Losers Take All (15 page)

“It's good,” I told Becca, smiling for the first time that evening.

“We're not the only ones who think so,” she said. “Look.”

We'd gotten over ten thousand views in just a couple of hours.

She showed me how nysportsgod.com, one of the biggest sports blogs in the area, had already linked to the video and written a scathing post about Muhldinger and the insults he'd hurled at a bunch of high school students. When that blog post appeared, Becca said, the number of video views had jumped from the hundreds to the thousands in just fifteen minutes.

“Ten thousand people have watched us stink up a soccer field?” I asked Becca.

She glanced at the computer. “Four thousand in the last half hour. It's getting attention on Twitter, too. And the second most tweeted-about part of the clip is your goal.”

It came near the end. First, Muhldinger thundered: “There's no room for improvement because I'm pulling the plug on this pathetic experiment in losing.”

As if to contradict him, there I was, outrunning the defense and scoring the goal with a wicked low shot, and then turning to my team with both arms upraised.

“I hate to say it but you look just like your dad when he scored that touchdown in the state championship,” Becca told me. “Same eyes, same pose.”

“Very funny,” I told her. “So if I came in second, what's the most tweeted-about part of the clip?”

She found the end of the video where Percy's voice asked politely: “But we've made commitments to play five other teams. I realize you're disappointed with our effort, but isn't it in the spirit of Fremont High to honor those commitments?”

Muhldinger thundered back: “
I run this school, not you!
To hell with those commitments. Those teams will be better off without playing us. You call this the C-team.
C
is for cesspool and I'm flushing you turds.”

After the video was a little message identifying our school and naming Brian Muhldinger as the principal and football coach. A message read: “If you enjoyed watching this team and would like to see them finish their season, let the Fremont School Board know.” There was an e-mail address. “Tell them to honor their commitments and not to flush this team,” the message continued. “And come out and support the lovable losers of Muscles High in their next match against the Midwood Tigers this Tuesday.”

People from all over the state as well as Long Island, New York City, Connecticut, and Philly were tweeting that they planned on coming. They were posting back and forth to each other, as if making new friends, and a lot of them wrote that they'd had miserable high school sports experiences and horrible coaches like Muhldinger, and this was a chance to show that high school sports should be about fun.

I looked up from the screen at Becca. “What the heck is going on?”

“I'm not sure,” she admitted. “We've tapped into something. We're a social media happening. Look, it's up to fifteen thousand hits.”

“Isn't our season over?”

“Not if enough people e-mail the school board,” she said.

“I don't think Muhldinger could care less.”

“He said some things he probably shouldn't have,” she noted. “He can't deny that he said them because thousands of people have seen it.”

I thought it over for a second. “Who posted the original video? It had to be one of us.”

“It's anonymous,” she said. “There's no way to find out.”

“It couldn't have been any of the players who appear in the video,” I pointed out, “because they couldn't film themselves. And that's almost our whole team.”

“Unless two or three people got together on this,” she said. “Or maybe most of the filming was done by someone on the sideline.”

“I didn't see anyone from our school there besides my father and Muhldinger.”

“There were dozens of people on the sideline, and lots of them were filming the game,” she noted. “I don't think there's any way to tell who's behind this. But I bet Muhldinger would like to know.”

That's when her cell phone rang. She glanced at the screen. “It's your mom.”

“Don't answer it.”

Becca hesitated. Then she whispered “Sorry” and clicked Answer. “Hello, Mrs. Logan? Yes, he's here. I'll ask him.” She looked at me and whispered, “Wanna talk to her?”

I shook my head. Becca nodded and said, “He can't come to the phone right now. But he's okay. Can we call you back later?” She listened. “I understand, but trust me, he's fine. Yes, that's right, but I really don't think you need to.” Then she clicked the phone off.

“Why did you answer?” I demanded.

“I knew she was worried about you.”

“Is she coming over?”

“Probably,” Becca said. “She asked me to confirm my address.”

I stood up. “I'm out of here.”

“Where are you going?”

“What was it you said when we drove down to the Jersey shore? Away.”

Becca thought for a few seconds, and then asked: “How much do you weigh?”

“One forty. Why?”

“That puts us at a little over two fifty combined,” she said. “He'll be able to manage that, easy.”

“Who?” I asked, although I already knew.

Becca was heading for the door. “Come on,” she said. “If you really want to get away, let's go.”

 

20

I rode Becca's father's bike, which was old and squeaked when I pedaled too fast. I would have thought a dentist could afford a better one, but Becca said he never rode it. The night had grown cool, and the stars were out above us. Becca pedaled next to me, not talking much, as if she understood my need for silence.

I was trying to stay angry at my dad, remembering how he'd called me a coward and kept saying my friends were pathetic, and then had thrown me against the wall. But the truth was that I felt increasingly guilty. He'd been right—my friends
were
pathetic, at least when it came to playing soccer. The video had nailed it—they were funny but hopeless.

It was strange that thousands of complete strangers thought that we losers were worth rooting for, but I guess there
are
a lot of people out there who had miserable experiences with high school sports. My father sure wasn't one of them. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that he had just been trying to grab me rather than punch me or hurt me.

We passed Wayne's Driving Range, shut up for the evening, and Pancho's Tacos with a half dozen cars still in the parking lot.

I sped up, gripping the rusted handlebars. In the distance, I saw the sign for Brookfarm Stables, but Becca turned off on a side road before we got to the main gate. We pedaled on gravel for a hundred yards, and then she hopped off and we walked our bikes on an overgrown path through the darkness. We were approaching the stable through a back route—one that Becca seemed to know well.

We reached a fence, and followed it to a small gate of chain mesh that was locked with a padlock. Becca hid her bike behind some bushes and fished a key out of her pocket.

