Divisions (Dev and Lee) (4 page)

It gets worse on the first play from scrimmage. Everybody knows the offense goes for a big play after a turnover. But how the hell do you guard against that? The Pilots QB drops back and launches a ball fifty yards out of his own end zone. It drops perfectly into the arms of a mule deer two steps ahead of the fox in the Firebirds uniform, and there’s nobody else between him and the end zone. It’s tied, and now most of the box is standing and cheering, high-fiving.

I know that feeling, though can’t say as I’ve ever felt it at a football game. It’s the feeling of the favorite, in the middle of what looks like an upset, as order appears to be restored. It’s the windstorm dying down and the rattling of the barn door quieting down, the car coming off the patch of ice, out of the skid. It’s the feeling of regaining control, even if you never had it to begin with.

And we lifelong Firebirds fans, we never had any kind of control. Our feeling is more the feeling you get after four matches when the fifth and sixth lottery numbers come up wrong, the feeling when the bank error isn’t really in your favor, the feeling when the guy who jumped you to the front of the line at the DMV says he made a mistake. It’s the feeling of the natural order reasserting itself and you finding yourself back where you belong: on bottom.

I don’t say anything, of course, but a look at Brenly confirms that he’s got that same feeling. Dragons fans this last decade, yeah, we’re partners in misery. At least they’ve got the glory days of the fifties and seventies to look back on. The Firebirds have been to the playoffs exactly four times since I’ve been a fan, only once to the championship. They got trounced by the Devils, 48-12.

But Lee, Lee doesn’t leave the glass. He turns around when the weasel says to one of his friends, “Been a while since I bet less’n a hundred on a game, but you know, I don’t mind winning pizza money, too.”

And Lee just grins at him, a long fox grin, and he says, “Did you lose when you bet more than a hundred, too?”

The weasel kinda scoffs, but you can tell he doesn’t know what to do with that. Lee’s the one who should be cringing, who should be dreading the next twenty-five minutes of game time, and instead this young fox is acting like his team’s favored by ten. So the weasel just turns to his friends and says, kinda loud, “Twenty-three or twenty-two to sixteen, that’s what we’re looking at.”

“You want to add a bit to that sixty?” Lee asks, low so Ponaxos doesn’t hear.

The weasel has to look at him then, because all his friends do. He laughs and turns to his friends. “You believe this guy? Nah, I don’t want to take your bail money,” he says.

“You wouldn’t be.” Brenly fishes in his pocket. He pulls out his wallet and hands two twenties to the weasel.

Lee lights up. Well, he was already pretty lit up, but his smile gets wider and his tail thwacks the wall below the window.

The weasel just shakes his head. Then one of his friends says, “I’ll take that bet,” and the weasel says, “Hang on, hang on, he asked me.”

He glances at the front of the box, waves Brenly’s money back, and they settle the bet with a shake of the paws just as the crowd cheers: Aston’s thrown incomplete on third and five, and the Firebirds have to punt.

But Hellentown, even though they stage a pretty five-minute drive, stall at midfield when Marvell charges through the line and drops the running back (the elk) for a loss on third down. They punt with three minutes left in the quarter and the Firebirds take over again from deep in their own territory.

Jaws runs it forward on the first couple plays for about six, and on third and four, Aston drops back to throw. He tosses it to the cheetah again, but the cheetah fumbles it into the air, directly into the waiting paws of a Pilot cornerback, a rangy coyote who speeds twenty yards down the sideline, dodges Aston’s game attempt to tackle him, and dances into the end zone. Nineteen-thirteen, Pilots, and this time, it’s the Firebirds getting a good jump to keep the extra point out of the uprights. Still only down six.

“How you like your boys now?” the weasel cackles, his friends joining in. Ponaxos and his family, more restrained, still slap paws and relax, their ropy tails unclenching to relax behind them. All I can see is the black and white tips, suddenly gliding back and forth under the chairs where they’d been tight and immobile for most of the rest of the game.

Lee’s got one paw on the glass, and both eyes on the field. His tail’s wagging still, and a moment later, when the weasels have forgotten about the offhand comment that wasn’t really a question, Lee says, “I love ’em.”

Or maybe he says, “I love ’im.” Hard to tell, even for a big-eared fox.

