Fresh Off the Boat (11 page)

“BRRR, break it down!”

At the end of practice, we’d all get in a big circle and break it down. Coach Rock would yell some random shit and we’d yell back, but I was so tired, I literally passed out on the ground.

“Look at Huang! This guy left it all on the field today, y’all!”

“WHOOP!”

I couldn’t believe it. Coach Rock said something nice about me and the team was cheering.

“Good shit, Huang!”

“Listen up, team! Huang is the smallest guy on the team, but he gave it up today. If we practice like this, we’ll win some damn games this year! So, player of the day today, Eddie Huang, let’s hear it.”

To that point in life, I’d never been more proud of myself. For twelve years, I really never once did anything that made me proud. There were things that made my mom or dad happy, but this was mine. It wasn’t much
to most kids. I mean, I was basically getting recognized for being straight dogshit, ignoring that I was straight dogshit, and doing anything in my power just to maintain my dogshittiness. I think on Urban Dictionary that’s the definition for insanity—or a Michael Bay film. It was just one good day of practice, yet it meant everything to me. There was hope.

The next day, we had another new drill, the Circle. Coach had the whole team form a circle and inside the circle, he’d put a football in between two guys in a three-point stance. When Coach blew the whistle, the two guys would fight as hard as they could to push across the football. It was my favorite drill, all heart. Kwame dominated the defensive line, Dave worked the receivers, and there was this one guy, Friedman, the biggest seventh grader and the only one who had a chance to start. He played offensive line. Friedman should have been the best lineman, but he didn’t always give it his all. In the circle, he’d win, but not as easily as he should.

“Friedman! Huang! In the circle!”

I couldn’t believe it. Coach never let me match up against Friedman. Usually I just went up against the sled or this other kid who sucked so bad I forgot his name. All I remember was that he was so fat his head didn’t fit in the helmet so it looked like he always had bitter-beer face. But Friedman actually started and played in games. I strapped on my helmet and ran to the middle. The whole team was screaming. I had a good day with the Indian Run, but this was different. I was nervous in my stance. As soon as Coach Rock blew the whistle, I clenched my teeth, closed my eyes, dug my feet in the ground, and kept ’em moving. That was a theme with football. I closed my eyes when tackling. I don’t know why but I tried to mentally block everything out and hit the other player as hard as I fucking could.

I COULDN’T BELIEVE
it. “Wooo! That’s how you do it, Huang! Friedman, get your ass up! Let’s go again.”

This time Friedman put up a fight. He got me with a good punch first, but I stayed low and just chopped my feet back and forth. My height became an asset once I learned to move my feet. I won again. I probably got
a little overexcited so Coach brought me back down to earth. Later that day, he had me go against Kwame in a simulation and of course, he crushed me, but not like before. I got pushed back, but I didn’t go flying.

For the next three weeks, literally every day, Coach Rock named me player of the practice. I was an animal. I got my confidence and just kept pushing back furiously with my eyes closed. Other people couldn’t compete. They were playing a game but I treated it like life and death. The zenith was about six weeks into the season. We always played simulated games on Wednesdays, Offense versus Defense, and that day I was lined up against this new kid, Jason, who had transferred from Apopka. He was at least five inches taller than me, with long arms, but he didn’t know how to use them. He had an awkward chicken wing and sucked at setting his feet. I was playing left guard and we usually ran belly right. At that point Coach Rock used me as the rallying cry, but he didn’t actually believe I could play.

Instead of blocking Jason right like the play was supposed to go, I wanted to see if I could blow him off the ball. I faked right, planted, set left, and started pushing him into the linebackers.

“Huang! What are you doing?”

“Coach, we’re not going anywhere right. I can blow this guy off the ball, let’s run left!”

“Hey! You hear this kid?” yelled Coach Rock to his assistant coach.

“What’d that boy say now?”

“He says he can blow your boy Jason off the ball.”

“Oh, yeah? Run that ball left!”

“All right, Huang, belly left, let’s go.”

Coach Rock thought he had me. I was out of line, but we’d developed a rapport and he knew I meant well. But football is a hierarchy. The players don’t change the plays. So Coach Rock figured that he’d play along, tell the defense we’re running left, and I’d get smacked.

