by Tim Green
He looked around at the players and coaches. Veins and tendons bulged from their necks. Everyone was staring at the field. The head coach was at the edge of the sideline, surrounded by his offensive assistants and the backup quarterbacks, who were always ready to run in. There was no one Troy could tell. They ran the bootleg and the Cowboys stopped it. The Falcons had to settle for a field goal.
Troy told himself they still had a seven-point lead, but he bit his lip and clenched his hands at his sides, because, just like everyone else, he could feel that the momentum had changed, and he could just see Jamie Renfro’s nasty smile.
When the Cowboys came out on the next series, Troy saw what they were doing right away, running a series of pass patterns where the outside receiver ran down the field and broke for the sideline. Soon the Falcons’ cornerback would just assume the receiver was going to the outside. The cornerback would jump up and toward the sideline, creating a big open space behind him. That’s where the inside slot receiver, Terrell Owens, was going to run in behind him for a touchdown. Troy knew how to stop it, and he was so frantic to tell someone that he began to babble out loud.
His mom gave him a funny look, but she had to leave his side to get a cameraman who was edging around the corner of the bench for a shot of Josh Lock talking to a coach. Troy slipped away and stepped over the yellow line, between the long aluminum benches, past the table of a hundred Gatorade cups. He tapped the arm of a ball boy, a high school kid with the shadow of a mustache, probably a coach’s son. The kid looked down at Troy, annoyed.
“Who’s the guy calling the defenses?” Troy asked.
“Coach Krock? Over there,” the ball boy said, pointing to a crowd of players near the sideline with their helmets under their arms.
Another older boy was standing behind the group, carrying a loop of cable that connected the coach’s headset to the scouts and coaches watching from up in the press box. Troy followed the cable, knowing it would take him to the coach. His heart was thumping, because he knew he was just a kid and his instincts told him that most adults would think he was crazy.
He darted into the crowd of players still following the cable, yanked on the coach’s shirtsleeve, and yelled, “Wait! You’ve got to listen!”
As the coach wheeled around, glaring down at him, Troy seemed to see everything at once. The tall, lanky coach’s nose was long and his hatchet face was sharp. The Adam’s apple in his sunburned neck bobbed, and his dark eyes narrowed at Troy. Coach Krock heaved his right leg around and it clumped on the turf. Troy looked down and saw the plastic ankle and its shiny metal bolt from under the hem of his pants.
Krock grabbed Troy by the collar, ranting, “Who the holy heck is this kid?”
CHAPTER NINE
“COACH, I KNOW WHAT they’re going to do!” Troy yelled, struggling to get free.
The coach lost his balance and nearly fell. He yanked Troy to one side, throwing him to the turf and stumbling forward.
“Get this little brat the holy heck out of here!” he shouted, his face scrunching up and turning red as he regained his balance and turned his attention back to the field.
Two security guards in yellow jackets dashed over the yellow lines into the bench area and grabbed Troy under the arms. The players stood holding their helmets and staring at him. Troy felt his eyes begin to fill with those stupid tears. He fought them back as the guards dragged him out of the bench area.
He dug in his heels, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists as he looked around for his mom. Part of him wanted her to save him. Another part didn’t want her to see what he’d done.
“How’d you get this?” one of the guards asked, snapping the field pass off his belt loop and holding it out of his reach.
“My mom,” Troy said, still struggling to get free. “She knows Mr. Langan. Let me go.”
Their grips only tightened, and they lifted his feet right off the ground, then marched him toward the Falcons’ tunnel. They were near the goal line when Troy heard the crowd erupt. Terrell Owens was running down the middle of the field. He faked to the inside. The free safety, Bryan Scott, jumped that way. Then Owens broke back toward the corner of the end zone. The cornerback was up, covering the underneath receiver, who was running the out cut. Owens was wide open and Bledsoe’s pass zipped through the air. The Dome broke out into a chorus of boos as Owens held the ball high and strutted around the end zone like a crazy chicken, celebrating his touchdown.
