All-American (2 page)

In the gym the downstairs door opening on the field was open and bolted back. They poured through. Inside came the familiar sounds and smells: odors from the dressing rooms, the welcome hissing of the showers, the clack-clack, clackety-clack of cleats on concrete. To reach the stairs leading to their own lockers it was necessary for them to pass the quarters of the visiting team. These lockers were surrounded by steel netting rising up to the ceiling. There was a door in the netting kept locked when the team was on the field.

Now it was open, and the High School squad was wedging through. Funny what a difference victory made. You could tell by their attitude they’d been beaten. Just ahead of Ronny was Fronzak. He stumbled as he walked, and blood was oozing from a bad cut in the side of his head where he’d been kicked in scrimmage, and his head was slumped forward in fatigue. The headguard in his hand dropped to the floor but he didn’t bother to pick it up. Back of Ronny was LeRoy. They always said if you kicked a Negro hard in the shins, he’d quit. Maybe. But that boy didn’t, although his bare shins were all barked and raw. Ronny, despite his aches and pains, felt almost chipper compared to the High School team. Funny what a difference six points can make.

Then he lost his chipper feeling. Climbing the stairs, he glanced through the wire netting and saw on the concrete floor a recumbent figure in uniform. Half-naked bodies surrounded him, and two older men kneeled at his side. One man raised an arm of the figure on the floor. There was a sharp cry of anguish. Looking down, Ronald caught a glimpse of a face twisted in agony. Gosh! Goldman must be pretty bad. He must be hurt pretty bad. Why, we didn’t mean to injure him. We only wanted to put him out of the play, that’s all.

Their lockers were warm and smelly. Over everything were those welcome familiar smells, the smell of wet sweaty clothes tossed into a heap on the floor, of the ointments from the rubbing table, of the Iodex which Mike invariably used for sprains and bruises. Then there was the sound of running water from half a dozen showers going full blast simultaneously, and yells and shouts and noises from each one.

“Yee-ah, yee-ah, great going, guys....”

“Nice work, Ronny....”

“Ronny pulled us through all right.”

“Oh, boy, I’ll say! Yippee!”

“That last quarter, Ronald, when you...”

“Nice work, Keith...”

“Nice work yourself, Tony.”

“I saw him set to pass so I...”

“Hi there, Ronny; say, were you hot...”

Only Ronald and Keith hardly spoke. They were both thinking the same thing. Why, we didn’t intend to injure him. Honest we didn’t. We only wanted to put him out of the play. That’s football, isn’t it? That’s hard football, isn’t it?

Funny how quickly you changed after a game. Ten minutes ago Ronald hated them all; the charging, rough Fronzak, the Negro boy who got hurt and kicked and wouldn’t stay hurt, and Stacey at the other end who kept smacking him down whenever he tried to pass, and Goldman, that terror in their backfield all afternoon. Now he felt different. He didn’t hate them anymore, especially since he’d noticed Fronzak’s head droop and LeRoy’s bloody ankles, and above all Goldman stretched out in agony on that concrete floor. Why, they hadn’t even taken his uniform off yet. Nope, Ronald didn’t hate them anymore. Not now. Football sure was a strange game. It did things to you.

He pulled off his soaking, stinking jersey, undid the straps to his shoulder pads, and yanked the cotton undershirt over his head. Through the steam covering the whole room he saw Baldy appear at the top of the stairs and stand there staring around. Usually Baldy was the first person Ronald wanted to talk to after a game. Baldwin Baldwin III, the old Princeton end, was a coach but he was more. He was the kind of man you liked to talk to even when you’d lost. Even when you’d pulled a bonehead play or fumbled a pass that meant the winning touchdown. What more could anyone say about a coach?

For Baldy had played football. He understood the agony of the last quarter. He always understood. Wonder, would he understand today? Somehow Ronny didn’t want to talk to Baldy or anybody at that moment. He leaned over and yanked at the knots in his shoelaces. Why, we didn’t mean to injure Goldman. Honest we didn’t. We only tried to put him out of play. That’s football, isn’t it? That’s hard football, isn’t it?

In his deep heart Ronny knew this was untrue. All the time he kept saying the same thing over and over to himself. Gosh, I hope Goldman isn’t hurt badly. If he’s really hurt, I’ll never play football again. Never.