“Blue, blue … blue, blue, thirty-two, hut!”

Jason knew we were going left, so I couldn’t fake right. I got as low as I could, gave him a good punch under the shoulder pads before he could set, and just drove him into the strong-side linebacker. My center did his
job and pushed his guy right and Rosado, the running back, came screaming through the hole.

Put your two arms up / touchdown
.
^†

“Wooo, Huang! You son of a bitch! That’s a hole! That is a cot damn hole! You heard this kid call the play in the huddle?”

“You told me, I told them. Still couldn’t stop the play! God damn Huang …”

“I told you, Coach!”

“Shut up, Huang.”

That was the first practice in three weeks where I didn’t get recognized as player of the practice, and I understood why.

I HAD STOPPED
doing homework. I just didn’t care. Football was my life. I didn’t even pay attention to what my mom was cooking. I honestly can’t remember any single item of food that stood out. Every other phase of my life is littered with food memories, but during this time, the only thing I can muster is sesame fried chicken from this takeout spot, Forbidden City. It’s literally American Chinese sesame fried chicken, but these guys figured something out. There wasn’t anything else worth eating there. Even their General Tso’s, which had a similar technique, was nasty. Yet this sesame chicken was ethereal.

It was on the way home from school, so we’d stop by all the time and pick up three orders. One day we went to Forbidden City and I had first-quarter grades in my backpack. My mom was all excited to go so I figured I’d wait till we were in the car and finished eating before showing her my report card. Man, that fucking chicken was good. Evan sat in the front a lot of the time because he was the youngest and my mom wanted to watch him. He was always the last one to finish eating. He didn’t really seem to like food like Emery and me unless we went to Wong’s for pi par tofu.
That was his favorite. Silken tofu mixed with shrimp paste, steamed in soup spoons, fried into golden ovals, and served with brown sauce over rice. Shit was unstoppable.

But then it had to happen.

“Mom, here’s my report card.”

“How’d you do?”

“Good.”

“Evan, read me the report card.”

“I don’t know this word, Mom.”

“What word?”

“The one at the top.”

“Let me see …”

My mom took the report card from Evan.

“That says ‘Progress’ … 
WAN BA DAN!
” (Translation: You piece of shit!)

Mom flipped. I got a C in pre-trigonometry.

“Evan, hit him with this brush!”

My mom gave Evan the big metal hairbrush with copper bristles and told him to hit me with it, but I just kept ducking.

“Ha, ha, Eddie’s scared of the brush.”

“Emery! No one is talking to you. Where’s your report card?”

“I don’t have one, Mom, my class just has stickers.”

“Well, stop talking, then, Emery! Eddie, hit yourself in the face!”

“Mom, what’s progress?”

“Evan, shut up! You think this is funny, huh? I’ll kill us all!”

My mom drove this ridiculous Starcraft van that couldn’t turn without looking like a club sandwich falling apart. When we fucked up, she’d purposely swerve the car in and out of lanes to make it feel like we were going to get in an accident. I honestly don’t know how we survived this three times a year, but we did. Evan always started crying, I would go quiet and get really annoyed, and Emery would laugh ’cause that’s what Emery does.

While this was going on, she’d lower the window so other people could see, and I’d have to slap myself in the face the whole ride home. It was the most embarrassing shit I had to do as a kid. If I didn’t hit myself
hard enough, she’d have Emery slap me, too. But that motherfucker had way too much fun doing it and my mom would end up smacking him when we got home, too.

Of course, there was Emery, as always next to me getting hit, with no front teeth,
^‡
smiling the whole time. My parents always wanted things to be serious and the kids to be remorseful, but Emery loved drama, fights, jokes, etc. Anything irregular, that kid was all about it. If anyone in the family had off-kilter romances, strange habits, or skeletons in their closet, Emery was most excited to recount them. Things like supermodels with athlete’s foot interest Emery. He wasn’t a gossip; he just saw everyone for the weirdos they were and not the normal people they pretended to be. So when the fucked-up shit came to the surface, he rejoiced. Eddie vs. Pre-Trig, Tyson vs. Holyfield, Tiger vs. Ambient? He loves that shit.

“You think this is funny, huh? I’m taking you off the football team!”

“You can’t take me off the team!”