Troy stopped struggling, and the guards set him down and shoved him into the tunnel. Cecilia Fetters, his mom’s boss, was waiting there with her walkie-talkie. Her lips were pressed tight. She shook her head in disgust and told the guards to follow her. They took Troy past two state troopers posted outside the door, through the locker room, the training room, and into the back where the public relations department had an office.
“You sit right here, mister,” Cecilia said, scowling and pointing at the chair in front of the desk. “We’ll deal with this after the game.”
She took Troy’s pass from the security guard and stuffed it in her own pocket. When she left, she closed the door. Troy shut his eyes and wished he was home on his couch sitting with Tate and Nathan, just watching the game like a normal kid. He could almost imagine it. When he opened his eyes, he looked up and saw the TV hanging from the corner of the ceiling. The volume was down low, but he could hear them announcing the game that was going on outside in the Dome. Troy leaned forward and watched.
The Falcons got two first downs, but the Cowboys’ defense seemed to adjust and the Falcons’ offense was suddenly having a hard time. It was third and seventeen when Josh Lock ran wildly around the field to bring the Falcons within spitting distance of the goal line. The floor underneath his feet rumbled and Troy could hear the screaming crowd through the walls. He jumped up and cheered, too, then stood with his hands clenched, watching.
Three plays later, the Falcons had to settle for a field goal, but they had the lead now, 13–10. Troy sat back down and put a finger to his mouth, chewing off the end of the nail. He studied the Cowboys’ offense, saw the patterns at once on every pass play, and calculated exactly what it meant without even trying. Time was running out. The Cowboys had to score a touchdown, and Troy suddenly knew what they were waiting for.
If they got the ball near the fifty-yard line, they were going to run the same play that gave Owens his touchdown, only this time, his move to the inside wouldn’t be a fake. With the last touchdown play in his mind, the free safety would be frozen. Owens would blow right by him. Troy knew the Falcons’ free safety, Bryan Scott, was a smart player, a college academic all-American and a concert pianist. He might listen, even to a little kid. Troy’s finger shot out of his mouth and he looked down at his hand. He’d bitten through the skin.
He got up out of his chair and went to the desk, looking for a tissue box. There was nothing in sight, so Troy pulled open a desk drawer. That’s when he saw them, fanned out in a half-circle in the bottom of the drawer, just like a hand of cards in a poker game. Red and beautiful with bold black print.
Inside Cecilia Fetters’s desk were half a dozen unused field passes.
CHAPTER TEN
TROY WAS ALREADY IN trouble. It couldn’t get worse. But, if he could help the team to win, all might be forgiven. That was a chance worth taking.
He had to hurry. He tied the pass to his belt loop and grabbed the door handle. It was unlocked. He slipped through the training room, passed a dozen padded tables, hot tubs, cold tubs, shelves filled with tape and padding and drugs. The leather and shoe-rubber smell of the locker room filled his nose. He peeked into the cavernous locker room.
It was empty, but Troy knew those two state troopers would still be outside the doors. He moved quickly across the carpet. In the corner of the room another TV hung from the ceiling, the game on low. The Falcons were on their own thirty-yard line. Josh Lock dropped back for a pass but was tackled before he could throw it, sacked for a twelve-yard loss. Less than fo
ur minutes remained in the game.
A rattling noise made him jump and spin around.
Only an ice machine.
When he got to the double doors, he pushed one open just a crack and saw the light blue back of a uniform and the grip of a gun in a black leather holster.
Booing rumbled through the Dome. Something bad for the Falcons. Troy took a breath, held on to the pass, and pushed through the doors. He looked up at the trooper on his left, shrugged, and said, “I had to use the bathroom. See you guys.”
