Football Genius (2007) (7 page)

THE SUN WAS ALREADY
below the trees and the grass had begun to cool. Troy knew he didn't have much time, so he stepped into the huddle, clapped his hands three times, and said, "Let's go." Nathan, who was the first-string left tackle, extended his hand across the huddle. Troy grinned and shook it, then looked to the sideline, where one of the assistant coaches gave the signal for the offensive play.

It was a simple running play up the middle. Troy called it, broke the huddle, and followed his team to the line. As he put his hands up underneath the center to take the snap, he saw the defense. The linebackers and the strong safety were crowding the line. He knew a run up the middle was the worst thing to do against a defense like that, but he had to show the coach he could do as he was told. He barked out the cadence.

"Down, set, hut one, hut two."

The ball was snapped into his hands. He spun deftly and handed it off to the fullback.

No gain.

The Knights' defense cheered and slapped each other on the back. Troy went back to the huddle with his team. When the assistant coach signaled in another running play, Troy shook his head and gritted his teeth, but did as he was told. He took the snap and handed it off again. Again, the Tigers' runner was thumped right at the line.

It was third down now. On the sideline, Jamie was sitting on the bench with his shoulder pads off, sipping from a bottle of water. Coach Renfro was back now, and he signaled in the next play, another run up the middle. Troy made an appealing gesture, silently begging for something that would help them get the ten yards they needed for a first down. Coach Renfro just stared at him with a frown and folded his arms across his chest.

Troy joined the huddle and knelt down so he could look up into the faces of his teammates.

"They're whipping our butts," Troy said. "Did you hear them laughing? Bust them in the mouth. Give me four seconds and we'll score. Four seconds--can you do it?"

"Yes," Nathan said.

The others blinked and nodded.

Troy turned to Rusty Howell, their skinny wide receiver who was as quick as a hiccup and had the best hands on the team.

"Okay, Rusty," Troy said, "it's on you. Red Right, Thirty-one Dive Play Pass, Zebra Post, on one. Ready--"

"Break!"

Even Troy was surprised at how easily the words for the complex play spilled from his mouth. He jogged to the line, afraid that Coach Renfro would somehow know what he'd done and stop him before he could run the play. He put his hands up under the center and began to call out the snap count, forcing the defense to get into their positions. The free safety, who was the last defender in the middle of the field, drifted deep. He'd be in perfect position to cover Rusty when he ran deep and bent in toward the middle on the Zebra Post. Troy wished there were a way he could change the play. He made a quick hand motion for Rusty to break out toward the sideline instead. But Rusty's eyes were glued to the cornerback in front of him.

It happened in seconds. Troy finished barking out the count, took the snap, faked the handoff, and dropped back into the pocket. A linebacker broke right through the offensive line and dove at Troy. He ducked and spun, then set his feet.

More defenders were fighting through the line, coming at Troy. Rusty was streaking up the field. The free safety didn't bite on the run action. He stayed deep. If Troy threw it now, the safety could intercept it. If he waited, Rusty would be so far down field, Troy didn't know if he could reach him.

The defense was coming, but Troy had to wait. If the pass was going to make it that far, he needed to stoke his arm with blinding anger. So he thought of his father, the man who abandoned him. When Rusty got open, Troy used his fury to launch the ball. It left his hand, a perfect spiral, arcing up through the air, and then he got hit. Stars exploded behind his eyes and everything was dark.

Troy pushed the big defensive lineman off him and struggled to his feet. The free safety was on his knees. Rusty was in the end zone holding the ball up high.

Touchdown.

Troy followed the rest of the offense into the end zone to swamp Rusty. When he got there, they swamped him too. The kids were laughing and slapping high fives until Coach Renfro ran over into their midst and started grabbing guys by the face masks and telling them to calm down.

"Hey!" he screamed. "Get over to the sideline! Troy, you give me ten laps around the field! You don't change my plays! Who the heck do you think you are?"

Troy's face fell. He bit down hard on his mouthpiece and started to jog off the field. As he passed the Knights' head coach, the man said, "Whale of a pass, son. Thirty-eight yards in the air. That was one heck of a pass."

By the time Troy finished his penalty laps, the scrimmage was over.

TROY HAD NEVER REALLY
been grounded before. Maybe his mom had kept him home for an afternoon or even a whole day once when he left his new bike out in the rain. This was the real thing, though. A solid week of nothing but school, homework, and chores. No friends. No TV. No Xbox. He thanked God for books. What he was having a hard time being thankful for were meals.

