“Dad, want to throw the ball?” Jace playfully mimed a throw to his father, as if there were any chance he’d say yes. The man had just flipped a football game on TV and turned down the volume to relax. Between work, night school and the City Workers’ Union, his time at home was short and rare. But with persistence, Jace enjoyed one acceptance for every ten or twelve –
“Not today, son.” Mr. Dering sighed as he settled into his recliner, his long legs hanging over the edge of the foot rest. Hearing the familiar creak, Jace’s younger brother, Marc, came running. The boys tried to shove each other out of the way to be the one to pull the lineman’s boots off. They settled on one boot apiece. Yellowed sleepy socks hung loosely from the long feet. Marc returned to the kitchen where he was describing Martians to his mother.
Mr. Dering grumbled his excuse. “Climbing power poles for eight hours is all the exercise I signed up for.” He lit a cigarette, leaned back, and closed his eyes. Then Jace remembered.
“Midget League Football signups are Saturday.” He tossed the ball to himself. He had ruled the younger neighborhood boys in field football for three summers. It was time to go pro.
“Zat so?” his father asked through closed eyes. Jace watched the smoke bend from the cigarette toward the light of the table lamp and funnel up through the smaller top of the lampshade.
“You’re taking me, aren’t you?” He corrected the high pitch of his voice mid-sentence. His father exhaled a cloud of smoke.
“Thought you had to be ten,” said father through eyelids.
“Yuey says you can play up an age if you weigh ninety pounds.” Jace ever so casually tossed the ball to himself again. His father opened one eye and squinted through the smoke at his nine-year-old’s frame, wondering if he’d been gone so much he didn’t see his boy gain a few. He closed his eye and readjusted his head on the puffy chair.
“Boy, you ain’t nothing but knees and elbows.” He took a drag, then spoke with held breath, “I doubt you weigh ninety sopping wet.” He blew out the smoke.
“I do too,” Jace assured. He returned to the kitchen table for the last pork chop. He’d already forced down three at dinner. This one had been bitten and left for burnt, but he bravely stuck it in his mouth and headed out the door. He saw Huey outside working on his dirt bike. He tossed the pork chop bone into the bushes and strutted up the older boy’s driveway.
“Hey Yuey, want to throw?” he asked, fingering the laces of the ball. Huey was Jace’s definition of cool, and not just because he was fourteen. He was usually mean as the devil to younger kids. But Jace learned if you didn’t fall for his tricks, he let you hang around him.
“You see I’m busy.” Huey reached his arm out. “Hand me that ratchet.”
“Chris Collingsworth says I’m a natural-born quarterback,” Jace bragged, handing Huey the tool. He slid his other fingers into his back pocket and retrieved the newspaper clipping his mother had cut out of the Gainesville Sun — a photo of Jace standing by the college player. “See?”
“I know. You already showed me.” Huey stood up and hoisted the motorcycle onto an M-shaped prop so the back wheel no longer touched the ground. “Hold that wheel for a sec.” Jace hastily folded the clipping and slid it flat into his back pocket, then grabbed the back wheel with both hands. He sometimes had to do this with his own makeshift bicycles when he worked on them. Huey started the motor and revved the gas very slowly while he inspected the chain. Jace could feel a little tug from the wheel, and he held tighter. Suddenly the wheel spun out of his hands, burning rubber on his palms.
“Ow!” He waved his hands to cool them. “Signups are Saturday.”
“Hah, my bad,” Huey laughed, turning the motor off. “Yeah, you gotta get on with my old coach – Larry DuRyte. He’s the only team that ever wins the championship.”
“How do I do that?” Jace asked, blowing on his pink and black skid marks.
“YOU don’t. The coaches do the picking,” He pulled the spark plug off the motor.
“What if he doesn’t pick me?” Jace felt panicky. He had to be on the winning team.
“I already talked to him. He said he’d pick you after he got the older kids.”
