Divisions (Dev and Lee) (39 page)

“Damn right.” I lean over to Gerrard. “The linebackers are playing better than they were last time.”

“Uh-huh. More integrated.” He doesn’t look away from the field. “We are, too.”

“Yeah.” That pleases me enough that I don’t want to say another word. So I look up behind me, to where Lee’s sitting with Hal. He and Hal and me and Gerrard and all of us, together, watch the next play.

Our offense lines up. Aston barks out the count, his paws twitching under the center’s tail. I bounce on the balls of my feet and Charm is just as fidgety. They snap the ball and Aston steps back as if to throw. I’m watching him, and then my eyes flick to the line, which freezes and then scatters to cover the receivers spreading out into the end zone. And Aston pulls the ball down, crouches and springs in a fluid motion, and leaps over the line, tumbling in a red and gold and grey blur and landing, ball in hand, squarely in the end zone.

We slap each other on the back as the stadium erupts. “TOUCHDOWN FIREBIRDS!” screams across the LED displays and the JumboTron and our ears. Aston stands up, but we only get a glimpse of him before he’s mobbed by the rest of the offense. He comes back to the sidelines still clutching the ball, yelling, “You think they took notice of that? You think they took notice of that?” and Coach gives him a tight half-hug and sends him to the bench, where he stares across at the Hellentown sideline, paws gripping the ball like he wants to throw it at them.

“Bit early to keep a game ball,” Gerrard says.

“He’s only got three rushing touchdowns all year,” I say. “Let him have it.”

“If we win. There’s a whole half to play.”

“Yeah,” I say, but I’ve got that feeling. We’re up 7-6, and both defenses are playing pretty well. I think we’ve got a pretty good chance as long as we hold them to field goals. It feels impossible to me that they’re going to hold Strike down for the whole game.

Coach says the same thing at the half. “It’s a tough game, like we knew it would be,” he says. “We’re keeping ‘em out of the end zone, and they’re holding us down. This game is going to be won in the trenches.” He points to the linemen. “You keep us in good field position and we’ve got a kicker who can make the difference in a game like this. We’ve got a game-breaker on offense and we only need one big play to put this away. You guys keep doing what you’re doing and we will be here again next week.”

So we’re all charged up for the second half, and even though our offense goes three-and-out, we’re still pumped up when we take the field. Eighty-three is out there again, and they throw to him on first down, surprising all of us. I’m there to wrap him up after a six-yard gain, and we both go down to the ground. I land on my ribs, but ignore the pain as I get up.

“Keep on chasin’ me, homo,” the fox says. “You ain’t getting any closer to this fox tail.”

Unexpectedly, Pike calls to the fox as he’s getting back across the line. “Hey,” he says, “You don’t wanna be his boyfriend, don’t flip your tail around like that.”

“Yeah,” Brick says, “and you smell like a girl.”

One of their linemen, a solid black bear, huffs at them and says, “Least he doesn’t block like a girl.”

“Give him time,” I yell. “He could still get that good.”

We laugh; they snort, but they’re getting lined up and there isn’t time to retort. They get some small gains, but only across midfield, and when we think we’ve stopped them for a punt, they line up for a long field goal. I hurry back to the sideline next to Charm, who’s laughing. “Fifty-five yards, that guy?”

“He was kicking sixty in practice.”

“I kick seventy in practice.” He blows a snort. “I’ll bet you dinner he misses it.”

“Sure.” I shake just as they snap the ball. We watch the horse come up to the line, watch his foot connect cleanly, watch the ball sail through the air, straight and true through the uprights, clearing the bar by a good three yards.

“Fucker,” Charm says. He turns to where the coaches are. “Hey,” he calls. “Send me in for anything under seventy, I mean it.”

Nine-seven, and we need another score. But the offense continues to sputter, and every series we go out there, we see that big 9 up on the scoreboard across from our 7, and we feel the pressure. Pressure’s okay. Pressure we know how to handle. I think about Lee up in the stands, watching every move, making sure I get a good jump off the snap, making sure every foot lands in the right place and that I know my assignments and either cover the fox or bump one of the other receivers or get in to stuff the run. The lion QB, Buck, he’s pretty good, but we break down their line a few times. Spinning away from me, he runs into Carson and gets sacked; another time, I bring him down from behind and send the football spinning to the ground. We scramble for it, but their elk, another running back, drops on it and they just punt.

