Football Hero (2008) (5 page)

“GUS TELLS ME YOUR
brother wants to spend a little quality time with you,” Lucy said. “Take you to the NFL draft?”

Ty glanced at Uncle Gus and nodded.

“So I think that’d be a good idea,” Lucy said. “Truth is, I’m a big fan of Tiger’s. I’d like to meet him, make him feel welcome to come here any time. I heard them talking on WFAN that he might be the first pick of the Jets. Imagine that? He’d be pretty close by, right? So I’m thinking, hey, why couldn’t he be kind of a regular here?”

Lucy slapped Uncle Gus’s back and then gripped his neck while he poked his big belly with the curved end of the crowbar. “So I got your uncle here to let you have your little ESPN outing. How’s that for the
beginning of a friendship between you and me? Pretty nice guy, huh?”

The red spot on Lucy’s face glared at Ty, practically demanding to be looked at. Ty forced himself to stare into Lucy’s dark, empty eyes.

“Yes,” he said in a small squeak.

“That’s right,” Lucy said. “Just like your fairy godmother or something, sending you to the ball.”

Lucy waved the crowbar like a wand. Uncle Gus forced a smile that lasted until Lucy let go of his neck.

Without thinking, Ty said, “I’d have a lot more to talk about with my brother if Uncle Gus thought it was okay for me to play in the spring passing scrimmage tomorrow.”

“What’s the spring passing scrimmage?” Lucy asked.

“They have spring football at Halpern Middle,” Ty said, avoiding his uncle’s eyes. “I’m pretty fast.”

Lucy held up his empty hand and jabbed a loose fist at Ty. Ty ducked instinctively and circled right back up. Lucy grinned.

“Not bad,” he said, patting Ty’s shoulder before he turned his attention to Uncle Gus. “Why can’t he play tomorrow? I like the idea.”

Uncle Gus sputtered for a moment before he said, “No reason at all. I didn’t know he wanted to. Sure.”

Lucy winked at Ty. “All right. Go on. I’ll see you Monday.”

On their way out, Mike looked up from the grill, where two hamburger patties sizzled.

“Gus, how about a fresh donut?” Mike asked.

“Running late,” Uncle Gus said, waving him off.

“Thanks, Mike. Next time.”

Ty shrugged at the big cook and hurried outside.

“Cute, kid. Real cute,” Uncle Gus said as he started up his truck. “Fairy godmother, my butt.”

Uncle Gus didn’t talk about the ESPN draft show all night, but when they finally got home around midnight, he told Charlotte to go inside without them. Ty watched Aunt Virginia come out to greet Charlotte with a kiss as she climbed the stack of cinder blocks. Then the two of them disappeared through the front door. Outside the truck, the crickets chirped. The moon shone down, glimmering off the hood until a cloud swept across it, leaving them alone in the green glow of the dashboard clock.

“You ever see
The Godfather
?” Uncle Gus asked. A small piece of American cheese clung to one of the bristles above his lip.

Ty shook his head. “That’s rated R.”

“Probably not
The Sopranos
either, huh?” Uncle Gus said.

“I know what it’s about,” Ty said. “Before I moved down here, my friend Noah told me about that show ’cause he said that’s where I was going. North Jersey, right?”

“North Jersey, yeah,” Uncle Gus said.

“The mafia.”

“Killers, thieves, thugs, drug runners.”

Ty kept quiet.

“We don’t want those kind of people mad at us, right?” Uncle Gus said.

“No.”

“Or mad at your brother,” Uncle Gus said. “So all the stuff about Tiger meeting Lucy and maybe hanging out there once in a while? That’s secret stuff, get it? You don’t talk about it, not with anyone. Especially not Tiger.”

“Okay,” Ty said.

“You just let it happen. You say something about Lucy being connected to the mafia and Tiger says something, like to a reporter or a cop?” Uncle Gus frowned and shook his head. “You don’t know what kind of bad things could happen. But I can count on you, right?”

“Yes.”

Uncle Gus put a hand on Ty’s leg and Ty pulled away instinctively.

