War and Watermelon (6 page)

The nose of the football hits me in the shin and falls straight down, then bounces away. I pivot and reach, but the defensive tackle is already on me, knocking me to the ground. I scramble to my feet, but a Lodi player scoops up the ball with a clear field ahead of him. I'm the only one with a shot at preventing a touchdown.

Not much of a shot. The guy is seven yards ahead of me in a full run. I chase him all the way to the end zone but never get any closer.

Coach Epstein blows his whistle. “That's all!” he yells. “Nice job by both teams.”

So I got in for one stupid play and totally blew it.

“My fault,” Salinardi says to me as we walk off the field. But nobody else will see it that way. I fumbled. I got knocked down. They scored. It's as simple as that, and it cost us the scrimmage.

At least I look like I played. I got as much mud on my uniform as if I'd played the whole time. Big deal.

“What happened?” Tony asks me as we run our laps.

“I don't know. The ball didn't get to me.”

“It hit you.”

“Wrong place.”

“Still should have grabbed it. I bet we would have had ten more plays if we'd kept possession.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. I would have carried on the next play. I guarantee it.”

“Sorry.”

Nobody else says anything to me, but there's nothing worse than costing your team a game. They worked all afternoon and kept things even, and then I got in for one play and wrecked the whole thing.

I bet the coaches are wishing they'd cut me when they had the chance.

“You walking home?” Tony asks.

We've walked home together after every practice. “How else would I get there? A helicopter?”

The cheerleaders showed up toward the end of the scrimmage, so guys like Esposito and Ferrante are hanging out by them, laughing and acting all cool.

I just want to get out of here. I'm exhausted.

And I'm the worst player on this team.

T
here's a long line at the water fountain after practice, so me and Tony just head up to Fisher's for soda. The coaches set up our kicking teams today, since the opening game is coming up. They put me at end on the kickoff squad because I'm fast and elusive.

My job is to sprint straight down the field and then do a box-and-in, making a hard right turn when I reach the twenty-yard line, cutting off the sideline.

They cut the laps down to two and we do only three wind sprints, but we're all soaked with sweat and dying of thirst by the end anyway.

We run into Janet and Patty, the girls from the swim club.

Well, we don't exactly run into them. They're sitting at Fisher's counter drinking milk shakes. I go to the cooler for bottles of soda. Tony walks over to the girls and sets his helmet on the stool next to Patty. I'd rather just ignore them, and I'm sure they'd prefer that, too.

“Nice and cool in here,” Tony says. “Man, it was brutal out there in the sun, knocking people down all afternoon.”

Patty gives half a nod and keeps looking at her milk shake. Janet swivels on her stool so she's partly facing Tony. She smiles a lot more often than Patty. “Swim club's staying open late tonight,” she says. “Night swim.”

“That's good,” Tony says. “We'll be there.”

“Us, too.”

The swim club usually closes at seven, but when it's this hot they sometimes stretch it to nine or even ten.

“I'm just gonna lie on the bottom of the pool for like ten minutes and cool off,” Tony says.

Patty frowns. “Sure.”

“I got great lungs,” he says. He picks up his helmet. “So, we'll see you there. I just gotta stop home and eat and shave, maybe have a beer or two. See ya.”

Janet says, “See ya.” Patty doesn't.

Tony's trying to make himself look taller as he pays for his soda. He doesn't look back as we leave the store, but as soon as we hit the sidewalk he goes, “Man, this is gonna be great.”

“What is?”

“Tonight, stupid. Didn't you hear them?”

I just look at him. He swings his helmet at me and hits my shoulder pads. “Night swim? They're wondering if we're gonna be there? What are you, blind?”

“What are you talking about?”

He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “Just follow my lead, okay?” He juts his thumb back in the direction we came. “They want us, Brody. You couldn't see that?”

All I could see was Patty acting like she wished Tony would go away. And I can't imagine anybody “wanting” us with our scrawny bodies and clueless personalities. I mean, I couldn't act cool even if I wanted to—I don't know how. I've tried in front of the mirror.

Janet only mentioned the night swim because Tony said how hot he was.

But I'll go along. A night swim is a good excuse to get out of the house for the evening. Why spoil it by pursuing two girls who'd rather we keep our distance?

 

Ryan's at Shop-Rite and Dad's working late, so Mom fries me up a hamburger and some leftover potatoes. She says it's no problem if I go swimming with Tony tonight.

I read a
Mad
magazine while I eat, but then I pick up the
Herald-News
. I usually only read the sports and the comics, but tonight I scan the front page for the heck of it. Two big battles yesterday in Da Nang; lots of soldiers killed. The second-strongest hurricane ever recorded is hitting the southern states. The Mets are on the front page, too, for a change. They swept two straight doubleheaders from the Padres the past couple of days.

Tony comes by around seven fifteen. “How was the beer?” I ask, knowing full well that he didn't have any. He doesn't have to shave yet, either.

“I just said that for them.”

“No kidding. I'm sure they were real impressed by your maturity.”

My dad keeps a case of Rheingold in the old refrigerator in the cellar, so I have tried beer. It's rancid, bitter stuff.

“Still hot,” Tony says, wiping his face with his hand as we walk down the hill. Most of the town is way higher than the area where the swim club and the football field are. Route 17 is on the other side of those things, and from there the land is basically flat across Teterboro and all the way to the Hudson River and the city.

