Game Changers (15 page)

“I can't,” Shawn said.

This was at McBain Field, an hour after the game had ended, Ben having waited to tell Shawn what he wanted.

“You ever notice how much you say that?” Ben said. “That you can't do something?”

“Just let me wait until the season's over,” Shawn said.

Ben said, “Man, there really is a ton of stuff you just don't get. The season's just getting
started
, that's the way I look at it. And the way
you
ought to be looking at it.”

It was just the two of them, far end of the field near the swings, Shawn having ridden his bike over, Ben having laid it all out for him, like a homework assignment:

Shawn had to tell his dad all of it. Now. That he didn't want to be a quarterback, never wanted to be a quarterback, didn't want to be the player his dad had been.

“I'd have to admit I lied,” Shawn said. “My dad hates lying.”

“You think mine doesn't?” Ben said. “But the longer you let the lie go on, the worse it's going to be when you do tell. Like any dumb lie. That's why you're gonna do it now.”

They were sitting in the grass near the swings. Shawn had told Ben he wasn't going to sit in some little kid's swing, Ben wanting to tell him he ought to try it, he did some of his very best thinking sitting in those swings.

For now they were in the grass instead, facing each other, Shawn wearing a “Maryland Football” T-shirt. His dad's old school.

“The day he put you in at quarterback, that was the day I told him I was going to try harder than ever to
be
one. A QB.”

“Another lie.”

“I
know
.”

“After you caught the touchdown pass today, you said you owed me one, all I had to do was name it. This is the one.”

Shawn said, “I didn't know what you wanted me to promise.”

“Tough,” Ben said, grinning at him as he did. “It's like you've been telling me. A promise is a promise. You gotta go home and tell your dad the player you were today —
that's
the player you're supposed to be.”

“You're sure about that because I caught one touchdown pass?”

“Totally!” Ben said. “Seriously, dude, how dense can you be? Everybody saw.”

“I'm
gonna
tell my dad, you do have my word on that. Just let me wait. If we win two more games, we win the championship, he'll be happy, I'll be happy, everybody will be happy. It will be easier then.”

“Who said anything about easy?” Ben said. Shook his head. “Nope. Do it today.”

Shawn started to say something, but Ben held up a hand. “If you don't tell him, I will.”

“You can't,” Shawn said. “You
did
promise.”

“Yeah,” Ben said, “I did. But I've been thinkin' on that one. And here's what I came up with: Before I made that promise to you, I made the same promise to my
self
I make before every season.”

“Which is?”

“To be the best teammate I can possibly be. Which is what I'm trying to be now with you.”

“By making me do something I don't want to do?”

“No,” Ben said. “By getting you to get over yourself.” Grinning at him again.

Shawn said, “I've been trying to tell you something all season: I'm not like you. I want to be more like you, I think that's why I came to you in the first place, as messed up as I acted after, even though it killed me to admit that to myself. But I'm
not
… like … you.”

Ben said, “But, see, that's how this thing did get messed up. And that's as much my fault as yours. You're not
supposed
to be me. Or Sam. Or Coop. They tell me all the time that you're not like us. Well, guess what, dude? You're not! You gotta be the player you want to be. Not the one your dad wants you to be. Because that would be
really
messed up.”

Shawn just studied him, listening, as Ben said, “I know you better than I used to, but I'm not gonna say I know you
that well. But even I know you've been playing for him and not for you.”

“My dad never
asked
me to do it for him.”

Ben could hear his own dad's voice inside his head now, talking about Ben's grandfather and baseball and pitching and all the rest of it.

He said, “Sometimes dads don't have to ask.”

Now Shawn got up, walked over to one of the swings, sat down in it, pushed off, rocked back and forth for a minute. When he stopped he said, “After the season.”

Ben shook his head again.

Shawn said, “You always get what you want?”

Ben laughed. “Heck, no,” he said. “You might have noticed, sometimes I have to wait for stuff.”

Shawn hopped off the swing now.

“I'm gonna head,” he said.

“Okay.”

“I'm still not promising anything,” he said.

Ben reminded him for the last time that he already had.

 

He didn't hear from Shawn Saturday night. No messages from him when he got back from church on Sunday morning, on the answering machine or on e-mail.