“But what if someone else picks me first?”
Huey’s eyes looked up from the spark plug, and he snorted. “Trust me. You ain’t got nothing to worry about.” He snickered and shook his head.
* * *
Friday afternoon, Jace stood on the scale, waiting anxiously for the dial to settle on the magic number. The scale read eighty-eight. He stepped off and watched the dial, to see if the zero was centered correctly. It wasn’t! It settled in the empty space to the left of the zero. Excited at his second chance, he reached around back of the scale and turned the gear till zero came back to the arrow. Then he stepped on and held his breath till it displayed his fate. Eighty-six. Puzzled, he stepped off, waited for zero, stepped back on, and waited for… eighty-six.
“Is it time for lunch?” he asked his mother, who was barefoot on a chair in the kitchen painting life-sized, nesting chickens on the cabinet doors. She painted on anything that would hold still long enough.
“You just had lunch an hour ago.” She marveled.
“Oh, yeah.” He remembered the corn dogs and macaroni and cheese. “Can I have more?” He hoped there was room in his stomach for two lunches.
“I guess.” Growing boys, she thought. Where do they put it? “There’s more corn dogs in the freezer. But you’ll have to make it yourself.”
“Okay.” He pulled out a few wads of foil till he found them. One dog felt like it might weigh a pound. He put four on a pan. “How long?” he asked as he put them in the oven.
“Twenty minutes.” She hummed and swayed her portly hips as she worked. He watched the flow of her paintbrush for a minute, then reached into the oven to feel a corndog. Still icy.
“Momma, why can’t we get a mikerwave?” he asked, closing the oven door. “Everyone else has one.”
“Sugar, your daddy works very hard and we have everything we need. Don’t you go acting like it’s not enough.” She leaned back and smiled at the stray feather she’d put on a chicken.
“Yes ma’am.” He returned to his room to inspect his athletic credentials. The ribbons from field day hung on thumbtacks: tetherball, fifty-yard dash, hundred-yard dash. His trophy for YMCA basketball read MVP. The clipping of Chris Collingsworth had a large space of its own, because it was hard to see among the posters of O.J. Simpson, Roger Staubach and Peter Frampton – a torn hand-me-down from his seventeen-year-old brother, Steve.
When the timer buzzed, Jace ran back to the kitchen and chomped a corn dog.
“Ewwuhhhh,” he wailed in shock, prying his teeth out of the frozen lump.
“What?” His mother turned around, worried.
“Ish shtill ferzen.” He bared the bits of cold cornbread stuck to his teeth.
“Uh-oh.” She set down her paintbrush and looked at the controls of the oven. “That’s the last thing we need.” She wiggled the knobs. She reached inside. “Hmm… it worked an hour a—why on earth do you have four o’ them?”
“I’m hungry,” Jace lied. He gauged the eatability of the frozen corndog in his hand.
“Jace.” His mother looked at him sternly. She tossed her long blond braid over her shoulder.
“Yes ma-am.” He looked down at the speckles in the terrazzo floor. “I have to gain four more pounds to play football.”
“Which is clear proof you should not be playing yet.” She glared bitterly at him. “You’re bound to get crushed, and you just can’t wait to do it.” She knew it wasn’t Jace she was mad at. It was her husband, for letting Jace sign up against her wishes. And that awful Huey, for always putting Jace in harm’s way. But the anger came out on Jace, anyway. She softened.
“Baby, you’re a sweet boy. I don’t believe you want to hit people or be hit.”
Jace didn’t know what to say. He knew his mother hated football. He stared at the floor.
She continued, “You know you don’t have to do this just because Huey says.”
“I’m not,” he said to the corn dog. She stared holes into him for what seemed like two whole minutes. Finally, she knelt down and gingerly wiggled the heating element, then rested her elbows on the cold oven door. Jace rummaged in the refrigerator for something else to eat.
