Two-Minute Drill (11 page)

Now they were out having another kicking contest on Parry Field, Scott winning the way he always did, especially when they got around to drop-kicking.

As good as Chris Conlan was at everything else at football, he just couldn’t kick to save his life.

“Someday,” Chris said, “when we get to high school, you’re going to be our star kicker.”

“Dream on, sucker.”

“No, seriously,” Chris said. “Just because Mr. Dolan has no use for kickers doesn’t mean every coach you’re ever gonna have is gonna feel the same way.”

“Yeah,” Scott said, “because I’m going to have so many football coaches in my life.”

“You wait.”

Scott squared up and drop-kicked one through from twenty yards away.

“Look at that,” Chris said. “Plenty of distance. Center cut all the way.”

“Yeah,” Scott said. “Very useful. Being able to drop-kick is like being able to eat a whole blueberry pie.”

Chris tried to match him, nearly kicked the ball sideways, then just stood there laughing at himself, looking totally helpless.

Like he was a brain trying to be good at football.

“But if they ever do bring back the dropkick—” Chris said.

“I’ll be the first one picked in the draft.”

“Oh, yeah,” Chris said. “You’ll be a wild man.”

“Wild man” being one of their favorite expressions from
Rudy
, when Rudy’s buddy is yelling “Who’s a wild man now?” as the other Notre Dame players carry Rudy off the field.

“Trouble is,” Scott said, “it’s hard to be a wild man if you can’t get into a game.”

Even Chris had to admit that was a good point.

 

Mr. Dolan dropped his bombshell that night when they got to practice.

“Everybody plays tomorrow,” he said as they were stretching.

Just like that.

“And when I say play,” he continued, walking in between the players, “I mean that even the guys who haven’t gotten to do much this season are going to get their hands on the ball.”

As excited as Scott was, he couldn’t help thinking:
Haven’t gotten to do much?

He didn’t know why the change of heart and he didn’t care. The way he didn’t care that tomorrow’s opponent, the Panthers, was the worst team in their league, one without a win or even a touchdown.

He was finally getting into a game.

“You think he really means it?” Scott said to Chris when they were jogging around the outside of the field.

“Say what you want about the guy,” Chris said, “but
he
says what he means.”

So for the first time, the first time
for real,
Scott got to work with the starters on offense. Got real “reps” as Mr. Dolan called them. Not just a play or two at the end of practice, but for whole drives. Most of the time he was out at wide receiver. A couple of times Chris even threw the ball his way. Once Scott was wide open, but Chris, probably trying to give him a pass he could handle, threw the ball way too easy and it floated so far out of Scott’s reach that Jimmy Dolan—whose ankle was better—nearly intercepted it.

When Scott got back to the huddle after that one, Chris’s face had turned its mad shade of red.

“I am such a jerk,” he said. “I aimed the sucker instead of just throwing it.”

“It’s cool.”

“No, it’s not cool,” Chris said.

Then he called for the reverse.

To Scott.

“I don’t know about this,” Scott said.

“I do,” Chris said. “Once you get around the corner, you’re gonna see nothing but green grass.”

Chris turned after taking the snap from center, faked the ball to Grant up the middle, started to run to his left so the defense would follow him. As he did, Scott came running from where he’d split out to the left and Chris casually stuck the ball in his belly.

“Go,” Chris said as he did.

Scott made sure he didn’t drop it, looked up, turned the corner, and saw nothing but open field in front of him.

Nothing but green grass.

It was as if everybody on the left side of the defense had gone home early.

Scott knew he didn’t have the speed to go all the way. But for these few seconds, it didn’t matter. He was in the clear, like he was alone with Casey on Parry Field.

For these few seconds, this was the season he had dreamed about.

Even if it was only practice.

He allowed himself one quick look back as he headed down the sidelines, just to check where the defense was. He found out soon enough. Because there came Jeremy Sharp, making up ground as if Scott were standing still.

Scott turned back around, put his head down, kept running, putting both hands on the ball now, promising himself that no matter what, he was
not
dropping this ball, even if Jeremy tried to take his head off.

Jeremy, one of the nicest kids on the team, didn’t try to do that, as it turned out. When he caught up with Scott at the twenty-yard line, he just gave him enough of a shove to push him out of bounds.

Jeremy wasn’t the problem.

The problem was that Jimmy was right behind him. Scott didn’t know that, the way he didn’t know what hit him as soon as he was out of bounds.

Just knew that he was suddenly airborne, that the ball was flying out of his hands right before he hit the ground and felt his left wrist explode.

Scott didn’t know his dad was there.

But he was.

So his dad’s voice was the first one Scott heard, even though he was still facedown, afraid to take his left arm out from under him, that was how much it hurt.

The only thing that kept him from crying was this:

He was a football player.

In a gentle voice, his dad said, “See if you can roll over.”

Then in a completely different voice, one Scott barely recognized, he heard his dad say, “Get away from my son, Coach. Go talk to yours, maybe ask him what he was thinking.”

Mr. Dolan said, “Jimmy said he didn’t hear the whistle.”

“Because he didn’t want to,” Hank Parry said.

“You’re saying he did it on purpose?”

“You’re not the only one here who played football, Coach,” Scott’s dad said. “By the way, if it isn’t too much trouble, I could use some ice.”

Scott rolled over now, used all the strength he had to sit up, keeping the injured wrist pressed to his stomach. His dad unsnapped his helmet, carefully took it off.

“Hey, Dad,” Scott said.

“Hey, bud.”

“You didn’t tell me you were coming to practice.”

“Good thing I did come, or I wouldn’t have seen you turn into Reggie Bush.” Then his dad said, “Let’s have a look.”

Scott put out his left hand. As he did, he motioned for his dad to come closer and whispered, “It hurts, Dad. A lot.”

