Muck City (40 page)

On the sideline, Hester was livid.
“Goddamnit, Jaime!”
he shouted. Jaime had been playing the inside receiver. When Rivers had torn past, he’d barely put up his arm to block. Once again, the little things.

On third down and eight, Mario’s pass to Burgess sailed over the receiver’s head and was blown incomplete. On their first drive of the game, the Raiders were forced to punt it away.

As the offense ran onto the sideline, they felt the giant hands of Benjamin slap the tops of their helmets. “Yall get that,
bwah
,” he said.

The receiver wore his Raider jersey over a garnet Seminoles sweatshirt, along with a pair of massive headphones wrapped around his neck. And like Buie, the other deposed superstar on the opposite side of the field, KB watched his team with a jumble of emotions.

The six weeks spent away from football had left him to focus on his college decision and linger in the rhapsody, but it had also left him mentally drained. Reporters were constantly calling. Coach Z still phoned once a week, determined as always, even as the floor seemed to slip from beneath
him. And it seemed that everywhere Kelvin went in Belle Glade, someone else had an opinion about his future. Often he just stayed home with his girlfriend, Mika, or sought tutoring after school. Because of his time spent in jail, Kelvin was having to retake ten classes in order to meet NCAA requirements. All of the schoolwork and commotion had at least kept his mind off not playing for the Raiders. In a weird way, it had also given him a peace about his senior season.

“In a way I’m happy I aint out there,” he’d said earlier that week, “ ’cause most of them cats had settled on just being behind me and stuff. Especially Davonte. I knew he had more potential, but he wasn’t giving his all ’cause I was out there. I was getting the recognition. Most of the people coming to the games wasn’t watching those guys. Now it’s good because they can see them. Now it’s not just about me.”

It was a selfless acknowledgment from a player whose eyes were cast toward greater glory. But the truth remained that here under the lights of the Citrus Bowl, before God and the Glades, the receiver would have given just about anything to suit up and go out a champion.

•   •   •

THE TIGER OFFENSE
sprinted onto the field led by the diminutive quarterback Latravious Campbell. In the huddle, he was so short that his teammates had to crouch slightly to hear the play. But the Cocoa offense required no gunslinger to fire downrange, but rather a levelheaded technician to set the earthmovers in motion. And tonight, Campbell had an assortment in his bay, not the least of whom was Chevelle Buie’s replacement, Antwan Lee.

Coming off the bench to substitute for a national top-ten running back, Lee was a five-ten, 170-pound sophomore with only 145 yards to his name. But he’d pulled his weight against Madison County the previous week, running for a touchdown and sixty-eight yards, enough to convince Wilkinson to give him the cherished start in the finals. “He proved himself when his number was called,” the coach said.

Jaime’s punt had pinned Cocoa on their own five-yard line. With Lee lining up deep in the end zone behind Campbell, the Tigers went to work. The fullback had a head of steam as he hit the Raider line and moved them four yards into safer territory. Campbell then faked a toss and set up a trap. The defense parted as running back Devonte Jones raced through the middle gap for the first down. The next play, the Tigers’ parade of hardware was finally complete as Tarean Folston introduced himself with a four-yard hammerstep to move the ball to the twenty-five.

The Raider defense received their new callers by slamming the door in their faces and forcing them to punt. But Robert Way, his nerves firing in overdrive, overshot his block attempt and tackled the punter, Cody White. Way cursed himself as he got up and saw the yellow flag glowing on the turf beside him. The penalty gave the Tigers the first down and sent memories of the previous year rushing like an ominous wind through the stands. But, luckily for the Raiders, the Tigers had yet to settle down themselves. A pair of penalties erased two commanding runs by Folston and Jones, stranding the offense in their own territory and forcing them to punt again.

Two of the best defenses in the state quickly found their groove and managed the tempo into the second quarter, each denying the other mere inches of ground on fourth-down attempts. With seven minutes left in the half, Mario found a crack in the Dark Side.

The drive started out in shambles. The Raider defense had once again forced the punt, and White’s kick had put Glades Central back at their own sixteen. On the first play, no Raider receivers bothered to block on a screen pass to Jaime, leaving a wide-open lane for a surging Tra Cadore. The linebacker wrapped Jaime at the line of scrimmage and deposited his body on the Raider ten. The next snap, Jeffery Philibert could not hold his man, and the Tigers swarmed the hole and buried Mario on the three.

