. Gibbs, next to me, looked at me and then at the cheerleaders. He was a lot quicker to recognise them than I’d been, and his eyes widened in surprise.

  I glanced away from him and looked up in the stands. Melinda was sitting there with both hands over her mouth and her eyes round. Mr Borowitz was taping the cheerleaders and yelling something at Mr Randal, who was clicking away with the telephoto camera and yelling back. The cable TV crews and the San Francisco cameraman were all concentrating on the cheerleaders, too.

  They went into another routine that exploded into cartwheels that launched them ten feet into the air. My mouth was open as wide as anyone’s and I found myself thinking that both Angela and Pat had terrific legs. And the crowd said, “Woh-oh!”

  I threw my helmet as hard as I could onto the grass. “She planned this!” I raved, grabbing Gibbs by the arm. “She had this planned all week. She wasn’t sick. None of ‘em were. They were practising!”

  “Practising what, Stevenson?” Gibbs asked as the four of them suddenly raced for an exit under the stands and vanished.

  “Aw, Mr Gibbs, they’ve blown the secret. Aw - hell!”

  Gibbs grabbed me by the biceps and swung me around to face him.

  “That’s what I wanted out of you, Stevenson. Maybe you wanted to keep a secret for some reason, but it’s no secret now. Are you going to go out there and play football?”

  I was so mad and upset it took me a couple of seconds to understand what he was saying. All of a sudden I felt relaxed, easy with myself for the first time in days. I picked up my helmet.

  “I might as well, Mr Gibbs.”

  The game had gotten a little disorganised, because the players had seen some of the cheerleaders’ stunts and couldn’t believe their eyes. In the huddle, I said to Mike Palmer.

  “Hand it off to me. I’m going around right end, right through that turkey who jumped me.”

  Mike looked at me. “You sure you can handle him, Rick?”

  “Grrrr!” I replied wittly. “Just hand me the ball, okay?”

  So we set up for the play and Mike gave me the ball.

  For a second there I was afraid I’d lost it forever - that I’d stand there, willing to lift myself the way I had in the kitchen that first morning, and then number 41 and his buddies would come in and puree me. But it came instantly, that funny, silent Jacuzzi feeling all over my body, and I let it rip.

  My friend with the heavy kneecaps came for me, but he looked surprise at my speed. I slammed into him and nearly lost the ball, but he toppled over and I ran past him. I was in the end zone before I noticed all the cheering.

  As I went trotting back down the field, the team swarmed around me. Sean gave me a hug that nearly ended my career.

  “Way to go, man!” he bellowed. “Let’s turn this game around!”

  We made the conversion with no problem. Then, as we got ready to kick off to San Carlos, I looked for Pat and the others. No trace. The other cheerleaders, looking a little dazed, were bouncing up and down and yelling, “We want another one!” I looked for Melinda and the air force guys, until Gibbs roared at me to wake up and pay attention to the game.

  San Carlos didn’t get the ball past their own twenty-yard line; I took out their carrier. On the next down their quarterback decided to pass, and fired a long bomb. I glided backward as fast as their receiver could run forward, then lifted and intercepted. The receiver tried to grab me as I came down, but I was already long gone.

  What I most remember from that play was how loud everything was. The crowd was howling, the siren was wailing, and my own breath roared in my ears. San Carlos came at me. I headed for one guy at a high rate of speed and he flinched and dropped, trying to snag me round the ankles as I went past. Instead, I bounced a couple of feet into the air and went on through.

  So now it was 13-all. The noise of the crowd built up, aided by the two bands, until Mike Palmer made the conversion and took us ahead 14-13.

  I’ll say this for San Carlos: they never quit. By the end of the game the score was 28-13, but they were still in there. We all shook hands and I turned to look for Pat again. The crowd was coming out onto the field, or heading for the exits, when somebody screamed.

  That was some scream; it froze several thousand people right in their tracks. I saw somebody point upward, and looked up also.

