Double Fake (2 page)

The boys reached the railing above the river. The tide was low, so there was a few feet of muddy bank between the river and the retaining wall. They could easily hop over the fence and wade.

Calvin tossed his shirt and the water bottle onto the grass and said, “Let’s go.” In one fluid motion he was over the fence, down the wall, and onto the bank.

Zero quickly followed. “Don’t take your shoes off,” he said.

“What am I, stupid?” Calvin walked knee-deep into the water. He reached down and cupped some into his hands, soaking his skinny chest and shoulders. “Feels good,” he said.

“Things better cool off before practice tonight,” Zero said.

“Maybe a degree or two.”

“Never thought I’d be playing soccer.”

“You know what my dad wanted me to do instead?” Calvin asked. “Take
golf
lessons. Golf! He took me to one of those pitch-and-putt courses out by Livingston a couple of weeks ago. Par fifty-four. It took me a
hundred
and fifty-four.”

“Not your sport, huh?”

“Maybe later in life. Like retirement age.”

A wadded-up piece of paper hit Calvin in the shoulder and he quickly turned around. Twin black-haired girls his age were standing on the path, leaning over the railing and grinning. Jessie and Danielle Rosado. Both girls were lean and witty. Calvin knew them well.

Calvin scooped up the paper and hurled it back. “Don’t pollute, ladies,” he said.

“Heard you boys are playing soccer,” said Jessie, the twin with wild braids.

“You heard right,” said Calvin.

“What team you on?” asked Danielle, who’d had her hair straightened.

“Little Italy,” said Zero. “You playing?”

“Of course,” said Jessie. “Bauer Electric. We got second in the whole league last year and we have seven players back. This year we’re gonna win it.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Calvin.

“We’re the
electric
team,” said Danielle. “We’ll shock you.”

“We’ll light you up,” added Jessie, laughing.

“Oh yeah?” said Zero. “Well, we’ll... we’ll pizza you.”

“Good one, Z,” said Calvin.

The girls looked at each other and rolled their eyes. They started walking away. Jessie looked back and said to Calvin, “Watch out for leeches.”

“There ain’t no leeches in here,” Calvin said, but he pulled one leg from the water and looked at it. “The mercury kills ’em.”

“There’s leeches everywhere,” said Jessie. “Beware.”

Zero stepped into the water, then turned and watched the twins walk away. “There’s girls in this league?” he said to Calvin.

“Didn’t you look at the rosters? We got three girls on our own team.”

“Oh, yeah.” Zero nodded his head and a slow smile started to creep across his face. “Guess that’s not so bad,” he said.

Calvin grinned. “Not so bad,” he said, pointing toward the Rosados, who were fifty yards away by now. “Not so bad at all.”

T
he YMCA league started with a full-league clinic, where the basics of passing, dribbling, shooting, goaltending, and defense were taught. The players broke into several groups for the drills.

Calvin was a natural athlete, quickly picking up any game he tried. But within minutes of the start of the clinic he realized that he had some work to do if he was going to excel in this league. He could handle the ball all right, but he was continually faked out by more experienced players.

Here was Jessie Rosado during a one-on-one drill, stepping left then quickly going right, guiding the ball with the outside of her foot as Calvin lunged in the wrong direction.

Then came Johnny Rodriguez, deftly stepping over the ball, tapping it with his heel, and leaving Calvin flat-footed as he darted toward the goal.

“Watch the ball, Calvin, not the player,” said Luis Diaz, the teenager whose rapid footwork Calvin had admired in the park that afternoon. Luis was a key player on Hudson City’s high-school team and one of the coaches in this summer league. “They can make all the dodges and jukes they want, but if you keep your eyes on the ball, they won’t fake you out. You’ll catch on. You’ve got the skills.”

Calvin nodded. This wouldn’t be easy, but he’d get it.

He did better with dribbling—his excellent speed and coordination were a big plus there. But he needed to work on that as well. “Don’t just kick it and chase it,” said coach Irvin Cornell, who’d played soccer at Essex Community College. “Touch the ball with every step when you dribble.”