“Ronny.” The coach sat down beside him on the bench. Ronald straightened up. “What really happened out there?”

“Gosh! Is he hurt badly, Mr. Baldwin? Is he hurt real bad?” He looked anxiously into the brown eyes of the coach. Then before he could stop himself the words poured out. “Why we didn’t intend to injure Goldman, honest we didn’t, Mr. Baldwin. We only wanted to put him out of the play.”

Keith was standing over them. He broke in. “That’s right. We just wanted to stop Goldman, Mr. Baldwin. We were only trying to stop that touchdown, any way we could. Is he hurt pretty bad?”

The coach stood up. “Yes, he’s hurt. How badly we don’t know yet. We hope it’s nothing worse than a broken collarbone. They’re afraid of a neck injury, but they aren’t sure; they’re taking him over to the Infirmary right now.”

Ronald glanced across the room and saw the Duke, tall, commanding, erect. His overcoat was open and his hands clasped behind his back. He came toward the group, now encircled by half a dozen naked figures fresh from the showers, their bodies red, their hair all wet and glistening.

“How’d it happen, Baldy?”

“Why, Mr. Hetherington, it was one of those things, so far as I can see. The boys were trying hard to protect their lead, to stop Goldman and save a touchdown, and they caught him just right with their blocks. He was tired, y’know; when a player’s tired he doesn’t protect himself so well. That’s when most injuries happen in football.”

Did Baldy believe them? Had he seen it all from the bench? Had the play been clear from where he sat? Or was he trying to cover them up? All this Ronald thought as the Duke stood there looking down at him queerly.

The Duke glanced at Baldy, his hat pushed back on his wide forehead, perspiration showing from the heat of the steaming dressing room. Then he glanced back from the coach to Ronald sitting half-dressed on the bench, to Keith with a towel around his middle, to Tony leaning over his shoulder. Did the Duke believe them? Funny thing about the Duke; sometimes he didn’t say much, but you seldom fooled him.

“I suppose you can’t have football without injuries. But this is the first serious one we’ve had on the Hill for years. I’m sorry it had to happen here, like that, to a boy the type of Goldman, especially. They’re taking him over to the Infirmary now and Mr. Curry, the principal, is with them. I think maybe we’d better get across and see how things stand.”

He didn’t congratulate them as he usually did, or tell them how well they’d played, or anything. Just turned and went out and down the iron staircase followed by Baldy. Maybe from his seat in the stands the Duke had seen exactly what happened. Hang it, we didn’t mean to injure Goldman, honest we didn’t. We were just trying to stop him, to put him out of the play. To save that touchdown. That’s football, isn’t it?

But all the time Ronald wanted to jump up and run after them. If only the other boys hadn’t been there, sort of huddling around him, he would have leaped to his feet and shouted: It’s our fault, Mr. Hetherington. We wanted to get Goldman. We were out to get him. They’d been roughing me all afternoon, Stacey and Goldman and that Negro end of theirs. They’d been playing dirty football. We were out to get him. Someone said, “You take him high and I’ll take him low,” and they carried him off the field on a stretcher. Like that. Maybe it was an accident. No, it was our fault. That’s football. And if he’s hurt, if he’s badly hurt, I’ll never play football again. Never!

That’s what he wanted to jump up and shout. Instead he sat silently watching them disappear down the iron stairway which led to the basement and the visitors’ lockers.

They always had dinner in the small room in Pierce Hall after the High School game, and when the speeches were over, and the Duke and Baldy had finished and made their usual jokes and given the same talk about what a fine thing the game was for the school and how at the Academy victory didn’t really matter, that what counted was how you played; when that was all over they elected a captain for next season. Ronald had been in on three banquets. They were always the same.

That evening neither the Duke nor Baldy was there. They were over at the Infirmary waiting for the X-rays to be developed, while disquieting rumors came floating back to the squad sitting around the long table in the candlelight. Steve Ketchum, who did some work in the laboratory of the Infirmary for his scholarship and knew his way around over there, reported that the doctors were afraid of paralysis. Or maybe something worse, he hinted. A specialist had been called from town and was due any minute.