“Oh, yeah? Who’s going to pick you up from school?”

“I’ll get a ride from Dave!”

My mom called Dave’s mom and Coach Rock; I was off the team, just like that. I didn’t think anyone would care. Despite all of Coach Rock’s cheering during practice, I never played in a game. Yet, when I told my friends Peter and Andrew, they reacted differently.

“What? You can’t quit!”

“I’m not quitting, man, my mom told Coach not to let me play.”

“Dude, Coach is gonna flip.”

“He never even lets me play in the game, man. You guys will be fine.”

“Who do you think he’s been talking about all season? Every day he tells us to practice like you.”

“So practice like me, ha, ha. Just run until you puke.”

For two weeks, I didn’t get to play. I just sat around at home doing math homework and hung out with Dave when he got home. That Thursday, around 8
P.M.
, the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Is Mrs. Huang available?”

“Coach Rock? Hey, man!”

“Eddie, put your mom on the damn phone.”

“Mom! It’s Coach Rock!”

“What the hell does he want? He ruined your life!”

My mom took math pretty seriously and was sick of football, but Coach Rock had a way. He was actually the advanced math teacher for eighth and ninth graders so he talked to the seventh grade teachers about my troubles. I wasn’t even doing that badly. I mean, I got C’s. He really respected my mom. Most parents put sports before academics, so it was refreshing.

“Mom! What’d Coach say?”

“He say you work hard at football. But you don’t work hard at math.”

“I
can
work hard at math, though!”

“He says he guarantee you work hard at math so I let you play football.”

That Friday, I came back to the team. I walked into the classroom where we usually had the pregame meeting and it was all dark. They had just finished screening
Rudy
.

“Eddie’s back, guys!”

It was insane. Motion picture shit. We never watched movies before games, but Coach always talked about
Rudy
. I don’t remember much about that moment or what was said because I was just so fucking happy to be back and wanted to get to the game. We strapped on our helmets and ran onto the field. That game, even my dad was in the stands. I don’t know what Coach Rock told my parents or the team, but something was in the Gatorade. It was my first game Pops ever came to and the whole team seemed to be in on something. With one minute left in the fourth quarter, Coach Rock called my name.

“Huang! Get in there! Right defensive tackle, let’s go!”

The offensive and defensive linemen all lost their shit. We were a unit and I was the little guy. Kwame, Dave, and this other big guy who played left tackle started the cheer.

“Eddie, Eddie, Eddie …”

That shit was craze. Coach Rock basically recreated
Rudy
with a short, fat defensive tackle that should have been in
Karate Kid
. I was so excited, I lined up over the wrong guy. I was supposed to be lined up over the guard and I lined up over the center. They saw I was out of position so they ran the ball my direction, but, somehow, some way, I came off the ball faster than I’d ever fired in my whole life. There I was in the back-field, past the whole line, staring at the quarterback. I should have just tackled the fucker, but I was so used to tackling running backs that I waited for him to hand the ball off so I could hit the running back. He saw me in the hole so he cut right and our defensive end gang tackled him with me.

“Ahhh! We got him, Huang!”

By this time, the whole stadium was screaming my name and we just went nuts. I stayed in for two more plays, until the game ended. We ran straight toward the locker room, but there was my dad at the side of the field.

“Ha, ha, you suck, man!”

“What do you mean I suck! Everyone was cheering for me, Dad!”

“You should have tackled the quarterback! You let him hand the ball off, ha, ha.”

I always believed him when he said I sucked … but this time, just this once, I knew he was wrong. He had to be. I played a logic game in my head. Like that shit teachers told you about philosophers and snub noses; I took my dad’s assumption. If I tried my best, puked my guts out, did my math homework, and fired off the line as fast as I possibly could and STILL sucked, I should probably die on the spot right there. But I didn’t want to drop dead. I mean come on! I was having the best ten minutes of my life. Even if I sucked, who cares?! We lost the game, but the whole stadium was cheering my name. Shit, our whole team stunk, but we went out there every week and had a really good fucking time. I didn’t have an abacus like Grandpa, but I was pretty confident in my calculation. Either my dad was wrong or he didn’t matter. For the first time, I thought to myself, Even Dad can’t ruin this for me, and then I ran to the locker room where my teammates were waiting for me.