Football Genius (2007) (3 page)

BECAUSE HE DIDN'T FEEL
so good about tricking his mom, it took a while for Troy to get to sleep. When the alarm clock went off in the morning, though, he jumped out of bed before she could hear it. He stuffed the ball deep into his football equipment bag and hurried out the back door before his mother woke up.

He stayed outside for a while, sitting on the train tracks, listening to a pack of blue jays call the day to life and watching the sun's rays as they began to glint through the trees. It was going to be a hot one. He'd wear eye black for the game, even though he might not get in for a single play. The air got warm and the tar in the railroad ties began to cook and bleed, and then he smelled something else. He got up and followed it all the way to his house.

When he walked through the screen door, he heard the spatter of eggs frying and he inhaled the rich scent of bacon. His mom turned his way from the stove with a spatula in her hand.

"Troy White! What happened?" she said, setting the spatula down and walking over to touch the scratches on his face.

Troy shrugged. "Chasing a snake."

"A snake?"

"For science, Mom. He got into the thick stuff. Just a garter."

"My God, you've got cuts all over you. You've got a football game. I don't want those things in the house."

"I'm fine, Mom," he said, pulling away. "And you don't have to worry about the game unless Jamie Renfro breaks his leg, which I wish he would."

"Troy," she said, frowning. "We don't wish other people ill. Get clean. Your eggs are ready."

"Okay, Mom," he said.

When his mom dropped him off at the game, Troy searched the sidelines for Jamie Renfro. He was standing in a loose circle with a couple of his buddies, bloodying each other's knuckles in a vicious game of slaps. Troy hovered behind them, waiting for Jamie to get a particularly hard penalty smack on the back of his hands after pulling away too soon. He was shaking the sting away when Troy handed him the ball and waited.

The other boys crowded in to see. Jamie glared at Troy, then turned the ball over and over, scowling and acting like it wasn't real. Then he shrugged and flipped it back at Troy.

"My dad says this ball's too big," he said. "We have to use a youth league ball. But you can play with it. On the bench."

Jamie's dad blew the whistle and shouted to his team that it was time for warm-ups. The starting offensive players jogged out onto the field and huddled up, and Jamie sauntered over, snapping his chinstrap.

Troy looked at the ball and suddenly didn't feel as good as he imagined he would, realizing that he would have traded a hundred Falcons footballs to be the one walking out to that huddle, and a hundred more to have a dad who coached the team. But, after everything he'd been through, he was going to get as much out of the Falcons football as he could. So, during the game, whenever Jamie came off the field, Troy made a point to spin it into the air and catch it with a thump, caressing it like a championship trophy. A couple of times he was sure he caught Jamie looking.

As the game unfolded, he fought back the urge to tell Jamie's father how to win. Even though he didn't like the man, Troy wanted Coach Renfro to know that he had a special gift. The Roswell Raiders safeties, who should have been worried about a deep pass, were crowding the line of scrimmage. The linebackers were playing too close to the line as well, all of them focused too much on stopping the Tigers' running back, and not paying any attention to the wide receivers.

Troy knew Jamie's father should have the offense fake the run and have both wide receivers go deep. One of them was certain to be wide open for a touchdown. But Troy knew Jamie's dad didn't like hearing what Troy had to say. He was a coach who believed in yelling, not strategy. So the Tigers kept running the ball, getting stuffed by the safeties, and every so often having Jamie throw short little wobbly passes that people, more times than not, couldn't catch. The Raiders beat them 42-10.

After shaking hands with the Raiders and gathering around with the rest of the team to get yelled at some more by Jamie's dad, Troy tucked the Falcons football back deep into his equipment bag and walked slowly toward his mom. She rubbed his hair and told him not to worry. You can't win them all. Troy looked up at her with damp eyes and opened his mouth to speak.

"What, Troy?" she asked, looking at him with those kind green eyes. She was pretty, even though she was his mom and even though she rarely wore makeup.

Troy wanted to tell her about the safeties playing too close to the line, wanted to tell her that he was a better quarterback than Jamie and the only reason he didn't play was that he didn't have a dad. But his mom didn't like to talk about Troy's dad, a man Troy never knew, and Troy loved his mom a lot, so he said, "Thanks for coming, Mom."

They stopped at Krispy Kreme on the way home for a box of glazed donuts. On the corner where their dirt driveway butted into Route 141, the same old man who was there beside the highway every Saturday morning stood mixing his black pot full of boiled peanuts. Troy's mom pulled over, and he groaned.

