The Walk On (39 page)

“Michael Akers and Joe Burness have been Allentown North’s starting tackles all season. Alex Myers is Matthew Gordon’s backup and has come off the bench on a couple occasions to lead critical drives for the Lions. None of the three will play tonight because they are among eleven players who tested positive this week for performance-enhancing drugs.”

The cameras cut back to the two announcers, both shaking their heads sadly. “These are the times we live in, Jeff,” the ex-lineman was saying. “We can only hope these young
men will learn from the mistakes they’ve made. Speaking as an ex-player, if I were a teammate of any of these guys, I’m not sure I’d ever be able to look them in the eye or respect them again.”

“Well said, Armand,” said Jeff. “Well said. Now let’s turn our attention back to those who earned the right to play tonight—”

Alex didn’t hear the rest of the sentence because he was screaming. He was so angry he had tears in his eyes. His mother raced into the room.

“What is it, Alex?” she said.

“They just called me a cheat on TV!” he yelled. “They showed my picture and said my teammates should never speak to me again. Didn’t someone from the school tell them there might have been a mistake? Or that we’ve filed an appeal?”

“Maybe they’re not allowed to?” she said.

“Or maybe they are,” Alex said.

He was as angry as he could ever remember being. He paced the room like a caged … Lion. Suddenly he felt very alone. His dad was MIA, his teammates were playing without him, he’d been labeled a cheat on TV, and no one was standing up for him. Then he looked at his mom—and went over and gave her a hug.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said softly.

“For what?”

“For being here.”

She didn’t say anything, but he knew she understood.

The next three hours were torture for Alex. The good news was the announcers never brought his name up again—probably
on orders, he figured: get the cheats out of the way early and then forget about them.

The bad news was, no one could score. Hanging on to the ball was almost impossible. Staying on your feet was just about as difficult. Both star quarterbacks struggled: neither seemed able to grip the ball to throw with any consistency and both teams fumbled almost constantly.

With under six minutes left in the fourth quarter, Chester Heights finally put together a mini-drive after taking over on a Ken Jackson fumble at the Allentown North 42-yard line. Sticking to basics—Matt turning and handing the ball off to Craig Josephs on just about every play
or
faking to Craig and then following him straight into the line—the Lions steadily moved the ball to a first down at the Allentown North 8-yard line.

The clock was under two minutes. The Raiders had already used two of their time-outs. Alex wondered if Coach Gordon would try to punch the ball into the end zone or take a chance on Pete Ross making a short field goal, kicking a wet ball off a frozen field. It was apparent that Allentown North was saving its final time-out to make Ross think about the kick if he had to try to make it.

On first down, Josephs went up the middle and was tackled for no gain. The clock ticked down to 1:35 before Matt handed to Josephs again. This time he picked up two yards to the six. It was pretty clear that Allentown North was jamming the middle, and so trying to score by going straight into the line would be impossible. If Josephs carried again, it would come down to a field goal. The clock was under a minute as Matt brought the team to the line.

Coach Gordon clearly understood that another handoff to Josephs was going to result in a field goal attempt in very difficult conditions and decided to take a different sort of risk. On third down, Matt looked like he was going to hand to Josephs again. But he pulled the ball out of his stomach and dropped to pass. He raised his arm to throw, then pulled it down. Apparently, no one was open, because he took off on a scramble. He dodged one lineman, then two. A third Raider seemed to have him but fell on his face when Matt cut outside.

At the 2-yard line, two defenders waited to cut him off. Matt lined them up and then leaped right into their arms—pushing them backward with his sheer power. The three of them fell in a heap right on the goal line. The official raced in, arms in the air, signaling a touchdown.

Alex jumped off the couch, shaking his fist. “Way to go, Matt—way to go!” he screamed as he watched his teammates pummel their quarterback. Alex could see the clock at the bottom of the screen: there were thirty-eight seconds to go.

Ross came in to kick the extra point, but the snap went way over the holder’s hands and the ball rolled loose for an agonizing few seconds until a Lion smothered it. Coach Gordon had been right not settling for the field goal. Allentown North tried two long passes after the kickoff. The second was intercepted by Tony Riley—who was in as a sixth defensive back—and the game came to an end. Final: Chester Heights 6, Allentown North 0.

They were in the state championship game. Alex took a deep breath and thought, Maybe, just maybe, my football season isn’t over.

It wasn’t until some sideline announcer interviewed Matt after the game that Alex found out what happened on Matt’s touchdown run.

“I got lucky,” Matt said in typical Matt fashion. “The call was for a play-action fake and then for me to throw it to Jonas Ellington in the end zone. He was wide open, but when I tried to cock my arm to throw, I realized I didn’t have a good grip on the ball. I was afraid I’d miss the throw, so I just took off.”

