The Clutch

by Paul Hoblin

  I turn and walk out of the room.

  “Streak! Yo, Jordan. Slow down, dude.”

  I don’t stop walking until Lance catches up to me and clamps a giant hand on my shoulder.

  “Where you going, dude?” he asks, a little out of breath from running across the cafeteria to chase after me.

  “As far away from there as possible,” I say gesturing to the lunch room.

  “We’re just having some fun, dude.”

  “How is that fun? Huh? Believe it or not, Curt is a human being. You know, with feelings and stuff? Have you heard of those?”

  I think about Curt’s grimacing face as he hobbled off the field.

  “Relax, Bailey. Dang, dude—why are you protecting that guy? I mean, he’s not even here today.”

  “He’s not?” I ask.

  “I may be a jerk,” Lance says, as though he’s proud of it, “but I’m not that much of a jerk.”

  “Why isn’t Curt here?” I ask.

  Lunch must be over. I can hear the sound of hundreds of feet entering the hallways.

  “How should I know?” Lance says. “Probably still recovering or something.”

  “Or maybe he doesn’t want to have to face this place. Could you blame him?”

  “No,” Lance says. “I’ve made it pretty rough for him.” Maybe it’s Lance’s honesty that people find so appealing. He’s always himself; I’ll give Lance that. A showboating, trash-talking man of the people. “Then again,” he continues, “Curt made it rough on himself too. I mean, all he had to do was play better or step aside. Or tell me to shut up. He was the quarterback of the team—it’s not like he didn’t have any power.”

  “I thought this was about me, not him,” I say.

  “It is, dude.”

  Students stream by us on their way to class. They clap both of our shoulders as they walk by. They tell me good luck and that they can’t wait for Friday.

  “I don’t want to have any part of this,” I tell Lance.

  Lance calls after me as I walk away. “Don’t worry about it, Streak. You just go to practice. I’ll take care of everything else.”

  Chapter 15

  The reporter and the cameraperson are nowhere to be found at practice.

  Lance is there, though.

  I watch him hop the fence and cross the field. It’s not until he’s thirty yards away that I realize he’s talking to someone—himself? No, he’s on his cell phone.

  When he’s only a few feet away he lifts the phone from his ear and says to me, “They seem to think the story’s over.” He shakes his head, baffled. “Don’t worry, though”—he punches my shoulder pad reassuringly—“I got this.”

  “They just need to realize that the story’s only just begun,” he says to both me and whoever is on the other end of the phone call.

  I have no doubt he’s right. Knowing Lance, he’ll probably talk the news station into bringing a camera for tomorrow’s practice and every other practice I ever play in.

  But I still can’t help feeling relieved.

  After all, this is my first practice as the starting quarterback.

  I’ll have plenty to worry about without having the practice recorded.

  Chapter 16

  “How was practice?” Mom asks.

  We’re sitting at the dinner table, waiting for Dad to put the finishing touches on whatever he’s making.

  “Fine,” I say.

  This is, surprisingly, the truth. I’d been silently dreading the possibility of this day, my first practice as a starting quarterback, ever since I made my amazing pass. But it didn’t end up being so bad. Today, like every Monday, was a running and defense day. That meant my only job was to take the snap and hand the ball to our running backs. On option plays I pitched the ball to the running back every time, even when I probably should have run with it myself. For whatever reason, Coach didn’t seem to mind. Actually, he didn’t seem to mind much of anything. When players jumped offside or made some other mistake, he made us all run—just like he always does. But he didn’t scream at the player or lecture all of us about discipline and the importance of getting the little things right. At the end of practice Lando asked him how Curt was doing. Coach just grunted, “Broken leg” and then got back to talking about East Elm, our next opponent. It was a quiet, sad practice that lacked the usual energy Coach demands from us. But I also didn’t get smeared into the ground like I thought I would.

  “Oh, c’mon,” Mom says. “Your lifelong dream is about to come true, and all you can say is that things are fine?”

