The Perk (9 page)

"You want to watch the boys practice?"

Beck took Luke's shrug for a yes and pulled into
the parking lot of the Gillespie County Consolidated School District stadium. They
got out and walked through the main gate and past a sign that read DRUG FREE, GUN FREE, TOBACCO FREE, ALCOHOL FREE SCHOOL ZONE. VIOLATORS WILL FACE SEVERE FEDERAL,
STATE, AND LOCAL CRIMINAL PENALTIES.

That was different.

They continued on past the concession stand and stepped
onto the eight-lane running track that circled the field. Drought had turned
the Hill Country brown, but the football field was as green as money and
carried the same hopes. Twenty-five summers before, Beck Hardin had practiced,
played, and dreamed on that field. It seemed like someone else's life.

Big white boys in black shorts and no shirts were
throwing, catching, and kicking footballs; boys were running and balls were
flying. The wind was down and the humidity was up; the air in the bowl of the
stadium was thick with sweat and testosterone. The boys' voices sounded manly.

Beck spotted the quarterback at the far end of
the field. He was a tall kid. He grunted a deep "Hut!" and the
center snapped the ball back to him. Five receivers raced down the field
toward the south end zone where Beck and Luke were standing. The quarterback waited
for a three-count, then his right arm suddenly shot forward and the ball rocketed
downfield as if fired from a cannon; it flew in a perfect spiral on a high arc and
dropped right into the outstretched hands of a receiver running full speed down
the sideline—and he dropped it. A voice bellowed out from above like the voice
of God—"Catch the damn ball!"—except God didn't cuss like a football
coach. The boys turned in unison and looked up at a solitary figure sitting on
the top row of the home bleachers in the shade of the small white press box
under a black sign: LAND OF THE GALLOPIN' GOATS. The man seemed familiar.

"Is that … ? Come on, Luke."

They walked around the track to the concrete bleachers,
then climbed the twelve rows to the top and cut over toward the man. He was wearing
black knit shorts, a white knit shirt, and a black cap over short blond hair.
He was leaning back against the press box with his legs stretched over the bench
in front; his thick arms were folded across his chest, and he was studying his
players so intently that he didn't notice he had company until Beck called out
to him from twenty seats away.

"Aubrey!"

The man's head swiveled their way; his left
cheek bulged like he had a tumor the size of a golf ball. His face remained
blank for a beat, then he broke into a big smile. He didn't stand; instead, he
spat a brown stream of tobacco juice in the opposite direction then held a big
hand up to Beck. They shook.

"Beck Hardin. Heard you finally come to
your senses and got your butt back to the country where you belong."

"Word travels fast."

"Ain't every day a local hero comes home."

Beck Hardin had been the star quarterback and
Aubrey Geisel his favorite receiver; they had been the best players and best
friends. Their senior year they had won the state championship for the first
and only time in the school's history.

"Real sorry to hear about your wife, Beck."

Luke turned and walked back down the bleachers;
he stood at the railing and faced the field.

"I say something wrong?"

"Luke's having a tough time. We all are."

Beck sat next to his high school buddy. From
twenty-five feet above ground level, they caught a hot breeze and a clear view
of the distant hills etched against the blue sky. Beck could see the tall screen
of the old Highway 87 Drive-in Theater where he and Mary Jo had made out in his
truck. Aubrey turned away and spat, then drank beer from a can. Four empty
cans littered the concrete under him.

"Sign says this is an alcohol and tobacco
free zone."

"Beer and chewing tobacco ain't free,"
Aubrey said with a smile. "I'm the coach … and I'm not officially
here."

"Head coach of the Goats?"

Aubrey nodded. "Ten years now."

"You're starting practice early."

"We can't hold organized practices till
August one, but the boys can work out on their own and I can sit up here and cuss
at them. Hell, fact is, we never stop practicing. Only two sports seasons in Texas, Beck—football season and football off-season."

"Boys here don't play soccer now?"

Aubrey spat. "Only the Mexicans."

"Luke played up in Chicago, all the boys
did. No interest down here?"