His mom put the football he'd taken in the middle of the kitchen table, reminding him that he was not only a liar and a thief but also a welcher, because he owed that ball to Jamie.

"When I get myself back on solid ground at work," she told him that first night, planting the ball between the salt and pepper shakers and the napkin holder, "you'll take this back to Seth Halloway yourself. In the meantime, you can think about it."

Except for the way that the football made it hard to swallow his food, the week actually went along okay. His mom started forgetting to be mad, and he caught her smiling at him and even humming to herself as she pored over the newspapers she would bring home from work, snipping out articles on the Falcons with the same scissors she used to mend the holes in his football pants.

At dinner on Friday night, Troy's mom set down her fork and reached for the football. His insides got tight.

She tossed it to him across the table and said, "Seth Halloway's coming by tomorrow after the team photo. You better take this and think about what you're going to say."

Troy sat there with his head down, turning the ball over slowly in his hands while she picked up the dishes.

"I'm going to watch the news," she said, wiping her hands on a towel and moving into the living room, turning on the TV. "You get to your room."

He went, setting the football on his dresser, kicking back on his bed, and reading
Hoot
. A little after nine, she tapped on his door and came in. She sat on the edge of his bed and touched his hair.

"You can't take things, Troy," she said. "You can't steal."

"There were footballs all over the lawn, like a million of them."

"But that doesn't matter."

"I'm sure he loses them in the bushes."

"This one didn't get lost," she said, then paused for a minute, staring at the window screen.

Troy's eyes went back to his book and he pretended to read.

She sighed and said, "You mentioned your father."

Troy looked up at her. She was frowning and her eyes had a faraway look.

"He couldn't own up to his responsibilities," she said. "He moved to Chicago before you were even born. I won't let you be like that, Troy."

"I always own up," Troy said, scowling and raising his chin at her.

He shut his book and rolled on his side, turning out the light. His back was to her. He listened to her stand up and walk to the door. Then she came back in and kissed the back of his head.

"I love you," she said.

Then she was gone.

Somewhere in the night, Troy woke to the sound of the train. He looked at the red numbers on his clock. Midnight. Tate called it the midnight express. One of the freight trains to Chicago. Troy shut his eyes and tried not to think about it. His mom's words rang out in his mind:
You don't have a father.
The train wailed in the distance. Running north. Running away, to Chicago. After a time, even though Troy knew it was gone, he kept hearing its sound on the edge of his mind.

When he got up, the sun was already well up and his room was warm. His mom was long gone. Troy ate a bowl of cereal and looked at the list of chores on the counter. He filled five big bushel baskets with pinecones they'd need for starting fires in the winter. He stacked the baskets in the shed and was trying to wash the sticky sap off his fingers with the garden hose when he heard the growl of a truck.

A big yellow H2, shrouded in dust, rumbled into sight and stopped. The engine went dead and the door swung open. Troy saw a man's black cowboy boots and jeans. The door slammed shut, and he gulped. Seth Halloway stood staring across the dirt at him, wearing an angry scowl.

TROY DROPPED THE HOSE
and stood up, barely noticing the water soaking through his sneakers.

"Yeah?" Seth said, stepping toward him. "And you got something that belongs to me, your mom told me?"

Troy kept his eyes on the thick linebacker and walked sideways toward the front door. Seth had brown eyes and hair that was long enough to flip up on the outside of his helmet when he played. His nose was slightly crooked and looked as if someone had pushed the tip of it flat and it never came back out. His tight black T-shirt showed a chest and arms that were chiseled with muscle. Seth even had muscles in his face. Troy could see them rippling in his cheeks.

When he reached the porch, Troy turned and scrambled inside. Snatching the ball off his dresser, he dashed back out onto the porch, breathless. A blue jay scolded from up in a tree, and Seth had his eyes shaded against the sun, searching for the bird.

When Seth took the ball, he turned it over in his hands as if to see what damage Troy had done.

"Where is your mom, anyway?" Seth asked, fixing him with a dark, unblinking eye while the other seemed to squint.

"Work," Troy said.

Seth nodded and said, "I must have beat her back here. I hope she isn't waiting for me at the facility. Anyway, you took this, huh?"

Troy nodded.

"How'd you get in?"

"There was a hole in the wall, but they filled it up," Troy said.

"So I don't have to worry about you kids stealing my hubcaps?"

"I went to bring it back," Troy said, "honest. That's when I found out the hole was filled. Then my mom found the ball and...It wasn't right to take it anyway."

"Well," Seth said, looking down at the ball, "I appreciate you returning it. I tell you what."