Usually it was fun, a dinner after beating the High School. To beat the High School was something; anyone could whip University and those other teams, but the High School was something else. They might be meatballs but they sure could play football. So a victory over the High School was something. To whip that gang, who called us softies and liked to beat up an Academy boy if they caught him alone in their part of town, to lick that crowd who even laughed at us to our faces, that was really fun. When we won, the dinner was grand, and even the speeches afterward, Ronald felt, weren’t hard to take. You had all the ice cream you wanted to eat when you really felt like eating it, too. When your bones had ceased aching so badly. When the throbbing of your nerves up and down your arm had died away, and you were warm and relaxed and happy in the candlelight around the table. Beside men you’d worked with all fall: Tony and Keith and Rog Treadway and the others who’d pulled you through. Who’d opened up the holes. When you were with the team. Football was a team game, no matter what they said.

Not tonight it wasn’t fun though. Not tonight. Tonight was different. For one thing, most of them weren’t thinking about the dinner. They were thinking about that room in the hospital and Meyer Goldman, the High School halfback. Maybe he wasn’t really hurt, maybe on the other hand he was. Maybe he’d die. Or would never walk again. His father kept a store on the corner of Main and State.

Gosh, we didn’t intend to injure your son, honest we didn’t, Mr. Goldman. We only wanted to stop him, to save a touchdown, that’s all.

Ronald suggested that Steve be sent across to the Infirmary to nosey around and report. He was gone a long while, and when he returned everyone had eaten their ice cream in silence and finished seconds. There wasn’t much conversation. Because there really wasn’t much anyone could say. Nobody felt like talking over the game as they usually did whenever they won. No one felt like discussing football that evening, Ronald least of all. He was waiting for Steve to return. At last he came in, and his face, Ronald noticed as he entered the side door, was worried.

“They aren’t sure yet, but they’re afraid his neck is broken.” The quiet in the room before was nothing to the silence now. It hung heavy over them.

“Then he’ll die,” someone said from the end of the table.

“Not necessarily. It depends, Miss Johnson the nurse told me. It seems the X-rays show he’s got a broken clavicle vertebra. You can get well from that if you’re careful, she says. After a long while.”

Someone whistled, low, ominously.

“Of course it might not be, they aren’t sure yet, but it’s worse than just a broken collarbone; that’s what they thought at first. Doctor Greene is there from town, and they’re having a consultation now. What’s that? Oh, a consultation is where the docs all get together and decide what they’d better do. His father’s come up, so has his mother.”

That settled things. Goldman’s hurt. Goldman’s really hurt. We did it, Keith and I did it; on purpose. If he’s injured for life, I’ll never play football again, never.

Now Keith was on his feet, talking.

Ronald hardly heard what he said, couldn’t make out the words at first. He was seeing the Infirmary where he’d been laid up with flu the winter before, and the operating room where they took out Dave’s appendix. He also saw Goldman’s twisted face and his ugly mouth as they tore into him on that play.

“...So I guess there’s not much left now, you fellows...” Keith always called them “you fellows.”... “There’s nothing left ’cept the election of captain for next year. You all know this team is mostly juniors, only Dave Bradley and Stan... any nominations?”

Ordinarily there would have been some cracks and someone would have told him to reappoint himself and forget it. And Keith would have said solemnly, “Now look here, you fellows, we want a team that will do credit to the Academy and a man who’ll lead them,” and so on and so on. Not tonight. Everyone was serious enough without any urging. Tony stood up.

“There’s one man I think we ought to nominate. He pulled us through against University School, he beat Country Day with three field goals, he was pretty near the whole team against Quaker Heights, and today, well, you all realize what he was out there this afternoon.” He paused a moment. Then quickly, “I nominate Ronald Perry.” And quickly sat down.

The first spontaneous expression of the evening swept the room. There was a chorus of approval all around the table. “Yeah, Ronny. Ronald Perry.” Keith rose again.

“You just heard, you fellows. Ronald Perry’s been nominated for captain. Anyone care to second it?”

“I do.”

“Me.”

“I do.”

“Ok. Any other nominations?” Silence for just a few seconds. Then someone shouted from the end of the table.

“Move the nominations be closed.”

“It’s been moved and seconded that Ronald Perry be elected captain of next season’s team.”

“Wait a minute, please.” Their faces were all sort of blurred below him in the candlelight, but he noticed them sit up suddenly. “Wait a minute. Guess you’ll have to count me out. I can’t take the captaincy of next year. I’m through.”