Black Evening (21 page)

He studied us, letting what he'd said sink in. Boy, I thought, he doesn't miss a trick. Anything to psych us up. For Christ's sake, a lucky statue.

"There's just one other thing. A few outsiders might not understand the odd things we sometimes have to do to gear ourselves up for a game. They might object to what they thought was… who knows what?… voodoo or something. So we've always had this rule. No one talks about Mumbo Jumbo outside this room. We don't give away our little secrets."

I understood now why I hadn't heard about the statue before, even from the guys who'd been on last year's team. In a way, Joey and I hadn't been officially on the team until tonight when we went out to play.

"I mean it," Coach Hayes said. "If any of you guys blab about this, I'll boot you off the team." He glared. "Do I have your word?"

A few guys mumbled, "Sure."

"I didn't hear you. Say it! Promise!"

We did what he said.

"Louder!"

We shouted it.

"All right." Coach Hayes took the statue from the cabinet and set it on the table. Up close, the thing looked even uglier.

We walked around it twice, put our right hand on its head (I felt stupid as hell), then ran out onto the football field and —

This is what happened. I didn't believe it then. Now, through the haze of all these years, I try to convince myself that my memory's playing tricks. But it happened. That's the terrible part, deep down knowing the truth, but too late.

Five minutes into the game, no score, Coach Hayes sent me out as quarterback. In the huddle, I called a passing play, nothing fancy, just something basic to get the feel of being in the game. So we got set. I grabbed the ball, and all of a sudden it wasn't like in practice. This was the real thing, what all the pain and throwing up and weeks of work had been about, and Covington High's players looked like they wanted to kick in my teeth and make me swallow them. Our receivers ran out. Covington's interceptors stayed with them. My heart thundered. Frantic, I skipped back to get some room and gain some time, straining to see if anybody was in the open. Covington's blockers charged at me. It couldn't have taken five seconds, but it seemed even shorter, like a flash. A swirl of bodies lunged at me. My hands felt sweaty on the ball. Slick. I had the terrible fear I was going to drop it.

Then I saw Joey. He'd managed to get in the open. He was sprinting toward Covington's goal line, on the left, glancing back across his shoulder, hands up, wanting the ball. I snapped back my arm and shot the ball forward, perfect, exactly the way Coach Hayes had taught me, one smooth powerful motion.

And pivoted sideways so I wouldn't get crushed by Covington's blockers, staring at the ball spinning through the air like a bullet, my heart in my throat, shouting to Joey.

And that's when I froze. I don't think I've ever felt that cold. My blood was like ice, my spine packed with snow. Because that end of the field, to the left, near Covington's goal line, was empty. Joey wasn't there. Nobody was.

But I'd seen him. I'd aimed the ball to him. I swear to God he'd been there. How the —

Joey was over to the right, streaking away from Covington's men, suddenly in the open. To this day, I still don't know how he gained so much yardage so fast. In a rush, he was charging toward the left, toward the goal line.

And that ball fell in his hands so easily, so neatly…

The fans assumed we'd planned it, a fakeout tactic, a brilliant play. Coach Hayes later said the same, or claimed he believed it. When Joey sprinted across the goal line, holding the ball up in triumph, the kids from our school broke out in a cheer so loud I didn't hear it as much as feel it, like a wall of sound shoving against me, pressing me.

I threw up my hands, yelling to get rid of my excitement. But I knew. It wasn't any fakeout play. It wasn't brilliant. It had almost been a massive screwup. But it had worked. Almost as if…

(I saw Joey there. I know it. On the left, near the goal line. Except he hadn't been there.)

… as if we'd intended it to happen. Or it had been meant to happen.

Or we'd been unbelievably lucky.

I started shaking then. I couldn't stop. I wasn't steady enough to play for the next ten minutes. Sitting on the bench, I kept seeing the play again in my mind, Joey in two spots at once.

Maybe I hoped so hard that I saw what I'd pray I see.

But it felt spooky.

Coach Hayes came over to where I hunched on the bench. "Something the matter?"