It was third down and twenty-three when Mario waded halfway into his own end zone and called for the snap. A fevered howl rose from the
stands and lifted into the dark night. One half of the stadium cried for two points and his blood; the other just hoped to shoo the ghosts that caused their boy to scramble and be cut down in the weeds.

But instead of running scared, the quarterback hung in the pocket. He fingered the ball and let his eyes roll over the gaps. Calm. Breathing. Alone. Everything seemed to fall away, and for the first time, the middle revealed itself.

For months he’d been listening to Hester shout
“Check down! Check down
!,” reminding him of the underneath receiver running the hot route across the middle. Mario had never been comfortable with the middle, partly because he’d always had trouble seeing over the line. And without fail, Monday film would find Hester pointing out the receivers running free in the shallows, usually while Mario scrambled and launched it deep.

“All you have to do is find the defender,” Hester would say. “And if you can find him, the middle is yours. The receiver will be there. Just trust yourself.” Instead, Mario had always played it safe and looked for the outside man.

“It’s just a confidence thing,” Hester said. “As soon as he finds his confidence, he’ll see the field.”

Now on third and long, wading in the lake of fire of his own end zone, the quarterback saw the middle. And cutting right across it was Burgess. He fired the ball with such velocity that it jerked the six-foot receiver backward, as if he’d latched hold of a rocket. The pass was good for thirty yards, the hardest he’d thrown all season. Two plays later, he found the middle again and hit Jaime for another first down.

But as Mario had stepped back to throw, Redding pounded through an open crease and rounded his right side. The quarterback had seen him coming, but it was too late. As he released the ball, the linebacker speared him in the ribs just below the shoulder blade and knocked him off his feet. Blood rushed to his ears as he landed on his stomach, clawing the turf and gasping for breath. He flopped onto his back, ripping at the flak
vest that squeezed his lungs with the terrible weight of the blue-black sky above.

No air! No air
!

Several coaches rushed out and lifted the vest, just as Mario’s lungs filled enough to gag—then came … short … stuttered … life-sustaining breaths. After a minute, the coaches pulled Mario to his feet and the stadium erupted. The Jumbotron had shown it all.

The quarterback sat out for one play—a handoff to Baker from Davis that went two yards—before toeing the white line, wanting back in. As he trotted to the huddle, he looked toward Redding and smiled. The Raiders lined up at midfield, four receivers loaded on the wings.

“We ’bout to turn this shit up,” the quarterback said, and took the snap.

The play call was “sally,” in which all four receivers run a quick slant. Mario aimed for Davonte. Ten yards upfield, the receiver planted and twirled to make the catch—just as Rick Rivers flew into its path. The ball zipped right through the cornerback’s glove, missing by an inch, and into Davonte’s hands. Rivers fell as Davonte tore down the sideline, dodging one, then two defenders who dove for his legs. He was finally knocked out of bounds, but not before stretching his body like a piece of putty to get the ball over the pylon.

“Let’s ride, baby!”
he screamed, as Jaime lifted him into the air.
“Let’s ride!”

But the officials blew the whistle and ruled him out of bounds at the one-yard line—even as Fox’s instant replay, broadcast on the Jumbotron above, clearly showed him catching the corner.

A handoff to Baker then got nowhere. A pass to Burgess was tipped and nearly intercepted. So Mario, after driving ninety-seven yards and taking the hardest hit of his life, hiked the ball from the shotgun, lowered his shoulder, and ran it through himself.

Touchdown!

Marvin’s extra point gave the Raiders a 7–0 lead, which they took into the half.

•   •   •

THE BOYS HURRIED
into the locker room, feeling high and buzzing all over. They could feel it: they
had
them. The defense had held the Tigers to just fifty-seven yards, denied the open field, and, just before the whistle, even forced a rare turnover when Boobie broadsided Lee like a train. Still, the Tigers were the best, most dangerous team any of them had ever seen—even without Chevelle Buie.

But so were the Raiders, especially right now, grooving in the tailwind of their captain. They would follow him anywhere.

