Football Hero (2008) (10 page)

TY SWALLOWED AND WASHED
his hands and followed his uncle out of the bathroom and into the office on the other side of the wall. Sunlight leaked in around the edges of the window’s metal blinds. The musty deer head hanging above Lucy’s desk stared down at him like an old friend. Opposite the desk, the three-foot plasma TV played highlights on
SportsCenter
. On the wall next to the bookcase filled with DVDs, Ty saw that the calendar had a different woman in a tiny bathing suit than last week. Just beyond that, Ty could see into Lucy’s private bathroom with its big glass shower, black marble floors, and fluffy towels. Ty couldn’t help wondering if his instincts had been wrong. Maybe they just wanted to talk about the way he cleaned Lucy’s private bathroom, too
much ammonia smell or not enough sparkle in the gold faucet fixtures.

Lucy had his lips wrapped around a cigar and he squinted at Ty through the smoke. The crowbar lay across his desk.

“Sit down,” Lucy said in a tone too pleasant for talking about cleaning a bathroom.

Ty sat in one of the leather chairs facing Lucy’s desk, and his uncle took the other one.

“Your brother,” Lucy said with a smile, clicking off the TV with his remote and picking up the crowbar, “we’re all proud of him.”

Ty nodded along with his uncle.

“Your uncle says he’s not interested in the bar business,” Lucy said. “And that’s fine.”

Ty relaxed a little.

“But your uncle, like every other red-blooded American,” Lucy said, “wants to take advantage of the opportunity that all of a sudden he’s got this nephew who’s this big football hero and he’s playing for the Jets. So, I got an idea that doesn’t cost anyone anything.”

Uncle Gus nodded his head, smiling hard.

“It’s fantasy football,” Lucy said, waving the crowbar. “People are crazy for it. It’s all for fun, but they pay big money if they can get any edge at all. Injury information. That’s a big thing. Stuff the average guy can’t get. Stuff he’ll pay for.”

Lucy raised his eyebrows, but Ty could only shake his head. He knew about fantasy football, getting a bunch of friends and making your own league, picking players all over the NFL for your own team, then assembling a starting roster online. You got points based on each of your individual players’ statistics for that week’s performance in their
real
game, but Ty didn’t get how injury information had anything to do with it.

“Come here,” Lucy said, motioning with the crowbar for Ty to come around the desk.

Lucy opened the newspaper to the back of the sports section.

“Injury reports,” Lucy said, laying the crowbar down and running his finger along some of the fine print in the box scores. “Who’s going to play, who’s not? They post these reports even for preseason games. Look, here. Thomas Jones, the Jets running back. It says ‘Elbow. Questionable.’ Probable means twenty-five percent chance he can’t play. Questionable means fifty percent. Doubtful means seventy-five percent chance he won’t play. If it says he’s out, he won’t play at all.”

Lucy looked up, and Ty nodded that he understood.

“Good,” Lucy said. “But half the time these things are bogus. The team says probable even when they know a guy isn’t going to play. Or doubtful when they know he is.”

“Why?” Ty asked.

“Strategy,” Lucy said. “If the other team knows Jones isn’t playing, they know the Jets will have to try and throw the ball more. They can spend more time working on their pass defense. It’s a little edge like that that can make the difference in the ball game. For the fantasy players, if they start a guy who’s going to be out, they’re sunk. Let’s say they put a quarterback onto their roster for that week who doesn’t even play. It’s almost guaranteed that they’ll lose. These mokes will pay good money to know who’s
really
going to play and who isn’t.”

“How could I know?” Ty asked.

“You ask your brother,” Lucy said, grinning. “You go see him, say, on Friday after school or something and you get the rundown.”

“He’s going to want to know why,” Ty said. “I don’t know if he’ll like it.”

“You just tell him you’re in a fantasy league with some of your buddies in school,” Lucy said. “Your brother will love it.”

“But I can’t lie to him,” Ty said, seeing the opportunity in Lucy’s churning dark eyes. “So, I’ll have to just get into a league.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said, nodding. “You do that, kid.”

