Kick (6 page)

I gave Cal a playful shove.

“You're a beast, man. You nailed that sucker,” Nick said, giving me a high five as he passed by.

The ref asked my coach for my card. I would only get it back after the next round.

I heard the ref say, “Kids like number thirteen should be banned from playing soccer.”

I had chosen number 13 because I wanted to show everyone that I didn't believe in bad luck, but now I wasn't so sure anymore.

Coach gathered us around him for a postgame talk. “You played much better in the second half, but if you play like that the next game, you guys will lose. You shouldn't be happy with your performance. They let you win. And we can't have players losing their heads. That's unacceptable behavior.” He looked right at me and then at the team. “You shouldn't be rewarding Kevin for his behavior by saying it's cool. You should be discouraging it.”

Sergeant Brown looked betrayed. I felt like I had let him down. And now I had an even bigger problem. I wondered if he was going to call Judge Kelly and recommend that he send me back to juvie.

Chapter 07

Soccer was hard to follow. The teams were going down the field at a slow pace for a while, then everything would speed up, maybe there would be a try for a goal, and then the whole thing would go the other way. Somehow Kevin was always in the middle of most of the plays and all the confrontations.

After the game, I took Kevin and his grandmother home. When we reached the house, I told him to see his grandmother to the door and come back to the car.

Kevin returned and got in. “We going someplace?” he asked.

“No, I just wanted to tell you a story,” I said. “About four years ago, I was working over on Evergreen Avenue. You know where they were going to build that park?”

“It's got that little pool for kids?” Kevin asked.

“Right. Anyway, there was an abandoned building across from the park and we were told that some crackheads were using it to sleep in. I went in and didn't see anything on the first floor. I called up the stairs to see if anyone was in the building. No answer.

“My partner went to the rear of the building and I headed up the stairs. I didn't expect any trouble. I looked around on the second floor and it looked empty. I was looking for trash, empty food containers, things like that. I thought I saw something in a corner and put my flashlight on it, and all of a sudden, I heard a gunshot. I turned and saw this jerk with a pistol in his hand. He fired again and I drew my weapon. He tried to shoot again, but his gun jammed and he threw it at me.

“I told him to hit the ground, but he took off running toward the back of the building. I thought he might be going for another gun, but I saw him head toward the window. I got to the window and saw him climbing down the fire escape. I was pretty sure I recognized him. We picked him up two days later. You got all that?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Kevin answered.

“I could have shot the guy when his gun jammed and he was still pulling the trigger. I could have shot him when he started to run. I could have shot him as he climbed down the fire escape. But even though I would have been justified in using my weapon, I didn't, for two reasons. One, I had more to lose than he did if the shooting was judged to be not justified. The second reason, and the most important, was that I held myself to a higher standard than that sucker. You get my drift?”

“I didn't shoot anybody.”

“You hit a kid on the field today because he wasn't playing the way you thought he should have been,” I said. “He set the standard and you sunk to it. Or was I seeing wrong out there?”

“You were watching—you weren't on the field!”

“And the refs, were they
just watching
, too? And was everybody out there wrong but you?”

“Sorry.”

“Kevin, don't tell me you're sorry,” I said. “Sorry is about forgetting to pick up the milk. Sorry is dropping a glass or making a mistake on a math test. Punching somebody on a soccer field, getting suspended from the game, is not sorry. It's called stupid.”

“I guess I'm stupid, then.”

“Was I wrong about you?” I asked him. “Maybe you're not a good kid who needs a break. Maybe you're a young man who thinks he can do whatever he wants as long as he thinks it's right.”

“Look, I'm trying to do the right thing. I'm trying to do the right thing on the field and off. When you're sitting on one of the benches watching the game and you have time to . . . to . . . ”

“To think about what should happen?”

“Yeah. If that ref had been watching all along, that wouldn't have happened.”

“Life doesn't work that way and you're not going to be able to change that,” I said.

“Whatever—the next time I'll just let them push us around and win the game easy,” Kevin said. His voice had lowered. His head drooped.

“The thing to remember, Kevin, is that there won't always be a next time.”