The weasels kind of stop, and the betting weasel says, “Live and die with the team, huh?” He raises his beer. “Good on ya.”

Lee nods, a tight, focused nod. Everyone quiets down as the game goes on.

The Firebirds take it down the field, get some good field position, but have to punt. Hellentown has it back at the end of the quarter, and the score stays 19-13.

“Dragons always do that too,” Brenly says. “Get up on a team and then give it back in the third. Like they don’t believe they deserve it.”

“Yeah,” I watch the TV. Fourth quarter coming up. Time for the Firebirds to struggle to get a field goal, get within three, and fall short. Time for the miracle season to start its slow, inevitable descent back to earth. Once you’ve seen the movie a few times, it gets predictable.

Lee slaps the glass in frustration. I watch the young, passionate fox stare down through glass. And I think, talk about predictable movies. His tiger’s about to hit it big, hit it huge. Whatever happens with the Firebirds, Devlin Miski is going to be in demand, and at the end of this season he’s gonna have good teams sniffing around him. He’s gonna sign a good mid-level contract, something like four or five years at, say five mil a year. Maybe seven if the linebacker market is thin. And he won’t need the trouble this boyfriend is going to cause him.

Hell, any boyfriend would be trouble, just because of the gay thing. I noticed Miski isn’t exactly embracing it. But Lee, smart kid, great kid, is double the trouble because he’s outspoken, he’s—not flamboyant. Like Brenly said, that has the wrong connotation. He’s impossible to ignore. And that just doesn’t fly, not in the football world.

That makes me sad to think about, which I don’t expect. So I shove the thought away and I watch the game, which I think is just going to make me more sad. But sometimes, sometimes, the natural order laughs at you.

Hellentown’s running back, the deer this time, fumbles on the drive. Marvell is there to pick it up, and somehow Miski is too. The coyote ends up with it, but Miski was instrumental in keeping the Pilots from getting it back, even though it was nowhere near his coverage assignment. Good play, good player. The box groans; Lee pumps his fist but keeps quiet.

The Firebirds, like the Pilots before them, go for the long bomb on the first play after the turnover, but with less success. Ford, the fox, can’t quite catch up to Aston’s throw, and they hand it to Jaws to get them a first down. They march down the field, eating clock, and get down to the twelve with six minutes left. From there, they eat up three and a half minutes with seven straight running plays, the last one a sweep right that leads Jaws right to the corner of the end zone. He skips across and plunges the stadium into dead silence as the scoreboard rolls up to 19-19.

The Pilots line up pretty determined for the extra point, but Charm is a terrific kicker and he’s ready for them this time. He boots it almost straight up, over even the tallest defender. It comes down into the net on the other side of the uprights and we’re ahead.

Nobody in the box is making a sound now. The Pilots start on their twenty with just under two and a half to go, and the Firebirds defense is jumping around, excited. Marvell yaps at them, calming them down, and it’s the Pilots who jump. False start, five yards back.

They’re just throwing, throwing, throwing now, that lion in command of the offense, and Miski’s assignment is the slot receiver, a fox. They throw to him once for four yards, and Miski’s got his arms around him, driving him down before he can gain any more.

“Wonder if Lee’s jealous,” I murmur to Brenly in a fox-whisper, just because there’s nobody else to say it to.

He snorts. He’s trying to act casual, but his foot taps and his tail twitches and he doesn’t look away from the TV. None of us do.

The Pilots get to the twenty-eight by the two-minute warning. They probably need to get thirty-two more yards to be in field goal range. We spend the two-minute warning silent (us foxes), murmuring quietly (the cougars), or talking loudly about how much we love claw-chewing finishes (the weasel and friends). Lee stays out there by the glass, opting not to come back and talk with us, as though worried someone will steal his spot.

The Pilots hit short throws, short throws. The fox is targeted twice more, and once Miski knocks the pass away; once the fox catches it and Miski drops him right away. Great coverage. Can’t ask for more outta the guy.

The only big play they get is an end-around to the rabbit tight end, a risky play with the clock winding down, because if he’s tackled on the field, time keeps slipping away. But it catches the Firebirds off guard, and the rabbit skips past the sidelines at the Firebirds’ thirty-nine. The crowd goes berserk, most of them on their feet now.

