Muckers (15 page)

So that’s how it’s going to be. Me still in between Rabbit and Cruz, interpreting them for each other long-distance.

“I’m gonna beat the living crap out of those Wolves,” Cruz mumbles, the cigarette hanging from his mouth. “Shit!” he yells, fumbling around in his pockets. “I gave my lighter away, didn’t I?”

MID-WEEK EDITION

Last Rites for Hatley Miner

Funeral services were held graveside for Milosh Maxim Diklovich, age 48. Mr. Diklovich, a long-time boarder of Mrs. Lillian Slubetz, and shaft-man for Eureka Copper, died Sunday at the miners’ hospital. After his shift boss, Alastar O’Sullivan, drove him to Phoenix last month, Mr. Diklovich underwent a lung operation and was thought to have been improving. Born in the village of Jošan in Lika, Croatia, he was known around town for his accordion playing. There are no known survivors. Mrs. Slubetz played Mr. Diklovich’s accordion during the interment.

WANT ADS

FOR SALE
—Westinghouse ranges, excellent condition. Used as school demonstrators. Buy now. Pay balance & pick up in June. Bill Menary. Hatley Schools.

WANTED
—You to try our FULL-O-FLAVOR steaks now served in Hatley restaurants. Pounded cheese, veal or elk steak sandwiches. Taste what you’ve been missing. Norm Schnitz, FULL-O-FLAVOR founder.

WANTED
—Fancy dress for Independence Day Fiesta. Will alter any size. Mrs. Santiago Villanueva. Gulch.

IMMUNIZE AGAINST WHOOPING COUGH—
Dr. A. C. Brown says all young children should be immunized since the Purdyman baby took ill. The disease has taken the lives of three Indian children working at the Navajo cotton pickers’ camp at Black Mountain Indian Reservation.

PRACTICE FINALLY ENDED TEN MINUTES
ago, but my face still feels like it’s flaming hot. Not because I did much, but because I’m flat-out mad. And now Coach Hansen’s asked me to stay. What’s he want with me anyhow? I wasn’t even late. And he’s the last person I feel like talking to since he’s the one I’m P.O.’d at. He didn’t even know I existed the past two hours, giving Quesada all the quarterback time, with me relegated near the pit and punting most of practice, looking like a jackass instead of first-string.

Cruz kept coming over and asking if me and Coach were just fooling, like maybe this was a practice before practice, and aren’t I the quarterback? I sure thought I was. Kicked the ball clear through the posts and into the pit, I got so heated. There’s already two W’s in our column, and there’s no way I’m going back to being second-string.

“You know you’re slipping,” Coach says to me.

“How’s that?”

“Usually you beat me to the field. Now it’s the second time you’re only slightly early.” He takes the football from under his arm and tosses it, catching me off guard. It clips my elbow but I snatch it, and he smiles.

“You’ve always liked the heat, haven’t you?” he says, taking out a handkerchief to wipe his brow.

“It’s what we got,” I tell him. “I don’t mind it most days.
Especially when I’m playing
.”

Coach shakes his head and I’m not sure what he’s disagreeing with: what I just said or the heat.

“Me, I’m from Missouri. I can’t wait for the sun to go down and cool things off.” He looks up to face it and closes his eyes for a second. “Not this year. I want it to take her time because we might never see it again, at least not this way, when we have a season and the chance to take it all.”

Coach rubs his forehead, then adjusts his cap. He wears it all the time now, even when the sun’s dipped below the mountain. And I’m pissed that I’m not so pissed at him anymore, watching him rub on that scar.

“Look, I know I caught you by surprise today, but I wanted to shake things up,” he says. “Get your mind back on football.
And winning
.”

“No one wants to win more than me.”

“But you’re afraid to. And it’s slowing you down.”

“Who’s afraid?” I throw the ball hard, past Coach’s shoulder. I think it might have nicked his ear but he won’t duck. He just stumbles a bit, letting the ball wobble around in the slag.