“Where'd you get that?” I asked her.

“I gave riding lessons to beginners last summer, so they gave me a key,” she said. “I made a copy before I gave it back.”

“Have you ever snuck in before?”

She got the lock open, and we slipped through. “Once or twice,” she whispered. She pulled the gate closed behind us and headed for the stable. “It's no big deal.”

“I thought you were a rule follower,” I whispered back.

“No way,” she told me. “I'm just too smart to get caught.”

She seemed to know the routines of this stable perfectly, and if she had done this before I figured we had a good chance of getting away with it.

We slipped into the low-ceilinged barn and passed the silent horses in their dark stalls. Shadow was standing motionless and didn't come to greet us as he had last time. “I don't think he wants company,” I told Becca. “He looks zonked out for the night. Maybe we'd better leave him and go.”

She swung the wooden door of the stall open and walked to him. The big horse didn't move a muscle as she ran her hand gently along his nose, but he opened his big black eyes and stared back at her adoringly. “Feel like some exercise?” she whispered.

“Sure,” I said. “What do you have in mind?”

“I was talking to Shadow,” she told me. “We're going for a ride.”

“Don't go too far. I'll wait for you.”

“You're coming,” she informed me.

“I've never been on a horse in my life.”

She was already saddling him up. “There's a first time for everything.”

A minute later we were outside the barn, and she was leading Shadow by the bridle toward the back gate. I hadn't realized
how
big he was—the horse towered over both of us. He never seemed to question what Becca had in mind, and I figured if Shadow was willing to go along with her then I would, too.

The rear gate was unlocked, the way she had left it, and she swung it open. Shadow walked through and I followed him, more than a little worried. “Aren't we stealing a horse?”

“Technically he's my horse,” she told me, closing the gate behind us. “And we're just borrowing him. But if this makes you nervous, don't come.”

“Where exactly are we going?”

“Watch what I do, and get on behind me,” she commanded. She stood on Shadow's left side, put her foot in the stirrup, and in one motion swung herself gracefully up and onto the stallion's broad back.

I grabbed onto the horn of the saddle and put my left foot in the stirrup. As if sensing that I didn't know what I was doing, Shadow stepped forward and I hopped after him, holding on for dear life. “Swing up,” Becca encouraged me.

“I can't. Put on the brakes!” I half shouted.

Shadow stopped long enough for me to awkwardly pull myself up onto the saddle behind her.

“There are no brakes,” Becca said with a laugh. “He's not a car.”

“He's as big as a car,” I muttered, getting used to the feel of sitting behind her on the saddle.

“Put your arms around my waist, and hold on to the reins with me,” Becca ordered.

Pressed against her back, I held the reins where they came out of her hands. She must have stepped on the gas, because Shadow began to walk and then to trot. I was surprised at his speed and power—even at a trot we covered a lot of ground. Shadow didn't seem to notice that he had two people on his back—lucky for him Becca was slim and my father always said I was as skinny as a splinter.

That thought brought me back to the basement, and my memory of what I had said to him. I couldn't forget the look in his eyes after I'd mentioned the career he'd never had in the NFL. I wasn't sure where those words had come bubbling up from. I hadn't intended to say them, and I'd never thought of my dad as a coward or a failure. Muhldinger had suggested some of it, and the idea that he'd planted an evil seed and instead of rooting it out I had carried it home gnawed at me. What would happen the next time I saw my dad? How could we get past it?

Shadow sped up to a fast trot. I looked around, and for a long moment didn't recognize where we were. The trees thinned out, and I glimpsed open spaces and moonlight glinting on water. “Are we on the golf course?”

“The thirteenth fairway,” Becca told me.

“How did we get on? I thought the course was fenced in and patrolled by security.”

“Golf courses are too big to completely fence in,” Becca explained. “I know three different ways in, and I've never run into any security after hours.”

“I've always heard the Mafia owns this course,” I told her. “I kind of believe it. No one I know from our town belongs.”

“I'm sure the Mafia has better things to do than run a golf course in Fremont,” she told me. “You said you wanted to get away. This is where I come to do it. It feels like being on another planet. Just enjoy the ride.”

So I tried. It was more than a little otherworldly to be on a horse's back, cantering across fairways, picking our way through sand traps, and clop-clopping along the muddy banks of dark lakes. And I didn't mind sitting behind Becca, with my arms around her, feeling my thighs against the back of her legs, while her back pressed against my chest.

With each footstep Shadow took, Becca and I were thrown together in different ways, and I tightened my grip on her. Her sweet-smelling hair flew around my eyes, and when I couldn't stand it any longer I bent down and kissed the back of her neck. She twisted around on the saddle to look at me, and smiled, and just as we kissed I heard a shout.

I thought it was just a “Hey,” but there might have also been a “you” added on. Shadow stopped walking and stood still.

“Did you hear that?” I whispered to Becca.

“It wasn't about us,” she said, sounding nervous. “Someone was calling to someone else, far away. The wind plays tricks with voices at night.”

A flashlight beam pierced the darkness, raking white channels of light across the fairway. It hadn't found us yet, but looking back along the beam I saw a guard in what looked like a golf cart, two hundred feet away. Something gleamed in his hand. It was either a flashlight or a gun.

“We have to go over and explain things to him,” I whispered. “We're not doing anything wrong. He'll probably just let us go with a warning.”

The beam licked closer to us, and instead of answering me Becca gave Shadow a little kick. He headed off down the fairway, moving swiftly and silently. “Do you want to get arrested for trespassing?” she asked. “I sure don't.”

I heard the motor of a golf cart roaring at full speed, and I could see other lights zooming down a slope toward us as more guards joined the chase. “No, but I also don't want to get shot by a Mafia guard!”