  “It’s a lot to take in,” I say.

  “If it’s too much to take in,” Dad says from across the kitchen, “you could always change your mind about playing Glorified Violence Ball—I mean football.”

  Ever since he caved about letting me play football, he’s been jokingly trying to talk me out of it. Of course, Mom and I know that he’s not really joking—that he’d love it if I reconsidered playing. But, of course, he doesn’t know that I’ve wanted to take him up on the offer pretty much since he started making it.

  “Not on your life, Steve,” Mom says. Clearly, she’s not in a joking mood. “This Friday I get to go see my son be the starting quarterback, a position he earned through his talent and determination.”

  She smiles at me and squeezes my elbow.

  “I’m not so sure I earned it,” I say.

  “Is that what this mood of yours is about? Do you feel guilty about Curt’s injury? It’s not your fault, Jordan, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Why would it be my fault?”

  It had never occurred to me that I should take the blame for Curt’s injury. I mean . . . what?

  “Exactly,” Mom says. “It’s not.”

  “Then why’d you bring it up?”

  “Sorry. It’s just, the way Curt got injured—I was worried you thought he didn’t take a knee at the end of the game because he was trying to prove something to all your fans who thought he shouldn’t be the starter. You moped around the house all weekend, and that’s the only explanation I could come up with.” She squints her eyes and sighs. “Glad I was wrong.”

  The thing is, she’s not wrong. I hadn’t been thinking about any of this until right now, but I should have been. Curt got injured—he broke his leg!—because fans were booing him over and over all because of me. Until he decided to prove them wrong. That’s when the trouble happened.

  I am partly to blame for what happened to him.

  “Dinner is served,” Dad says, placing a large plate of chicken and a bowl of rice on the table. He tells us what the meal is called: chicken followed by some word I’ve never heard.

  “Are you coming to the game, Dad?”

  “No promises,” he says. “But I’ll try, okay?”

  Which we both know is just his way of saying no.

  “I’ll be there, Jordan,” Mom says.

  “Thanks, Jordan,” I reply, trying to muster a smile.

  Chapter 17

  Lance keeps telling me the news crew will show up to the next practice. But they don’t.

  They’re not here on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Apparently they’re convinced the story is over. Frankly, I get where they’re coming from. After all, the Coach’s kid is now hurt, so there’s no longer a quarterback controversy.

  Speaking of Curt—he’s not at practice either.

  I mean, I know he broke his leg, but it’s still strange not to see him at practice. No matter how much he had to put up with from Lance and the others, the next day he’d be right back on the field, his stocky legs planted firmly to the ground. No amount of yelling was going to budge Curt Cole an inch.

  As for Coach Cole? He’s at practice each day, but just barely. His body’s there, but his mind is somewhere else. There’s no blood boiling in his cheeks.

  The worst part of the week is Wednesday. That’s when I’m supposed to drop back and throw some passes. But unlike Tuesday, this is a full-contact practice. M
y adrenaline is pumping so hard I can barely hear myself say, “Hut!” Then, when I drop back, the same thing happens to me that happened last year. Everything goes blurry. I move my head from side to side, trying to get my vision to snap back. Trying to find an open receiver. But all I can see is frantic motion. I stand there and stand there for what feels like forever. Then Kevin Rock, our all-conference linebacker, smashes me to the ground. I think it’s was Kevin who helps me up, but it isn’t. It’s Coach.

  “You okay, son?” he asks, under his breath.

  “Yes, sir,” I say, but I think the way my voice and body are still shaking gives me away. That’s when he announces that from here on out every practice this week will be non-contact. “We don’t need any more injuries,” he explains to the team. “We’re undefeated. Let’s stay that way.”

  Knowing I’m not going to get blasted helps me clear my head. For the next few days I throw the ball well and—just as importantly—I execute all the plays. My main goal is to run the plays exactly like Curt used to.

  It isn’t just a clear head that motivates me. It’s guilt.

