Sightings (14 page)

Those wind sprints really helped.

The first time I missed a field goal we were up by nine with six seconds left and it didn't really matter. But the second time – the second time Coach Housen overlooked first stringer Bryan Markum and told me to get my “sweet little heiny” in there, that he'd had a religious vision in which Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary had assured him that I would “kick us to thy holy victory,” – we were down by two (8–6) with about three minutes left. I hadn't even been paying much attention to the game. I'd heard a lot of shouting about Markum's making a couple of field goals, but ever since halftime, Daryl and I had devoted ourselves exclusively to putting Pop Rocks in our Gatorade and daring each other to drink it.

“How much you wanna bet your stomach will explode?”

“How much
you
wanna bet?”

“Yancey,” Coach interrupted, “take us home, huh?”

Home? Was the game already over?

He snapped and pointed to the field.

“Get in there.”

I looked out at all those grass-stained players with their hands on their hips and wondered what they wanted with me.

“Field goal, Yancey!” Couch explained. “Now move it!”

I couldn't figure out what I'd done with my helmet, so Daryl let me borrow his. It was too big. It made me look like a bobble head. I sort of bumbled past the rest of the team on the sidelines, excusing myself – “Sorry, pardon me, my bad, watch your feet there . . .” – as I hopped over their cleats.

I took the field – only the third time all season – and tried orienting myself with the goalpost.

Okay. The bleachers are there and the football is here, so according to the Transitive Property . . .

After finding my bearings, I huddled around my newfound team. Everything reeked of bad breath and crotches.

“So what'd I miss?” I asked them, wrapping my arms around the two people closest to me. They pushed me away.

“You gonna make this or what?” asked linebacker Trent Gordon, a beefy kid who looked like the aftermath of a failed attempt at the world's first human-bull hybrid.

“Sure,” I nodded.

Why not?

Then, we broke from the huddle, and I made up some elaborate equation involving wind direction and ball speed and the velocity and degree to which my foot would most likely come in contact with its target.

I took five steps backward, two to the left, just like Bryan Markum had taught me.

As the official stuck the whistle in his mouth the other team called a time out.

“Oh for crying out loud,” Coach hollered, his hands above his head. “Yancey, run that sweet ass over here for me!”

I ran it over.

“Now look,” he said, a hand clasped to my buttocks. “They're just trying to freeze you up. That's all this is. Look at 'em all huddled up over there. Just a bunch of little ladies. They're not saying a goddamned thing. You know why they called a time out? Freeze you up. Get you nervous. Get those butterflies really pumping in your stomach.” He began spanking me to the rhythm of his words. “But don't –
smack
– get –
smack
– nervous.”

Smack, smack.

Coach's hand on my ass had proved quite distracting, and between all the smacking all I'd heard was: “freeze you up,” “get you nervous,” “butterflies in stomach.”

“So what are you waiting for?” he asked, bestowing me with one final spanking. “Get in there and do it.” He sort of chased after me to try to squeeze in one last ass-slap, but once more, the wind sprints served a purpose.

I took five steps backward, two to the left.

The official blew his whistle.

I kicked.

The crowd roared.

And as the stadium lights highlighted every fleck of sweat, every tensed muscle, every held breath, the football trickled somewhere in the high weeds near the fence.

My father called home on a Tuesday. I remember.

“Rexy!” he cried. “How's it hanging? How's football?”

“Okay,” I said. “How's . . . painting?”

“Eh, not so good, really. Turns out it wasn't painting I needed. I thought I needed painting, but you know what I really had a hankering for?”

“What?”

“A sports car! Who knew, right?”

“You bought a sports car?”

“Mmmhmm,” he said proudly. “Mazda Miata. The poor man's Ferrari. You're gonna love it, Rexy. Trust me. The salesman called it an orgasm on wheels. You know what that means, right?”

“Oh,” I said. “That sounds . . . neat.”

“Hey, is your mom there? Can you put her on for me?”

I handed it over to Mom. She was smiling so wide I thought her face might break. In fact, maybe it did because she was crying.

“A what on wheels?” she blushed. “Honey! Please!” she said, lowering her voice, “Rex's standing right here.”

Dad mumbled something else.

“Really?” she asked, brightening. “Yes, well, I'm sure I will, too.”

She nodded, smiling, tears streaking down her face, smearing her make-up.

“Well when can we expect you . . . Uh-huh . . . Sure! No, that's perfect . . . I know he's really missed you, too . . . Yes, a lot to talk about . . . Yes . . . but it's over? For good?”

I wandered into the living room where I didn't have to listen.