I motioned toward his house and watched Kevin start up his driveway.

On the way home I wondered again if we all had been wrong about Kevin. He acted too quickly on the field and had to be pulled away from the fight. Off the field, talking to him, he didn't seem like a hothead, but the punch he threw at the kid who fouled his teammate looked hard and deliberate.

I got home and told Carolyn what had happened.

“Are you telling me that you never got into a fight at his age?” she asked.

“I got into fights when I couldn't avoid them,” I said. “But this kid has an exaggerated sense of right and wrong. This team they were playing outsized them and they were going to use their muscle to win. Nothing wrong with that as long as they kept within the rules. Kevin's coach was yelling at his team to use their speed. But when this one player got a little dirty, Kevin went right after him. It wasn't pretty.”

“Maybe it was because of all the tension he's under.”

“Why do women always have to make excuses for children?” I asked. “If he was wrong he was wrong. Period.”

“Now who's being belligerent?”

“If you say so,” I answered.

I wasn't going to let Carolyn draw me into an argument. No matter what I said, she wouldn't budge off her position and we both knew it, so there was no use in even continuing the conversation.

“Did you at least leave him on good terms?” she went on.

“Carolyn, I don't want to discuss this anymore.”

“Was your father as stubborn as you are?”

I picked up the remote and clicked on the news. I saw there was a traffic tie-up on Route 4 near Teaneck. They had an officer explaining how some college kids had rigged a motor to a couch and tried to drive it along the highway.

“It broke down a quarter of a mile before they got to Fairleigh Dickinson,” he explained. “That's apparently where they were headed.”

“You have an excuse for those idiots?” I asked Carolyn.

“No, your honor!” she answered.

We sat around for an hour watching television, and she was clearly being stubborn by not speaking to me. I was thinking of going up to bed when the doorbell rang. Carolyn answered it and came back quickly.

“There's a contrite young man to see you,” she said.

I got up and went to the door. Kevin was sitting on the top step.

“How did you get over here?”

“Bike,” he said, pointing to my front lawn. “Twelve and a half minutes.”

I looked and saw his bicycle on its side. “What's up?”

“I know you were mad at me for fighting today,” he said. “And I guess I was pretty mad, too. But I was wondering if you could do me a favor. Christy called when I got home. She said the transmission on the car wasn't working and her father thinks I messed it up. I don't think I did, but he was saying that he hoped I got five to ten years.”

“You won't get that long as a juvenile,” I said. “Not with a clean record.”

“I thought maybe . . . you know, if you talked to him, you could convince him that I'm not that bad a guy,” Kevin said. “Christy thinks he's mad at her, too.”

“Maybe when your team is playing again and you can't play, we'll go over to his house and talk to him,” I said.

He looked down at his hands. “Sergeant Brown, it'll kill my mom if I have to go to jail,” he said.

“Did you ever talk to him yourself?” I asked. “Tell him you're sorry?”

“He won't listen.”

I sat down next to Kevin.

“Did he ever hit the girl?”

“Christy? I don't know.”

“You don't know or you don't know if you want to tell me?” I asked.

“I don't think he hits her,” Kevin said.

“I'll have to check with my commanding officer about speaking with him again,” I said. “It can't look as if I'm putting any pressure on a citizen not to press charges if he wants to do it.”

“Okay. I'm just pretty worried,” he said. “And I don't really know anyone else to turn to. I don't think the lawyer is going to impress him.”

“You need to be getting home,” I said. “And call me so I know you're home safe.”

“Okay.” Kevin got up and straddled his bike. “Oh, yeah, I asked Christy how much they pay Dolores. I told her you were thinking of hiring a maid.”

“Me having a maid is a funny idea,” I said. “My mother used to be a maid. Did Christy tell you how much they pay her?”

“They don't pay her,” Kevin said. “They pay the agency she works for.”

“Agency?”

“Yeah, she works for some kind of agency—Greenville Services—something like that—and Christy's father pays the agency and they pay Dolores. You want me to try to find out how much they pay her?”