Calvin found Zero after the clinic, sitting on the bottom row of the metal bleachers. “That was harder than I expected,” he said, wiping his brow with his hand. “There are some
good
players here.”

“Did you play goalie at all?” Zero asked. His cheeks were red from exertion.

“Nope. We didn’t get to that.”

“I was pretty good at it.”

Calvin sat down and took off his cleats. He put on his sneakers and a dry T-shirt. “Gotta get shin guards,” he said.

“I know.”

The Rosado twins had walked over. “Hey, Calvin,” said Jessie.

“What’s up?”

“I smoked you, dude.” She was smiling.

Calvin tried to look unimpressed. “Once.”

“It’s that electricity we told you about.”

Zero elbowed Calvin and raised his eyebrows.

Jessie went through the motions of the fake, leaning to her left then darting sideways to her right. “One little move and he was toast,” she said.

“The truth?” asked Zero.

Calvin shrugged and gave an embarrassed grin. “Guess so.”

“Well, there’s our ride,” said Jessie, pointing toward a station wagon that was pulling into the parking lot. She winked at Calvin. “Hope I don’t give you nightmares. See you next time.”

Danielle waved to the boys with her fingers and followed Jessie across the field.

Calvin stared after them, resting his chin on his fist. Then he caught Zero’s eye and gently shook his head a few times, breaking into a smile. “I’m starving,” he said. “You got money?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah. Not a lot.”

“Enough?”

“Yeah. Enough for something. Let’s go.”

Calvin gathered up his cleats, the soaking-wet T-shirt, and a plastic gallon jug that he’d filled with water. He’d finished half of it during breaks. “Shoulda brought a gym bag,” he said.

“Where we going?”

“The market, I guess.”

They headed toward the small grocery store at the corner of Ninth and the Boulevard. Hudson City’s main street was busy with traffic, and many of the shops and small restaurants were open late on summer evenings. Music was coming from many of the stores, which occupied the bottom floors of the two- and three-story buildings.

It was about eight twenty when the boys reached the grocery.

“What do we want?” Zero asked.

Calvin squinted and looked around the store, nodding thoughtfully. “I’m narrowing it down,” he said. “Something substantial... maybe from the deli.”

They headed down the canned-goods and juice aisle and made a left toward the deli counter. There were no other customers so they didn’t bother taking a number.

“Help you?” asked the bored teenage boy behind the counter.

“In due time,” said Calvin, peering into the glass case at the cold cuts and tubs of salads. “The fruit salad looks good. Roast beef... salami.” He tapped on the glass. “That potato salad fresh?” he asked.

“Wouldn’t be in there if it wasn’t,” the teenager said flatly.

“Let’s have half a pound of that with two forks,” Calvin said.

The guy dished up the salad and weighed it. “Just over half,” he said.

“That’ll do us,” Calvin said. He looked at Zero. “What else?”

“I was thinking pretzels.”

“Excellent choice. And orange juice?”

“Absolutely,” Zero said. “Potato salad, pretzels, and orange juice. What could be better?”

“The only thing that could make it better is to eat it all at a bus stop,” Calvin said. “Boulevard and Eleventh is my favorite bench. You?”

“Perfect atmosphere,” Zero replied. “Let’s do it.”

T
wo nights later, Coach Luis Diaz blew his whistle sharply and called his team over. They each had a ball and had been working on controlling it, dribbling in and out of a series of cones.

“That’s enough of a warm-up,” he said. “Drills are fine, but you learn this game by
playing
it.”

Calvin and the others kneeled on the grass and looked up at the coach. He was short and sturdy, with the beginnings of a summer mustache sprouting above his lip. He would be captain of the Hudson City High School team this fall.

“How many of you have actually played this game?” he asked. “On a real team, I mean.”

Four or five players raised their hands. Zero asked, “Does gym count?”

The coach smiled and shrugged. “Sort of.” He made two quick cutting motions with his hand, dividing the group into three sets of three. “You three stand up,” he said, indicating Calvin, Mary Pineda, and Peter Leung. “You’re a team.”