“Momma,” He stuffed a slice of baloney into his mouth. “I’ll get you a mikerwave when I go pro. I’ll get you a whole new house. With carpet. And air condishing.” She stood up, kissed the top of his head, and walked through the muraled sliding glass door to the back yard.
Jace put her paintbrush in the jar of water and sat down with the sports page. He shoved one slice of bologna at a time into his mouth, saving the red skins to chew on later. When the package was finally empty, he weighed himself again. He had gained one pound. He rushed back to the pan of frozen corn dogs and took them to the hottest place he could think of – the hood of Steve’s dead, black El Camino, partially submerged in weeds in the front yard. Then he rounded up Marc to play catch.
“I’m Staubach. You’re Pearson. Go long.”
“I want to be Billy Joe Dupree,” Marc protested, then announced, “Bil lay Joe du Pray.”
“Pearson catches better.” Seven-year-olds were such babies. “You’re Pearson, or I’m not playing.”
“Alright,” Marc pouted, trotting to the other side of the yard and turning on his commentator voice. “How ward Co sell here, live at the Weed Bowl. Let us hope Staw bok can han del a ball to day.”
They played catch while Jace’s corn dogs cooked on the hot black car. Once they were edible, he stopped to take bites every time he thought he could swallow again.
“Can I have one?” Marc called from across the yard.
“Nope.” Jace sent a spinner.
With the last bite sitting stubbornly in his mouth but nevertheless counting as weight, he peeked inside the screen door to see if his mother was looking. No sign. He ran to the bathroom and weighed. This time, it said ninety. With a “Wa-hoo” climbing fast up his throat, he clapped his hands over his mouth to keep the weight from falling out, and ran back outside.
“And Staw bok’s back in the g—ugh,” Jace fired the ball right at Marc, catching him off guard. It punched into his stomach, but he caught it, impressing Jace.
“Nothing gets past Pearson, Howard,” Jace commentated.
For some reason, Jace could not eat dinner that night. Every time he put a bit of stew in his mouth, he thought he might throw up if he swallowed it. At bedtime, he weighed again, and was dismayed to find he had lost two pounds. Baffled, he thought and thought, till –
I went to the bathroom! he cried to himself. He considered raiding the kitchen. His stomach said, don’t even think about it. He went to bed and fretted his predicament. Soon, the frets were replaced with mental movies of himself calling plays, throwing thirty-yard passes while would-be sackers fell at the hands of his strong offensive line, his parents cheering, Marc carrying his helmet, his silver Corvette parked in the end zone.
* * *
Saturday morning, Jace and Marc chattered excitedly with their father about Jace’s future in football as they ate grits and bacon. Jace’s mother did not say a word. Every so often, one of them stole a nervous look her way. With one hand, she broke eggs into the skillet of bacon grease; with a slotted spoon in the other hand, she splashed the eggs around till they were over-easy. She laid the plate of eggs on the table, then went to her bedroom and closed the door.
Jace ate three servings of breakfast and made sure not to go to the bathroom. He managed to put only one pound back on. That scale was becoming the enemy. When everyone had left the kitchen, he pulled a chair up to the refrigerator and got the registration form from atop. He filled out all of the information himself with a pencil, then took it to his father to sign.
“I think you need you’re birth certificate, too,” his father said as he signed the paper. They both looked in the direction of the master bedroom, which held the desk, which held important papers, and also held an unhappy woman. “Aah – forget it,” Mr. Dering shrugged, and handed the form back. Jace returned to his room and quietly shut the door. He erased the nine in the Player’s Age box and wrote a ten. Moments later, he bounced anxiously in the front seat of the car.
At the ball park office, Mr. Dering waited in the registration line while Jace took his form to the scales. The attendant weighed him and wrote ninety-eight. Jace’s heart pounded as the man looked at the age on the form, then at Jace.
“Alright, go to that line over there,” he said, handing the form back to Jace.
