Black Evening Page 16

But it's funny. I guess you can get used to anything. Monday morning, I felt awful. I mean really wretched. There wasn't a part of me that didn't ache.

  And Tuesday morning was worse. I don't want to remember Wednesday morning. Plus, we didn't hang around the Chicken Nest anymore or go down to my rec room, playing records. We didn't have time. And I felt so tired all I wanted to do was watch the tube.

  But I had to hit the books. Every night after supper, Joey phoned to make sure I was studying. What I missed most were those cherry Cokes and fries, but Coach Hayes insisted we stay off them. We could eat spaghetti but no mashed potatoes, beef was okay but the next day had to be chicken or fish. My mother went crazy trying to figure out the menus. For the life of me, I didn't understand the diet. But along about Saturday, after a week of tryouts, I started feeling not too bad. Oh, I still ached, but it was a different kind of ache. Solid and tight, pulling me in. And my mind felt brighter, clearer.

  The first quiz I took I got an A.

  Two Sundays later, Coach Hayes lined us up after our workout. The bunch of us stood there facing him, breathing hard, sweating.

  "Freddie," Coach Hayes told the kid beside me. "Sorry. You just don't have enough weight. The West High team'd mash you into the field. Maybe next year. For what it's worth, you're nimble enough to get on the track team." He shifted his glance. "Pete, you'd make a good tackle. Harry, I like the way you block."

  And so on. Down until only Joey and I were left.

  Coach Hayes spread his legs, put his hands on his hips and scowled. "As for you two guys, I've never seen a more miserable pair of…"

  Joey made a choking sound.

  "But I guess you'll do."

  Joey breathed out sharply.

  I cheered.

  ***

  "We made it." Joey grinned with excitement. "I can't believe we're on the team!"

  We stood on the corner where we always separated going home.

  I laughed. "It's the first thing I ever really tried for."

  "And got! We're on the team!"

  "I owe you. I couldn't have done it without you," I said.

  "Same goes here."

  "But I'd have quit if you hadn't…"

  "Naw. I was close to quitting a couple times myself," Joey said.

  I didn't think so. He'd wanted it more than I had.

  "I'd better go. My Mom'll have supper ready," I said.

  "Yeah, mine will, too. I'll meet you a half hour early tomorrow so we can study for that science quiz."

  "You bet." I didn't add what I was thinking.

  Joey added it for me. "Now comes the hard part."

  ***

  He was right. What we'd been doing until then was only exercises and sloppy scrimmage. Now we really got down to business.

  "I've diagrammed these plays for you to memorize." Coach Hayes aimed a pointer against a blackboard in the social studies room after Monday's final bell. "I'll soon give you plenty more. You'll have to learn about game psychology, how to fake out the other team. And you'll have to build team spirit. That's as important as anything else. I want you guys to hang around with each other, go to movies together, eat lunch together. I want you all to understand each other until you can guess what Joey or Pete or Danny will do on the field. Anticipate each other. That's the secret."

  But Coach Hayes had another secret. I didn't learn about it until our first game, and that was two weeks away. In the meantime, the pressure kept building. Harder longer exercise sessions. Practice games until my shoulder ached so bad I thought I'd dislocate it throwing the ball.

  That's right. Throwing the ball. I guess Coach Hayes had been more impressed with us than he let on. After trying different guys in different positions, he'd actually picked me as a quarterback and Joey as a receiver.

  "You two think alike. Let's see if you can make it work for you."

  Sure, I was proud. But there were still grades to keep up and even more plays to memorize. I had no time to think about Rebecca Henderson. The school, the team, and winning were all Coach Hayes told us mattered.

  ***

  Six-thirty Friday night, we showed up at the locker room and put on our uniforms. I felt shaky already. The other guys hardly spoke. Their faces were pale. Coach Hayes didn't help any when he started bitching about how good the other team was.

  "Covington High's gonna stomp us. You guys aren't ready. You look like a bunch of losers. Eight winning seasons, and now I'm stuck being nursemaid to a bunch of sissies. I can't take the embarrassment of going out there with you. Pussies."