“This is our last twenty-four minutes,” Mario said, pacing the room. “Make it our best. Make the last twenty-four minutes our best!”

“Defense, if they don’t score, we win. Plain and simple,” Hester said. “Offense, we got to keep going, baby. We got to finish those blocks and keep making plays. Let’s go clean this up right now.
Right now
. This is
our
half. We got to shut these people down.”

“Be smart,” he warned as the clock pulled them out the door. “ ’Cause it’s gonna be hard for these guys to get something big on us, and they know this. It’ll have to be some kind of trick.”

The team pressed around their quarterback, raised their hands, and said it on three:

“FINISH! FINISH! FINISH!”

•   •   •

IF THERE WAS
one thing the Tigers had in spades, it was tricks. Lethal combinations of simple plays they could employ with devastating precision. But as they lined up to receive the kickoff, there were no tricks in their bag. They didn’t need them.

Boobie’s squib kick tumbled across midfield to the thirty-two, forcing Antwan Lee to spin and give chase as a pack of Raiders closed in. From the middle lane, Boobie watched the fullback grab hold of the ball and
followed the momentum of his body, cutting right to meet him when he turned back around. The teammate to Boobie’s left abandoned his lane and followed his lead. A split second later, Lee—playing only in his second start of the season, all of 145 yards to his name—fooled everyone by reversing course and wheeling the other way. There in front of him was a gaping path straight to glory. Sixty-nine yards. No one even came close to catching him.

As Lee zipped past and pranced into the end zone, Hester was dumbfounded. He’d seen Boobie misjudge the takeoff, but who was that running next to him, the kid who left his lane? He turned to Sam, the special teams coach, and together they said the same thing: “Where is Jaja?”

“Where the fuck is Jaja?”

They both spun around to find Jaja, the all-star linebacker, second-leading tackler, special teams enforcer who’d never allowed a breakaway, sitting by himself on the bench—a look of pure horror across his face.

Besides being the most disciplined player on the team, Jaja was also a really nice guy. So nice that during halftime, one of his buddies—a kid fresh up from JV—had bemoaned not getting any click-clack during the biggest game of the season. So, without informing Hester or Sam, Jaja pulled himself from the game and gave the kid his lane, and it was that kid who had missed the tackle to give the Tigers the tie. In their most critical hour, it was Jaja who’d gone rogue, who’d put himself above the program. And for Hester, it was a confounding, almost heartbreaking twist of irony.

•   •   •

HALFWAY DOWN THE SIDELINE
, Jonteria couldn’t breathe.

She was allergic to dyes, and without thinking, she’d let one of the cheerleaders paint her face with a glitter pen. Toward the end of the half, she’d felt her throat begin to close, then panicked. Luckily, one of the mothers had reached into her purse and pulled out a packet of Benadryl, which stopped the reaction. Except now, just before kickoff, the medicine
had gone straight to her head. She felt groggy as she faced the crowd. The sea of bodies rippled under the lights, which themselves kept bouncing when she tried to jump. Jonteria let her mind wander.

Not surprisingly, her attention drifted toward the many things on her to-do list. Right now at the very top was the Gates Millennium Scholars application, which was due in three weeks. It was by far her biggest pursuit, her number in the Academic Jackpot million. If she was among the lucky one thousand scholars—chosen nationwide from a pool of tens of thousands of applicants—it would pay for every day of school until she began a residency.
Everything
. No worries no more. But it also required
eight
separate essay questions.

She’d hoped to write some of them before Vincent’s arrival, now just several days away. It had been seven long months since they’d last seen one another, and Jonteria wanted nothing to keep them apart. No homework, no club meetings or practice, no obsessing over her career. She wanted him to know she was capable of letting go. She could chill.

Today was also Vincent’s birthday. Jonteria had texted him before the game but didn’t tell him about her surprise. She was taking him out to Applebee’s, since that’s where he liked to eat. She was excited. But wouldn’t it be better, she thought, if Vincent came home and they dressed up and drove to The Breakers? She wanted him to see the ocean from that dining room, hear the clatter of silverware and the murmur of pleasant conversation. She wanted Vincent to notice how the waves broke against the beach behind her, how the soft light kissed her skin and made her eyes dance.
This is why I work so hard
, she would say.
Vincent, this is where I belong
.