I clutched my helmet. "I guess I'm just not used to…" What? "… a real game instead of practice. I've never helped score a touchdown before."

"You'll help score plenty more."

I felt a tingle in my gut.

The game was full of miracles like that. Plays that shouldn't have worked but they did. Incredible timing. With five minutes to go in the game and the score 35 to nothing in our favor, Coach Hayes walked along our bench and murmured to the defensive squad, "The next time they're close to our goal line, let them score. Hold back, but don't make it obvious."

Joey and I frowned at each other.

"But — " somebody said.

"No buts. Do what you're told," Coach Hayes said. "It's demoralizing for them if they don't get at least a few points. We want to let them feel they had a chance. Good sportsmanship."

Nobody dared to argue with him. Our defensive squad sure looked troubled, though.

"And be convincing," Coach Hayes said.

And that's why Covington scored when our guys failed to stop an end run.

The school had an after-game dance in the gym. Everybody kept coming up to me and Joey and the rest of the team, congratulating us, slapping us on the back. Rebecca Henderson even agreed to dance with me. But she'd come with some girlfriends and wouldn't let me take her home. "Maybe next time," she said.

Believe it or not, I didn't mind. In fact, I was so preoccupied I didn't remember to ask her out for Saturday night. What I wanted to do was talk to Joey. By ourselves.

A little after midnight, we started home. A vague smell of autumn in the air. Smoke from somebody's fireplace. Far off, a dog barked, the only sound except for the scrape of our shoes as we walked along. I shoved my hands in the pockets of my green-and-gold varsity jacket and finally said what was on my mind. "Our first play? When I threw you the ball and you scored?"

Joey didn't answer right away. I almost repeated what I'd said.

"Yeah, what about it?" His voice was soft.

I told him what I thought I'd seen.

"The coach says we think alike." Joey shrugged. "What he calls anticipation. You guessed that's where I was headed."

"Sure. It's just…" I turned to him. "We won so easily."

"Hey, I've got bruises on my — "

"I don't mean we didn't work. But we were so damned lucky. Everything clicked together."

"That's why Coach Hayes kept drilling us. To play as a team. All the guys did what they'd been taught to do."

"Like clockwork. Yeah. Everybody in the right place at the right time."

"So what's bugging you? You thought you saw me in one place while I was in another? You're not the only one who thought he was seeing things. When we started that play, I saw you snap the ball toward that empty slot in the field, so I faked out the guy covering me and ran like hell to get there ahead of the ball. Know what? As I started running, I suddenly realized you hadn't even thrown the ball yet. You were still looking for an opening. I saw what you were going to do, not what you'd already done."

I felt a chill.

"Anticipation. No big deal. Hell, luck had nothing to do with it. Coach Hayes had us psyched up. The old adrenaline started burning. I ran to where I guessed you'd throw."

I tried to look convinced. "It must be I'm not used to all the excitement."

"Yeah, the excitement."

Even in the dark, his eyes glowed.

"There's a lot of room for improvement," Coach Hayes said at Saturday's game analysis. "We missed a chance for at least two interceptions. Our blocking's got to be quicker, harder."

He surprised me. The score had been so misbalanced, our plays so nearly perfect, I figured we'd done as well as we could.

He made the team practice Sunday afternoon and every day after school. "Just because we won our first game doesn't mean we can afford to slack off. Overconfidence makes losers."

We still had to stay on that crazy diet of his. In my fantasies, I dreamed of mountains of cherry Cokes and fries with ketchup. For sure, we had to keep our grades up. The end of the week, he went around to all our teachers and asked how we'd done on our quizzes. "Let your studies slide," he warned us, "and you don't play."

Friday night, we packed our equipment in the school bus and drove across town to meet West High. We used the girls' locker room in the gym, and after we'd dressed, Coach Hayes insulted us again. He set down a small wooden case (it had a big lock on it) in the middle of the room, opened it, and took out Mumbo Jumbo. The thing looked twice as ugly as before, scowling with those big bulging lips and that upright slit for a navel.