“Problem is,” Ty said, sighing, “the guys who do it are all on the football team. They won’t let me in if I’m not on the team.”

“So, you’ll get on the team,” Lucy said, his voice turning into a low growl, obviously annoyed with the details.

Ty looked at his uncle, who nodded so fast that it reminded Ty of a bobble-head.

“That’s up to Uncle Gus,” Ty said, staring at his uncle.

Uncle Gus’s head slowed down, and his eyebrows knit into a V beneath the bulging vein in his forehead.

“I’D HAVE TO GO
to work late,” Ty said, still looking at his uncle. “If I’m going to be on the team.”

“So you go to work late,” Lucy said, scooping up the crowbar, glaring at Ty, and then at his uncle. “Am I missing something? This is important.”

“No,” Uncle Gus said, relaxing his face and sniveling to Lucy. “He can do that. He can play.”

“Maybe we should have it that I can have dinner with Thane on Friday nights,” Ty said. “To get the latest on everyone’s injuries.”

“Perfect,” Lucy said.

Uncle Gus’s face contorted, probably at the thought of cleaning his own toilets on Friday nights again.

“Right?” Lucy said to Uncle Gus with that growl of his, pointing the crowbar.

“Uh, yeah,” Uncle Gus said.

That night, as they drove home from their last job, Uncle Gus drank a can of beer and complained through his cigarette smoke about the new arrangement for Ty that would begin in just two weeks. Uncle Gus argued with himself over what had taken place as if Ty and Charlotte weren’t even there.

“
I want to be in a fantasy football league
,” Uncle Gus whined in a high-pitched voice, mocking Ty. “
I have to be on the team.

“I have to listen to that crap?” Uncle Gus asked, looking at his own face in the rearview mirror. “Lucy all of a sudden runs
my
business, too? I don’t pay him enough when I bet on the stupid Yankees?

“No, no,” he argued, drawing hard on his cigarette and squinting with one eye at the dark road ahead.

“This could be big. This could make us a lot of money. Lucy’s giving us a chance here. We need to take it. We don’t need the kid to get the job done. Besides, he’ll only be a couple hours late. Football season doesn’t go year-round.”

Then Uncle Gus scrunched up his face. He shot an evil look into the mirror and asked, “Who’s going to clean the crappers? Who? Huh?”

And so it went, the entire trip home. When they arrived, Uncle Gus shut off the engine. When he opened the truck door, he fell out onto the muddy ground. A stream of curses spewed from his mouth as
he struggled to his feet, steadying himself on the hood of the truck, and staggered toward the house. Ty and Charlotte sat still in the cab, waiting for Uncle Gus to get inside before they dared to follow. They knew better than to get in his way after he’d had a few beers.

Charlotte removed the iPod earpieces from her ears. When she spoke, it startled Ty.

“How did you do it?” she asked in a whisper.

“Get it so I can come late and miss Fridays?” Ty asked.

“You’re missing Fridays?” Charlotte said, her eyebrows climbing her forehead. “Some partner you are.”

“Now we’re partners?” Ty said.

“I don’t even
talk
to anyone else,” Charlotte said, slapping the dashboard.

“Yeah,” Ty said, “well, that’s not normal.”

“What
is
normal about this family?” Charlotte asked, throwing her hands in the air. “The Porta Potti they make you use in the woods? The beer? The gambling? Leaving the windows shut when he smokes those cancer sticks?”

“That doesn’t mean you have to clam up.”

A strange smile curled the corners of Charlotte’s lips and she said, “I got that from your mother.”

Ty stiffened and said, “Don’t talk about her.”

“It’s true. That family reunion in the Poconos?” Charlotte said. “I heard her say to your brother, ‘If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.’
Well, I’m not saying anything then. You see the crap I have to put up with. What’s there to say? Now you’re slithering out of it and I’m still stuck.”

“I’m not slithering,” Ty said. “They’ve got some fantasy football thing they want me to help with.”

“Why can’t I help?”

Ty glanced at the front door. Uncle Gus had fallen off the step and was flailing about in the bushes.