While in line with his father, Jace saw a boy get down off the scale with a sad face and leave the park. Jace hopped on one foot, then on the other. He needed to use the bathroom.
“Quit that,” scolded his father, as they stepped up to the table.
“Well if it isn’t the man of the hour. How you doing, Dering?” The man at the table stood up and extended his hand.
“Still ticking, Mike. Good to see you.” Mr. Dering smiled big, shaking the man’s hand heartily. Jace settled down for the usual, jovial conversation that seemed to take place every time he went somewhere with his father.
“I gotta hand it to you. I never thought the city would buy that health insurance plan. That was one big victory you won us.”
“Yeah, well, they just need reminding of what’s right, that’s all,” Mr. Dering shrugged.
“If you’re looking for members…”
“Wednesday nights, love to have you.”
“Alright then. I’ll be there.” The man nodded and sat back down. Mr. Dering gazed at him.
“So, I guess I’m looking at why you can’t work a Saturday,”
“You got me,” laughed the man. “Looks like you won’t be, either,” he said, taking the form Jace handed him. “Thank you, sir.”
“I reckon,” replied Mr. Dering.
Jace followed the man’s eyes as he looked at the recorded weight, frowned, then looked at the age. He looked up at Jace with a curiosity wrinkle between his eyebrows. The boy looked about seven in the face, but he was tall enough to pass for eleven or twelve.
“Got your birth certificate, son?” he asked. Jace looked up at his father, and so did the man.
“Uh, Mike… mind if I got that to you later?” Mr. Dering asked. “I got a little situation at home. See, the wife’s not too happy about this.”
“Say no more.” The man raised his hand. “I know that drill.” He scanned the registration form. “Looks like everything’s in order here. Welcome to Midget League.”
“Thanks.” Mr. Dering nodded and put his hand on Jace’s shoulder.
Outside, Jace found a bathroom before joining the crowd of boys. He tried to bring his neighborhood dominance to a series of warm-up exercises, timed drills and an obstacle course. Several men lurked around taking notes.
After about an hour, the crowd moved to the bleachers, where a man in a red hat explained the draft process. When he finished, several other men took turns calling out names that they read off their clipboards. Jace counted seven choosers. When each had picked one player, Jace noticed how much bigger and older those seven boys were. He remembered the age bracket was ten to thirteen. They looked almost like adults to him.
“Larry!” The red-hatted man yelled to one of the coaches. Jace looked to see a man with a straw Panama Jack hat, topping a yellow polo shirt that stretched over a huge belly, which hung low over blue coach shorts, which exposed a glimpse of knees, which disappeared into white tube socks with blue stripes. The championship coach. He watched for the name ‘Jace Dering’ to come out of this man’s mouth.
“Jace Dering.” It came from someone else – a young man in a visor instead of a cap.
“Second round,” the Dering dad whistled softly. Jace heard the pride in his voice. But there was a mistake. He didn’t know what to do. His father nudged him.
“Waiting for Christmas?”
“Jace Dering?” The young coach called again.
“That ain’t my coach,” Jace said in a low voice to his dad.
“Boy, get your thumb out of your butt and get down there.” His father pushed him. “I didn’t come here to play games.”
Jace stumbled onto the field, looking at Larry DuRyte, waiting for him to protest and claim him as a player. Larry DuRyte only looked at his clipboard.
Jace got very worried. Three other coaches joined the one who had picked him. Four nearly identical young men who looked nothing like Coach DuRyte. Bright white sneakers, white ankle socks, slim tan legs, khaki shorts, orange visors and blue clip boards. Each wore a slightly different Gators tee shirt. They looked more like underwear models in the Penny’s catalog than football coaches. When the draft was finished, they introduced themselves as offensive, defensive, special teams, and head coach. Jace still could not tell them apart. He went to one of them.
“This ain’t my team. I’m supposed to be on Larry DuRyte’s team.”
“What’s your name?” The orange visor tilted down toward the blue clipboard.