The Pilots are right at the edge of their field goal range. They try a run on second down and get stuffed. The crowd doesn’t care. They’re yelling at them to go for it. In the box, the cheers are quieter, and mixed between “we’re in range” and “a few more yards to be sure.”

On third, Marvell leans in to Miski as the offense is setting up and yells something. Miski listens, nods, sets. The linebackers and safeties get into their set, and when the ball is snapped, that fox receiver comes across again. And this time, Miski lets him go. The big tiger charges straight through the line.

The Pilots got so used to him covering the fox that this catches them off guard. Their quarterback is good, though; he realizes right away that this means the fox is uncovered and cocks to throw in that direction.

And Marvell is right there, pacing the fox stride for stride. The quarterback hesitates, moves to his second read, and then he has to dodge out of the way of Miski to avoid being sacked.

He doesn’t quite make it.

The crowd goes as still as their quarterback, and then, like him, they get up again, cheering their team on as they line up for fourth down. There’s no question of a field goal now; they need to get a first down. The quarterback lines up in the shotgun, takes the snap, drops back to pass. And the Firebirds are blanketing all his receivers, all of them. Miski sticks to the fox like glue. The corners and safeties jostle with the wideouts. And here comes the leopard, Carson Omba, the other outside linebacker, escaping his blocker and charging the quarterback.

Gamely, the lion tucks the ball down and tries to run, but he has nowhere to go. He runs into his own line and the leopard grabs him and he falls and he’s on the forty-four of Chevali and it’s Firebirds ball and that’s it, that’s the ballgame. The Pilots don’t have enough timeouts to stop Aston from kneeling and running out the clock, and the final score stays up there on the scoreboard no matter how much we rub our eyes: 20-19. Firebirds win.

I can’t believe it. This kind of thing just doesn’t happen.

Lee runs past me, out of the box. I get up just as the door swings shut behind him, but I resist the urge to follow him. Instead, I just put my ear to the door and listen. Brenly gives me a disapproving look, so I smile back.

All I hear at first is gasping, and then there’s laughing and then, finally, a long, sustained cry of “YEEEEEESSS!” A thump, like a body slumped against a wall in relief, and a high-pitched sound like tension being vented through a steam whistle.

I chuckle to myself and leave the kid to celebrate. “I’m curious,” I say to Brenly as I sit down. “It’s why I’m a reporter.”

“You’ve certainly got a passion for it,” he grumbles.

The weasel and his friends stand, packing up their stuff. They thank Ponaxos for the seats, talk about when they’ll see him again, and file past us without saying anything. As the weasel passes us, he drops a clump of bills into my lap.

“Thanks,” I say, but he doesn’t even turn.

I give Brenly his forty just as Lee comes in from the outside, his smile as big as I’ve seen it. “Perfect end to a perfect weekend,” he says.

He’s been in the hospital, in jail, and this is a perfect weekend? Brenly’s last comment to me echoes in my head, and it clicks, then, the heart of my story. It’s the passion—not just the attraction to each other, but Lee’s passion for life, Miski’s passion for football. That’s what binds them together. That’s what Cim and I never had, that’s what got Miski to come out on TV and Lee to drive five hours to pick a fight with a tiger twice his size and Miski to fly up there to get him and Lee to stand here pressed against glass for three hours devouring every scrap of action that happens on the field. It’s a passion for life, when you get right down to it.

With that realization comes jealousy. I’m older and wiser, I tell myself. That makes up for it. But there’s no getting around the fact that this kid feels something I’ve never felt before, akin to what the kids down on that field feel every week, or what the cougar walking past us out of the box feels with his business.

But just because I haven’t felt it doesn’t mean I can’t write about it. I’ve got my story now, and I’m already composing the end of it in my head as I stand with Brenly.

“Lee,” Brenly says. “Coming?”

The kid puts his paw up and exhales, fogging the glass around it. He turns before it dissipates, leaving an outline of five fingers, slowly fading. “I can’t imagine a better game to watch from the owner’s box,” he says. He bounces across the room to join us, stopping to get his money behind the ice bucket on the way. “God, I want to write about it right now.”

His tail’s wagging up a storm, and sympathetically, mine starts going too. It was a hell of a game, and as a reporter I’m pretty excited about seeing the changing of the guard.