He kept going, half expecting to hear them yell for him to stop. But they didn’t. Instead of heading for the tunnel he’d just come through, Troy scooted the other way, where they hadn’t seen him being dragged in. He held out his pass to the guards at every checkpoint and got all the way to the far tunnel before a guard stopped him. The guard carefully examined the field pass.
“My mom is friends with Mr. Langan,” Troy said, grinning at them. “I had to use the bathroom.”
“Oh,” the guard said.
Troy pushed past and walked out onto the sideline. The fans were on their feet, cheering the Falcons’ offense. Third down. Lock dropped back and let the ball fly. Troy held his breath as a perfect spiral cut through the air, right into the hands of Peerless Price.
Price dropped it. In the back of his mind, Troy heard Jamie Renfro laughing. The Falcons would have to punt the ball back to the Cowboys. With the ball in the Cowboys’ hands, Troy knew the exact pass pattern they would run to get T.O. open in the end zone.
He didn’t have much time. He started to jog toward the Falcons’ bench. There were yellow-jacketed guards every ten yards. Troy kept his pass out in front of him for them to see. Bryan Scott was buckling up his chinstrap and heading for the field.
Troy dashed over and grabbed his arm.
“Bryan!” he yelled. “T.O. is going to run the post. He’s going to break inside, not out. You’ve got to stay to the inside, please.”
Bryan Scott looked down at him in disbelief, then looked around as if to see where Troy had come from. The crowd moaned and roared. The Cowboys brought the punt back to the fifty-yard line.
“It’ll look like the same play he scored on the first time,” Troy said, backing away now but keeping his eyes on Scott. “They’ll do it on the first play. Please.”
Then Seth Halloway was there in front of him.
“Who is this kid?” Seth asked.
Bryan shrugged and turned toward the field.
“Crazy kid,” Seth said, chuckling, and followed him.
Troy heard Krock’s growl an instant before he felt the iron grip on his shoulder. There was yelling and more hands were on him. He was pushed to the ground, and that’s when he heard his mom yelling.
“What’s wrong with you!”
She wasn’t yelling at Troy, though. She was yelling at Coach Krock.
“Lady, get outta my way,” Krock said, pushing past her and clumping toward the field.
This time, Troy let them drag him away without a fight. His mom followed and begged the guards to let him go.
Cecilia Fetters appeared, yelling at the top of her lungs. Police came this time along with security, and a small knot of people surrounded him and his mom, moving them toward the tunnel. On the field, the Cowboys snapped the ball. Troy watched T.O. run down the middle of the field and break to the inside. As if he hadn’t heard a word Troy said, Bryan Scott froze, expecting T.O. to break back out.
When Scott realized what had happened, it was too late. T.O. was in the end zone, wide open, catching Bledsoe’s arcing pass for a touchdown and doing his crazy chicken dance. The roaring crowd went silent, then started to boo at T.O. The only cheering came from the Cowboys’ bench. Troy looked at the scoreboard and saw six points go up for the Cowboys.
He dropped his head, thinking of Jamie Renfro, laughing in his face with that Doritos breath in front of the entire lunchroom. He also thought about the Falcons football his mom hadn’t yet been able to get for him.
This time Cecilia Fetters took him past the locker room and right to the door by the players’ garage, the same way they’d come in. The people at the desk stared at the crowd escorting them out and the loud voices going back and forth. Troy realized that the raised voices belonged to his mom and her boss. A policeman opened the doors and out they went, he and his mom pushed through while the guards stayed behind.
His mom spun around and told Cecilia Fetters she was totally wrong about her son, no matter how things looked.
“Well, you enjoy him, honey,” Cecilia said with her face pinched and her arms waving in the doorway. “He’s all yours. And don’t neither of you have to worry about coming back here.”
She slammed the glass and metal door in their faces, but not before her final words snuck through.