  He went on like that, sounding meaner, more insulting as he went along until he had us so mad I wanted to shout at him to shut the fuck up. I knew what he was doing — using psychology to work us up, so we'd take out our anger on the other team — but all of us respected Coach Hayes so much and wanted him to like us so much that hearing him put us down made me feel like we'd been fools. You bastard, I thought.

  Joey kept glancing from Coach Hayes to me, his face in pain.

  At once the insults stopped. Coach Hayes glared and nodded. "All right." He walked to a wooden cabinet at the far end of the room.

  It was always locked. I'd often wondered what was in there. Now he put a key in the lock and turned it, and behind me I heard a kid who'd been on last year's team whisper, "Mumbo Jumbo."

  Next to me, Joey straightened. Those who'd been on last year's team started fidgeting, and somebody else whispered, "Mumbo Jumbo."

  Coach Hayes opened the cabinet's door. I couldn't see what was in there because he stood in front of it, his back to us.

  Then he slowly stepped away.

  Several guys breathed in.

  I was looking at a statue. It wasn't big, a foot tall if that. Maybe four inches thick. Pale brown, like the color of a cardboard box. It was made from some kind of stone, not shiny and smooth but dull and gritty-looking, like the stone was sand squeezed together. It had tiny holes here and there.

  The statue was a man, distorted, creepy. He had a round bald head and huge bulging lips. His stomach was so swollen he looked pregnant. He sat with his legs crossed, his hands in his lap so they hid his dong. His navel was an upright slit. He reminded me of pictures I'd seen of Chinese idols. But he also reminded me of those weird statues on Easter Island (we'd studied some of this in history class) and those ugly ones in ruins in Mexico. You know, the Aztecs, the Mayans and all that.

  The guys who'd been on last year's team didn't act surprised, but they sure looked spellbound. The rest of us didn't know what the hell was going on.

  "Boys, I'd better explain. For our new members anyhow. This is… I don't know what you'd call him. Our mascot, I suppose. Or maybe better, our team's good luck charm."

  "Mumbo Jumbo," a kid from last year murmured.

  "For quite a few years now, we've gone through a little ritual before each game." Coach Hayes slid a table into the middle of the room. Its legs scraped on the concrete floor. "Just as we're going out to play, I set the statue on this table. We walk around it twice. We each put our right hand on the statue's head. Then we go out there, kick the other team's butt, and win."

  What kind of shit is this? I thought.

  Coach Hayes seemed to read my mind. "Oh, sure, I know it's silly. Childish." He grinned in embarrassment. "But I've been having the team do it so often now, and we've had so many winning seasons, I'm almost afraid to stop. Mind you, I don't think for a second that touching old Mumbo Jumbo's head does us any good. But well, when you've got a good thing going, why change the pattern? It's not as if I'm superstitious. But maybe some of you guys are. Maybe stopping the ritual would throw off your timing. Why not leave well enough alone?"

  He studied us, letting what he'd said sink in. Boy, I thought, he doesn't miss a trick. Anything to psych us up. For Christ's sake, a lucky statue.

  "There's just one other thing. A few outsiders might not understand the odd things we sometimes have to do to gear ourselves up for a game. They might object to what they thought was… w
ho knows what?… voodoo or something. So we've always had this rule. No one talks about Mumbo Jumbo outside this room. We don't give away our little secrets."

  I understood now why I hadn't heard about the statue before, even from the guys who'd been on last year's team. In a way, Joey and I hadn't been officially on the team until tonight when we went out to play.

  "I mean it," Coach Hayes said. "If any of you guys blab about this, I'll boot you off the team." He glared. "Do I have your word?"

  A few guys mumbled, "Sure."

  "I didn't hear you. Say it! Promise!"

  We did what he said.

  "Louder!"

  We shouted it.

  "All right." Coach Hayes took the statue from the cabinet and set it on the table. Up close, the thing looked even uglier.