“No! Look, Kevin, this isn't some soccer game with kids your age.” I went over to where he was sitting and put my hands on the handlebars of his bike. “There might not be anything to this or it could be something that gets sticky in a hurry. I need you to promise me—absolutely promise me that you won't do any snooping around without me. This could get dangerous. Can you look me in the eye and make that promise?”

“Sure. I won't do anything if you don't want me to,” he said.

I had interviewed a thousand people in my career. I could tell by their eyes when their minds went racing to what they should do or say next. Kevin's eyes shifted quickly down to the ground and away.

“Don't even ask Christy anything else,” I said. “You understand that?”

“I understand it,” he said, his fingers drumming nervously on the side of his bike.

“Okay, you go on home now,” I said. “And call me when you get there. I'll think about talking to Christy's father again. I'm not making any promises, but I'll think about it.”

“Okay, and thanks.”

I watched him take off on the bike. He was in good shape and the bike sped down the street and onto the avenue in less than a minute.

I got back and Carolyn had two pieces of cake on the table.

“Why didn't you invite him in for cake and milk?” she asked.

“I don't want him out when it gets dark,” I said.

“Everything all right?”

“I don't know. His eyes didn't look right,” I answered.

“What's that mean?”

“I told him I didn't want him snooping around that alien worker case because it might be dangerous,” I said. “The eyes on a kid his age should have got wide as soon as I mentioned danger. His got narrow and were darting from side to side. He was already thinking about what he was going to do next.”

Chapter 08

Watching my team win their second State Cup game without me was agonizing. The score against Oakfield was 4–2 in our favor, and we were in control the whole game. I almost felt like I wanted my team to lose just to show them how much they needed me—even though I knew it wasn't right to think that way. In my mind I kept replaying the first game and what had put me on the bench. I hated players who played dirty, who didn't have any respect for the game. But now that I was sitting, I wished I hadn't lost my temper. I was getting myself into too much trouble. I thought about the story Sergeant Brown had told me about how he hadn't shot the man with the gun.

Sergeant Brown came over twice after school to check on me. It was a little awkward, because the other kids would spot him first and point him out. Some of them called him my “keeper.” Since he didn't know anything about soccer, I took him out on the field and tried to show him how to dribble. He was slow and really not that well coordinated, so it was a tough job. In the end I got stuck full of thorns from trying to retrieve Sergeant Brown's awful passes from the bushes.

“So how's the case you've been working on?” I asked him when I came back with the ball. “The one with the workers we talked about the other day.”

“It's not really active. We don't have many leads, and no one's willing to talk to us,” he answered as he kicked the ball once again into the bushes.

“What about Mr. McNamara? Have you tried talking to him? You have lots of things to talk to him about.”

“One of our officers tried to talk to him about it a few years ago. He wasn't very cooperative. When I tried talking to him about your case, I didn't get very far. Maybe I'll go see him again.”

“Well, good luck. He's pretty tough,” I said. Sergeant Brown's pass landed the ball right at my feet. Maybe we were getting somewhere.

Friday. Sergeant Brown was trying to help me and I needed to find a way to help him. I took a series of deep breaths as I crouched behind a thick bush on the side of Christy's house. I thought that Dolores probably wouldn't have enough money to buy a car, so following her home on foot would be easy. Then I could give Sergeant Brown Dolores's address, and he could go and interview her.

I knew Sergeant Brown might get mad over what I was doing, but how else could I help him? And I wanted to help Dolores, too. Once I explained it to him, he would understand. Maybe he would even thank me!

Christy's house was in a good neighborhood. The houses were neat and well-cared for. I thought they probably cost more than the house that my family lived in.

I waited behind the bush for an hour. I was growing impatient when, around five o'clock, I saw Dolores close Christy's front door, lock it, and walk down the steps. I pulled up the hood on my sweatshirt.

Following Dolores was easy. I kept a good distance between us, and when she would turn a corner, I would immediately speed up until I could see her again.

I had been thinking about what Sergeant Brown had said about people with Hispanic backgrounds being exploited, and it bothered me. I knew I wouldn't want my grandmother being cheated in any way. Or my mom, either. What if I was back in Colombia and my mom was working here to support the family, just like Dolores? I didn't like people playing dirty. It didn't matter whether it was on or off the field—except this time I could do something about it. I knew why Dolores worked at Christy's house, but even that didn't make a difference if they weren't paying her enough.

