Muckers (26 page)

“I thought Whitey would have bit the dust by now. Must be the oldest burro left in Hatley.” Faye smiles, trying to keep her purse away from Whitey’s gums. “Why don’t I put this roast in the Frigidaire before Whitey gets it.”

“I want a burro,” Samuel says. He giggles as Whitey nibbles at his curls.

“Careful, he just might follow you home,” I say. “That burro’s too stubborn to leave Hatley—he’s got the grazing rights to the whole town.”

“Well, stubborn’s okay,” Faye says. “It helps you keep track of what’s important in life.”

“Do you and Whitey eat my mom’s food all by yourselves?” Samuel asks.

“Well, I got a pop who lives here. But to tell you the truth, I don’t always know when he’ll show.”

“Is he up in heaven, too, like your coach?”

Faye blushes. “Samuel, hush.”

“Naw. I had a brother. He’s with Coach.”

Faye strokes Samuel’s hair.

“Does he have orange hair, too?” Samuel asks.

“Yeah … but he got all the looks.”

Faye comes closer and rests a hand on my shoulder. “Bobby would be so proud of you,” she whispers. “And …” She hesitates.

There are things I want to ask her, too, like where her husband is, but I don’t.

“I brought something else,” Faye says. “I think it belongs to you.” She takes a box from her purse. It’s from Robinson’s. “You ought to save these pearls for someone special in your life, Red,” she whispers. “And when you do, don’t ever miss a chance to let her know how you feel.”

“I wanna see the trophy you get for winning the game,” Samuel says. “I bet it’s bigger than Whitey.”

“We’ll have to find out, won’t we?” I say.

Faye takes Samuel’s hand. “We’ll be at the game on Saturday. Win or lose, it’s just about the greatest thing to happen to this town.”

Samuel gives Whitey a kiss before leaving, then Faye turns back and looks at me. “I’m proud of you
for
Bobby,” she tells me. “How’s that?”

“That’s just fine,” I say softly, putting the box from Robinson’s in my pocket and holding on to it—tight.

I COULD STILL SHOWER IF
I wanted to; my locker’s not far from the stalls. But I’d have to pass Coach’s office, and that doesn’t seem right with him not being here. None of the guys felt like doing much after practice, so they headed home to get some rest. Even Cruz. He kept going on about having to wash his car but he did that yesterday. I think he needed to be alone with his thoughts, and I suppose that’s true of me, too. Funny how this jersey itches like crazy once the sweat gets into it, but I don’t want to take it off just yet and keep looking at the trophies in the case across from my locker.

Somebody put our Northern Crown on the top shelf. Not in the center, but off to the left a bit, like whoever placed it there’s saving a spot for the Yavapai Cup. It wouldn’t have been Wallinger, that’s for sure. He doesn’t care enough, and there’s no way he feels what we’re feeling. It had to be someone who wants that Cup as bad as we do, or who understands us wanting it that much.

I try looking at that Northern Crown one more time from another angle, thinking it might be a split in the glass or something, but it’s different from Bobby’s from this side, too. The guy punting the ball is kicking it up a vertical line, same as on the other trophy, but he’s made of copper, like my coloring, instead of bronze. By the time the copper reaches his forehead, though, it’s turned the complexion of Cruz and Tony and most of the guys on the team. And I wonder if the fellow who made it knew what he was doing, and if he figured on the face of that punter burnishing brown like a Mexican Mucker’s.

“Careful, if you stare at them long enough they just might come to life,” Mr. Mackenzie says. “Seems like neither one of us is ready to leave for the night, are we?” He’s lugging a box that looks heavier than a typewriter, and rests it next to my locker before coming over. “Charlie put the Northern Crown in there. Cleaned the rest of them, too, in case you were wondering. He told me he saw you pining over them, looking so forlorn that he went through every key in those stacks of lockboxes until he found the one to get it open.”