  We walked around it twice, put our right hand on its head (I felt stupid as hell), then ran out onto the football field and —

  ***

  This is what happened. I didn't believe it then. Now, through the haze of all these years, I try to convince myself that my memory's playing tricks. But it happened. That's the terrible part, deep down knowing the truth, but too late.

  Five minutes into the game, no score, Coach Hayes sent me out as quarterback. In the huddle, I called a passing play, nothing fancy, just something basic to get the feel of being in the game. So we got set. I grabbed the ball, and all of a sudden it wasn't like in practice. This was the real thing, what all the pain and throwing up and weeks of work had been about, and Covington High's players looked like they wanted to kick in my teeth and make me swallow them. Our receivers ran out. Covington's interceptors stayed with them. My heart thundered. Frantic, I skipped back to get some room and gain some time, straining to see if anybody was in the open. Covington's blockers charged at me. It couldn't have taken five seconds, but it seemed even shorter, like a flash. A swirl of bodies lunged at me. My hands felt sweaty on the ball. Slick. I had the terrible fear I was going to drop it.

  Then I saw Joey. He'd managed to get in the open. He was sprinting toward Covington's goal line, on the left, glancing back across his shoulder, hands up, wanting the ball. I snapped back my arm and shot the ball forward, perfect, exactly the way Coach Hayes had taught me, one smooth powerful motion.

  And pivoted sideways so I wouldn't get crushed by Covington's blockers, staring at the ball spinning through the air like a bullet, my heart in my throat, shouting to Joey.

  And that's when I froze. I don't think I've ever felt that cold. My blood was like ice, my spine packed with snow. Because that end of the field, to the left, near Covington's goal line, was empty. Joey wasn't there. Nobody was.

  But I'd seen him. I'd aimed the ball to him. I swear to God he'd been there. How the —

  Joey was over to the right, streaking away from Covington's men, suddenly in the open. To this day, I still don't know how he gained so much yardage so fast. In a rush, he was charging toward the left, toward the goal line.

  And that ball fell in his hands so easily, so neatly…

  The fans assumed we'd planned it, a fakeout tactic, a brilliant play. Coach Hayes later said the same, or claimed he believed it. When Joey sprinted across the goal line, holding the ball up in triumph, the kids from our school broke out in a cheer so loud I didn't hear it as much as feel it, like a wall of sound shoving against me, pressing me.

  I threw up my hands, yelling to get rid of my excitement. But I knew. It wasn't any fakeout play. It wasn't brilliant. It had almost been a massive screwup. But it had worked. Almost as if…

  (I saw Joey there. I know it. On the left, near the goal line. Except he hadn't been there.)

  … as if we'd intended it to happen. Or it had been meant to happen.

  Or we'd been unbelievably lucky.

  I started shaking then. I couldn't stop. I wasn't steady enough to play for the next ten minutes. Sitting on the bench, I kept seeing the play again in my mind, Joey in two spots at once.

  Maybe I hoped so hard that I saw what I'd pray I see.

  But it felt spooky.

  Coach Hayes came over to where I hunched on the bench. "Something the matter?"

  I clutched my helmet. "I guess I'm just not used to…" What? "… a real game instead of practice. I've never helped score a touchdown before."

  "You'll help score plenty more."

  I felt a tingle in my gut.

  ***

  The game was full of miracles like that. Plays that shouldn't have worked but they did. Incredible timing. With five minutes to go in the game and the score 35 to nothing in our favor, Coach Hayes walked along our bench and murmured to the defensive squad, "The next time they're close to our goal line, let them score. Hold back, but don't make it obvious."

  Joey and I frowned at each other.

  "But — " somebody said.

  "No buts. Do what you're told," Coach Hayes said. "It's demoralizing for them if they don't get at least a few points. We want to let them feel they had a chance. Good sportsmanship."

  Nobody dared to argue with him. Our defensive squad sure looked troubled, though.

  "And be convincing," Coach Hayes said.

  And that's why Covington scored when our guys failed to stop an end run.

  ***

  The school had an after-game dance in the gym. Everybody kept coming up to me and Joey and the rest of the team, congratulating us, slapping us on the back. Rebecca Henderson even agreed to dance with me. But she'd come with some girlfriends and wouldn't let me take her home. "Maybe next time," she said.