I watched as Dolores stopped at a small grocery store. She made a few purchases and bought a newspaper. She walked slowly, and I could see her easily from a block away. I wasn't sure what I would learn that could help Sergeant Brown, but I was getting an idea of how she lived. As we walked, I saw more and more children playing in the street. Men sat on milk crates outside the shabby tenements. The neighborhood no longer looked familiar to me. It was starting to get dark, and my mom would probably be worried if I wasn't home when she got there. Abuela would already be looking at the clock. I was debating whether to turn back when Dolores stopped at an old brick apartment building. It was run-down.

Dolores lived far enough away from Christy to have taken a bus, but she had walked the entire distance. 

She opened the door with a key. I wanted to know which apartment Dolores lived in. I knew if it had a slam lock, I'd have to hurry. I sprinted forward and stuck my foot inside just as the door was closing. I listened for a few seconds before pushing the door open. The hallway was empty and quiet. I listened for footsteps and heard light steps just on the floor above and then the sound of keys opening a lock. I waited for a moment and then tiptoed up the stairs. I stopped on the second-floor landing just in time to see a door close behind Dolores. I peeked at the door. Apartment 2C. I listened at the door and could hear people speaking in Spanish.

I quickly ran down the stairs and out into the street. I felt good, as if I had scored a goal, but it was going to be a long walk home and I was going to be in trouble . . . again.

Wednesday. Game day, third round of the State Cup, and a call from Sergeant Brown. He didn't sound happy.

“Kevin, I'm sorry, I'm not going to make it to your game today,” he said, letting out a sigh. “I'm having lunch with my in-laws.”

“You don't like them?” I asked.

“It's just a family obligation,” he said. “Look, Kevin, I don't want to hear from your coach or anyone else, and I sure don't want to have to call Judge Kelly.”

“I've got it under control, sir,” I said. I was sorry that I wouldn't see Sergeant Brown. I wanted to show him that I could play without losing my cool. I also wanted to give him Dolores's address in person, so I could see his face. Then he could go interview her and maybe whoever she lived with. I'd give it to him the next time I saw him.

I filled up three bottles with ice water from the fridge, grabbed a few pieces of toast, and ran upstairs.

“¿Abuela, dónde están mis medias?”
I asked Abuela where my socks were.

I looked in my top drawer, where Abuela said she put them. As I pulled the socks out, I glanced at myself in the mirror above my dresser. I was starting to get a lot taller and more muscular, really fast. I was going to be tall like my dad, with the same green eyes, but with darker skin and black hair like my mom.

I went to my closet and reached all the way to the back, where I kept an old shoebox. I opened it and took out a pair of worn-out size twelve soccer cleats. Pretty soon they would fit me.

It was a cool and breezy October day. A few trees were starting to turn color, and some had already started dropping leaves on the ground. The game started at twelve thirty. Coach wanted us to be there at eleven. He said that the half hour before team warm-ups was for bonding and building team spirit.

Calvin's mom drove me to the game. Abuela was busy doing housework. My mom promised to take a day off from work if we made it to the semifinals.

We had a home game again. Our team chose a shady spot. I sat beside Cal, leaning against a tree.

“The Merredin Mustangs. What do you think, Cal?” I said.

“We can beat them,” he replied. “Remember, we played them once last season, but you missed that game. We only lost because the ref blew a call. Besides, our team wasn't as good as it is now. They've got a few good players, a little weak on the offensive side, but they make up for it with their defense.”

“They got anybody special?”

“You see that kid over there?” Cal said, pointing to a far corner of the field at number 4. “He's a defensive monster,” Cal continued. “Travis something—I forget his last name. He plays dirty, really dirty. He was the one that got suspended for punching that kid in the face last year down at the Baltimore tournament. The kid's face was all bloody and they had to take him away in an ambulance. Do you remember him?”

I did.

Coach Hill walked over to us. “All right guys, time for warm-up. Put your shin guards on and lace up your cleats.”

