Bleachers (8 page)

“Maybe. Sometimes.”

“We write letters. She’s fine, living in Chicago. Married, two little girls. Again, why do you ask?”

“I can’t ask about one of our classmates?”

“There were almost two hundred in our class. Why is she the first you’ve asked about?”

“Please forgive me.”

“No, I want to know. Come on, Neely, why ask about Cameron?”

Neely put a few crumbs of the muffin in his mouth and waited. He shrugged and smiled and said, “Okay, I think about her.”

“Do you think about Screamer?”

“How could I forget?”

“You went with the bimbo, instant gratification, but in the long run it was a bad choice.”

“I was young and stupid, I admit. Sure was fun, though.”

“You were the all-American, Neely, you had your pick of any girl in the school. You dumped Cameron because Screamer was hot to trot. I hated you for it.”

“Come on, Nat, really?”

“I hated your guts. Cameron was a close
friend from kindergarten, before you came to town. She knew I was different, and she always protected me. I tried to protect her, but she fell for you and that was a huge mistake. Screamer decided she wanted the all-American. The skirts got shorter, blouses tighter, and you were toast. My beloved Cameron got thrown aside.”

“Sorry I brought this up.”

“Yeah, man, let’s talk about something else.”

For a long, quiet moment there was nothing to talk about.

“Wait till you see her,” Nat said.

“Pretty good, huh?”

“Screamer looks like an aging high-dollar call girl, which she probably is. Cameron is nothing but class.”

“You think she’ll be here?”

“Probably. Miss Lila taught her piano forever.”

Neely had nowhere to go, but he glanced at his watch anyway. “Gotta run, Nat. Thanks for the coffee.”

“Thanks for coming by, Neely. A real treat.”

They zigzagged through the racks and shelves toward the front of the store. Neely stopped at
the door. “Look, some of us are gathering in the bleachers tonight, sort of a vigil, I guess,” he said. “Beer and war stories. Why don’t you stop by?”

“I’d like that,” Nat said. “Thanks.”

Neely opened the door and started out. Nat grabbed his arm and said, “Neely, I lied. I never hated you.”

“You should have.”

“Nobody hated you, Neely. You were our all-American.”

“Those days are over, Nat.”

“No, not till Rake dies.”

“Tell Cameron I’d like to see her. I have something to say.”

______________

The secretary smiled efficiently and slid a clipboard across the counter. Neely printed his name, the time, and the date, and put down that he was visiting Bing Albritton, the longtime girls’ basketball coach. The secretary examined the form, did not recognize either his face or his name, and finally said, “He’s probably in the gym.” The other lady in the administration office glanced
up, and she too failed to recognize Neely Crenshaw.

And that was fine with him.

The halls of Messina High School were quiet, the classroom doors were all closed. Same lockers. Same paint color. Same floors hardened and shiny with layers of wax. Same sticky odor of disinfectant near the rest rooms. If he stepped into one he knew he would hear the same water dripping, smell the same smoke of a forbidden cigarette, see the same row of stained urinals, probably see the same fight between two punks. He kept to the hallways, where he passed Miss Arnett’s algebra class, and with a quick glance through the narrow window in the door he caught a glimpse of his former teacher, certainly fifteen years older, sitting on the corner of the same desk, teaching the same formulas.

Had it really been fifteen years? For a moment he felt eighteen again, just a kid who hated algebra and hated English and needed nothing those classrooms had to offer because he would make his fortune on the football field. The rush and flurry of fifteen years passing made him dizzy for a second.

A janitor passed, an ancient gentleman who’d been cleaning the building since it was built. For a split second he seemed to recognize Neely, then he looked away and grunted a soft “Mornin’.”

The main entrance of the school opened into a large, modern atrium that had been built when Neely was a sophomore. The atrium connected the two older buildings that comprised the high school and led to the entrance of the gymnasium. The walls were lined with senior class pictures, dating back to the 1920s.

Basketball was a second-level sport at Messina, but because of football the town had grown so accustomed to winning that it expected a dynasty from every team. In the late seventies, Rake had proclaimed that the school needed a new gym. A bond issue passed by ninety percent, and Messina had proudly built the finest high school basketball arena in the state. Its entrance was nothing but a hall of fame.