"Who would eat those things?" he said.

She smiled at him, patted his leg, and as she got out of the car she said, "Random acts of kindness."

"Hello, Tessa, my beauty," the old man said, grinning at her with a wrinkled and toothless smile. He tipped his faded red cap and hurried back to his steaming pot, spooning mushy peanuts into a rolled cone of newspaper.

Troy's mom took two dollars out of her purse and handed them to the old man. The money quickly disappeared into the front pocket of his overalls, and he handed her the peanuts. Troy turned his head away for a moment and made a face.

"When I franchise these ole peanuts," the old man said, looking into the blue sky above the trees and sweeping his hand, "I'll put your face on a billboard. I'll fly you around on a private jet, my gal, and put you on a TV commercial. That's where you belong, billboards and TV commercials."

Troy's mom touched the old man's shoulder and told him she was counting on it. As they drove down the twisty dirt driveway toward the house, Troy slumped in his seat. It was hot enough now to roast a peanut without a pot. As they walked into their little house, he was thinking about hiking down to the river that afternoon with Nathan and Tate.

That's when the phone rang.

That's when his mom found out she got the job with the Atlanta Falcons.

That's when their whole world got turned upside down.

ON TUESDAY MORNING, THE
day after Labor Day, when Troy saw his mom ready for work, all he could say was "Wow."

His mom's face went pink. She turned around for him, heels clicking the floor, the hem of her blue blazer spinning and floating in the air, and her silk blouse billowing even after she stood still. Troy was used to her dull-brown UPS uniform. The cap that hid her long brown hair. The stiff shorts and brown socks that made her legs look so thin. Now she looked like one of the women he saw on the covers of her magazines.

"Okay," she said, letting her hands fall. "Get your backpack. Here's your lunch."

She was going to drop Troy off at school on her way to work. When she worked at UPS, she had to leave before the school opened and Troy had to walk up their dirt drive to Route 141 and wait for the bus. He liked getting out of his mom's new pale green VW bug and hoped his friends saw just how important she looked, her hair down and dressed for her job with the Atlanta Falcons.

No one did notice, but that didn't keep Troy from getting detention for drawing a falcon on his desk in social studies. While his teachers droned on about math and science, he imagined his mom standing with Josh Lock and maybe even Seth Halloway. He could see them listening to what she told them. He could see their serious faces, their hands on their chins, as she shared her wisdom about how to behave in their interviews with reporters.

The only thing that broke his smile was Jamie Renfro at lunch. Troy was explaining how closely his mom would be working with the Falcons players when he noticed that the friends at his lunch table were staring behind him. Troy turned around and saw Jamie with his arms crossed. He wore a sneer on his face and a blinding white Cowboys jersey. Number 81. Terrell Owens, T.O.

"Too bad your team's gonna get pounded on Sunday," he said, his breath reeking from Doritos.

Jamie didn't always live in Atlanta. He moved there when he was ten years old. Before that, his dad worked in Dallas, so he and his dad were Cowboys fans. The Falcons' opening game was that coming Sunday. They were playing the Cowboys.

"Wanna bet?" Troy said.

"Sure. If that crummy team of your mom's wins, I'll give you my White Shoes ball, and when they lose, you can give me that football your mom stole," Jamie said, laughing.

Troy felt his face go hot. He stood up so fast that the legs of his chair made a squeaking sound on the floor.

"My mom didn't steal anything," Troy said, glaring up at Jamie, his hands balled into fists.

Mr. Squires, the lunch monitor, was making his way toward them through the tables. He raised his voice and said, "Hey, you two."

"Bet me, then," Jamie said, holding out his hand and showing that mean smile of his.

Troy slapped his hand into Jamie's, gripping it as hard as he could. Jamie squeezed back, and his smile got even meaner.

"Hey," Mr. Squires said.

Jamie let go and went back to his seat. When Troy sat back down, none of the guys would look at him. Everyone knew that the Falcons were seven-point underdogs.

On the bus ride home, Troy, Nathan, and Tate agreed to drop off their things at home and meet on the tracks. Troy got there first. As he waited for his friends to make their way down the tracks, he walked back and forth, balancing on the rail. The Falcons football was under his arm.

"I thought we were trading cards," Nathan said when they arrived. He shook the shoe box he held in front of him.

"We are," Troy said, holding up the ball. "I gotta do this first. I'm putting it back."

"You wanna unload the hot goods," Nathan said.

"It's not
stolen
," Troy said, scowling. "I borrowed it."

