Fourth Down Baby: A May-December Romance (30 page)

I
thought
the days before my first date with Whitney were hard, but they're nothing compared to the past week and a half. Coach not only kept me on the bench for the game against Hartsville, but he didn't even let me dress. I had to sit in my jeans and jersey watching as Roberts tried his best at QB, and Gabe pulled double duty, trying to fill in as linebacker, but it didn't matter. Hartsville's the sort of town that breeds one thing: nasty, tough as nails country boys who scrap and fight. They mauled the team and sent us to our first loss of the season. With only two weeks left in the season, we're now tied for first place.

The season comes down to this next game. The Sounders are the biggest school in our conference, only kept in our level of play because of geography. They routinely field teams that had ten or even twenty more players than the rest of our conference, and we haven't beaten them in years. Now, with one conference loss to our record, it comes down to the the Silver Lake Foxes against the Northern Sounders. If we win, we have the edge in the head-to-head matchup, and win the conference championship, and gain the home field advantage up through the entire playoffs until the state championship. If we lose, we're third, because Hartsville's going to have the edge on us, and we're totally out of the playoffs. Sure, we could blow it in the last week against Carlisle, but so far this year, they haven't won a single game.

So I have stress on me from that. Then there's Dad. The cops booked him on an assault charge, and he's being kept without bail in the county jail. He's not fighting it so far. I think he wants the free food and lodging, but that means I'm on my own. I'm eighteen, so child welfare doesn't concern itself with me, and with all the attention on me, I can't work my after school job either. The owner gave me a call and explained himself, but basically, he said until the season is over, I'm out of work. At least the landlord of the house came by, and he said not to worry about rent. Still, I don't know what's going to happen there.

Then there's Whitney. After my comments the week of the Hartsville game, I've tried over and over to make it up to her, but things are strained. It's painful, even more painful than my slowly healing legs, to be barely speaking to each other. We still eat lunch together, but there's a tension there that we didn't have before, and I don't know why. I try to talk to her, but it's just a series of short questions and answers until the lunch period ends, and then we're off on our different schedules.

Now, it's Thursday night, and I'm back where I am every Thursday before a home game, sitting in the stands and looking over my sanctuary. Cory's sitting with me after everyone else has gone for the night. The air's chilly, and it won't be long before we start wearing tights under our uniforms for these night games.

"You're pretty quiet, bro."

I nod and pick at the concrete under my bleacher. "Yeah. Just getting my head right. It's harder this week, with all that's going on."

"Yeah, I guess it would be," Cory says, leaning back. "The guys are worried about it. I mean, we know why you've been a step slow in practice—you still look pretty ugly. Not that you didn't before, you know, just it's a more multicolored ugly now."

I laugh lightly, not because I'm actually amused but because I know Cory expects something. Still, he can hear it, and he falls quiet too. "Just . . . I don't know, man, maybe I am whipped. It hurts, that's all."

Cory nods. "You wanna know a secret? I've spent the past seven weeks jealous of you, actually. I mean, it's fun getting more ass than a toilet seat, but to see what you and Whitney have . . . it gets a guy to start thinking that maybe I need to look at changing."

“Really? I guess I should call you full of shit, but then again, I would’ve said the same thing about me not too long ago."

"Now, I'm not saying that I'm going to stop enjoying myself," Cory says with a laugh, "but I’m saying that if a girl I really like comes my way, well, I can see why you've changed, that's all. But tomorrow night, I hope that the Troy I saw at Homecoming shows up. Hey, change of subject—you hear from any schools yet? Rumor going around is Clement's interested in you.”

"That's what they said, but they didn't call last week like they said they would. Maybe because of me being hurt, maybe because they had a tough game with late TV, I don't know. I’ve just gotta step up tomorrow."

Cory slaps the stands powerfully, happy. "That's the Troy I know. I remember what my dad told me one time, right after my grandfather died. He put in a DVD of Bruce Lee's old movie,
Enter The Dragon
. You seen it?"

I roll my eyes. “I think everyone's seen it," I say, knowing where Cory is going.

"Then you know what I'm talking about, right? We need emotional content. So when you step on the field tomorrow, you put everything out there. Your pain, the bad feelings because of your dad, and yeah, I'm gonna go there, your love of Whitney. And don't bullshit me, I know you do. Take it all, and leave it out there tomorrow. You do that, and we'll be fine."

"Is that what you do?"

Cory laughs and shakes his head. "Me? You need to check who you're talking to. I don't have enough emotionally going on in my life to last me through the first quarter. I play for the same reason I always have. To crack some heads and to get the girls.”

"You're never going to change, Cory. You know that?"

Cory laughs again and slaps my knee. "I know that, bro. I know that."

* * *

I
'm nervous
, as for the first time ever, I don't feel settled as I walk through my individual warmups and stretches before the game. The sun's nearly down already, the lights are on, and my uniform fits right. But there's still something wrong, and I know what it is. My heart's not in the game.

Suddenly, I hear Whitney behind me. "Troy."

I turn around, and I see her. She's in her uniform, like the other girls, but there's still something different about her. She's still so beautiful, though, that I want to pull her close, but I'm afraid. I don't want to screw up again, like last time. "Whitney. I . . . I thought you wouldn't talk to me before the game. I missed your note."

Whitney gives me a ghost of a smile and reaches into the waistband of her uniform, pulling out a square of folded up notebook paper. "Never. I know things aren't perfect between us, and I'm sorry. It's been mostly my fault."

"No it hasn't," I say, stepping closer. "When I said I want to forget Silver Lake Falls, that doesn't mean you. I know it sounds stupid, but when I've been studying at home, all I can see is
us
. You're too special to lose."