“Okay, then,” Uncle Gus said. “Go to bed.”

“I can play tomorrow?” Ty asked, opening the truck door and dropping to the ground.

Uncle Gus gripped the steering wheel, narrowed his close-set milky eyes at Ty, and asked, “What makes you think you can just show up and play? You
went to one practice. You think you can just show up?”

“Maybe,” Ty said. “Coach V likes me.”

“Yeah, well, I doubt that’s gonna matter,” Uncle Gus said, offering up a mean smile. “But I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

SATURDAY MORNING DAWNED GRAY
and damp, but Ty bounced out of bed and eagerly split half a cord of wood before Aunt Virginia called him inside to eat what was left of the stiffened oatmeal in her saucepan. Afterward, Ty whistled a tune while he helped Uncle Gus change the oil in the pickup truck, even though he had to lie down in the mud and slide in under the truck to catch the dirty oil in an empty milk carton. After a late lunch of Uncle Gus’s half-eaten leftover ham sandwich, Ty ran out to use the Porta Potti, then retreated to the laundry room, where he washed his hands and laced his shoes up tight.

When he returned to the kitchen, he was disturbed to see Uncle Gus out in the living room, sitting in his
chair, popping open a beer can, and growling at the baseball game.

“Uncle Gus,” he said timidly. “The game’s at two.”

Uncle Gus looked at his watch and scratched the thatch of gray and white hair on his head. “Well, it’s in the top of the last inning. You can be a little late.”

He sipped at his beer and Ty retreated, walking slowly backward into the kitchen. Aunt Virginia looked up from the sink while her hands continued to scrub a pot.

“What’s that look for?” she said. “You crying?”

“No,” Ty said with an angry sniff, pushing up his glasses.

“Well, what’s wrong?” she asked. “He’s letting you go with your brother, I heard.”

“I was supposed to play in the spring scrimmage,” he said quietly so his uncle couldn’t hear him.

“What scrimmage?”

“Football. There’s a spring passing scrimmage. Uncle Gus said I could go.”

“
Uncle Gus said I could go,
” she said in a whiney imitation of him. “I thought girls were supposed to be the difficult ones. Your cousin never gives us this kind of grief. Where do you think she is right now? In her room reading, that’s where. Not making any trouble. Oh, stop looking like that, will you?”

Aunt Virginia removed her hands from the soapy water and picked up a towel, wiping them clean as
she walked through the doorway to the living room.

“Gus?” she said. “Gus! Take this boy to his game, would you?”

“I’m watching
baseball
. I said, when I’m done.”

“They ain’t gonna hold the game for this skinny chicken. Take him now before I bust an artery looking at him. I can’t stand those puppy eyes.”

Uncle Gus glanced at the window and said, “It’s raining.”

“They
play
football in the rain.”

Aunt Virginia marched right into the middle of the room, snapped off the TV, and turned to face Uncle Gus with her hands on her wide hips. Her face was as red as her hands, and a wisp of her frizzy hair had escaped from behind one ear to hang at an angle across one of the big lenses of her owl glasses. Uncle Gus grumbled, but up he got and disappeared into the bedroom. Ty heard the rattle of his key chain, and he dashed into the living room to give Aunt Virginia a quick hug before bursting through the front door and scurrying to the truck.

Uncle Gus didn’t talk, but he brought his beer can with him, sipping at it from time to time and belching with a wide mouth in Ty’s direction. When they pulled up to the back of the school, the football team had already spread out on the field to stretch. Small clusters of parents in lawn chairs had set themselves up along the sideline. Some carried umbrellas. Others
sat in the small wooden bleachers under bright-colored rain ponchos. Coach V stood in the center of it all wearing a Rutgers cap and blowing on his whistle.

Ty hopped out into the drizzle as soon as Uncle Gus pulled over to the curb.

“Nobody’s wearing any pads,” Uncle Gus said.

“It’s two-hand touch,” Ty said. “Just a scrimmage. Passing only.”