"No scholarships down here, except for girls. That Title 9
forced the colleges to equalize scholarships on gender, so they had to cut scholarships
for all the boys' sports to keep football and basketball. Black boys from the
cities get the basketball scholarships. If you're a white boy and you want a
full scholarship in Texas, you don't play soccer. You play football." He
gestured at the field. "And every white boy out there wants a scholarship,
just like we did. It's their ticket out."

"No black players on the team?"

"No black kids in the school. Hell, even
the Katrina kids wouldn't stay, went down to Houston. Sauerkraut and
bratwurst, that's a big-time culture shock after crawfish étouffée." Aubrey's
attention was drawn to the field; he yelled out, "Catch the damn ball!"
He spat. "You staying out at the old place?"

Beck nodded. "J.B.'s putting us up."

"You and him back on the same page?"

"Working at it."

"Wish my dad was still alive so we could
work at it. Me and him, we fussed every chance we could. Now I'd give
anything just to have a chance to fuss with him again."

"I didn't know he died."

Aubrey nodded. "Thirteen years ago. Now
they're both gone, mom and dad." He spat. "Anyway, you went up to
Notre Dame, I went over to Southwest Texas, got a degree in education so I
could coach. When Otto died—"

"Coach Otto?"

"Yep, heart attack right out there on the
field. Boys busted a play, Otto went into one of his tirades, cussin' up a
storm in German … keeled over dead as a doornail. But hell, you can't eat kielbasa
and eggs every morning like Otto did and live to be eighty. I was his
offensive coordinator, so the school board made me head coach. We're favored
to win state this year."

"Your boys are big, Aubrey."

"That's the game now, Beck. Bigger,
stronger, faster. Boys start pumping iron when they're ten these days, gotta
bulk up to move up. Pro offensive lines, they average three-thirty. Colleges,
three hundred. Mine averages two-seventy. And it ain't just linemen. My quarterback
is six-five, two-thirty-five."

Beck watched the big kid rifle another pass
downfield.

"Runs a four-five forty in full pads,"
Aubrey said, "and can throw a football through a brick wall. Number one
prospect in the nation. Before he committed to UT, every coach in the country came
here to watch him play. He's the real deal. Two years of college, he'll jump
to the pros."

"German boy?"

Aubrey shook his head. "He's from Austin. Name's Slade McQuade."

"
Slade?
What kind of parents name their son Slade?"

"His kind of parents. It's a football
name. People name their boys Colt, Chase, Shane, Slade—movie star names
that'll sound cool when they're playing on national TV."

"But that's not going to happen for most of
these boys."

Aubrey spat. There was a brown puddle on the
gray concrete on his far side.

"It's gonna happen for every one of these
boys, Beck. November nine, we play Kerrville right here, the Nike High School
Football Game of the Week. On national TV."

"High school football on national TV?"

"Yep. High school ball is big-time now,
Beck. Schools spend whatever it takes to win. And colleges only recruit the
best players, so the dads spend whatever it takes to make their boys the best.
Slade's dad—name's Quentin McQuade—says he's spent a half-million bucks on
private trainers and coaches."

"That's a lot of money."

"He's got a lot. Real-estate developer. Come rolling
in here five years ago from Austin, bought the old Hoermann place."

"That was a big spread."

"Almost three thousand acres. Heard he paid twenty
million, cash. Built himself a mansion, now he's developing the ranch, a
high-falutin' gated golf community."

"
Gated?
Who's he trying to keep out?"

Aubrey spat. "Goats, I guess. They say he spent ten
million on the golf course, figures on selling two hundred homes out there, one
million and up. We're in a goddamn drought, ain't enough water for the people
and livestock as it is, much less to feed a fancy golf course"—he spat—"but
Quentin's money cut a wide swath through city hall so he gets what he wants.
He ain't someone you cross."

"What brought him out here?"

"He wanted a pro offense for Slade. Shopped
high schools around the state, picked us."

"He moved here for your offense?"

"Yep. We spread five out, shotgun, no
huddle, throw fifty times a game. Call it the NASCAR offense 'cause we never
slow down. Averaged four hundred yards passing per game last year. Figuring
on five hundred this year with Slade pulling the trigger." Aubrey abruptly
yelled out to the field: "Catch the damn ball!" Back to Beck:
"If they'll catch the damn ball."