“If I could help you, I would,” Ty said. “He’s not going to go for it and you know it. You should have seen his face when Lucy told him I had to play football.”

“Did the vein in the middle of his forehead bulge out all purple?” she asked.

“Kind of.”

“Good,” she said. “One day maybe it will bust wide open.”

“Don’t say that,” Ty said.

Charlotte snorted and crossed her bony arms like the legs of a spider.

It was Ty’s last Friday when he came out of the bathroom at the Nook with a toilet brush in one hand and a bucket in the other and stood face-to-face with a tall blond woman wearing sunglasses.

“I want a bagel,” she said, examining the underside of one of her long pink nails.

Uncle Gus had gone across the street for a beer,
and Charlotte was back in the kitchen.

“Uh,” Ty said, “this place is closed.”

“The door was open,” the woman said in a snotty tone. She wore an expensive running suit and shoes. Dark roots shone beneath her long blond hair. Her lipstick matched her nails, and her teeth glowed white in a mean smile. “So just give me a raisin bagel with cream cheese. I’ll take a black coffee and an orange juice, and make sure you wash your hands first.”

Ty looked at his toilet brush. His cheeks warmed, and the bell on the door behind the woman tinkled.

“Hurry up, Mom,” said a voice Ty recognized even before he saw the face. “We’re gonna be late.”

Then, Calvin West stepped out from behind the woman. His face went blank with shock at the sight of Ty, then his eyes went from the brush, to the bucket, to the bathroom, and back to Ty as his wicked grin grew.

“Hey, Ty Lewis,” Calvin said, “cleaning the crappers. You don’t want him touching your food. Let’s go.”

“Be quiet, Calvin. I’m hungry.”

Charlotte appeared from the kitchen and stood next to Ty, absorbing the situation.

“I told them the place is closed,” Ty told her under his breath.

“I want a raisin bagel,” Calvin’s mom said. “You don’t have to be a Phi Beta Kappa to do that.”

Charlotte didn’t say anything. She turned and dug
into the big trash can behind the counter, coming up with someone’s half-eaten raisin bagel with cream cheese spurting out the side. She plopped it down on a napkin and set it on the counter, then looked up at Calvin’s mom with a deadpan face.

“Enjoy,” she said.

Then she took Ty’s arm and dragged him into the back until they heard the woman utter a curse and then the door jingling as they left.

“That was Calvin West,” Ty said, too breathless to appreciate Charlotte’s joke.

“Big deal, Calvin West. If he bothers you,” she said, putting her earpieces in and picking up a dishcloth, “you let me know.”

THE JETS BROKE TRAINING
camp, and the team gave the players the weekend off before the regular season and the real games began. Thane got permission from Uncle Gus to take Ty with him house hunting on Saturday afternoon. He showed up driving a new Escalade. Uncle Gus ran his hands greedily over the shiny black surface of the hood as he admired the machine and told Thane not to bring Ty home too late, as if he really cared.

Inside the truck, Ty gave his brother a kiss on the cheek and a hug. In a whisper he asked if Thane could bring Charlotte, too.

“Yeah, sure,” Thane said, and he leaned out his window. “Uncle Gus, can Charlotte come with us?”

Uncle Gus had the garden hose going on a crab apple tree. He stiffened, then a smile grew on his face.
“We can all join you, sure.”

“Naw, just the kids,” Thane said. “I can’t take you guys. I don’t want the real estate agent to think I’m some kind of baby who can’t pick out his own house.”

Uncle Gus didn’t get the answer out of his mouth before the front door shot open and Charlotte streaked past him, flung open the back door, and dove into the truck.

“Great,” Thane said, and they rumbled away down the rutted track, swishing through the dusty green weeds.

As they pulled out onto the open road, Ty looked back at Charlotte, who smiled so big and so real that she looked like a girl with a storybook life. He winked at her and then rolled down the window and let the wind blow across his face.

They met Linda Roche, Thane’s real estate agent, at the highway exit for Summit and followed her Mercedes through a series of twisting roads before they came to a hilly, tree-filled development with houses that rivaled the size of Halpern Middle School. Linda pulled up a driveway and got out in front of a gray stone house with a slate roof.