“Okay,” Mom agreed. “Well, we can't wait, either . . . Back to normal sounds fine.”

I tossed the telephone books into a trash bag and then walked it out to the curb. The garbage trucks wouldn't arrive for another two days, but at least I could count on them to be there.

After several unsuccessful attempts, I finally proved Coach Housen, Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Mary right: I sailed a ball squarely through the goalposts. It didn't matter. We were down by forty-two.

Our team dinner was held two weeks later, at a pizza place where the servers wore red and white checkered hats and spoke with fake Italian accents.

“Mama mia!” they cried every time you ordered. “Wouldja like-a side-a breadsticks with the nacho cheese?”

All our parents were there, and Coach Housen seemed a little overwhelmed by the nearly two to one adult to adolescent ratio.

Our parents were busy chitchatting about things unrelated to football. That same day, our English teacher, Ms. Steinberg, had assigned us a book with the word “cock” in it, and Adam Green's mother had made it her personal mission to get the book pulled from the curriculum. She was passing around a petition, asking people to please refrain from spilling marinara on it.

Dad was there, his arm around Mom, and all I heard him say was, “Cock, cock, cock. I guess I just don't see what the big deal is.”

After that, everyone thought he was just about the world's greatest dad; they didn't even know about his mug, or his vanishing act, or the video game he brought me upon his return. When one of the fathers asked why he hadn't been at the games, Dad mentioned something about a “soul-sucking business trip.” He didn't mention anything about impressionist painting; he'd simply slipped back into our lives like a turpentine-soaked paintbrush.

Housen stared at the menu for twenty minutes or so, occasionally jotting a note on the kid's menu with a blue crayon.

“Ready to order?” the waitress asked for about the hundredth time. She'd long since dropped the accent.

Housen sighed. His eyes caught mine.

“Just order some pepperonis,” I coached. “Everyone likes pepperoni.”

He nodded, closing the menu.

“We'll do that. We'll take a coupla pepperonis,” he told her. “And a coupla those meat lovers, too.”

Housen handed her the menu before excusing himself to the bathroom. Ten minutes passed, and since I wasn't sure if he was ever coming back, I slunk in after him.

I found him there, leaning against the sink, practicing his end-of-the-year-speech in the mirror.

He stopped when I entered.

“Rexy, hey there,” he said, glancing at me through the reflection. He folded his speech and returned it to his pocket. “Pizza here yet?”

“Not yet,” I said. He cleared his throat. His face had whitened, sweat stains permeating his collared shirt.

“Just rehearsing,” he explained. “Want to make sure I tell your parents how you all went out there and really nabbed 'em by their dongers this year,” he chuckled, slapping my shoulder. “Dincha?”

I hesitated.

“You know, Coach. Sometimes people think that the things you say . . . well, that they sound sort of gay.”

“Gay?” he laughed. “What could possibly be gay about football?” I didn't mention the guy-on-guy dog piles or the naked showers that followed.

“Well, like when you tell us to ‘whip their dicks' sometimes. ‘Nab their dongers' would be another example, I guess.”

He pulled the blue crayon from his pocket and began revising his speech.

“You goddamned kids. Ten years ago no one would've bat an eye. Now, I can't even say ‘dongers' without the
PC
police riding my asshole . . .”

“Not that you have to go and change everything,” I explained. “Just maybe be careful about what you say. Especially because Adam's mom is kind of a nut and . . . well, you know her. She'll probably make everyone sign a petition or something. Against gay people.”

Coach's nose flared. He snapped the crayon in his hand.

“Gay,” he repeated, shaking his head and staring into the sink. “Suddenly I'm gay because I'm molding you boys into hard men.”

“Hard, Coach?”

“Oh, let me guess: that's gay, too, right?”

“I wouldn't call it . . .”

“Am I some kind of . . . gay because I want you to have a winning season? Cuz I want to teach you a few fundamentals about the game?”

“Coach, maybe I didn't say it right. All I was trying to say was . . .”

He grabbed me by my shirt collar and pulled me into the parking lot.

“Wind sprints,” he shouted. “Count 'em off, Yancey.” I stared out at the half-filled lot. A family excused themselves and walked past us.

“Well? What are you waiting for? Count 'em off!” “Coach, maybe later, okay?”

I started to brush past him but he stopped me. He put his trembling hands on my arms and held me there.

“Come on, Coach. They're waiting for us.”

He breathed heavily, then let his hands drop to his sides.

“We're a team, Yancey,” he said, his eyes closed. “Remember back when we were a team?”

I snuck past him, taking a seat beside my father.