Muck City (32 page)

“YEAH!”

“They supposed to be rebuilding. Well, we fixin to tear this whole structure down.
We are here to tear your whole structure down
. No prisoners, guys. I wanna see some head-knockin out there tonight.”

Mario then asked the coaching staff to leave the locker room so he could speak to the team himself. On the other side of the steel door, all that was heard was a roar and rumble of cleats before the Raiders hit the field.

The Blue Devils came out with arms outstretched like flying warplanes that swooped toward the Raider sideline, dropping insults. More words were exchanged, and soon both teams were out on the field, chest to chest, snapping like pit bulls on a chain and foaming for a fight. The crowd went
nuts, but upon closer inspection the two sides were hardly touching. When they finally parted, all that remained was a trembling, uneasy energy.

Earlier that day at the social club in Belle Glade, Pie said the line was 35–10 in favor of the Raiders. For the first time in many years, betting on the Muck Bowl was down. “Everybody just suspects it’ll be over before it begins,” he said.

He was right.

For all the pomp and ceremony, the game was a blowout. Buck Atkins and the Blue Devils provided little challenge for the Raiders’ tuned-up, playoff-ready squad. The Glades Central defense held Pahokee to minus fifty-seven yards rushing after the Blue Devils fumbled the ball numerous times. Seven different Raiders crossed the goal line, including Robert Way, who, in his first game as tight end, scored the Raiders’ first touchdown on a nineteen-yard pass play. In the third quarter, Davonte added to his highlight reel with a one-handed swan dive in the corner of the end zone that made the score 37–0. The Blue Devils lost 58–0, making it the most lopsided game in the history of the rivalry.

When it was all over, both teams met at midfield again. This time they hugged and joked and made plans for the Christmas break. Coach Blaze walked over and addressed the maroon and gold, who were swelling with victory. “Great game, guys,” he said. “I wish we’d had the team to really challenge you.”

Hester praised the kids on their sportsmanship. With all eyes on the Glades, both sides had represented their schools with dignity. “Everybody wants to see the negatives brought out of all this,” he said. “I’m glad to see you all brought the positives.”

For another year, at least, the Raiders were Kings of the Muck. As their bus pulled out of Anquan Boldin Stadium, leaving it dark until the spring, the Raiders turned their attention to the playoffs that lay ahead. But for several boys, there was talk of other business. It was mid-November, and that could only mean one other thing: rabbit season.

N
ovember was the money season, the time of year when the sugar growers began their annual harvest. From dawn until dusk, the roads were busy with trucks bearing giant yellow trailers filled with freshly cut cane. They would first appear like tiny white cyclones along the vast green horizon, kicking up a dust trail on the shale-covered roads that divided the fields. Once the trucks were on the highway, the wind whipped the dry cane leaves from the trailers like loose confetti and scattered them across the blacktop. The trucks then slowed, blinkers flashing, and turned toward the sugar mills, where thick pipes of steam poured from smokestacks throughout the day and night.

It was the time of year when Jamaican cutters had once arrived by the thousands, transforming the small towns and leaving them flush with cash and future talent. Heavy yellow machines did the harvesting now, their
work all but invisible from the highways. But one thing had not changed since sugarcane was first planted in the Glades.

Before every harvest, all the fields had to burn.

Setting fire to the cane cleared away most of the leaves and undergrowth and made it easier to cut. The burns were usually done in the morning, depending on the winds. If the leaves were very dry, the fires could consume a sixty-acre plot in under an hour.

In November, when harvest was in full swing, you could drive around Belle Glade and see a dozen fires burning on both sides of the horizon, evoking the image of a countryside under siege. Sometimes the smoke was white and wispy, other times inky and black. The columns snaked so far into the sky they fused with clouds, pumping them dark with soot, then continued like invasive vines across the heavens. When the burns were close to town, residents would awake each morning to find their cars covered in a blanket of ash. If the wind was right, you could be sitting at a red light on Main Street and think it was snowing.

•   •   •

THE ADDED BENEFIT
of burning the fields was to drive out wildlife, such as mice and snakes and wild hogs that rooted in the cane rows. The smoke and flames also pushed out hordes of rabbits that would scurry for fresh air. When they reached the canebrakes, groups of boys were waiting to give chase with clubs and BB guns.

The gray “muck rabbits” were often overwhelmed by smoke and exhaustion and easily killed. Sometimes, locals said, “they run so fast their hearts explode.” But the cottontails, vigorous and quick, could cut on a dime and vanish in a second. For this reason, the cottontail became the protagonist in the great myth of why kids from the muck were so damn fast.

If half the stories ever written about Glades football were about the Muck Bowl, the other half involved chasing rabbits. It had clearly become
the “legend of the Glades” and divided people into two camps: those who perpetuated the myth, and those who were quick to call its bluff.

Don Thompson used to make rabbit hunting part of midseason conditioning in Pahokee. “If you couldn’t get twenty rabbits, you’d have to go to the line,” he said. “If you were a five-rabbit man, you were a lineman for sure. There was a pecking order.”

Others were happy to see the myth fade away.

“Hunting rabbits was a way of life, a way to get food,” said Ronald Cook, who’d played on the 1965 Lake Shore Bobcat team. “Rabbits don’t run that far anyway. Aint like no rabbit’s gonna run a twenty-yard dash so you can get some speed. It’s all stop and start, stop and start.”

“I never chased a rabbit a day in my life,” Fred Taylor said. Neither had his son, Kelvin.