Now it was early Sunday afternoon, the Clayton brothers on their way over to McBain Field for the touch football game they'd planned. Sam and Coop were already at Ben's house, on the back porch, drinking lemonade, hanging. Lily was with
them, even threatening to play today, the rest of the Core Four knowing she could more than hold her own with the guys, she was that good and that fast.

Not one of them ever daring to add,
For a girl.

Ben had filled them in on his conversation with Shawn the night before, telling them as much as he could without telling everything. Lily, as always, was the one listening closest.

“Let me understand you,” she said. “You're
making
him tell his dad he wants to be a receiver? Why does that matter to you so much?”

“Makes us a better team,” he said. “His dad probably feels bad that he had to move Shawn off quarterback. And I'm thinking Shawn feels bad because his dad feels bad.”

“Really,” Lily said.

“Lils,” Ben said, “you didn't see the catch he made yesterday.”

“So you've got it in your head that if everybody is happy at his house, this will make him an even better receiver somehow?”

Staying with him. Like she was covering him in a game.

“Pretty much,” Ben said.

“I still don't get why it's such a big deal,” Lily said.

“I'm kind of clueless, too,” Coop said.

“There's a shocker,” Sam said.

“Can I take one more shot at explaining this?” Ben said.

Coop said, “Quiet, everybody. McBain speaks.”

“Shawn has spent the whole year getting in his own way,” Ben said.

“And yours,” Sam said.

“Whatever,” Ben said. “Now I'm thinking that if he can get
out
of his own way, he won't just be a good player, he could even be, like,
great
.”

Lily said, “Off one catch.”

Ben said, “Listen, I'm not smart enough to figure this all out —”

“Liar,” Lily said. But smiling as she did.

“— but I think getting it out in the open that he's doing what he likes to do instead of what he thinks he
has
to do for his dad, it will make him better and us better and end of story, I'm tired of talking about this now.”

“All about the team,” Lily said.

“Basically.”

Lily smiled again. “Liar,” she said again.

“Why do I have to be lying?” Ben said. “You know how much I want to win. In everything.”

Coop jumped in now, saying, “It sounds like Ben is saying that if Shawn just chills with his dad, he'll have more fun, and having more fun will make him a better player. Am I right?”

“Exactly!” Ben said. “Look at the Coop man, explaining it better than I did.”

“I did?” Coop said.

They ended up playing three-on-three, Lily even scoring a couple of touchdowns for Ben's team, a fun game finishing about three o'clock. Still plenty of time before the Packers played. Sam and Coop said they were going to ride their bikes into town to get ice cream, they'd be back before the kickoff. Lily left for soccer practice.

Ben thought about just calling Shawn for an update, decided instead to do what he'd done the last time, get on his bike and take a ride over there. Just show up. It was a Sunday in the fall, Shawn's dad had played in the NFL, they had to be home watching football, probably the Colts game Ben knew had started at one.

Ben told his dad where he was going.

“So things are better between Shawn and you?” Jeff McBain said.

“Sort of why I'm going over there,” Ben said. “To find out.”

When Ben got to Shawn's house, he pushed the intercom button, waited until he heard Mrs. O'Brien's voice, told her it was Ben McBain to see Shawn.

Mrs. O'Brien said, “Hey, Ben. Shawn and his dad are back on the field. They have been for a while. I'm up to my elbows making lasagna, you can find your own way back, right?”

He said he could as the gate opened.

This time he made it all the way up the driveway without getting off his bike, like doing that was some kind of challenge for him. Like one more hill for him to climb today. When he got to the top, he left the bike leaning against their front porch, went around the big house and back to where the cool turf field was.

When he got close, he stopped near a big old tree, just so he could see Shawn and his dad before they saw him.

And then Ben had his answer.

There was his answer as plain as day on the field below him, without Shawn or his dad having to say a single word, to Ben or anybody else.

Ben didn't see Mr. O'Brien trying to be Shawn's quarterback coach. Or even trying to be the coach of his team today. Just being Shawn's dad.

Not showing Shawn how to grip a ball today or throw one. Throwing the ball
to
him instead. Both of them looking as if they didn't want to be anywhere else in the world. Like the two of them were finally where
they
were supposed to be.

Watching them now, Ben thought of the times at practice when he'd sneak a look at Coach O'Brien, back when Shawn was still the quarterback and would make a good throw. And Ben would see Coach smiling.