"What about your bet?" Tate asked. "If you lose, you have to give it to Jamie."

"My mom will get me another ball," Troy said.

"You wanna wait until dark?" Nathan asked.

"I just want to get it done," Troy said. "Sneak through the bushes and throw it back onto his lawn."

Tate twirled the end of her ponytail and Nathan nodded. They followed him down the other side of the tracks toward the wall. As they got close, Troy held up his hand and his friends stopped.

"Shh," he said, tilting his head.

"What?" Tate said in a hushed voice.

"I don't know," Troy said. "Something's different. I just feel it."

They crouched down in the weeds, and Troy crept toward the hole. When he parted the grass at the edge of the tree line, he saw what had happened. The hole in the wall had been filled in with concrete. He sniffed the air and could smell it. Troy looked up and down the length of the wall. There was no one in sight, and he eased across the open space.

The concrete that had oozed through was damp, but already hard like the frosting on a week-old cake. He ran his fingers over the rough surface until he realized his friends were beside him. He slammed the football against the damp concrete and turned away, trudging back toward the tracks. By the time they reached his house, sweat was streaming down their faces.

Troy took the ball and stuffed it back into the bottom of his equipment bag. After three big glasses of cold grape juice, they pushed the coffee table tight to the couch and spread their cards out on the living room rug. Troy started the trade, giving up two Tampa Bay defensive linemen for the Falcons safety Tate was reluctant to part with. Then he gave Nathan three Giants offensive linemen for the Falcons tight end.

Tate looked over at Nathan with a gleam in her eye and tried to bite back her grin.

"Man, you love those Falcons all of a sudden, huh?" she said, looking at Troy and staring pointedly at the special blue binder he used for storing his very best cards. "Like you'd trade anything to get the whole team, huh?"

Troy looked down at the cards in his shoe box and raised his eyebrows, shrugging. Tate made him give up Brett Favre and Marvin Harrison for the Falcons kicker.

"Nice friend you are," he said, glaring at her as he slipped the cards out of his binder.

"What?" she said, holding her hands out and up. "I like kickers. I'm a kicker."

Nathan insisted he was quite fond of the Falcons starting right tackle and wouldn't take anything less than Brian Urlacher and Simeon Rice in return. By the time Tate and Nathan had to go for dinner, Troy had given away most of his good cards. He didn't care, though. He had the entire Falcons starting lineup carefully arranged in the blue binder.

"When they win the Super Bowl, you guys won't laugh," Troy said. "They take everyone when they go to the Super Bowl. That means my mom. I'll probably get to go, and I'll get all these signed. Imagine what that'll be worth?"

On the way out the door, Tate stopped and fished into her shoe box. She handed him back Brett Favre, smiled, and gave him a little salute.

"I do like kickers, but Marvin Harrison was enough."

"You're okay," he said, winking. "For a girl."

"Hey," she said, and they all laughed.

Troy watched them through the screen door as they disappeared into the pines. He went and dug through his room, cleaning out anything that had something to do with another team. It meant the books on his shelf had to stand on their own without the help of his New England Patriots bookends. Even his Kurt Warner bobblehead went into the box of non-Falcons things.

He carried the box out of his room with two hands and hoisted it up onto the top shelf of the hall closet. As he climbed down, he heard the VW pull into the bare spot out front. He ran to the front door and yanked open the screen, meeting his mom on the porch. He threw his arms around her, hugging her tight.

"Wow," she said.

He stared up at her and asked, "Did you get it?"

She put her arm around him, squeezing him as they went through the door. "Not yet."

"Aw, Mom."

"Troy," she said, holding up a finger.

"I know," he said.

"But I got this," she said, digging into her purse and holding out a big red card coated in plastic.

Troy took it, asking what it was and turning it over in his hands. Two words in bold print stood out:
ALL ACCESS
.

"You want to go to the game Sunday?" she asked.

"The Cowboys game? Mom, this isn't a ticket."

"It's better," she said.

"Better?"

"It's a field pass," she said. "I met the owner, Mr. Langan. His son was at practice, and he and I got to talking about kids. I told him I had a son, too, crazy for football. Well, when he asked if you'd ever been to a Falcons game, I had to tell him the truth. And he gave me the pass."

Troy turned it over a few more times and said, "This gets me into the Dome?"

"It gets you in and lets you go anywhere you want to go."

"Mom?"

"Anywhere. With me, but that shouldn't be too bad."

"The locker room?" he asked.

"Anywhere," she said.

"The field?"

"Anywhere."