“Jace Dering.”
“Yep, gotcha right here. You’re in the right place.” He handed Jace a set of papers.
“No sir, you picked me too soon. Larry DuRyte was gonna pick me.”
“Well, I guess we wanted you more, huh?”
“But I need to be on Larry DuRyte’s team.”
“Sorry kid. The draft is final. It’s only fair that way.”
A bigger boy eyed Jace and nudged another. “Man, I hope they don’t play that twig.”
Jace found Larry DuRyte surrounded by people and squeezed through till he stood in front of him.“Coach, I’m Jace Dering.” The man looked down at the baby-faced beanpole.
“Coach, I’m Jace Dering.” The man looked down at the baby-faced beanpole.
“Yeah?”
“I’m supposed to be on your team.”
Larry DuRyte looked at his sticker-covered clipboard. “I don’t see a Dering.” Someone called him and he waved and walked in that direction. Jace trotted alongside him.
“Yuey said you were gonna pick me, but those other coaches picked me first.”
“Well I guess they wanted you.”
“But I’d rather be on your team.”
“We’re full and the draft’s final. You’ll be alright.” He began talking to the man who had called him.
Jace’s eyes burned with the threat of tears, but he wrinkled his nose to hold them in. He looked at the papers in his hand and sulked back to his father. According to the roster, his thirteen-year-old neighbor, Oscar Androleski, was on the same team. Jace was the only “ten”-year-old among eleven-, twelve and thirteen-year-olds.
“Oh dear God.” His mother deposited the fried catfish nuggets on the table at dinner.
“Nothing to worry about. He won’t get any playing time.” His father speared a piece of fish with his fork and put it on his plate. Jace speared one, too, and put it directly in his mouth.
“Quit that smacking,” said his father. Jace closed his mouth to chew.
After dinner, Jace and his football got turned down by his father and Huey again before reluctantly approaching the home of Oscar Androleski, Jace’s definition of weird.
“Yeah man,” said Oscar. “Soon as this fight’s over.” He held the door open, and Jace stepped into an air-conditioned living room with soft green carpet. As his eyes adjusted to the dark room, he saw a man and three older boys sitting around the television, cheering for a wrestling match. Jace picked his way through half-full paper grocery bags that peppered the room, and leaned against Oscar’s chair, avoiding a dried-up pile of dog mess two feet away.
“Ivan Putski,” Oscar’s father proudly pointed to a wrestler on the television. The match was almost over, as Putski, far shorter than his opponent, seemed ready to collapse. Yet, Oscar’s family chattered excitedly about the weaknesses of the opponent. He stared as they yelled at the television.
“Ivan needs our support,” Oscar explained to the wide-eyed Jace. Putski reeled in a wobbly circle as his opponent grinned an evil grin and waited for him to fall.
“The Hammer!” screamed Oscar’s family and the audience on TV. Putski heard it and looked up. His exhausted, half-closed eyes turned to rage. In a flash, both his fists slammed the opponent’s chest, dropping him to the ground.
“Polish Power!” yelled Oscar’s family, hopping skillfully through the grocery bags, while the ref held Putski’s arm in the air.
Back outside, the sunlight waned. Jace heard a bullfrog croak among the deafening pulses of synchronized cicadas. Oscar threw bullets right at Jace’s chest. He said if Jace dodged them, he’d tell the whole team.
“You throw like a girl,” Oscar scoffed. Jace threw as hard as he could, trying to bullet Oscar’s chest. Apparently, it didn’t work on bigger boys.
At practice, though, Jace felt huge with his pads on, like one of the team. After a couple days of conditioning and drills, the coaches separated the players into offense and defense. They pulled Oscar and two other boys aside for quarterback. Jace joined the quarterbacks.
“Dering, these are quarterbacks. You go back over there with the line,” said a coach.
“I’m a quarterback,” Jace corrected him. A smile appeared under the orange visor.
