Shots on Goal (2 page)

She looks a little embarrassed all of a sudden. “Oh. Didn’t Joey tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Well, I asked him to take me out after the game.” She smiles, tilting her head just a bit in consolation. “Sorry.”

I look at Joey and my mouth hangs open again. Joey looks down at his shoes, then out at the field.

“Oh,” Shannon says in a hurry, “why don’t you come along?”

I bite down on my lip, scanning the crowd. “Nah … I see Herbie over there. I’ll catch up to him and see what’s going on. Thanks anyway. See ya.”

Sure I will.

I walk down the bleachers and head to where Herbie and the other guys are, glancing back once to see her and Joey walking up toward street level. I stand around while Herbie and the others bust chops, staring out across the field to the highway, at the traffic headed for home.

I inch away from the group, toward the exit at the far end of the stadium. The band is still playing the fight song, but it’s far away now. I’m numb.

I shuffle through the excited crowd, out the gate in a hurry. After two blocks I’m clear of the lights and the sounds of the stadium, my boots kicking up the first fallen leaves of the season. I begin to run easy, to get the feeling back, and bite down on my lip.

Joey hadn’t said ten words the whole game. I’d been at my best; I had things to say, for once. Her warm brown eyes held some genuine interest. She’d been at the game this afternoon.

I move into the street to pass a guy walking home from the stadium with his little boy, no more than seven.

I pass by the school, dark and closed, and now I’m running faster, hopping the curb to cross a side street. The sweat is starting under my clothes, and I shake my hair back out of my eyes. I dodge quickly left, then right, chin upraised and defiant. A stutter-step and an acceleration get me past the defender, urging the ball ahead, my eyes taking in the whole field but focused on that area of ground between me and the sideline.

There’s running room ahead, but they’re closing in from every angle. You’re tough, as tough as anybody out there, taking in the grunts of the opponents, struggling with unskilled feet to work the ball down the field; so keenly aware of the immediate space you need to conquer, less sharply aware of the goal.

My bedroom is in the back corner of the upstairs, across the hall from my brother Tommy’s. I’m lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about our next game. It’s hard to believe that we’re 3–0. We went 2–11–1 a year ago. Suddenly we’re 3–0.

Nobody can believe it. Not to say that many people have noticed, of course. Not in this town.

We’ve got our fourth one on Tuesday, a home game against the defending league champions. Last year they shut us out both times, 7–0 and 5–0, when we had five freshmen starting and they had mostly seniors. Now we’re sophomores and we’re undefeated. But we’ll be lucky if forty people show up to watch the game. I’ve seen forty people at one time in the bathroom at a wrestling match. Sturbridge is a football and wrestling town.

My brother wrestles. Tommy’s been varsity since his freshman year; placed second in the state last winter, and he’s still only a junior. But he and I are different. Lots different.

Tommy lives in the here and now. He’s direct. He makes sense when he talks. I narrate my life as it occurs. I have conversations in my head, and I forget sometimes what I’ve said aloud and what I’ve only practiced saying in my mind. I get myself in trouble that way, with girls, with teachers, with my friends.

My mother sticks her head in the doorway and smiles at me. “Whatcha thinking about, Barry?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I say. “Soccer.”

She walks into the room and looks at the pictures on the wall by the window. I’ve got photographs from every team I’ve ever been on—two years of Little League, three seasons of Biddy Basketball, about ten seasons of indoor and outdoor soccer at the Y.

“Ever talk much with Carrie?” Mom asks, pointing to a girl kneeling next to me in one of the soccer photos.

I shake my head. “No.”

“Seems like a nice girl.” This is a nudge, but I won’t bite.

“I guess,” I say. “She’s going out with a senior.”

“Oh.” She turns toward me and smiles again, brushing back her hair, which is dark and sort of curly. She’s worried about me. I’m too into sports, I only have one close friend, I spend a lot of time in my room with the door shut, and I’ve never had a girlfriend. That’s what she sees, anyway.

“Come downstairs soon,” she says. “Don’t waste a Sunday afternoon.”

She leaves and I get up and close the door. I sit on the bed and look at the wall.

Joey’s in just about every picture; his father coached everything and I almost always landed on his team because me and Joey have been best friends since second grade. But it was never Joey’s team, or my team, or the Sharks or the Jets or the Blasters—whatever the official name was that season—it was Bones-and-Joey’s team. Always. An inseparable partnership.

Joey was the star of those teams, scoring lots of goals, making the lay-up off the fast break, driving in the winning run. I was the guy who made Joey look good, taking the outlet pass and finding him in the clear, or crossing the ball in front of the goal so he could knock it in.

I’m still doing it. He’s got five goals this season and I’ve assisted on four of them. It also looks like he’s got a girlfriend, and I think I deserve a double assist for that one. The jerk.

My life has been lived within two shadows: my brother’s and Joey’s. Even my name, what everybody calls me and doesn’t really fit, came from Tommy. His first sentence, the legend goes, was “Boney wet,” Boney being his fifteen-month-old pronunciation of Barry. It stuck, although I’ve never been particularly boney. I’m five-foot-seven, 140.

Joey’s shadow is different. He and I have always been there for each other. Until the other night, I mean. First fight I ever got in was during second-grade recess. We were playing touch football and I was mostly blocking. This kid Steven Bittner—who was twice my size—kept trying to punch me in the nuts to get past me. Finally I got mad enough and swung at him, and he whacked me good in the teeth. Then he pinned me down and had his knees on my shoulders, and Joey yelled, “Let him up, you pig!”

Steven turned his head to look at Joey, and I started squirming like crazy to get out from underneath.