“That run wasn’t lucky,” the sideline reporter said.

Matt shrugged. “On a night like this, anything good that happens is lucky. We were just luckier than they were tonight.”

Alex knew that was true. It was also true that Matt had made a spectacular play, figuring out a way to pull the ball down rather than having it wobble out of his hand and end
up—at best—falling incomplete. At worst, it might have been intercepted.

His mom walked into the room. She had been upstairs reading in bed as she always did after Molly went to sleep but had heard Alex shouting after Matt’s touchdown run.

“What happened?” she asked.

“We won,” Alex said.

As happy as he had been when Matt scored, he didn’t feel overjoyed anymore. Chester Heights would play in the championship game. That thrilled him. But the uncertainty about what would happen to him—what if they somehow screwed up the test again? what if they refused to admit their mistake?—was weighing on him.

His mom had apparently not thought about any of that. Or didn’t show it.

“That’s
great
!” she said. “This means you get to play next week!”

“Maybe,” he said. “If I’m cleared. But Matt’s still the starter. He saved the game tonight.”

“What do you mean
if
you’re cleared?” she said. “You’re going to be cleared.”

Alex told her his fears. She was shaking her head as he spoke. “I’m very good on gut feelings,” she said. “You know that. Mr. Newsome is an honest man. He won’t let anything like that happen.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said.

“I know I’m right,” she said, crossing the room to give him a kiss on the forehead. “Get some sleep now. You should be able to sleep well tonight.”

He nodded. “You’re right.”

He went to bed still full of adrenaline, thinking about the possibility of playing in the state championship game. His mom was right—the state
had
to clear him. Then a thought that had been nagging at him all day popped back into his mind one more time: if it wasn’t his blood that had tested positive, whose blood had it been? It had to be one of the linemen, he thought. He lay awake trying to figure out which one it had been.

Finally, after he’d run through all the names, he slept.

He had texted both Christine and Jonas on the way back from Harrisburg and Christine suggested they all meet at Stark’s for lunch on Saturday.

When Alex walked in, the others were sitting in the back booth that now felt like home to Alex. Both were drinking milk shakes.

“I would think after last night you’d never want anything cold again,” he said, hugging Jonas as he stood to greet him.

“You’re not far wrong,” Jonas said. “Christine talked me into it.”

“Was it as bad as it looked?” Alex asked as they sat down.

“Worse,” Jonas said. “You know me, I think I can catch anything. But I was never so happy in my life as when Matt pulled that ball down. I was convinced he was going to throw it to me and I was going to flat-out drop it. I was soaked
and
shivering by then.”

Christine had barely said a word as the two boys talked.
Her hair was tied back and the brightness in her eyes that was usually so evident seemed missing.

“You okay?” Alex asked, turning to her finally.

“Fine. Just
very
tired,” she said. “We couldn’t drive home last night because of the weather, so we checked into a hotel and got up at six to come home. I’ve been doing homework most of the morning since we got back.”

The waitress came over and Alex, still cold from the bike ride over, opted for hot chocolate.

Christine got down to business.

“The
Daily News
has asked me to write this story as soon as you’re cleared on Tuesday,” she said.

“That’s a pretty big deal for a high school freshman reporter, isn’t it?” Jonas said.

“It is,” Christine said. “But Stevie Thomas has been writing for them since he was my age, so they’ve done it before. Plus, my dad showed the sports editor some of my stuff and he thought it was pretty good.”

“Glad to be of service,” Alex said, hoping he didn’t sound too sarcastic. If he did, Christine didn’t pick up on it.

“There’s still one important fact missing.”

“What’s that?” Alex said.

“Whose blood was it?” Christine said. Her tone made it clear she was a little stunned he didn’t know the answer.

“Right,” he said.

“The good news is, there are only a handful of guys on the team who have O-negative blood,” Christine said. “The bad news is, the state can’t be sure which is the one who tested positive.”

Alex said, “But isn’t there someone out there with
O-negative blood whose test came back clean, showing O-positive blood because it was mine?”

“That makes sense,” said Jonas, who had been listening intently. “But tell me if I’m wrong, Christine. Won’t they first try to figure out
how
someone else’s blood ended up marked with Alex’s name? Figuring out whose blood it really was only comes after figuring out how the system broke down. Otherwise, how do they trust
any
of the results? There might be more than one mix-up. Sounds to me like it’s very unlikely they’ll figure out who it is before Friday.”

Alex thought about it for a minute. “Actually, it’s not all bad. It means we won’t lose a key lineman for the championship game.”

“So you’re okay with having someone play who’s a cheat as long as it helps you win?” Christine asked, shooting him a disgusted look.

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Yes, you did.”

“What makes you so sure it’s a lineman?” Jonas said, much to Alex’s relief—although Christine was still shooting daggers at him with her eyes.