“Just three of us?” Calvin asked.

“Three is the perfect unit. You’ll see.”

Coach had set up two portable goals, one in front of a full-sized goal and the other at midfield. “Short field. No goalies,” he said. “But no long shots, either. I want to see footwork and passing. Any shot longer than fifteen yards doesn’t count.”

Coach sent Zero, Julie Carrasco, and Orlando Green onto the field for the game. “The game goes for one goal,” Coach said. “Losing team steps off and the third team comes on. We’ll switch the teammates around after a while.”

He blew his whistle and Calvin took possession of the ball, kicking it ahead and chasing it down. The three opponents converged on him, and Calvin pivoted, kicking the ball to the side and throwing out an elbow.

Julie took possession of the ball and booted it up the field, where Peter caught up to it and sent it flying in the other direction.

Now it was simply a race to the ball, and Calvin got there first. With the three opponents in pursuit, Calvin quickly shot the ball toward the goal. It missed by about four feet and spun out of bounds.

Coach Diaz stood with his arms folded and his mouth tight. He stepped over to the three players who were waiting to get in and started talking quietly to them.

On the field, Calvin chased down a long boot from Orlando and came racing back up the field. He dodged past Zero, then managed to spin between Julie and Orlando, finding himself right in front of a wide-open goal. He easily kicked the ball into the net and threw his fists into the air.

He trotted back to his team’s end of the field, laughing.

“Okay,” Coach said. “Next team.”

Angel Medina, Briana Torres, and Victor Alvarez trotted out. All three were a year younger than Calvin.

“We’ll eat these guys up,” Calvin said to Mary.

Angel came up the field with the ball, and Calvin and his teammates ran toward him. As they approached, Angel turned and sent the ball back to Briana, who was about fifteen feet to the side and behind him.

“Charge!” yelled Calvin with a broad grin, leading his two teammates toward the ball.

But Briana was quick, barely receiving the ball before she passed it over to Victor. By the time Calvin had turned and headed toward Victor, the ball was already moving back to Angel, who easily took it thirty yards to the goal and fired it in.

Coach blew his whistle. “Calvin,” he said with a broad smile. “Tell me what just happened.”

“That kid scored.”

Coach laughed. “How come?”

“Because he got lucky?”

“You tell me. How lucky does he have to be when nobody’s guarding him?”

Calvin shrugged. “I got through three of them when I scored.”

“It wasn’t easy though, was it?”

“Guess not.”

“Look,” Coach said. “Remember when I said three was the perfect unit? Think about it. While you were fighting to get through three defenders, your two teammates were as wide open as they could be. You had your head down, thinking only about dribbling and shooting. The way to score goals is to
pass,
my man.”

Calvin nodded.

“We need to work hard, but we need to work smart. That’s all I told these guys,” he said, sweeping his hand toward Angel and his two teammates. “When you three went racing after the ball together, all they had to do was form a triangle and make a few simple passes to pick you apart.”

“I get it,” Calvin said.

“Okay, let’s try it some more. Everybody listen: When a player has the ball in a three-on-three game, he should always have two options for passing. Two teammates, two options. Think of a triangle shape.”

Coach patiently corrected mistakes every few minutes after that, explaining how a player could have moved into position for a pass, or how a defender could avoid getting faked out. But mostly he let them play, and gradually they began to catch on.

“We’ll be pretty good,” Coach said after they’d run some laps at the end. “We’ve got talent; we just have to use our brains.”

Calvin and Zero stopped at Little Italy for a slice of pizza on the way home. On the wall beside the counter were several team pictures from previous Little Italy teams, and a plaque from a few years before when the team had won the YMCA title.

“We’ll be up there soon,” Calvin said, pointing to the pictures as they were served their slices.

“Are you on our team?” said the man behind the counter.

“Yeah,” Zero said. “Just finished practice a few minutes ago.”

“Ernie Salinardi,” the man said, sticking out his hand for them to shake. “I own this place.”

Calvin and Zero shook his hand and gave their names.