They keep doubling Strike, but Aston starts to find some of the receivers on short routes, and we cheer from the side as our guys march down the field. We’re in Charm’s field goal range for sure.

And then one of our guys jumps early and it’s a five-yard false start, our first—Hellentown’s jumped twice in the game, with the help of the screaming crowd that makes it hard for the line to hear the quarterback, but the crowd knows to keep quieter when we’re on offense, so this is just a mistake—and then one of those burly wolf linebackers barrels through the line and drops Aston for a fifteen-yard loss. He looks shaky when he gets up, but he stays out there and lobs a weak pass to fall incomplete.

It’d be a sixty-two yard field goal from where they are now. Charm screams, “Send me out, I can make it!” But Coach thinks otherwise; we punt and pin the Pilots back on their ten, and at the end of the third quarter we get the ball back in good position.

It’s the first play of the fourth quarter, and because it’s third down, the Pilots drop back to cover our receivers the way they have been all game. Only Aston hands off to Jaws, and the wolverine finds a seam and gets through the line. Only one linebacker and a safety are covering that side of the field, as Strike and Ty, the wideouts, throw really nice blocks to keep the corners away from the action. And Jaws bulls past the wolf linebacker, not quite knocking him over like that Gateway wolverine did to me, but sending him out of bounds staggering. I’m sure he’ll hear it from his teammates. The safety, a lanky otter, must have seen it too, because he hesitates just a fraction of a second, and Jaws slips the tackle and goes charging into the end zone.

“TOUCHDOWN FIREBIRDS!” The crowd is on its feet, as loud as I’ve ever heard the stadium. We jump and laugh and slap each other on the back and watch Charm kick the point that moves the score up to 14-9.

And we all slip into that jovial victory mode. It doesn’t mean we slack off. It means we bear down because we’ve got the lead and the clock is ticking. We know we can keep them out of the end zone, and they don’t have that much time left. We just want to hold them down, out of field goal range, and we have to do it for ten minutes of game time.

No sweat. Gerrard and Carson and I are settled into the rhythm of the game, and Hellentown isn’t changing things up. They seem to think that they got a couple field goals, they can get a couple more. Only we know how they’re going to run their plays, and Gerrard stuffs runs up the middle, I catch the elk and drop him for a short gain, Carson sacks their lion again. Vonni and Norton and Pace keep the wide receivers well-covered, and Pike and Brick and the line mostly hold their positions, enough that we force a punt. Eighty-three mouths off to me again, but this time I ignore him because, well, look at the scoreboard.

And it’s four minutes to go and we’re on offense, trying to run out the clock. Jaws is punching into the line over and over, and on third and three Aston drops for a short pass over the middle, just enough to get the first down. Ty’s right there, reaching out, and he has the ball and then he doesn’t, he’s falling, and it happens in a heartbeat, the Pilots’ jaguar is right there to catch the ball and he’s running around our line, down the sideline, and there’s nothing we can do about it, not a thing except scream at them. The offense is running after him, but they have no chance, except…here comes Strike, of all people, a blur, but he’s too far back and yet and yet…no, he tackles the jaguar, but he tackles him at the goal line and they tumble into the end zone and the jaguar still has the ball.

The stadium is still. The opposite sideline is a giddy mass of brown and gold
, leaping, cheering, and we can hear them because the rest of the place is so quiet. The play’s reviewed, of course, but there’s no question. The ball never comes loose and the jaguar’s not down outside the goal line. They line up, they kick the extra point, it’s 16-14 and we have three and a half minutes to get into field goal range.

All I can do is sit on the sidelines. Our progress down the field seems maddeningly slow; as inspired as we were five minutes ago, the Pilots are now. We go three-and-out, and with 2:42 on the clock it’s up to us to get the ball back to our side. I know every one of us is thinking “fumble, interception, something,” and Gerrard stops us as we get out there.

“Play solid D,” he says, slamming his fist into his open paw. “Solid! Don’t try to be a hero. You go for a pick and miss a tackle and this game is over. You try to strip the ball and miss a tackle and this game is over. Just tackle. Fundamentals! Head in the game!”