Whitney blinks and looks up to the night sky, and I think she's about to cry. Instead, she steps forward and wraps her arms around my waist, hugging me tightly. "I love you so much, Troy, and I'm so sorry I screwed the past few weeks up."

"We'll fix it, Whitney," I reply, stroking her hair. "We have plenty of time to fix things. I know it."

She looks like she's about to say something else, but I hear someone holler from the locker room. "Hey, Troy! Coach wants us in for something!"

"Just a minute!" I yell back and look down to Whitney. "Thanks. I promise you, we'll get through this. I love you."

Whitney stands on her tiptoes and grabs my head, kissing me sweetly. Her lips are soft, but there's still something strange about her kiss. It feels like she's saying
goodbye
, not
I love you
. "Go," she says after the kiss. "Go and grab your future, and never let go. Don't forget . . . I love you."

I go back to the locker room, feeling partially better, while Coach gives us a pep talk. It's a bit longer than normal. I think Coach is worried about as much as the guys are. After he rambles on a little, I stand up from my locker and take over. "Excuse me, Coach? I'd like to say something."

Coach nods, and I look around at the guys who are my team, my brothers.

"You all know what I've been going through, maybe even more than Coach here. I don't know. What I do know is that when I was hurt, when I was down and vulnerable, you all stood up and carried me on your shoulders. You gave me the strength to keep going, to not fall apart. Well, I'm promising you tonight, I swear on my blood and on my life that I’m going to return that to you. There is a debt, a bond between us that can never really be broken, isn't there? We made it in the July and August sun, running two-a-days until we were nearly puking. We made it against Blueridge, and East Valley, and everyone we've faced. Even against Hartsville, and you don't know how much it hurt me to be sitting watching that, wanting to be out there. Well, now we've got Northern. Fine.

They've been playing together since they were in preschool. Fine.

They ain't lost to us in a decade! Fine.

Tonight, I'm laying it all on the line. Tonight,
we
lay it all on the line. And tonight, we teach Northern what it means to come to the Fox Den against hungry Foxes. You ready?"

The guys don't cheer. There's none of that false bravado bullshit that fades away before the opening kickoff's done. I just look around and see a set to their eyes, a tightness to their hands, and I nod. "Good. Helmets up. Cory, take 'em out."

It's our final home game of the regular season, so I'm sent out to do the coin flip, and I choose to go by myself, already helmeted. As I walk by the trainer's table, I stop and grab the white athletic tape. "Hey, Tim, you got a Sharpie on you?"

"Yeah," our medic says. "Why?"

"Just need to borrow it for a second," I say. He hands it over, and on the two-inch wide tape I write a big '
WN
' on it. I wrap it around my left bicep, closest to my heart, and head out to do the coin flip.

I see it in the Northern captains' eyes as we stare at each other across the gap between us. Northern tried to intimidate us by sending out the entire group of seniors on the offense, including their big fullback. But one look at me, and their swagger dims. "Call the flip, Sounders."

"Heads."

"The coin is tails. Silver Lake, you have the call. What do you want?"

"Defer to the second half. Let them choose their way of defeat."

My words rattle them, I can tell, and after we're done, I turn to go back, giving the Sounders my back first, and go to the sidelines. The band starts up the fight song, and it's show time.

I've never played harder in my life, and we need every bit of my effort. It's not just me, though, as Gabe blasts the line for hard chunks of yardage, and Russ is a Grim Reaper over the deep middle, taking heads off every receiver Northern sends after him. We fight, dig, and claw for every thing we can, and the Silver Lake Foxes respond.

The first quarter ends with both teams knotted at zero, but I can feel it, and looking around at the guys, they feel it too. The Sounders didn't expect to fight this hard. They're ready to buckle. "Thirty-four fire SAM slant," I call in the defensive huddle. There's only a minute left in the second half, and the Sounders are just trying to hang on until halftime. "Let's take it to them."

"Cover two," Russ calls, and we break the huddle. We line up, and I can see it in the Northern QB’s eyes. He's afraid. He's 'hearing footsteps'.

"Black forty-three! Black forty-three! Set! Hut!"

The ball snaps on one, and I charge. A 'fire SAM slant' is a blitz, where I go on one side of the center, while our nose tackle slants to the other side. If it's done right, the center doesn't know who to block, and the guards are also caught off guard too. My going right up the middle means that if I'm quick and powerful enough, I can be past the line and into the backfield before anyone can do a damn thing about it. If the running backs are going out on passes, it's lights out for the quarterback.

This time, I go to my left, the Sounders' right, and while the guard is at least half ready for me, he's not ready for the power I bring. We collide shoulder to shoulder, and he's goes flying backward, blown off his feet. The Northern quarterback sees me coming, though and runs like a scared rabbit, scrambling in the half-second head start the guard gave him.

Right into the arms of our defensive end. Bill strips the ball, and suddenly, it's on the ground. I scoop it up and run for the end zone, with only the big Northern fullback between me and the goal line. He'd been sent out on a swing pass, and he's got depth and pursuit angle on me. Squaring down, I lower my shoulder and nail him, both of us careening, but I refuse to go down, twisting and putting one hand on the ground for balance, my knees never touching the ground. When I reach the end zone, the dam is broken, and we're up, six to nothing.

After that, everything is a stat grab. My hit on the fullback took him out of the game with a dislocated shoulder, but more importantly, the Sounders had their hearts taken away from them and came out in the second half a shell of what they were. Final score: Silver Lake 42, Northern 6.

I'm shaking hands with the Sounders when a man approaches me, wearing the crimson and black of Clement University. "Troy Wood?"

"Yes, sir. Can I help you?"