“You know, they tell me I shouldn’t do this anymore. That another blow to the head and it could be my last.” Coach taps the side of his forehead. “Something about not having enough skin between that steel plate and me.”

“Sorry … I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t expect you to.” Coach picks up the ball and tosses it to me. “Now throw it back,” he commands. “
Harder
. Come on. Don’t hesitate,” he says, squinting at me. “That’s right. Good. Now aim for the shoulder again.”

I wing it even harder this time and Coach catches it about an inch above his shoulder, the force making him lose his cap.

“See? You were afraid to hurt me but you threw it hard anyhow.” He raises the football in the air. “You didn’t hold back. If you were scared, you would have.”

Coach motions for me to come over, and we start walking toward the school bus parked under the goalpost.

“I remember when I got this scar,” he says. “The moment it happened. June twenty-sixth, 1944, thirteen hundred hours. The date’s etched in my brain and not even a tank of gasoline could blow it out of me.” He pauses for a moment, and I try not to stare at that scar. “People were talking all around me right after the explosion, but it felt like I wasn’t really there. Just watching it all.”

“You snapped out of it, though,” I say. “You survived.”

“Things felt different in the hospital.” He nods. “When they told me I couldn’t work out with the kids, to stop coaching, all of a sudden I came to. It’s like I shook loose. And I knew I couldn’t be cautious. How do you hold back on living? Not doing things because you remember the pain from what happened before.”

Coach looks up at the goalpost, and I finally take a look at that scar. It’s fleshy and red, like somebody ran the fruit of a prickly pear across it, staining the whole thing raspberry. It cuts a deep gully along the side of the temple, dividing his forehead the way the Gulch does to our town.

He must have lost a lot inside, the scar’s so deep. And I wonder if some of the pain’s still there but he fights it. Like
at the game, when the lights were burning down on us. It must have set that scar ablazing. Only maybe when that happens Coach taunts it—the way he does with us at practice—until the pain finally goes away.

“Climb up,” he says.

“What?”

“Go ’head. Climb up on the hood like this,” Coach says, catching the rim of the tire with his sneaker, then pulling himself up on the bus. “You haven’t forgotten how to climb, have you?”

“Course not.”

“Then follow me and you’ll get the second-best view in the Valley.” Coach grips the side of the goalpost and I don’t know if I should stop him or let him keep going. Then he’s up there sitting on the crossbar. “There’s enough room for you, too,” he says, sliding over.

The last time I was up there was on Cruz’s shoulders—we couldn’t have been more than thirteen. He was standing on Kissy, which was stupid. Cruz had made some stirrups out of binder twine, but it got botched up when the burro walked away and we just hung there. Me clinging to the crossbar, and Cruz holding on to my ankles until our hands slipped away and we fell, rolling onto the slag, laughing but feeling like idiots and hoping nobody saw.

“The best view is up there on the hill,” Coach says when I reach him. “Where the H is.”

“I like this better.”

“It’s not bad, is it?” He points to the mountain range across from the H. The one we wake up to every morning, a hundred miles away.

“Flagstaff doesn’t seem so far away from up here,” Coach says.

The Peaks are tinged with pink and orange and blue like
girls’ dresses. And even then, it’s still too pretty to be real. Mr. Mackenzie says that if you don’t have the money to get to the Grand Canyon not to bother, we’ve got the same view right here.

“Somehow, it seems almost attainable,” Coach says. “Like you can reach out and snatch those peaks.” He lets out a sigh. “If only it were that easy.”

“We’ve got five weeks to get tough,” I tell him.

“That was the first game I ever coached,” he says. “The lowly Muckers against the mighty Flagstaff Warriors, the most decorated team in the North. Bobby was the quarterback and folks thought the T formation I brought in was just about as bad as sin itself. But Bobby, he just took to it, without question. You knew he was fast, even as a freshman. But now he could really show them.” Coach looks sideways at me. “You can be even better, Red.”