“You’re fired!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TROY’S MOM GLUED HER eyes to the road. Her hands clenched the wheel and she drove too fast. The little car’s engine screamed and the gears crunched as she shifted. Tires squealed around the corners. In the backseat, Troy’s head bumped into the window. He watched the back of her head and opened his mouth to talk almost a dozen times. No words came out. Finally, he hung his head and leaned into the curves.
When they slid into the bare spot in front of their house and shuddered to a stop, his mom got out and slammed the door. He watched her disappear through the cloud of red dust, waiting for the front door to slam too before he got out himself. It was a long walk through the woods and down the tracks to the Pine Grove Apartments. Neatly shaped trees grew from beds of flowers edged with pine straw and the sidewalks gleamed under the sun.
Troy remembered watching the big yellow earthmoving machines that cleared away the woods for the place when he was only a first-grader. He was excited when he saw that the gray wooden shingles were trimmed with fancy white molding and columns. They made Troy think of the big mansions rich people used to live in down on Jekyll Island, and he thought his new neighbors were sure to be rich too.
When he reached the last unit on the end of the middle building, he rang the bell and Nathan’s mom let him in. Nathan was on his couch, watching the four-o’clock NFL game with his dad. The two of them were wearing Chicago Bears caps, and Nathan’s dad pushed a half-eaten sandwich and some empty beer cans aside so he could put his feet up on the coffee table. His eyes never left the TV. Troy stood just inside the door and motioned for Nathan to come outside.
“Want to come to the river?” Troy asked.
“Come in and watch with us,” Nathan said.
Troy looked down. “Nah.”
“How was the game?” Nathan asked.
“They lost.”
“I know that, but on the sideline?”
“It was okay.”
Nathan’s dad jumped up from the couch, shouting and clapping his hands.
“Nathan, touchdown!”
“Come on,” Nathan said to him. “I’ll get you a soda.”
“No, you go,” Troy said, and without looking back, he turned and headed for Tate’s place.
She answered the door in a white dress. In her long dark hair was a pale blue ribbon.
“Church,” she said, shrugging. “Then my uncle came over with his new wife for dinner, so my mom said I had to stay dressed, but I’m almost done with the dishes.”
“Can you come to the river?”
“Maybe. Don’t you want to watch the Bears game?”
“I hate football,” he said, staring into her brown eyes, trying to keep his own from filling up.
“Hang on,” she said.
She disappeared for a few minutes, then came back out in a pair of cutoff jeans and a big T-shirt with her bathing suit underneath. She followed him to the tracks.
Troy stood there, looking north. Two lines of steel stretching to the horizon, where they came together like chopsticks that God might use to pluck up an entire train or someone’s house.
“What are you doing?” Tate asked.
“Just thinking about where this goes,” he said, nudging the steel track with his toe.
“All over the whole country, if you want it to,” she said.
“I’m talking about the train to Chicago,” he said.
“So?” Tate said.
“Part of me—” he started to say, then stopped.
“Yeah?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“You can say it. It’s me.”
“I think my dad lives there,” he said. “I heard my mom talking on the phone once. She thought I was asleep.”
Her mouth fell open and she said, “How come you never said anything?”
“Somebody dumps you like garbage, you don’t just bring it up. You dream about it like an idiot, like, yeah, I’ll just hop on the train someday. Maybe he’s waiting for me up there. Right. How stupid is that?”
“It’s not stupid,” Tate said.
“He used to play football,” Troy said. “Big-time football at Auburn. Can you imagine if he coached our team? Not that he would, even if he was here. What kind of guy runs off on his family?”
“Maybe something happened,” Tate said quietly.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, scooping up a stone and tossing it into the woods. “Come on.”
They walked side by side along the tracks until they came to the black steel train trestle that spanned the Chattahoochee River—the Hooch. Nearly thirty feet below them the milky green water snaked along.
Instead of taking the dirt path down the bank like Tate did, Troy kept going, following the tracks out onto the trestle. When he got to the middle, he stopped.
“What’re you doing?” Tate asked. She had come back up the path and was walking toward him along the tracks.