“Charlie.” I nod, leaning my hand against the glass in front of the Northern Crown as if I can touch it. Then I look over at Mr. Mackenzie. “We still don’t know where these are going yet, do we? When the school closes.”

“I’m afraid not,” he murmurs. “I wish I did.” He pulls his suit trousers up at the knees and sits on the box. “But what I do know is that it already comes polished.
The Yavapai Cup
. It’s at least a foot taller than any of these trophies, and is bronze and copper with golden wings on the soles of the kicker. Like he just sent his dreams soaring into the sky and when they finally landed on the field, they’d come true.”

I move my fingers along the glass slowly, to the center of
the top tier where the Cup could be, and I don’t know if it’s my imagination or the light or what, but it gets really warm. I try to imagine the outline of that trophy. Those wings on the kicker’s shoes. “And if we win it, it belongs to us, right?”

Mr. Mac sighs. “Mr. Ruffner owns the property and the school.”

“But he wouldn’t have earned it.”

“No, he wouldn’t have.” Mr. Mackenzie runs a palm across his face and closes his eyes. “This is my last day at this school, Felix.”

I take my hand off the glass and think he’s got to be fooling. “What do you mean? Won’t you be at the game on Saturday?”

“I would never miss that,” he says. “But I’ll no longer be principal of this school. I’ve taken a job at the college in Flagstaff.”

“What happened?”

“It will be official on Monday, but it seems that Superintendent Menary has taken the Communist box seriously. Apparently, my name was in it several times. And he’s given me the opportunity to leave—his words. But I suppose it’s just as well with Cottonville closing, too, and all the surplus of teachers we’ll have.” Then Mr. Mackenzie takes out a piece of paper from his shirt pocket. “This is where I’ll be,” he says. “You call me if you need anything, you hear? Marilyn will stay until the end of next week to be with your mother.”

He turns to face the trophies. “It’s open, by the way,” he whispers. “For some reason Charlie’s forgotten to lock it, and he won’t be making the rounds again until tomorrow morning.” Mr. Mackenzie taps on the glass above the lock. “Remember, hope can never be taken away unless you let it,” he
says. “The future is yours, Felix. And you don’t have to stay here either.”

GHOST TOWN BATTLES FOR STATE FOOTBALL TITLE

Clinging tenaciously to the side of the Black Mountains at the 5,000-foot level is a ghost town. Once the richest copper vein in the world, Hatley’s ore has run out, and the days when 15,000 people filled the streets and 4,000 miners spent their paychecks in wild flings are only a memory. Now the old-timers and their families—some 500 of them waiting for the school to close—live in the collection of weather-beaten houses that hug the steep mountainside, the view from their porches extending 60 miles all the way to Flagstaff.

But immediately over their balconies is a gaping open pit run dry—a reminder of what their lives used to be.

Today at 3 p.m. the town’s last football team, the Hatley Muckers, carrying a squad of only 12 and missing both their coach and the life of their town, will compete against the heavily favored powerhouse, Phoenix United, for the Yavapai Cup, on a type of field not seen in the southern parts of the state.

The little team known as the Mighty Mites is somehow unbeaten, for their size makes them the smallest team in Arizona. “We’ve been doing pretty well so far,” Muckers
assistant coach Hank Wallinger said. “And we know how to win on our field.”

Their field, which is made up of the waste tailings dumped out by the mines, has no trace of grass on it, and that has Phoenix United, which is 6–0 against teams known as the best in the state, hopping mad. “It shouldn’t be allowed, holding a state championship on a field akin to broken glass,” Coach Pug Johnson insisted. “Forget about the championship. I’m risking my players’ lives just going out there.”

P.U. will also be playing a team that is unsegregated, as seems to be the case in the North, with the bulk of the roster made up of Mexicans led by an English-speaking quarterback named Felix O’Sullivan.

POP
’
S IN FRONT OF THE
house wearing nothing but his unions when I head out for the game. He’s got a mouth full of nails and doesn’t look up when I pass him, so I guess that means he won’t be going.