“That’s not true.”

Coach keeps looking at me and I don’t want him to. I want to keep thinking about Bobby without having to think about me.

“You’ve got a feel for this field like no player I’ve coached. You’d think you’re made of slag and mud, knowing where the good patches are and how that can change. But for the first time you looked scared out there.”

“We won both games,” I say. “Isn’t that what matters?” But I focus on the skyline instead, where puffer clouds have stalled halfway down the peaks, making them all blotchy.

“You’re afraid right now. And that’s a whole lot different than being nervous,” Coach says. “It’s okay to be nervous. But being afraid only leads to regret. You’re second-guessing, which spoils the gut instincts you have and everything you’ve learned. You never make the right moves then. I know you’ll
get over it, Red, but I’m taking you out of the quarterback spot against Coldbrook, until you settle down.”

I can’t believe what Coach is saying.

“You’ll still play defense, of course,” he says. “Your drawbacks are those wobbly legs and your fear.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“Am I?”

I don’t answer and slide over to reach for the post. Then I hop onto the hood of the bus, thinking,
I’m up two-nothing, Coach has to be wrong
. But I’m not entirely certain that he is.

“If you need to be living somewhere else, just let me know,” he says. “I can’t have my quarterback going hungry.”

“I already have a home.” I spill out the words, not bothering to turn around and look at him or anything. “And I don’t need help.”

“Then find the kitchen,” Coach says firmly. “And get yourself something to eat.”

My ears feel singed, like I’m way too close to a campfire. I start jogging, but the air’s moist and stale and there’s no wind to move it.

The door of the school bus slams shut and I know he’ll overtake me in a second. “Then come back and throw that football like you own it,” Coach hollers. He maneuvers the bus past me, and I can’t see the Peaks anymore. Just two red taillights blinking back at me.

I
’
M ON MY OWN BEHIND
the school, throwing the football through a tire hung from the old cottonwood by the baseball diamond. It’s first thing in the morning and I’m waiting for Mr. Mackenzie to walk by. Rabbit’s been gone for a week and that’s hard to believe, though I’m reminded of it every time I look at his empty desk.

The benching hasn’t sunk in yet either, even though it’s been three days since Coach told me I wouldn’t be playing quarterback against Coldbrook.

I keep throwing until I hear Mr. Mackenzie saying good morning to someone before rounding the corner. I exhale and start breathing normal again. Mr. Mackenzie will look at me like it doesn’t matter how I play, or if I play at all. He’ll look at me like I matter just because I’m Red.

“Getting a little practice in early, are we, Felix?” he says, leaning his leather satchel against some ivy and resting his cane on top of it.

“This is the only practice I’ll get when it comes to throwing today, Mr. Mac. I’m benched.”

He goes over to the tire and stretches it out to a forty-five-degree angle and stands clear so I can volley the football through it.

“Nothing wrong with some good old-fashioned solitaire to build acuity and acumen,” he says. “It’ll serve you well on the gridiron.”

“It’ll be almost two weeks till I get to play quarterback. If I do at all.”

“Everyone gets benched at least once in his football career,” Mr. Mackenzie says, tossing the football back to me. “Thank goodness it isn’t a life sentence. And there are as many different reasons for being told to sit out a game as there are teams in this state.” He smiles. “Remember when Bobby got benched?”

I didn’t know Bobby got benched. “When was that?” I ask him.

“October of 1941—you must have been eight years old then. We’d had a freak October snowstorm, remember?”

I cradle the football under my chin and nod.

“Bobby went sledding down Nefertiti Hill with Faye Miller. He thought it would please the kids at the matinee, seeing him start his shift at the theater arriving by sled like Santa Claus. Faye wanted to come along and be the elf. But the mountain had other ideas and sent those two kids and the sled veering left, down into the slag field. The bleachers prevented them from ending up in Cottonville and they escaped with only a few minor bumps and bruises, but the sled took out the first row. That’s why Coach Hansen benched your brother.”