He spun the ball up in the air and Troy caught it. Seth's eyes glittered, and he pressed his lips together as if holding back a grin.

"You tell me how you knew T.O. was gonna break inside instead of outside on that touchdown play last Sunday," Seth said, "and you can keep the ball."

Troy gripped the ball so tight the laces cut into his skin.

"I just know," he said.

Seth let his grin loose and said, "Lucky guess. Okay. You can still keep it."

"No," Troy said, "I
know
."

Seth cocked his head and said, "You know."

"There's patterns," Troy said. "Like...like the weatherman on TV. Like rain coming one way and cold air coming another and he knows it's gonna snow."

"You mean tendencies," Seth said. "I know all about tendencies. We get computer breakdowns. Gives us a percentage of the kind of plays teams like to run depending on which players are in the game, the formation, the field position. I know tendencies better than anyone, kid. Trust me."

"That too," Troy said, glad Seth understood part of it. "But it's more. There are patterns."

"You mean like when they draw up a play in the playbook with Xs and Os and arrows going all over the place?" Seth asked.

"Kind of," Troy said.

"And you just see those lines and stuff when you watch a football game?"

"I see it all," Troy said. "At the same time. It's hard to explain. I guess it's like ESP or something."

"In any game?" Seth asked, narrowing his eyes and tilting his head in doubt. "You just see it."

Troy nodded his head. The jay cawed and took off, flying in a blur of black and blue and white.

Seth looked at his watch. "The Georgia Tech game is on in five minutes. You gonna tell me what happens in that?"

"If we watch."

Troy walked into the house and Seth followed, sitting down on the couch next to him as he clicked on the TV. The announcers were just wrapping up their commentary and a commercial came on.

"You want a soda?" Troy asked.

"Sure," Seth said.

Troy got two bottles from the fridge, knowing his mom wouldn't mind him being nice to a guest, especially Seth Halloway. The phone stared at him from the wall and he set the sodas down and called Tate, whispering into the phone that Seth Halloway was on his couch and that she should grab Nathan and come over quick to get his autograph.

"Don't say I called," he said before hanging up. "Pretend you're just stopping by."

"With my football?" she said.

"Like we're gonna practice."

"You're grounded till tomorrow," she said. "No friends, I thought."

"My mom loves you. She's not gonna be mad about you getting an autograph. It's
Seth Halloway
."

Troy went back into the living room and handed Seth his soda before sitting down. Georgia Tech received the ball and the offense ran out onto the field.

"What's the play?" Seth asked.

"I gotta see what they're doing," Troy said, taking a swig from his bottle. "It takes a few plays at least. Maybe a couple series of plays."

Seth nodded and turned his attention to the TV, obviously interested in the game whether Troy could predict the plays or not. Troy tried to slow his breathing and just watch, seeing the whole thing, all the players at once. The formations. The defense. The motion. The shifting. Then, hardest of all, what every player did at the snap of the ball. The patterns of movement.

The room seemed to get foggy and far away. The only thing he saw was football.

After a while, he felt Seth nudging his shoulder and he came out of his trance.

"What?" he said.

"This is great, kid," Seth said, looking at his watch and setting his empty soda bottle on the coffee table, "but I got stuff to do."

Troy turned his attention back to the screen. Georgia Tech was breaking their huddle, coming to the line with two runners in the backfield and a pair of wide receivers split wide to one side.

"Toss left," Troy said, pointing at the TV.

Seth leaned forward and watched the Georgia Tech quarterback pivot around and toss the ball to the tailback, who was running left.

"Shoot," Seth said.

A Georgia Tech receiver left the field and another tight end came on. Vanderbilt, their opponent, ran an extra linebacker onto the field and one of the smaller, quicker cornerbacks ran off.

Troy watched as they came to the line.

"They're gonna run that tight end up the middle of the field, between the two safeties," he said. "No, the quarterback's changing the play."

The formations shifted.

"Tight end is still running up the middle," Troy said, "but it's a decoy. The wide receiver is gonna fake like he's running deep, then come back."

The Georgia Tech quarterback snapped the ball and dropped back. He pump-faked to the tight end in the middle, then threw a bullet to the wide receiver near the sideline. The receiver stopped running at the last second and came back to make the catch.

"Holy shoot," Seth said when it happened.

Five plays later, Georgia Tech stalled on their march to the end zone and kicked a field goal. Troy had been right about every play.

"Holy crow," Seth said, "you're like a football genius.

"Kid, do you know what this means?"