  Believe it or not, I didn't mind. In fact, I was so preoccupied I didn't remember to ask her out for Saturday night. What I wanted to do was talk to Joey. By ourselves.

  A little after midnight, we started home. A vague smell of autumn in the air. Smoke from somebody's fireplace. Far off, a dog barked, the only sound except for the scrape of our shoes as we walked along. I shoved my hands in the pockets of my green-and-gold varsity jacket and finally said what was on my mind. "Our first play? When I threw you the ball and you scored?"

  Joey didn't answer right away. I almost repeated what I'd said.

  "Yeah, what about it?" His voice was soft.

  I told him what I thought I'd seen.

  "The coach says we think alike." Joey shrugged. "What he calls anticipation. You guessed that's where I was headed."

  "Sure. It's just…" I turned to him. "We won so easily."

  "Hey, I've got bruises on my — "

  "I don't mean we didn't work. But we were so damned lucky. Everything clicked together."

  "That's why Coach Hayes kept drilling us. To play as a team. All the guys did what they'd been taught to do."

  "Like clockwork. Yeah. Everybody in the right place at the right time."

  "So what's bugging you? You thought you saw me in one place while I was in another? You're not the only one who thought he was seeing things. When we started that play, I saw you snap the ball toward that empty slot in the field, so I faked out the guy covering me and ran like hell to get there ahead of the ball. Know what? As I started running, I suddenly realized you hadn't even thrown the ball yet. You were still looking for an opening. I saw what you were going to do, not what you'd already done."

  I felt a chill.

  "Anticipation. No big deal. Hell, luck had nothing to do with it. Coach Hayes had us psyched up. The old adrenaline started burning. I ran to where I guessed you'd throw."

  I tried to look convinced. "It must be I'm not used to all the excitement."

  "Yeah, the excitement."

  Even in the dark, his eyes glowed.

  ***

  "There's a lot of room for improvement," Coach Hayes said at Saturday's game analysis. "We missed a chance for at least two interceptions. Our blocking's got to be quicker, harder."

  He surprised me. The score had been so misbalanced, our plays so nearly perfect, I figured we'd done as well as we could.

  He made the team practice Sunday afternoon and every day after school. "Just
because we won our first game doesn't mean we can afford to slack off. Overconfidence makes losers."

  We still had to stay on that crazy diet of his. In my fantasies, I dreamed of mountains of cherry Cokes and fries with ketchup. For sure, we had to keep our grades up. The end of the week, he went around to all our teachers and asked how we'd done on our quizzes. "Let your studies slide," he warned us, "and you don't play."

  Friday night, we packed our equipment in the school bus and drove across town to meet West High. We used the girls' locker room in the gym, and after we'd dressed, Coach Hayes insulted us again. He set down a small wooden case (it had a big lock on it) in the middle of the room, opened it, and took out Mumbo Jumbo. The thing looked twice as ugly as before, scowling with those big bulging lips and that upright slit for a navel.

  But we knew the routine and walked around it twice and put a hand on the statue's head (I still felt stupid). Then we went out and won forty-two to seven. That seven wouldn't have happened except that again Coach Hayes made us let them score a touchdown. And again that spooky thing happened. Coach Hayes let me play in the second quarter. I got the ball and looked for an opening. There was Joey, far down the field, ready to catch it. And there was Joey, twenty yards in front of where I saw him, trying to get away from a West High player.

  My mouth hung open. My hands felt numb. I couldn't breathe. At once something snapped inside me, and the next thing I knew I'd thrown the ball.

  Joey raced from where he'd been trying to dodge the West High player. He ran toward the other Joey who was in the open. The two Joeys came together. And of course he caught the ball.

  Our fans went nuts, screaming, cheering.

  Joey crossed the goal line and jumped up and down. Even halfway down the field, despite the noise, I heard him whoop. Our guys were slapping me on the ass. I tried to look as excited as they were.

  The next time I walked to our bench, Coach Hayes said, "Nice pass."