He was smiling like that today. The only difference was that Shawn was finally smiling back.

Ben stayed behind the tree, poking his head around the trunk enough to see Shawn's dad throwing long. And short. Making Shawn dive sometimes. Making him jump. No mechanical receiver on the field today. No need for Chad Ochocinco on Wheels.

Just Shawn O'Brien.

One time Coach threw a ball to Shawn on a post pattern and even though Shawn caught it, his dad yelled, “Is that your idea of a
sharp
cut?”

Shawn yelled back, “I caught it, didn't I, old man?”

They both laughed.

Ben stayed behind the tree a long time, stayed until he figured he had to be getting close to the start of the Packers' game. Waited until Coach O'Brien dropped back and threw one more deep ball, Shawn running under it and catching it in stride.

Then Ben made a clean getaway.

He made his way back up the hill toward the house, taking his time, still hearing shouts from behind him, and cheers, and more laughter.

Ben thinking to himself that this was the way all sports were supposed to sound, not just football.

 

He was on his laptop later, watching Flutie, telling himself he didn't have to wait until the season was over, he was a quarterback now.

Not the Flutie who played with his dad at Boston College, the little big man who threw the Hail Flutie pass that time against Miami. No, tonight Ben was watching highlights from when Doug Flutie played in the Canadian Football League, when he was one of the greatest players in the whole history of that league.

Ben loved watching Flutie's old CFL highlights on YouTube even now:

Twelve guys to a side, everybody allowed to be in motion before the ball was snapped, the end zones twenty yards deep, the field 110 yards long and wider than the regulation fields for American football.

It was like watching a football video game, just with real players. All that room for Flutie to make things up as he went along. All that pure fun for him, even if he had only gone up there to play — Ben knew from his dad — because he got tired of the NFL telling him he was too small to play quarterback. This was way before he came back later with the Buffalo Bills and proved everybody wrong by taking the Bills to the playoffs one year, before a dumb coach put him back on the bench and the Bills lost to the Tennessee Titans.

One more dumb coach, Ben knew by now, who couldn't see the quarterback Flutie was born to be.

Here was Ben up in his room, loving on Flutie's CFL highlights, when his mom poked her head in and told him that he had a visitor.

“Your coach,” she said.

Coach O'Brien was at the bottom of the stairs, talking to Ben's dad.

“I kept hearing about McBain Field from Shawn,” he said. “Checked it out when I got out of the car. Pretty cool.”

“Not as cool as your field,” Ben said.

“From what I hear about what goes on with you and your buddies over there across the street,” he said, “I wouldn't be so sure about that.”

Then to Ben's parents he said, “Can I borrow your boy for just a minute?”

Beth McBain said, “You can. But we're going to have to insist that you return him.”

Coach and Ben went outside, sat down on the top step of the front porch.

“Thank you,” Coach said to Ben.

“Coach,” he said, “you don't have to thank me for anything.”

“Actually, I do,” he said, “now that Shawn told me
every-
thing.” He put his head down, gave it a quick shake, said, “Everything I should have been able to figure out on my own.”

“It's all good,” Ben said.

“Now it is,” Coach said. “Thanks to you.”

Adding: “I couldn't see what my boy wanted because of what I wanted for him.”

“No worries,” Ben said. “He's gonna be great now, wait and see.”

“I don't know about that,” Coach said. “But what I do know is that he's gonna have a great time trying.”

He turned and put out his hand and Ben shook it, making sure to look Coach in the eyes as he did, the way his parents had taught him.

“You called that audible on purpose,” Coach said, “didn't you?”

“I did,” Ben said.

“To open my eyes.”

Ben said, “Maybe open everybody's.”

“I didn't see him, I didn't see
you
,” Coach O'Brien said. “Some coach.”

Ben smiled at him. “Don't beat yourself up,” he said. “Being a grown-up is
hard
sometimes.”

“Tell me about it.”

Now Coach O'Brien stood up, walked down the steps, turned around.

“Even before I put you behind center,” he said, “I thought you were one of those guys who could really see the field. I just didn't know how much until now.”

Ben stood up now on the top step, looking down at his coach for once.

“If you don't keep your eyes open,” Ben said, “you might miss somebody finally breaking into the clear.”