“Let him up,” Joey said. “He can’t fight like that.”

So Steven started to get off me. He was big and slow, and I was small and fast. I got to my knees real quick and caught him square in the nose with my fist. By then some
teachers had noticed the commotion and started running over. Steven and I had to stay in for the next week of recesses, but he never bothered me again.

Joey’s always been a half-step ahead of me in sports, but we’ve been on even ground in everything else.

He just took a step past me with Shannon, though. And I don’t think that’s fair.

The rain starts while we’re warming up, standing in a semicircle and firing shots at Herbie. I sneak a look down the other end of the field, where the Greenfield guys are working a wheel, running clockwise around the man in the center, sending the balls back and forth from the center to the rim. They’re good.

There’s no joking today, no comments about Herbie’s cigarette breath or Rico’s big nose or Dusty’s lisp. This game means too much, more than anything. Two undefeated teams: 3 and 0.

“Kick some ass!” yells Joey, sending a ball into the high corner of the net.

“Everything you got!” hollers Trunk, booting a line drive that Herbie leaps for and bats down.

“We’re Number One!” shouts Herbie, picking up the ball and squeezing it. “We’re it, man!”

Herbie tosses me the ball and I catch it on my thigh, bouncing it up and juggling it on my other foot. I give myself a lead, plant my foot and fire, and listen to the thud as the ball hits the crossbar and bounces back.

The Greenfield guys are broken into pairs now, shadowing each other up and down the field, one guy dribbling, the other one backpedaling. They’ve got more players back from last year than I thought they would. A lot of good players.

The coach calls us over; we gang up around him. My hair
is wet but my throat is dry. The officials are huddled up at midfield. The Greenfield players run over to their sideline, leaping and yelling.

I close my eyes for a second. It’s still early season, there’s a long way to go. But those Greenfield guys are ready to clobber us, to beat us as bad as last year. It shouldn’t really matter so much. Shouldn’t make me so nervous.

We’ve got three wins already, but that holds no water against these guys. This game is the measuring stick. Our program is four years old, and we’ve never even scored against Greenfield. That’s eight straight shutouts.

I look around at Rico, at Herbie, at the others. The coach clears his throat. “Last year,” he says slowly, “was a long, long time ago.…”

Minutes go by before I finally touch the ball, intercepting a centering pass in front of our goal. I step left, then go right, creating space and moving down the field. I feed Joey on the run and he moves past the center line, dribbling into a mass of green-and-white shirts. “You can’t do it alone,” I holler, but he tries to anyway, and quickly loses control. I hustle back as the ball flies into our end.

Up and down the field, neither team penetrating for most of the first quarter, until their striker finally breaks ahead of the pack and crosses the ball to a midfielder, who one-touches it right back and the striker boots it into the upper corner of the goal.

I let out my breath in a huff and a cloud of moisture swirls up and away. Herbie punches the ball to the official, and Joey yells, “Let’s get it back!”

Coach claps his hands and I wipe my forehead and jog back into position. “Let’s go!” I yell, as much to myself as anyone else.

At the half we’re still down 1–0, but we’ve had some opportunities, this one’s within reach. Coach tells us midfielders to bear down and gut it out—get back on defense and keep sparking the offense. My arms are fatigued, even more than my legs for some reason; maybe it’s from tension, from the weight on our shoulders.

But the Greenfield players are tired, too. The momentum shifts our way in the third quarter. A couple of shots on goal, a couple of close misses. Finally we’ve got a corner kick. Dusty floats it just in front of the near post and their goalie leaps to grab it. But the wet ball slips through his fingers and it’s all he can do to bat it free as he goes down. It wobbles to the left of the goal and I’m there, an open net in front of me, and a surge goes through me as I connect, and it soars, and it powers into the net like a punch in the stomach of our opponent.

They mob me. It’s tied. Joey hits my shoulder hard enough to bruise it, and big Trunk lifts me off the ground in a bear hug. I break free and “Yes!” and race back to our end of the field. People on the sidelines are yelling. Herbie’s on his knees in front of our goal, facing skyward with his eyes closed. It’s tied.

We’re on a new level now. We weren’t really sure about ourselves, not ready to admit that we’re as good as anybody in this league. But now we know it, now we can prove it if we can just get that ball through this defense again. Back and forth through the fourth quarter, neither team gaining
much, neither team yielding. My nose is running and I suck it up and spit it out in a rapid wad. Eyes on the ball, eyes on the ball. Drive, drive, drive …

We can beat these guys, but it has to happen now. I’m soaked but warm, my legs splattered with mud and my hair matted to my head. The rain is steady but light, so the footing hasn’t been bad until the past couple of minutes.

Joey’s taking a throw-in near midfield; guys are shouting and pushing to get clear; there’s three minutes left in a 1–1 game. Teeth are clenched and elbows locked.

“Bones!” he yells, but his throw bounces four feet in front of me and strikes me in the knee.
Throw to the feet, Joey!
The guy marking me takes the ball and I slip again, catching myself with my hands. I push back up, but the ball’s already gone.

This is the guy who scored their goal, heading back upfield now. He chips it toward the middle, lobbing it over a defender, and they’ve got a guy in the clear zeroing in on Herbie. Herbie dives toward the corner, but the ball beats him there. Like that.

The Greenfield players go wild. I mouth an obscenity and wipe my hands on my soaking blue jersey. “Throw to the feet,” I say to Joey, but it’s too late. And I should have controlled it anyway.

Time races away now. We can’t mount a decent attack. We blew it. We had at least a tie, but we blew it. Herbie blocks a shot and boots it high and long, but the ref blows the whistle before it hits the ground.

We ain’t undefeated any longer.