But we knew the routine and walked around it twice and put a hand on the statue's head (I still felt stupid). Then we went out and won forty-two to seven. That seven wouldn't have happened except that again Coach Hayes made us let them score a touchdown. And again that spooky thing happened. Coach Hayes let me play in the second quarter. I got the ball and looked for an opening. There was Joey, far down the field, ready to catch it. And there was Joey, twenty yards in front of where I saw him, trying to get away from a West High player.

My mouth hung open. My hands felt numb. I couldn't breathe. At once something snapped inside me, and the next thing I knew I'd thrown the ball.

Joey raced from where he'd been trying to dodge the West High player. He ran toward the other Joey who was in the open. The two Joeys came together. And of course he caught the ball.

Our fans went nuts, screaming, cheering.

Joey crossed the goal line and jumped up and down. Even halfway down the field, despite the noise, I heard him whoop. Our guys were slapping me on the ass. I tried to look as excited as they were.

The next time I walked to our bench, Coach Hayes said, "Nice pass."

We studied each other for a second. I couldn't tell if he knew how startled I'd been out there, and why.

"Well, Joey's the one who caught it," I said.

"That's right. Team spirit, Danny. Everybody's in this together. All the same, nice pass."

Beside him, close, its lock shut, was the box.

We played eight games that season. Sometimes I had nightmares about them — double images of Joey or other players, the images coming together. I felt as if everything happened twice, as if I could see what was going to happen before it did.

Impossible.

But that's how it seemed. One night I scared my Mom and Dad when I woke up screaming. I didn't tell them what the nightmare was about. I didn't talk to Joey about it, either. After that first time I'd tried to, I sensed that he didn't want to listen.

"We're winners. Jesus, it feels good," he said.

And the scores were always lopsided. We always let the other team score a few points when we were way in front.

Except one time. The sixth game, the one against Central High. Coach Hayes didn't call us names that night before the game. In the locker room, he sat in a corner, watching us put on our uniforms, and the guys started glancing at each other, nervous, sensing something was wrong.

"It's tonight," a kid from last year said, his voice tense.

I didn't understand.

Coach Hayes stood up. "Get out there, and give it your best."

Joey looked surprised. "But what about — " He turned to the cabinet at the end of the locker room. "Mumbo — "

"Time to go." Coach Hayes sounded gruff. "Do what you're told. They're waiting."

"But — "

"What's the matter with you, Joey? Don't you want to play tonight?"

Joey's face turned an angry red. His jaw stood out. With a final look at the cabinet, he stalked from the locker room.

It could be you've already guessed. We didn't just lose that night. They trounced us. Hell, we never scored a point. Oh, we played hard. After all the training we'd been through, we knew what we were doing. But the other team played harder.

And it was the only game when I wasn't spooked, when I didn't see two images of Joey or what would happen before it actually did.

The after-game dance was a flop.

And Joey was mad as hell. Walking home with me, he kept slamming his fists together. "It's Coach Hayes's fault. He changed the routine. He got us used to him making us pissed at him before the game, calling us names and all that shit. We weren't prepared. We weren't worked up enough to go out there and win."

I tried to calm him down. "Hey, it's just one loss. We're still the winning team in the league."

He spun so fast he scared me. "He didn't even bring out that dumb-ass statue! He wanted us to look like fools out there! He wanted us to lose!"

"I can't believe that."

"Maybe you like being a loser! I don't!"

He surged ahead of me. When I reached the corner where we always talked for a bit before splitting up, he was already heading down his street.

"Joey!" I wasn't sure what I wanted to say to him. It didn't matter. He didn't shout back.

And maybe you've guessed the rest of it too. The next game, everything was back to normal. Or abnormal, depending on how you look at it. Coach Hayes cussed us out before the game. He set Mumbo Jumbo in the middle of the locker room.

"Why didn't you do it the last time?" Joey demanded. "We could've won!"

"You think so?" Coach Hayes squinted. "Maybe you'd have won. Then again maybe not."

"You know we could've! You wanted us to — "

"Joey, it seems to me you've got things turned around. You're supposed to get mad at the other team, not me. I'm on your side, remember."

"Not last time you weren't."