“Not this time, bud.” The young man patted him on the shoulder. He walked him over to the offensive line and made an announcement.
“We’ve got a young talent with us this year.” He patted Jace again. “This little guy is playing up. Ya’ll look out for him, alright?” Jace’s heart sank as the coach walked away. The line coach called out.
“Alright, line up. Jace, you can play center. Just quick get out of the way after you hike the ball.” In the neighborhood, hiking was always the baby’s job.
“I’m not a center, sir,” Jace corrected him. The older boys chuckled.
“What are you?” asked the coach.
“Quarterback,” he said, walking back toward Oscar’s group.
“Kid, you’re wasting my time,” called the line coach. “Either come hike the ball or go home.” Jace stopped and looked at the quarterbacks. They watched in amusement.
“I don’t need you.” The quarterback coach shook his head. Jace’s face burned and his heart pounded, and it all came bursting out of him.
“Ya’ll ain’t even real coaches!” he barked at them. Oscar burst out laughing.
“Take five laps,” said the irritated line coach to Jace.
“You ain’t my dad.”
“You wanna play ball or not?” By now, the whole team watched in silence.
“Not for you.” Jace threw down his helmet and walked off the field. He heard hoots and mocking behind him, then a whistle and orders to line up. He went to the parking lot and looked at the cars. His dad wouldn’t be back for two hours. He waited till it got dark, then walked back to the bleachers to get his water bottle. He sat down and watched the team scrimmage under the stadium lights.
It looked like television. Regulation sized field. White goal posts. White lines. Green turf that bowed slightly up like the curve of the horizon, blackness beyond the perimeter. No screaming fans or announcers over the microphone. The sounds you don’t hear on television mesmerized him, the whistle, the shoulder pads and helmets colliding, the grunts of the players. Tweet. Clack. Hughn. Jace grew lonely. His anger had subsided, but competitiveness boiled in him. He wanted to be in the pack. He wanted to hit and be hit.
One of the coaches walked up to the bleachers and sat five feet away, watching the field. Jace made it a point to not notice him. After a few minutes of silence, the coach spoke.
“I saw you in the drills. You’ve got a heck of an arm. And fast.” Jace looked at him. “You’ll make a good quarterback some day. But you have to work your way up.” Jace looked away. After a moment, the coach got up and walked away.
The next practice, Jace joined the line, hiked the ball, and stepped out of the way. The Tweet-Clack-Hughn boomed in his ears. Players fell all around him. They rose with grassy elbows and green knees. Meanwhile, he stayed clean, practice after practice.
Jace’s mother would not come to the first game. His father got excited that Jace was actually going to play. Mr. Dering sat behind Oscar, who served third-string quarterback and never left the bench. Over all the noise, Jace could hear his father’s voice.
“Watch that tight end!” … “Good try!” … “Personal foul, ref!”
Jace wished his father wasn’t such a spectacle. He tried to focus on his job.
“Hut one… Hut two…” said the quarterback, and Jace snapped the ball. The quarterback, surprised by the early snap, caught the ball and fell down on it. The linemen jumped and stopped, then milled around confused.
Screech, the whistle blew. “Second down,” yelled the ref. The rest of the players shook their heads.
“You idiot,” barked the quarterback in the huddle. “I said on three.”
“Wake up, Jace!” His father’s voice shattered a particularly quiet moment. Jace tried to hide further into his helmet. Center was no place for a true quarterback.
“Hut one…” said the quarterback. The players jumped forward, but Jace had not snapped the ball. He was waiting for the third “Hut.”
Screech, the whistle blew again. “Offsides,” yelled the ref.
“I said ONE!” growled the quarterback. “Coach, get this runt outta here!” Another set of pads and helmet trotted across the field and tapped Jace, and he was back on the bench.
“Smooth move, Ex Lax,” jabbed Oscar.
“I don’t see you out there, Douche Face,” Jace mumbled.