We started with a light warm-up, jogging around the field a couple of times and then stretching after the jog. Then Coach had the team sit down while he gave the lineup. He pointed to Nick as goalie and ran off the defenders, but I was waiting for him to name the forwards.

“Ricky and Robby are going to start at forward.”

Cal and Shawn shot glances at me. I looked at them and rolled my eyes. I could feel the anger rising in me.

I had been expecting to hear the name that hadn't come. Mine. Other kids looked back at me. I looked away.

When the game started, I sat on the cold bench. I could see right away that Ricky was getting dominated. He couldn't handle Travis. He was getting intimidated, and beaten to the ball. As soon as Ricky received the ball, Travis would push him with his shoulders down. If Sergeant Brown had been at the game, I'd have had to explain that this was considered a fair move. Travis was built like a tank, and he acted like one. But I could have handled him, if Coach had put me in.

But Merredin's forwards couldn't penetrate our defense. One of their forwards hit a powerful shot from outside the box and Nick dove for it. The post rang as the ball hit it dead on and bounced off. Nick got up from the ground and recovered the ball.

That kid can kick, I thought.

Ricky was chickening out big-time. He would give Robby the ball as soon as he received it to avoid getting hit. Travis picked up on this and was double-teaming Robby. Robby was an okay player. He was always tripping over himself and was a little clumsy and uncoordinated, running with his arms flailing, but he tried really hard so nobody minded. We all liked Robby.

Two minutes later Travis and another defender switched guys, which put Travis on Robby. As soon as Robby got the ball, Travis nailed him right in the calves. He tumbled to the ground, clutching his legs.

“Kevin, get ready!” Coach yelled. He walked onto the field to check on Robby.

It's about time, I thought. I jumped up from the bench and tucked in my shirt. Now I'd show him. I had to score. I was
going
to score.

Robby limped off the field with Coach, and I ran into position. I knew that if I could pull this off, it would have to be with my speed.

Travis switched back to defend Ricky. The first time I got the ball, I dribbled toward a defender, who knocked the ball away. I ran back and tackled him from behind.

The ref blew his whistle.

“Number thirteen, watch the tackles from behind!” he called to me.

Travis switched from Ricky over to me and gave me a grin.

Ty passed me the ball. Ricky was wide open. I wasn't going to pass the ball to Ricky, because I wanted to show Travis and Coach that they were wrong about me. I took the ball and went at him. I knew what I wanted to do.

The move, if you do it right, works and looks great. If you screw it up, you look like a fool.

I couldn't let Travis get a good look at the ball. I put my right foot on top of the ball, then quickly turned my back and spun the ball with my left. I heard a bunch of oohs and aahs from the spectators. Travis came right behind me and slid into me, hard. I fell to the ground, and the ref blew the whistle. He held up a yellow card.

“If I have to warn you again, you'll be gone, number four!”

Travis cursed just loud enough for me to hear him.

I got up and was about to clock Travis but stopped myself in time. I wasn't going to go there again. I thought of Sergeant Brown's reminder. There was too much at stake for me to lose my temper. I walked away and got into position.

The ref gave our team a free kick. Cal placed the ball down. He raised his hand as his foot connected with the ball. No one even touched the ball as it glided into the net under the diving goalie.

I looked at Coach while the rest of the team cheered. He was smiling—an expression we'd rarely seen since the game had started.

Next possession we got the ball and I went to the outside of the field, the flank, to receive it. Ricky was open, but my plan was to run down the field and then cross the ball in to Ricky for the goal. I breezed by everyone and went toward the goal. I wanted this goal for myself, but Ricky was on the other side of the goalie, running with a defender. I drew out the goalie, taking the ball almost out of bounds next to the side of the net before I made a short quick pass with the outside of my right foot to Ricky, who tapped it into the net with his toe.

Ricky and I slapped hands and jumped up, bumping our chests together, as the rest of the kids surrounded us.

“Terrific plays, guys, I like the teamwork! Kevin, way to draw the defender out for the assist. Good unselfish play!” Coach yelled.

We went on to win the game 3–1. It felt great.