The centerpiece was a massive, and very expensive, trophy case in which Rake had carefully arranged his thirteen little monuments. Thirteen state titles, from 1961 to 1987. Behind
each was a large team photo, with a list of the scores, and headlines blown up and mounted in a collage. There were signed footballs, and retired jerseys, including number 19. And there were lots of pictures of Rake—Rake with Johnny Unitas at some off-season function, Rake with a governor here and a governor there, Rake with Roman Armstead just after a Packers game.

For a few minutes, Neely was lost in the exhibit, though he’d seen it many times. It was at once a glorious tribute to a brilliant Coach and his dedicated players, and a sad reminder of what used to be. He once heard someone say that the lobby of the gym was the heart and soul of Messina. It was more of a shrine to Eddie Rake, an altar where his followers could worship.

Other display cases ran along the walls leading to the doors of the gym. More signed footballs, from less successful years. Smaller trophies, from less important teams. For the first time, and hopefully the last, Neely felt a twinge of regret for those Messina kids who had trained and succeeded and gone unnoticed because they played a lesser sport.

Football was king and that would never change. It brought the glory and paid the bills and that was that.

A loud bell, one that sounded so familiar, erupted nearby and jolted Neely back to the reality that he was trespassing fifteen years after his time. He headed back through the atrium, only to be engulfed in the fury and throng of a late-morning class change. The halls were alive with students pushing, yelling, slamming lockers, releasing the hormones and testosterone that had been suppressed for the past fifty minutes. No one recognized Neely.

A large, muscled player with a very thick neck almost bumped into him. He wore a green-and-white Spartan letterman’s jacket, a status symbol with no equal in Messina. He had the customary strut of someone who owned the hall, which he did, if only briefly. He commanded respect. He expected to be admired. The girls smiled at him. The other boys gave him room.

“Come back in a few years, big boy, and they will not know your name,” Neely thought. Your fabulous career will be a footnote. All the cute little girls will be mothers. The green jacket will
still be a source of great personal pride, but you won’t be able to wear it. High school stuff. Kids’ stuff.

Why was it so important back then?

Neely suddenly felt very old. He ducked through the crowd and left the school.

______________

Late in the afternoon, he drove slowly along a narrow gravel road that wrapped around Karr’s Hill. When the shoulder widened he pulled over and parked. Below him, an eighth of a mile away, was the Spartan field house, and in the distance to his right were the two practice fields where the varsity was hitting in full pads on one while the JV ran drills on the other. Coaches whistled and barked.

On Rake Field, Rabbit rode a green-and-yellow John Deere mower back and forth across the pristine grass, something he did every day from March until December. The cheerleaders were on the track behind the home bench painting signs for the war on Friday night and occasionally practicing some new maneuvers. In the
far end zone, the band was assembling itself for a quick rehearsal.

Little had changed. Different coaches, different players, different cheerleaders, different kids in the band, but it was still the Spartans at Rake Field with Rabbit on the mower and everybody nervous about Friday. If Neely came back in ten years and witnessed the scene, he knew that the people and the place would look the same.

Another year, another team, another season.

It was hard to believe that Eddie Rake had been reduced to sitting very near where Neely was now sitting, and watching the game from so far away that he needed a radio to know what was happening. Did he cheer for the Spartans? Or did he secretly hope they lost every game, just for spite? Rake had a mean streak and could carry a grudge for years.

Neely had never lost here. His freshman team went undefeated, which was, of course, expected in Messina. The freshmen played on Thursday nights and drew more fans than most varsities. The two games he lost as a starter were both in the state finals, both on the campus at A&M. His eighth grade team had tied Porterville, at home,
and that was as close as Neely had come to losing a football game in Messina.

The tie had prompted Coach Rake to charge into their dressing room and deliver a harsh postgame lecture on the meaning of Spartan pride. After he terrorized a bunch of thirteen-year-olds, he replaced their Coach.