The current generation was certainly slower to embrace the sport. Greater access to food assistance meant families were less likely to resort to rabbit meat to feed their kids. And the sugar growers had started cracking down on hunters anyway, seeing them as little more than a liability. But many boys still flocked to the fires, piling into old jalopies that could move though the rutted cane roads, or riding in caravans of bicycles with plastic bread sacks stuffed into their pockets.

•   •   •

ON THE SATURDAY
after the Muck Bowl, a group of Raiders met at the trailer park to go run the rabbits. They included Don’Kevious, lineman Cordero Phillips, backup quarterback Jems Richemond, and defensive back Clayton Pusey. The boys piled into a Honda Civic and drove east along state route 80 toward West Palm Beach and looked for smoke and birds. When a field was burned, dark clouds of vultures often hovered over the ashes, waiting for the smoke to clear to eat the mice and rabbits consumed by the blaze.

They saw a dark column of smoke to the north and turned into the canefields, driving along a shale-covered road that rattled like a washboard under the wheels. They soon realized the burn was too far in, so they kept driving, the guys saying stuff like, “Look over there, they sparkin there? Where them vultures flyin?”

A Spanish-speaking guy driving a tractor said four fields were being cut about a mile away, so they drove there, even deeper, to where the road disappeared and gave way to soft black muck. The tires began to sink, and rocks scraped the undercarriage. They could drive no farther. They spotted a slow-moving flock of vultures in the distance and got out to walk. The cane on both sides of the road was nine feet high and thick, impenetrable. The boys rummaged on the roadside for cane poles to use as clubs. After thirty minutes of walking the green wall, they came to a clearing and took off running.

In the distance were six giant harvesters working a freshly burned field. The cutters seemed to inhale entire rows of cane, chewing them to pieces and shooting the remnants into a rear catch. Another machine followed closely behind and turned the soil. The giant blades and tires churned up a cloud of black smoke and dust into which Don’Kevious and Cordero disappeared. Barely visible through the haze were dozens of rabbits, suddenly exposed and running for cover.

The boys ran with their backs bent, hands poised and ready to pounce. These weren’t cottontails, so they were slower. Don’Kevious flung his cane pole to the ground, only to have the rabbit narrowly escape. Cordero emerged from the haze holding a dead rabbit by the back legs. It was then that two white pickups rumbled over and screeched to a halt.

The man behind the wheel motioned violently for them to leave. Not wishing to do so, Don’Kevious ran over to the cab and tried to plead his case, but the man was angry.

“What are ya doing?” he said in a thick Jamaican accent. “Ya can’t be here wit all dese machines. Yall be trespassing on Okeelana prop-erty. I’m callin da sheriff now.”

The thought of getting arrested for trespassing at the outset of playoffs stood the boys up straight, and they agreed to leave. They first moved to a neighboring field where they were hidden by the tall cane and separated from the machines by a shallow canal. The boys hoped the commotion would flush some rabbits into the water, where they’d be easy pickings. But they soon realized that could take hours. The sun was high and they’d left their water in the car.

While they stood there, Don’Kevious took Cordero’s rabbit, gripped it by the head, and pushed the innards out its anus. He shook them loose into a shimmering pile on the dirt.

“Damn, man!”
screamed Jems, hopping away. “You got it on me. It’s all wet.”

They headed back down the road, looking for more vultures and signs of sparking fields. As they walked along the canal, enormous flocks of white egrets flushed from the water’s edge and sought safer ground, their contrast against the black soil an exquisite portrait of nature. Giant plumes of butterflies, the color of buttercups, exploded from the tall grass. Don’Kevious spotted a baby alligator against the bank and threw a rock to flush it loose. It shot into the water, leaving a long wake behind its tail. They walked and walked, the dirt and ash exploding against their footsteps like moon dust.

The gator got the boys thinking: What would you do if one was chasing you?

“All you gotta do is zigzag. That gator can’t catch ya.”

“Man, I jump in that bitch’s mouth.”

“I be runnin a 4.2 forty if a gator behind me.”

“You be rollin,
bwah
.”

T
he Raiders arrived at Monday practice with the burden of the regular season discarded on the road behind them, shucked among the stat games, close calls, and defeats that had little relevance to what lay ahead. There was one single objective now, an obligation to their coaches, to the woebegone Glades, and to themselves: to chase down the Cocoa Tigers and beat them in state.

“It’s all about gettin that ring now, fellas,” Coach King told them. “All about that ring.”

Cocoa had ended the regular season undefeated, giving the Tigers three straight seasons without a loss. They were set to play Orlando Jones on Friday at home in the 2A regional quarterfinal, a game everyone expected them to win.

Glades Central’s first matchup was also at home, against Cardinal Gibbons, a private Catholic school in Fort Lauderdale with a 6–4 record.
The game would be a rematch of the previous season’s first round, which the Raiders easily won 27–3. As the coaches saw in their Sunday film meeting, the Chiefs’ defensive line still appeared big, but lacked speed. “Just straight bull rushin,” Hester said. “But they can stop the run.”

The Raider coaching staff had been making adjustments. Robert Way would still double at tight end. And Gator, the best offensive lineman, would double on defense to protect against the Chiefs’ running game. For the slow-adjusting OL, play calls—Bunch, Trip Right, Trip Left, Fake 24 Dive, and so on—had been simplified toward the end of the regular season and honed for speed. Gator had also been working with Salt, Cubby, and others on how to use their hands more effectively, mainly by tricking their opponents into committing their weight, then throwing them off balance.