Beck watched Slade throw a few more passes. "He's
got an arm."

"He's got a publicist."

"What?"

"Quentin hired the boy a publicist. When
he announced he was gonna play college ball at UT, he held a press conference
over in Austin. A hundred media people showed up, a thousand students,
cheerleaders, coaches … ESPN ran it live. You'd think he found the cure
for cancer."

Aubrey grimaced and glanced at Beck.

"Sorry."
He spat. "Anyways, I got sports writers come here from all over the
country. My secretary, that's all she does now, schedule Slade's interviews.
He's gonna be on the cover of
Sports Illustrated
. Other kids, they ask him
for autographs, want photos with him, like he's Tom Cruise or something. It's
crazy."

Aubrey spat then cupped his mouth and yelled out
toward the field: "Slade!" He got the boy's attention, waved him
over, and said, "They've already got him in a Gatorade commercial."

The boy jogged across the field and the running
track and in one movement grabbed the bleacher railing and vaulted himself up
and over. He ran up the stands two rows at a stride.

Beck stood to meet Slade McQuade.

Beck was six-two, but the boy towered over him.
Slade outweighed him by fifty pounds, but his body mass seemed twice Beck's.
His shoulders were wide and his arms thick with knotty muscles; his veins stood
out like blue ropes running down his arms. His chest was broad and looked like
a rock sculpture, and his torso angled sharply down to a narrow waist. Slade
didn't have a six-pack; he had a twelve-pack. His skin was tanned and
shimmering in oily sweat and seemed to be stretched to the breaking point by
the muscles underneath. His shorts strained against muscular thighs.

Beck felt small.

Slade's entire body appeared to be chiseled from
stone, including his angular face. Acne was his only flaw. Looking at Slade
McQuade was like looking at a statue of a Greek god—except a Greek god didn't
wear mirrored sports sunglasses and a black doo-rag or have long black hair
hanging to his shoulders or diamond stud earrings stuck in each ear lobe or barbed-wire
tattoos wrapped around each bulging bicep.

Beck realized he was staring.

Aubrey spat and said, "Slade, meet Beck
Hardin." Aubrey pointed to the face of the press box above them where
Beck's number 8 jersey hung encased in plexiglass; the school had retired his
jersey after his senior season. "That's his jersey."

"They'll have to move it over for mine in a
few months," Slade said. He stuck a hand out. "Beck."

Not "Mr. Hardin."

"I'm looking forward to seeing you play,
Slade."

"You and the whole State of Texas—for the Longhorns next year."

"Let's win state this year first, Slade,"
Aubrey said.

"That's a done deal, Coach."

"Still gotta play the games."

"Well, good luck this season, Slade,"
Beck said.

Slade smiled. "Beck, I'd rather be big,
strong, and fast than lucky."

Aubrey spat. "Get 'em running sprints,
Slade."

Slade jogged down the bleachers, vaulted the
railing again, and ran out to the field. Beck sat down and leaned back; he and
Aubrey crossed their arms like two old men; they stared at the field.

"Nice kid."

Aubrey chuckled. "Yep, he's a real peach.
That's what you gotta put up with these days, Beck, buncha prima-goddamn-donna
boys." He spat. "Slade's already got a slogan."

"A slogan?"

Aubrey nodded. "You know, like Nike's
'Just Do It'? His is, 'Number Twelve on the Field and Number One in Your
Heart.' Quentin copyrighted it or registered it or whatever you do with a
slogan so no one can steal it."

"Trademarked."

Aubrey spat. "That's an idea, Beck. Maybe
Quentin could use a big-time Chicago lawyer like yourself to further Slade's
career."

"I'd rather pick grapes at J.B.'s
winery."

"See, that's the thing, Beck, you always
had options. Me, I only know coaching, so I gotta put up with Slade."

"Bench him."

Aubrey laughed. "You mean quit coaching?
'Cause if I benched Slade, that's what I'd be doing. Been twenty-five years
since this town had a state championship, Beck, and people here, they want it
bad. And Slade's the ticket." He spat. "Easier to find another
head coach than another quarterback like him."