We chorus, “Right!” and take up our positions. I look up to the stands, and think of my fox watching me, and I push away all the other stuff, all the gay activism and the nagging feeling that if I’d not been distracted in the first quarter I could’ve had that interception then, I could’ve gotten us more points or at least kept three of theirs off the board so it would only be 14-13 now and we’d be trying to hold a lead, not recapture it. None of that matters. What matters now is stopping them.

And we do it. The fox yaps at me, calls me “butt-lover” or something, but I block out the words and just focus on keeping him covered. Which is easy because they’re not even throwing it, just running the elk into our line over and over. We take our last two timeouts and force them to punt just after the two-minute warning.

Back on the sidelines. Nothing I can do. “Good defense, guys,” Coach says, and Steez comes over to tell us that he’s proud of us too, but we’re all tense. All our energy is focused on those guys out on the field.

The Pilots know we’re going to throw short, but they’re still afraid of Strike, and so all the short routes are open. Aston seems to have recovered from the big hit and throws a couple great passes. Ty catches one for a critical first down at the fifty, and pumps his fist on the way back to the line, his bushy red tail swishing. I pump my fist too, and Zillo, next to me, mutters, “Come on, come on.” The boom of Charm’s practice kicks behind us punctuates the game.

We throw it to the tight end for five, to Ty again for three, and then Aston runs it out of bounds. He thinks he’s got the first down, the wolf linebacker says he doesn’t, and the refs bring the ball out and the chains onto the field to measure. We hold our breath. Charm is right there next to Coach, and I can’t hear them, but I know what he’s saying. The special teams coach is talking too, and I’m sure our offensive coordinator is talking to Coach through the headset. Then they get the chains in place and we all look up.

The video on the big screen shows six inches of chain after the end of the ball. The referee holds up his paws six inches apart, and now Coach slaps Charm on the back. The big stallion runs out to the field, getting there before the rest of the field goal unit.

“Fifty-seven yard attempt…” The P.A. sets it up as the unit gets into place, the holder crouched, long snapper holding the ball, and the crowd is holding its breath. The play clock ticks down to five. Charm signals that he’s ready, and the holder turns to the snapper. Three. Two.

The ball’s snapped, the holder grabs it and puts it down. The lines crash into each other, the Pilots trying to leap into the path of the ball, and they’ve got a rabbit who can really jump. He leaps, but Charm is good at this too, and the ball sails inches to the left of the rabbit’s outstretched paw. It clears the line, it rises in a familiar arc, tumbling end over end through the air, toward the goalposts.

It’s too far to the left, I think, but my angle’s weird and I can’t tell. I’m holding my breath. Zillo, next to me, grabs my wrist and leans forward. The crowd is standing, the whole stadium silent for a second, two, three…and then the ball crosses the uprights, well above the crossbar.

Cheers erupt, but we’re watching the two referees below the goalposts. The one on the right looks to the one on the left, and then they step forward, and they’re both sweeping their arms from side to side.

No good. Wide left.

The Pilots sideline leaps and high-fives and celebrates as their offense runs out onto the field. With no timeouts left, we can’t stop the clock. In a minute, the game’s over.

We sleepwalk out onto the field to congratulate the Pilots. Most of them are pretty nice about it. Gerrard and I talk with the wolf linebackers (Kniss and Price) and congratulate them on their technique, and Kniss (slightly darker fur, an inch or two shorter than Price) says, “Hey, Miski, you’re better than you are on film.”

“You too,” I say, sort of automatically. I still feel the ball sliding off my paw, the feeling that I was a half-second out of step on the pass, that I could’ve done better.

“You know,” Price says, “some of us think Inquam is a moron who needs to keep his muzzle shut.”

Inquam, it takes me a moment to remember, is the guy who made the “Jesus” comment. “Your eighty-three doesn’t,” I say.

Kniss waves a paw. “Fuck ‘em, you know? You can play. That’s what counts.”

“Damn right,” Gerrard says, and they slap paws. I join in, getting a little lift. Just a little. I’d rather have all the Pilots be crazy bigots and be walking out of here with a win.

There’s a cheer from the crowd; we look up at the scoreboard. The Jumbotron is now showing the score of the Highbourne game: Rocs 44, Manticores 27. So Highbourne finishes with the tiebreaker over us and they get to play the worst division champion, Peco. And we go to Hellentown. “See you next week, I guess.”