“There’s five garage doors,” Charlotte said, blinking and counting them off with a finger.

They got out and followed Linda past the towering columns and in through the front doors.

“You could play football in here,” Ty said, his voice echoing off the empty walls and the wood floors.

“It’s only eighty-two hundred feet,” Linda said to Thane. “At two-seven, it’s the best bargain in northern New Jersey. The owner’s wife missed her family and they moved back to Brazil.”

“Two-seven, as in million?” Ty asked, raising his eyebrows.

“It’s an investment,” Thane said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking around. “Where’s the TV room?”

“There’s a home theater on the lower level,” Linda said, leading them into the spacious, glass-lined back of the house that overlooked an immense grass yard.

“Here’s the living room. Right off your kitchen so whoever cooks can be involved with whatever’s going on.”

“So, like, when I put a can of SpaghettiOs in the microwave, I won’t miss a single play on
Monday Night Football
?” Thane asked.

Linda looked to see if he was serious and slowly said, “Something like that. The master bedroom is on the first floor.”

“That’s good,” Thane said, following her into the big bedroom overlooking the back lawn and through a maze of closets and the bathroom. “If my knee swells up on me. No stairs.”

“Is your knee okay?” Ty asked.

“Yeah, I’m just saying, in case.”

“His and hers bathrooms,” Linda said, leading them. “Water closets. Walk-in showers. Tub for her. Sauna for you.”

“What
her
?” Ty asked, wrinkling his forehead.

Thane frowned and shook his head. “There’s no her. Relax.”

“Yet,” Linda said, raising a finger in the air.

“Margery at my office wants your number.”

“Yeah, she’s cute,” Thane said with a nod. “Let’s look upstairs.”

They followed Linda up the back set of stairs and down a long hallway full of bedrooms.

“I know it’s more than you need,” Linda said, “but for resale, a house this big needs lots of bedrooms.”

“Man,” Charlotte said, peering into a bedroom that had its own tiled bathroom. “Ty and I should come live with you.”

Ty flashed a scowl at his cousin, forced a laugh, and said, “She’s kidding. Kids need a mom, right? Aunt Virginia cooking and cleaning for us. All that stuff.”

“Her, clean for
us
?” Charlotte said. “And cooking? We’d do better at McDonald’s on a bad day.”

“She’s kidding,” Ty said to his brother, patting him on the back. “We love Aunt Virginia and Uncle Gus. How about those caramel apples she makes?”

Ty wheeled on Charlotte, glowering and holding his finger up to his mouth to be quiet. She shrugged and looked at him like she didn’t understand, but she nodded her head anyway.

“Yeah,” Thane said, looking up at the vaulted ceilings and studying the chandelier as they wound their way down the big spiral staircase. “I used to complain about
our mom’s cooking. Remember that goulash stuff with the elbow macaroni?”

Thane stopped at the bottom of the steps, looked up at them, and in a soft voice said, “Then you don’t have it and you miss it, even if it was bad. Right, Ty?”

Ty looked at his shoes, and they all stood still for a moment, until Charlotte said, “I didn’t mean to—”

Thane waved his hand in the air and started off again. “No, don’t worry. It’s good to talk about her sometimes, even when we’re kidding about her goulash. She’d get a kick out of it.”

“What do you think?” Linda asked as they wandered into the kitchen area.

Thane looked around and said, “I’ll take it.”

“Well, I have a lot of other places,” Linda said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No, I’ll take it,” Thane said. “Microwave. Home theater. Big shower. That yard is big enough for me to set up a JUGS machine and run patterns. It’s perfect.”

“I’ll draw up the papers,” Linda said, the look of shock fading.

“And you two,” Thane said, pointing to Ty and Charlotte and then flicking his finger toward the stairs. “Go pick one of those bedrooms. I know you can’t move in, but when you come to visit I want you both to have a room. We’ll get some furniture and computers and stuff. A couple TVs. Linda, you’ve got a decorator for me, right? Make sure she talks to the kids.”