The swim club is crowded: men home from work and families and a lot of teenagers. We throw our shirts and sneakers in the locker room and walk around the perimeter of the grounds, staying on the grass. The entire swim club is about the size of two football fields side by side, with a cement apron around the edge of the pool.

The pool is shaped like a T—twenty-five meters long, with diving boards at the far end. There are fifteen-meter wings off the shallower end and a kiddie pool over to the side. (I know the measurements because I was on the swim team the past three summers, specializing in the breaststroke. I didn't go out this year because of football.)

We've got a blacktop basketball court over by the locker rooms and a big grass area behind the pool, fenced off from the highway. Janet and Patty are lying on their towels in the grass with a couple of older girls. Janet sees us coming and nudges Patty. Patty looks up quickly, then turns her head the other way, staying flat.

Tony's leading the way. He walks past, about ten feet from them, pretending he doesn't see them. “Let's go shoot some hoops,” he says to me, loud enough so they can hear.

So we check out a basketball from the office. The court is empty, and it's no secret why. The blacktop is about a thousand degrees.

“No way I'm going barefoot on that,” I say. So we go to the locker room and put our sneakers back on. There's a poster on the wall I didn't notice before.

Tony reads the poster slowly. “How would they know how old we are?” he asks.

“Our birth dates are on our membership cards.”

“They won't check every card.”

“Maybe not.” But people know how old we are, whether it's on the card or not. Like we could walk into a dance that's mostly for high school kids and nobody would notice! We'd get thrown out on our butts.

We play three games of O-U-T (I win twice) then ditch the basketball and head for the water.

There are more people in the water than out, which is unusual, but the temperature is still over ninety degrees. They've closed off the diving boards so more people can swim in that area. We swim underwater across the shallow end and come up on the other side of the ropes.

Tony spits out a huge stream of water and strokes over to the edge to get a look at Patty and Janet.

“They see you?” I ask.

“They've been looking right at us. They looked away when I caught them staring.”

He's dreaming. They're in the group that has parties on the weekends and clusters together on the Boulevard after school. The ones in that group are our age, but the guys have muscles and attitudes. “They hang out with Stephie and Esposito and those people,” I say.

“Not always. Besides, we could hang with that group if we wanted to.”

No way. “Once you're in that group, you're in, and nobody else can penetrate.”

“Things change in the summer,” Tony says. “Besides, here they come.”

We hang on the wall and watch as they slowly walk all the way around to the far steps, tucking their hair under their racing caps as they go. Janet is in the same green two-piece she always wears, but Patty has a skimpier pinkish one I haven't seen before, and she keeps pulling it down where it's creeping up her cheeks.

I keep staring until they dive in.

They glide out toward the middle of the pool and I lose sight of them behind some adults. But I keep watching, and eventually Patty comes into view and looks right at us. She ducks under the water and comes up ten feet farther away, back turned.

“Oh yeah, they're
real
interested,” I say.

Tony slaps at the water and it splashes into my face. “Don't you know anything about how girls work?” he asks. “They don't throw themselves at you.” He lowers his voice. “Just keep playing it smooth, like I am.”

“Real smooth,” I say.

“Shut up. I know what I'm doing.” He starts swimming toward them, underwater. I stay back.

When he pops up, I see Janet laugh. He spits water at her this time, and she splashes him back. Patty starts swimming toward the diving area.

She swims right past me, as if she's working out, but she turns her head and says, “Hi.” No emotion behind it or anything. Just “Hi.”

“Hi,” I say, but it perks up my interest. She had no reason to say anything to me. So when she stops at the end of the pool and treads water, I call over to her. “Feels good, huh?”

She brightens just slightly and says, “Yep,” but she doesn't look at me. She starts waving at Janet, who's still with Tony, smiling and talking. “I'm getting out!” she yells.

She climbs out right there and a whistle blows. You're supposed to use the ladders or the steps. She looks over to the lifeguard station and frowns. The guard, who is almost directly above me, says, “You know better.”

Patty lifts her shoulders and looks up at the guard, saying, “Sorry,” all insincere. But then she looks down at me and gives the faintest hint of a smile before walking away.

Tony swims over to me about thirty seconds later. “You better practice dancing when you get home tonight, bro.”

“Why?”

“We're taking them to that thing next week.”

“What thing?”

“The dance.”

“Get out.”

“I ain't kidding. I mean, we're not exactly taking them, but I convinced Janet to get Patty to sneak in. So we'll be the only twelve-year-olds there. Who else are they gonna hang out with, right?”

I look over toward Patty, but I can't see her. She must be lying down. Tony must figure he'll be with her, but it's pretty obvious she can't stand him.

She said “Hi” to me though. Even said “Yep” about the water feeling good.

What's there to dancing anyway? You just move your arms up and down. I saw lots of that at Woodstock.

I can handle it. I think.

S
o the Mets have won four straight, but I'm not getting caught up in that anymore. They just let you down. The Padres are even worse than they are, so beating them four times isn't saying much.

We got chewed out by my father pretty good this weekend for staying out all night at the Woodstock concert, but even he had to admit we had no choice.

“Of course, you could have chosen not to go,” he said. “But that would have taken some common sense, which you two seem to lack rather badly.”