“Nice and easy, now, let’s see how much you can move it.”

Scott gently tried moving his wrist up and down, then side to side, surprised that moving it around this way didn’t make it hurt more.

“How’s that feel?”

“Not great.”

“But not any worse than before?”

“No.”

“I’m no doctor,” his dad said, covering the wrist with his hand now, putting a little pressure on the sides, “but I don’t think you broke anything. But the sucker is starting to swell up already.”

Mr. Dolan came back with the ice, handed it to Scott’s dad. Scott thought Mr. Dolan wanted to say something. But there was something in the look Scott’s dad gave him that made him just walk away, as if his dad had glared him away. “I’ll call later,” Mr. Dolan said, “to see how he’s doing.”

“Do that,” Hank Parry said.

He wrapped the ice pack around Scott’s wrist, told him to hold it tight, no matter how cold it got. Then he helped his son to his feet.

As he did, the rest of the Eagles began to applaud.

It wasn’t broken.

His dad had driven him straight to the emergency room. And even though his dad had said they might have to wait, it must have been a slow night there, because the nurse took him in right away to get x-rayed. They took pictures of the wrist from all angles.

After the x-rays had been developed, Dr. Accorsi showed Scott the injured area on the outside, said it was a combination of bone bruise and sprain, had him move it around a little more. Then he told Scott that just to be on the safe side, he was going to put a soft cast on it for a couple of days.

“But I’ve got a game tomorrow!” Scott said.

The doctor smiled. “Your team does, but I’m afraid you don’t.”

“It’s the last game of the regular season,” Scott said, as if that was somehow going to change the doctor’s mind.

Dr. Accorsi looked at Scott’s dad, then back at Scott. “The good news is that the wrist will be as good as new in a couple of weeks,” he said. “The bad news is that you’ve already played your last game of the regular season.”

Scott waited until he got in the car.

Then the football player started to cry.

 

Chris called in the morning to see how he was doing, ask if Scott was coming to the Panthers game.

“My wrist is still killing me,” Scott said, even though it felt much better. “I think I’ll sit this one out.”

“Come on,” Chris said. “After the game we’ll go hang out at my house.”

“Nah,” Scott said. “Watching a game I was going to get into will hurt even more than my wrist does.”

That much was the truth. The kind his dad sometimes called the painful truth. Scott didn’t want to watch the Eagles crush the Panthers, didn’t want to watch another guy off the bench getting carries he would have gotten today, didn’t want to go there and act like he was still a part of the team when his season was over.

He’d go to the championship game next Saturday, just to root for Chris. Not because he had to. Because he wanted to. If your best friend was playing for the championship, well, that wasn’t a game you could miss.

Today’s game he could miss.

After he hung up the phone, he got his ball and whistled for Casey. His parents were in the kitchen having coffee. His dad looked up when he saw Scott with the football. “Hey,” he said, “I don’t think you should be running around with that wrist today.”

Scott said, “I’m just gonna kick. Case will do the running around.”

They walked out to Parry Field. In an hour or so, the Eagles would be playing the Panthers.

I was gonna get in the game,
he thought.

He walked slowly to the end of the field, where the goalposts were, Casey right behind him, ready to chase.

The two of them were right back where they started.

Like this was the only game in town.

When the doorbell rang the next Saturday morning, the morning of the Eagles’ championship game against the Lions, Scott said he’d get it.

He didn’t look outside to see who it was, just opened the door and there was Chris, already dressed for the game except for his helmet.

“I told you on the phone I’d see you over there,” Scott said.

“Go suit up.”

“No,” Scott said. “We talked about this yesterday.”

“That was before your cast came off.”

“Who told?”

“I can’t reveal my source,” he said, then grinned.

“Okay, your mom told my mom.”

Dr. Accorsi had taken it off the day before, then wrapped the wrist in an Ace bandage, saying that was more of a reminder for him to be careful with it than anything else.

“I don’t have to be in uniform to watch from the sidelines,” Scott said.

“Suit up. We’re gonna finish what we started.”

“Yeah, with me watching and you playing.”

“No,” Chris said. “As teammates.”

He brushed past Scott and headed up the stairs. “I’m not leaving until you suit up.”

“Are you gonna be this stubborn about passing that test on Monday?” Scott said.

“More,” he said. “Now come on, or you’re gonna make me late.”

“I give up,” Scott said, and followed him.

 

He and Chris were coming down the stairs, Chris in his number four—for Brett Favre—and Scott in his number twenty-two for Doug Flutie, when Scott’s mom and dad came back from their walk.

His dad just gave him one of those smiles, the kind where he didn’t have to say anything because the smile said everything.

“I figured I’m gonna get rained on anyway,” Scott said. “I might as well do it wearing this.”

“Sounds like a plan,” his dad said.

It had started raining earlier that morning, not a big storm, just a steady downpour. Even if it stopped right now, the game was going to be played on a muddy field.

Scott’s dad said, “Your mom, Casey and I will see you over there.”

Sure enough, the field was a mess by the time the game started.

Yet the first half of the championship game was an even bigger mess.

By then it was no longer just a nice, steady rain, it was a total downpour, but because the coaches had agreed to start the game, they were determined to finish it, no matter how miserable the conditions had become.

Chris fumbled the ball away twice in the first quarter, both times deep in Eagles’ territory, but both times the Eagles’ defense held, and the game remained scoreless. It looked as if that might change when the Lions’ quarterback fumbled on his own twenty-yard line with less than a minute left in the half. Except then Jeremy fumbled right back.

The game was still scoreless at halftime.

For the first time all season, Mr. Dolan took them inside at the break. It wasn’t so they could get a chance to get dry. That, they all knew, wasn’t happening until they got home. But at least it was fifteen minutes out of the rain.