The stories kept coming back as Neely watched the practice field. Having no desire to relive them, he left.

______________

A man delivering a fruit basket to the Rake home heard the whispers, and before long the entire town knew that the Coach had drifted away so far that he would never return.

At dusk the gossip reached the bleachers, where small groups of players from different teams in different decades had gathered to wait. A few sat alone, deep in their own memories of Rake and glory that had vanished so long ago.

Paul Curry was back, in jeans and a sweatshirt and with two large pizzas Mona had made and sent so the boys could be boys for the night. Silo Mooney was there with a cooler of beer. Hubcap
was missing, which was never a surprise. The Utley twins, Ronnie and Donnie, from out in the county had heard that Neely was back. Fifteen years earlier they had been identical 160-pound linebackers, each of whom could tackle an oak tree.

When it was dark, they watched as Rabbit made his trek to the scoreboard and flipped on the lights on the southwest pole. Rake was still alive, though barely. Long shadows fell across Rake Field, and the former players waited. The joggers were gone; the place was still. Laughter rose occasionally from one of the groups scattered throughout the home bleachers as someone told an old football story. But for the most part the voices were low. Rake was unconscious now, the end was near.

Nat Sawyer found them. He had something in a large carrying case. “You got drugs there, Nat?” Silo asked.

“Nope. Cigars.”

Silo was the first to light up a Cuban, then Nat, then Paul, and finally Neely. The Utley twins neither drank nor smoked.

“You’ll never guess what I found,” Nat said.

“A girlfriend?” Silo said.

“Shut up, Silo.” Nat opened the case and removed a large cassette tape player, a boom box.

“Great, some jazz, just what I wanted,” Silo said.

Nat held up a cassette tape and announced, “This is Buck Coffey doing the ’87 championship game.”

“No way,” Paul said.

“Yep. I listened to it last night, first time in years.”

“I’ve never heard it,” Paul said.

“I didn’t know they recorded the games,” Silo said.

“Lotta things you don’t know, Silo,” Nat said. He put the tape in the slot and began fiddling with the dials. “If it’s okay with you guys, I thought we’d just skip the first half.”

Even Neely managed a laugh. He’d thrown four interceptions and fumbled once in the first half. The Spartans were down 31–0 to a wonderfully gifted team from East Pike.

The tape began and the slow, raspy voice of Buck Coffey cut through the stillness of the bleachers.

Buck Coffey here at halftime, folks, on the campus of A&M, in what was supposed to be an evenly matched game between two unbeaten teams. Not so. East Pike leads in every category except penalties and turnovers. The score is thirty-one to nothing. I’ve been calling Messina Spartan games for the past twenty-two years, and I cannot remember being this far behind at halftime
.

“Where’s Buck now?” Neely asked.

“He quit when they sacked Rake,” Paul said.

Nat turned up the volume slightly and Buck’s voice carried even farther. It acted as a magnet for the other players from the other teams. Randy Jaeger and two of his teammates from 1992 came over. Jon Couch the lawyer and Blanchard Teague the optometrist were back in their jogging shoes, with four others from the era of The Streak. A dozen more moved close.

The teams are back on the field, and we’ll pause for a word from our sponsors
.

“I cut out all that crap from the sponsors,” Nat said.

“Good,” said Paul.

“You’re such a smart boy,” Silo said.

I’m looking at the Messina sideline, and I don’t see Coach Rake. In fact, none of the coaches are on the field. The teams are lining up for the second half kickoff, and the Spartan coaches are nowhere to be seen. This is very strange, to say the least
.

“Where were the coaches?” someone asked. Silo shrugged but didn’t answer.

And that was the great question that had been asked and left unanswered for fifteen years in Messina. It had been obvious that the coaches boycotted the second half, but why?

East Pike is kicking to the south end zone. Here’s the kick. It’s short and taken by Marcus Mabry on the eighteen, zigs one way back the other, cuts upfield, has some room and is tackled at the thirty-yard line, where the Spartans will attempt to generate some offense for the first
time tonight. Neely Crenshaw was just three for fifteen in the first half. East Pike caught more of his passes than the Spartans did
.