Uncle Gus grumbled something about dancing around like a bunch of fairies, then said, “I’ll be at the Iron Horse Pub. You can walk over there when you’re done. It’s in the center of town, next to the hotel.”

Ty grinned at him. “Thanks, Uncle Gus.”

He slammed the door and sprinted across the grass, dropping down into a hurdler’s stretch in the back row, soaking his pants through instantly in the wet grass. Ty followed along with the others. The kids around him stared, but Coach V headed toward Ty and everyone looked away.

Ty stood with the team and reached down for his toes, counting to ten. At seven, he saw Coach V’s shoes stop on the grass in front of him.

“Ty,” the coach said, “what are you doing?”

Ty looked up and blinked at the tiny drops that spattered his glasses. “Stretching.”

“I know that.”

“For the passing scrimmage.”

Coach V looked off into the gray sky, nodding his
head. “You weren’t here all week. You said you couldn’t play. Now you show up for the scrimmage?”

“I got permission,” Ty said, straightening and talking fast. “I worked hard all week. My brother’s coming in tonight for the draft. He’s taking me into the city with him. I said it would give us something to talk about and my uncle—well, actually, Lucy. My uncle works for him. He’s a man. Lucy. He said it was a good idea and so…here I am.”

“Here you are,” Coach V said, raising his eyebrows above his mirrored glasses. “Okay. You don’t know the plays.”

“You could just tell me, right?” Ty said. “Or I could just run past the defense every time and go for a touchdown.”

“Just run past, huh?”

“I’m fast, right?”

Coach V puckered his mouth. “Well, let’s see how it goes. Finish stretching.”

Ty paced the sideline behind Coach V, wiping his glasses from time to time on the inside of his shirt. The team had been split into two groups, blue and gold, with one of Coach V’s assistants calling plays for the blue team from the opposite side of the field. Players wore pinnies that matched the color of their teams. Calvin West played right cornerback for the blue defense, and Ty couldn’t help but watch him.

Every play, Calvin would walk right up to the receiver on his side of the field and knock him around as soon as the ball was snapped, jamming the receiver in the chest with both hands, disrupting any chance of getting out into the pass pattern on time. As a result, even though they had Michael Poyer as their quarterback, Ty’s gold team was behind 41–35 when the whistle blew, signaling the end of the third quarter. They needed a touchdown. Ty’s shirt and pants clung to his body, soaked by the light rain.

When the gold team got the ball back, Ty couldn’t keep himself from tapping Coach V on the back. The coach spun around, and Ty realized that he still wore his sunglasses, even in the rain.

“What?” the coach said with a growl. “Oh, Lewis. Yeah, go in. Play the Z.”

“Should I just run past him?” Ty asked, holding his glasses out to the coach.

“If you can,” the coach said. “What am I supposed to do with those?”

“Can you put them in your pocket?” Ty asked, handing over the glasses.

Coach V took them, then turned his attention to Michael Poyer, who was already out on the field. Coach V used a series of hand signals to give Poyer the play and Ty ran for the huddle.

The field had been torn up pretty good by the other players’ cleats, and Ty’s own sneakers squelched in
the mud. He stepped tentatively into the small huddle—six instead of the usual eleven because they played the passing scrimmage without any linemen. He placed his hands on his knees like the rest of his teammates.

“Right Pro Right, 719, boot pass at eight on two,” Poyer said.

“Ready,” they all said together, “break!”

Ty hustled to the line and stared up at Calvin. Calvin grinned wide when he recognized Ty, and he flexed his fingers up in the air for Ty to see. Ty tucked in his lower lip and clamped down. He breathed hard through his nose, planning the quick move—faking one way, then darting back the other—that he would use to leave Calvin in his tracks.

Poyer snapped the ball.

Ty ducked, then darted. Calvin struck him dead center in his chest with both hands.

TY’S SNEAKERS SLIPPED OUT
from under him and down he went, flat on his back. Calvin grabbed his own mouth and howled, doubling over and pointing at Ty as Michael Poyer threw the ball wildly up into the air for an interception.