At the dinner table, Mr. Dering ridiculed Jace’s game performance. His mother felt sorry for him. She came to the next game to support him. She sat directly behind the bench in the bleachers, and leaned forward to talk to him when the offense sat out.
“Remember honey, stay out of the blockers’ way.” After a while, she recognized Oscar when he took his helmet off. “Hey sugar. I’m glad you’re here to look out for my baby.”
“Yes ma’am. I try.”
Jace wondered which was worse at the games: his mother or father. Oscar loved her being there because it kept him entertained on the bench.
* * *
“Tender Baby doesn’t like hitting,” Oscar laughed to the line at practice. Anger and frustration started to build in Jace. It boiled every time Oscar teased him. It made his thin muscles pulse and burn with energy. He found himself opposite Oscar in a scrimmage.
“Can I have a hug, Teddy Bear?” Oscar teased.
“Hut one… Hut two…” said the quarterback. Jace hiked the ball, then sprang forward in a burst of anger. Clack. Hunhn. Next thing he knew, he was pulling his leg out of the crumpled heap of Oscar on the ground, the noise of the hit replaying in his head.
“Crap, where’d that come from?” Oscar asked, brushing himself off. Jace let his arms bow out a little bit as he chomped furiously on his mouthpiece. He felt ten feet tall and strong as a Mack truck. He wanted to do it again. And he did. But Oscar couldn’t be surprised a third time.
From then on, Jace couldn’t wait to hike the ball. He was always able to spring at least one hit on his man before they got wise. The games began to mean the world to him. The power to make contact pumped his body full of attitude. It flowed out of his mouth, as he encouraged his teammates’ good plays and yelled at bad ones.
His mother did not know this Jace. She stopped coming to the games. She didn’t like to talk about it at home. His father’s voice doubled in volume and frequency. Mr. Dering’s criticisms motivated Jace. His praises after the games puffed Jace up like a balloon. He paraded around the ball park in his pads, leaving them on till he got in the car. He hoped Larry DuRyte noticed him, so he’d get picked by him next season.
Mr. Dering was intrigued by the imposter coaches. He tried to entice his wife into the dinner conversation.
“His team is run by a group of newcomers – grad students from the university. Stand around looking at their charts.They got charts for everything.”
Mrs. Dering sculpted her mashed potatoes into flowers.
Jace filled the void. “What are those charts, anyway?”
“Everything you can count, and a bunch of weird math.” Mr.Dering shook his head. “They’re in for a rude awakening.”
Nevertheless, it was the Derings and their team dads who experienced an awakening. Jace’s team pulled off nine wins to one loss all season. DuRyte’s team, undefeated as Huey had predicted, was the only one they lost to. At the end of Jace’s first real season of football, he faced his preferred coach in the championship. It was one last chance to win the man’s attention.
When the championship game started, Jace saw Coach DuRyte across the field. The big bellied man was still Jace’s ticket to the all-star Little League career Huey had enjoyed. Jace was determined to attract the man’s attention. He looked at his team lined up against Larry’s team. Two players on the other team towered over everyone else on the field. He remembered his father saying larger kids were often less coordinated, so he didn’t worry about it.
Until one of them leveled the quarterback toward the end of the first half.
“Personal foul – number sixteen!” whistled the ref. “Five yard penalty!”
“FIVE?” bellowed Mr. Dering, as the injured player was helped off the field. The second quarterback met the same fate in the fourth quarter. Apparently Mr. Dering’s bellowing had done its job.
“Personal foul – number sixteen!” whistled the ref. “Fifteen yard penalty!”
A coached tapped Oscar in.
“Polish Power!” roared Oscar, as he shot straight off the bench, punching his fist into the sky. The game continued, with Jace’s team making no progress against the two huge players. Oscar hardly got a chance to show off his Polish Power, because the two big guys were all over him and the receivers. Jace felt it was time to show DuRyte what he could do.