  After Thursday’s practice, I wait until my teammates leave the locker room. Then I tap on Coach’s office door.

  He makes a grunting sound that I’m pretty sure means “Come in.”

  “Coach?” I say. “I mean, sir?”

  “What is it, son?” he replies.

  “It’s . . . it’s . . .” I stammer.

  “Spit it out, Bailey.”

  “I’m sorry,” I finally manage.

  “Eh?” he grunts.

  “I’m sorry if I had anything to do with Curt’s injury, Coach. I know he should have taken a knee—that was the right thing to do—and Curt usually does the right thing—and the only reason I can think of that he didn’t do the right thing was—”

  “Save it, Bailey,” Coach interrupts. The words themselves are harsh, but his tone isn’t. “All that stuff, you can’t bring it on the field with you tomorrow. We need you focused. We need you ready. The present moment. That’s all that matters. Set the other stuff aside.”

  I bet he’s been telling himself the same thing all week. It’s good advice, but it’s easier said than done. Coach hasn’t exactly been focused on the present moment lately. And if he can’t do it, how can I?

  “Is that it, Bailey?” he asks.

  “Yes, sir.”

  ***

  When I get out of the locker room, I see Lance. He’s taping another poster on the wall. Over the last few days he’s single-handedly covered the school with them. Some are simple. They say streak! or operation! aerial assault! (Launch Date: this friday!) Others look like giant trading cards. One poster has the front of the card: an action shot of me playing quarterback at practice. The poster next to it has the back of the card. It includes my height, weight, position (“Future All-Time Great QB”), throwing arm, etc. It even has made-up amazing stats (56 TDs, 0 INTs, etc.).

  The poster Lance is currently putting up says today’s the day history is made! “The game’s tomorrow,” I say.

  Lance pivots around. “Right. But no one’s going to see this until tomorrow.”

  “Good point,” I say.

  “You sound tired, dude.” Lance fishes his phone out of his pocket. “This will cheer you up.” He tilts the phone on its side to make the image fill the whole screen. We watch a YouTube video of me throwing passes at practice. “I edited out all the incompletions,” Lance says.

  I mumble a reply, but my heart’s not in it.

  “Man, you really are tired. That’s what happens when you’re not used to getting all the snaps.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Rest up, dude,” Lance says. “You just worry about putting on a show during the game. I’ll put on a show everywhere else.”

  I turn for the parking lot, then stop. “Hey, Lance?”

  “Yeah, dude?”

  “Why do you care so much? About me playing, I mean?”

  Lance doesn’t hesitate. “Because it’s right,” he says. “Because Coach has to know what he’s done is wrong. Because this is how things are supposed to be. People with your talent are supposed to walk around like kings in high school.”

  I don’t ask him any more questions, because we both know what he means.

  People like me are people like Lance.

  This isn’t just a chance to settle a score for him. It’s a chance to make the world make sense again. Lance was supposed to be the star player. He was supposed to be the one walking around like a king. If he can’t rule the school, at least he can name his successor.

  “You’re already a legend, dude,” he says. “All you have to do now is play like it.”

  Chapter 18

  Lance has always been good at getting the fans riled up. But this week he’s outdone himself. It’s still twenty minutes before game time, but the chants are already deafening.

  “STREAK! STREAK! STREAK!”

  They get even louder every time I throw a pass during warm-ups.

  Part of me thinks Curt’s lucky. Why couldn’t I have been the one to break my leg? I know it is a terrible thing to wish for, but honestly, how am I supposed to live up to these people’s expectations?

  Coach Cole does his best to ease me into the game. On the first series, he calls three run plays. We punt it back to East Elm amid a chorus of boos.

  The next series is the same: three run plays and a punt.

  “Let Streak loose! Let Streak loose!” the fans scream.

  There’s no doubt Lance is behind the new chant.