  Descending out of the darkness into the floodlights were Pat and Angela and Eustis and Mason. Eustis was carrying an American flag in one of those straps; he’d probably swiped it from somebody in the band. The four of them came down in a kind of diamond pattern, with Pat closest to the Terry high stand and Eustis farthest away. Pat was carrying a bullhorn, and when they got about twenty feet from the ground they levelled off and she put it to her mouth.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!” she said. “My name is Pat Llewellyn, and you are witnessing a demonstration of a newly discovered physical phenomenon called lifting.”

  The field full of football players, the stands full of spectators - everyone fell dead silent. There they hovered, four kids in blue-and-gold cheerleaders’ outfits, with the flag flapping around Eustis’s face.

  “We can’t explain it all,” Pat went on, her voice echoing against the stands. “But we can tell you that this is no joke. It’s a skill that just about anybody can learn, and starting tomorrow we’re going to teach it to anybody who asks. Now, I’d like you to give a big hand to the guy who first discovered lifting - number seventy-seven, Rick Stevenson!”

  I wish I could say they gave us a standing ovation, but all they did was clap slowly, like a bunch of hypnotised seals. Gibbs looked at me with a vindicated expression on his grinning face - another hypothesis confirmed.

  Pat lowered her bullhorn and grinned down at me. “Hey, come on up, Rick. The view is really fine up here.”

  I looked at Gibbs again, grinned self-consciously, and handed my helmet to Mike Palmer. “Back in a minute,” I mumbled and lifted to join her. Eustis and Mason and Angela closed in around us, hugging us and laughing.

  “You shoulda seen your face, man!” Eustis crowed. “You looked over your shoulder and nearly fell of the bench.”

  “You sneaky rat,” I said to Pat. “You faked me out completely. I’m going to get you for this.”

  She laughed, and it was a burst of music. The floodlights made her hair glitter, and her hazel eyes gleamed. “Have to catch me first!”

  Dropping her bullhorn, Pat soared up into the darkness beyond the floodlights. Growling and laughing, I followed her up.

  Later we would have to come back down and explain all kinds of things to Melinda and Gibbs and Mr Borowitz and Mr Randall and the TV crews. We would be stuck in the floodlights for a long time, maybe the rest of our lives, and that wouldn’t always be fun.

  With the wind in my face, I tried to decide how I felt. Was I angry? Well, I had been when Pat and the others had first started their cheerleading routine, but I realised the monster in my basement hadn’t even twitched. I suspected the stupid critter had slept through everything. Maybe, if I smartened up enough, he’d sleep forever.

  Was I scared? Sort of. But seeing the Awkward Squad float down out of the darkness had made me realise what I should’ve realised from the moment I taught Pat: nobody owns freedom, and nobody can give it away, either. Each of us takes it, as much as we can handle and usually a
little more, and if we screw it up we can’t blame anybody but ourselves. Maybe I had taught her, but I still hadn’t learnt what Gibbs had been trying so hard to teach us all: to be grown-up enough not to need other people to tell us what to do.

  Once Pat could lift, she could make up her own mind what to do about it. I could argue with her, but I couldn’t force her to do what I wanted. Lifting could make you free only if you were ready to think and act for yourself, and ready to let others do the same. Pat hadn’t been and I hadn’t. I hadn’t trusted myself and I hadn’t trusted her or anybody else - yet somehow I’d hoped that somebody else would make decisions for me. If everybody could lift, and some people misused their new freedom to hurt other people, it wouldn’t be my fault. The rest of us would have to deal with them - and what we did about it couldn’t be my decision alone.

  Was I sad? I knew I was going to miss the specialness of being alone in the sky with Pat. Before long, we would be just two more ordinary people out of millions or billions who could lift as well as we did. We’d be special only in the ways we’d been before - stupid-smart, severely gifted, basically pretty nice people. That would have to be enough.

  I wasn’t going to enjoy everything that happed after this, like Jason winning his bet and Gassaway yelling that he’d been right all along. But some things I knew I was going to like a lot - like teaching Melinda and Gibbs and his wife and girls how to lift.

  That could all wait a little longer. For now, it was enough just to rise swiftly toward the stars, following Pat’s laughter into the moonlit night.