“On two,” Oscar said in the huddle. “Set” he yelled to the line. Everyone crouched. One of the large players appeared in front of Jace. It was an older black boy, who smiled friendly at Jace. Not at all the lion he had expected.
“Hut – hut.” Jace hiked the ball, then dove at the boy in front of him. In an instant, Jace was on his back looking up at the sky through the orange bars of his face cage. The big guy had already moved on and flattened Oscar. Then he came back to help Jace up.
“Second down!” shouted the ref.
“Attaboy, Jace!” roared Jace’s father.
“Hand me the ball,” Jace begged Oscar in the huddle.
“Yeah right,” Oscar scoffed.
“Set.” Once again, Jace looked into a big, friendly smile. He seemed so nice. He quickly devised a plan to get around him so Oscar would toss him the ball.
“Hut – hut.” Jace accidentally sprang to the right just before he hiked the ball.
Screech “Offsides, number twenty-one, five yard penalty,” called the ref.
“What’re you thinking?” scowled Oscar. Then he walked over to the ref for a moment.
“Jace, put you’re head back on!” yelled his father.
“Ya’ll ever heard of a Fumbleruski?” Oscar asked when he returned to the huddle.
“Another one of your Oscaramus Polack jokes?” a player jibed, and the rest laughed.
“Shut up and listen!” Oscar quickly debriefed them.
“Is that legal?” a player asked in disbelief.
“It’s just a fake-out,” Oscar puffed impatiently. “Jace, think you can fake correctly?” Jace got nervous. Oscar probably knew his real age. He might… “Phil, it’s yours.” The huddle broke.
“Set.” Jace was greeted by Mr. Nice Guy again as he crouched down.
“Hut – hut.” Following the plan, Jace reached the ball between his legs, let Oscar touch it, then set it back down on the ground and stepped forward, while Mr. Nice Guy bounded past him toward Oscar. The ball got sucked into the blur of Phil flying past him.
“Number sixty-two’s got the ball. He’s taking it in!” boomed the announcer. Oscar untangled from his tackler and joined Jace to watch Phil score their first touchdown of the game.
“Polish Power!” Oscar high-fived Jace. “Mighty good hiking, my man.”
“Travis, get out there!” yelled a coach. Travis, the kicker who had sat the bench the entire game, ran out onto the field. The placeholder held the ball while Larry’s team lined up for the extra point kick. Travis never missed, and Jace’s team stood with their hands on their hips, waiting for the score to tie up. Travis ran forward and kicked the ball beautifully.
And an oversized Larry’s boy jumped and tipped it off course.
“No good!” yelled the ref. Jace’s heart sank. The defense took the field and fought Larry’s team back until the clock ran out. The championship game was over, seven to six.
Jace watched Larry’s team run and jump and high-five each other. He watched them dump ice water on Coach DuRyte. He watched them line up on the field and receive their trophies, with their names being called out one by one on the loudspeaker. And he wasn’t one of them, despite his spectacular fake-out.
“Are you crying?!” Oscar sneered as he jogged past to the locker room.
“Heck no!” Jace shouted through teary eyes, putting his helmet back on.
“That was a good game!” Marc hopped along, carrying Jace’s “Best Center” certificate.
“But we lost,” Jace whined in a hushed voice, so only his father could hear.
“Nah. You were the better team.” Jace’s father squeezed his shoulder, walking along beside him.
“What do you mean?” Jace looked up at him.
“Them bigger boys are illegal. They’re fourteen. Somebody fudged their age.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know their dads. They work at the city.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Jace gasped at the injustice.
“Aah – you’ll be alright.” His father strode along, not looking at him. After a moment, Jace realized he’d done the same thing, and decided to keep his mouth shut.
“You hit that huge guy,” Marc laughed. “Cool fake, though.”
“Yeah.” Jace deposited his helmet and pads in the locker room, then strutted dirty-knee’d and proud to the parking lot.