  But Coach doesn’t let me loose. Not the next series, or the series after that. We just keep running. We manage to get one first down, but other than that our offense is useless. East Elm loads the box on every play, bringing extra players to clog the running lanes. They’re leaving themselves vulnerable to the pass, but only if we, well, pass.

  And Coach has no interest in doing that.

  It’s not that he’s stubborn. It’s that he’s tough. He’s willing to take the blame for my fears. My cowardice.

  By the end of the half, we’re down 7–0 and I still haven’t attempted a pass.

  The crowd looks like it’s about to riot. Some parents are actually cussing Coach Cole out. They’ve come here to see Jordan Bailey Jr., myth, legend, and YouTube sensation. (Today in school Lance showed me that the highlight video he made for me has over 20,000 hits.)

  But instead of Aaron Rodgers 2.0 hurling the ball all over the field, all they’ve gotten to see is bodies piled at the line of scrimmage.

  Somebody throws their hot chocolate at Coach as we jog into the locker room at the half. He’s still dripping when Tom Mortenson, one of our defensive backs, mutters under his breath: “Maybe a pass would be good.”

  “What’s that, Mortenson?” Coach snaps.

  “Nothing, sir.”

  We’re in the locker room, sitting on the benches. I think it’s going to end there, but then Ahmed Bari, our defensive end, speaks up. “We’re working our butts off on defense, Coach. It’d be nice to get some help.”

  I look around the room at the rest of our defense. Every one of them is breathing loudly. They look completely gassed.

  “Working your butts off, eh?” Coach says. “According to the scoreboard you’ve given up seven points to a mediocre team.” For the first time all week, his face turns its normal shade of red. He sighs. “Look—I get it. Too much is being asked of you. But the truth is, I don’t know what to do about that. This is Bailey’s first time starting. Remember what that felt like for you? Remember how nervous you were?” He’s looking at Ahmed, but I know the message is for everyone. “You were lucky, though. Your job was to hit people. Getting rid of your nerves was easy. Now imagine your first game was at quarterback. And everyone in the stands thinks you’re a walking legend.” He looks to me. “No offense, Bailey, but you’re not a walking legend.”

  “None taken, sir,” I say.

  “No offense again, Bailey, but I for one a
m afraid you’re going to screw up and jeopardize our perfect season.”

  I actually smile. It’s like he’s reading my mind.

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  “So as long as we’re only down a touchdown, my suggestion is we open more holes for our running backs and force more turnovers on defense. That okay with all of you?”

  I’m not sure it is okay with everyone else. Some of them have probably been hoping I’d get to start all season. They’ve bought into Lance’s hype. But they also know this isn’t really an invitation to give feedback.

  “Yes, sir,” they mumble.

  ***

  We get pummeled with more boos on our way back to the field.

  Coach is right, though. So long as we’re within a touchdown, there’s no reason to try a risky pass play. After all, we may have a lot of great athletes on defense, but even if I weren’t a terrified coward, I wouldn’t have anyone to throw to. When he got the job, Coach decided to play a conservative brand of offense, which meant that none of the good athletes went out for wide receiver.

  As long as our defense is in pouncing range, the best strategy is to protect the football and hope East Elm doesn’t.

  In the middle of the third quarter, we’re on offense. We’ve got the ball deep in our own territory. I hand the ball off to our running back, Ben Lester, who charges across the line of scrimmage. I can’t see what happens next. It could be a hand or a helmet that pops the football out of Ben’s arm. However it happens, I see the ball in the air, and I see an East Elm player grab it and go to the ground.

  Their offense now has the ball at our three yard line and four chances to score another touchdown.

  It takes them all four, but they do it.

  The score: East Elm 14, Clover Ridge 0.

  “Bailey!” Coach says. “Listen up. I need to call some pass plays, but I’m not doing it because of them.”

  He’s referring to the fans. Some of them are still yelling, “Let Streak Loose!” Some are yelling much worse.

  “This is the right football decision. I need you—we need you—to throw the ball. Okay?”