Cruz and Tony are at the corner waiting for me, fighting the wind. The air’s cool and blustery for late October, and we shouldn’t have to work this hard to get up the hill. The wind’s carrying the sound of Pop’s hammering so Tony looks back. “Your dad’s nailing a
FOR SALE
sign on the house,” he says.

Me and Cruz keep walking. There’s no way I’m looking back at that sign. And I don’t know where it leaves me, but Pop can haul that house all the way to Bisbee as far as I’m concerned. All I need is a win.

The company houses are boarded up below the H; they got shuttered yesterday. There’s a flowerpot overturned on the steps of Mrs. Hollingworth’s house—they left for Bisbee
more than a week ago. In the distance is the Cottonville smelter. Cruz and Tony are eyeing it, too, but none of us says anything. We’ve despised it all our lives and the sulfur that came with it. Now it’s just a column of copper bricks left blackened by its own smoke, and it seems stupid that we ever hated it.

“They couldn’t wait another month to close the mine?” Cruz says, spitting out a gnat. “So the town could see us play?”

“The new shifts already started in Ajo,” Tony sniffs, holding his helmet tighter when we get to Upper Main. We look to our right, down into the Gulch.

You can hear the wind in the Barrio, nothing else. No kids laughing or clothes snapping in the breeze. And the burros have already staked their claims on the shanty porches, blinking back at us from their new homes.

The wind is still against us, blowing heavy by the time we reach the end of Main. “Coach liked it this way,” Tony says.

“Cold and windy.” Cruz nods.

Bobby did, too.

I thought a family was supposed to get bigger over time, and watch you on days like this with a pride so big you could just about see it bursting. And that the coach you played hard for stuck with you till the end of the season. But they’re both gone and it’s all because of war—the one before this one, though it doesn’t matter which, it never lets up. Now Rabbit’s in it, too. And I’m sick and tired of what a war and a mine can do to a family, whittling it down to nothing. Leaving you angry and broken like Pop.

“Somebody’s playing the piano,” Cruz says. It’s Mrs. Featherhoff, sitting on a milk can behind her piano, which is still on the sidewalk. It’s covered in Mucker pennants. “Here
come our boys!” she shouts. “Rally sons of Hatley High!” She starts playing our fight song. And I don’t know what to say, it’s such a nice thing to do, so I shake her hand and she starts crying. “Now don’t be doing that,” I tell her. “We’re gonna win.”

“Then we’ll come back and dance on your piano,” Cruz says, taking the streamers with us and giving Mrs. Featherhoff a salute.

The icehouse is empty—Gibby went to Ajo last week—but we stop anyhow to take in the view.

“Would you look at those things?” Cruz says, pointing at the new bleachers. “I thought we were playing football, not going to the circus.”

They’re ten rows high and painted red and white—Phoenix colors—and only inches away from ours. Mr. Casillas built them. And I haven’t a clue how he got them up here, but there’s no way Tony helped. He won’t even look at them and strokes his leathery brown forehead with his free hand.

Apparently, it’s the rule to have seats for your opponents if you’re hosting the state championship, and be real polite about it, too. Answering all sorts of questions that have nothing to do with football. Stupid ones, like why we chose to have Mexicans in our school instead of segregation, as if they shouldn’t be here. That’s what the reporter from Phoenix kept pestering me about on the telephone last night, wanting to know if “all those languages” got in the way.
In the way of what?

They sure have a peculiar way of looking at things down in the South, figuring that we can’t speak English because our folks weren’t born here. Like we’re not even American. But we didn’t get this far because we’re anything like Phoenix United, and we’ve gotten along just fine for thirty years without a grass field or a stadium full of seats for total
strangers or two separate schools. But the South never expected to play us when the North drew home field. They usually get Flag, which is just about as big as Phoenix United and more neighborly than we are, only we’ve got the better view.