Calvin ran and grabbed a teammate, pointing at Ty and continuing to howl. Ty hopped up, slipped again, and tumbled back down into the mud. His hands and face were slick and cool with it. This time, he got up slower and jogged to the sideline as the gold defense streamed out onto the field. He looked at Coach V, who simply twisted his mouth up and shook his head.

“That’s okay, buddy,” the coach said. “Don’t worry. Football’s not for everyone.”

Ty stumbled, suddenly dizzy enough so that he felt
behind him for the wooden plank of the bench and sat down.

One Saturday when Ty was just ten, he and his parents watched Thane drop a pass in the end zone that lost the game for Syracuse. In a sea of fifty thousand people dressed in orange and blue, Ty and his parents were the only ones who didn’t boo. Tears blurred Ty’s image of the faces in the crowd as his parents dragged him out through the waves of growling fans who spilled from the stadium. The next day, Sunday, while his parents visited a friend in the hospital, Thane showed up at the house unexpectedly with a big bag of laundry.

“Thought I’d clean some clothes,” Thane said. “You okay?”

“I’m okay,” Ty said. He followed his brother downstairs into the basement, where their mom kept the washing machine.

“You don’t look okay,” Thane said, glancing back as he stuffed some clothes into the machine.

“I just feel bad. That’s all.”

“About the game?” Thane asked, turning to his wash.

“The same people who cheer, now they’re booing at you?” Ty said. “That’s not right.”

Thane surprised him with a smile. “That’s the game.”

Thane let the top of the machine fall closed with a
bang. He turned around and knelt down in front of Ty, putting his hands on his shoulders, the smell of laundry soap heavy in the air.

“Yesterday? That stinks, but football is about getting up,” Thane said, his hazel eyes glinting even in the dim light. “Anyone could do it if you caught touchdown passes every time and the crowd cheered for you in the end zone. That’s not what makes you a football player.

“What makes you a football player is getting up after you get knocked down, or going out to catch another pass after you just dropped one. The harder the hit, or the worse the drop, the more important it is to keep going. That’s the game. That’s what a real football player does. If you can’t do that, then you shouldn’t play.”

Ty sprang up off the bench. He poked Coach V in the ribs until he looked down.

“Put me back in, Coach,” he said. “I can do it.”

Coach V hesitated.

“Everyone gets knocked down,” Ty said. “It’s about getting up.”

A smile crept into the corners of the coach’s lips.

“Okay,” he said, “go.”

Ty slipped out of his shoes and stripped off his socks.

“What are you—” Coach V started to say.

Before he could finish, Ty sprinted out into the huddle and tapped the Z receiver on the back, telling the boy that Coach V had sent him in.

Then he looked at Poyer and said, “Run the nine.”

The quarterback looked at Ty’s bare feet, then to the sideline.

“Run it!” Ty said. “I’ll be open.”

“Let’s go!” Coach V shouted with his hands cupped around his mouth.

Poyer called the play and Ty sprinted to the line, setting his feet and looking back in at the quarterback. From the corner of his eye, he saw Calvin saunter up with his hands on his hips.

“Looking to get knocked on your butt again?” Calvin asked.

Ty scowled and set his mouth.

“Oooh, I’m scared,” Calvin said. “You look so mean. You shoeless beggar.”

Ty clenched his hands, then flexed his fingers as Poyer started his cadence. At the snap, Ty darted inside, turning his shoulders to narrow the target Calvin could punch at. A hand grazed Ty’s back and he slipped by, surging up the field. Two steps later, he felt a jolt in his neck and he was nearly yanked off his feet.

Calvin had grabbed hold of his gold pinnie—illegal, but effective.

Ty leaned forward and kept digging in his feet,
despite the sharp pain in his throat.

A loud rip set him free. Calvin looked at the torn pinnie a moment too long. Ty sprang forward and sprinted toward the end zone. An instant later, the ball was in the air, a long, high arc, too far for Ty to reach.

Then, he found something deep, another gear, another surge of energy, of speed.

Ty ran as fast as he could run. His lungs burned and his joints seemed to melt. He looked back.

The ball came down fast.