“Nothing like playing favorites,” I said.
Ray nodded. “You don’t know the half of it.” Ray lit his pipe and began drawing on it. “Prior to Coach Demon’s arrival, Dee could sling it. I’m talking about a pure Div I, SEC-screamer of an arm. The kid had it. Then the Demon spends a few”—Ray held up his fingers—“ ‘weekend coaching sessions’ with him and alters his throwing motion. Told him he was ‘making a pro-style quarterback out of him.’ ” Ray spat. “That man wouldn’t know a pro-style QB if he bumped into him. He took that kid, changed his motion, and now we’re left with two problems: the one in his arm and the one in his head.”
“What’d he do to his motion?” I asked.
Smoke rose out of Ray’s mouth. “He cut it in half and put this quick hitch in it.” He paused. “It’s like this: if Dee is Secretariat and his average stride is, say, eight yards long, then some genius of a trainer named Damon comes along and shackles his feet with six-yard chains. God made that horse to cover eight yards. Not six. He’s got a body made to do one thing and a coach requiring him to do something else. Now he can’t run, or throw, worth squat. His body is all cattywampass and his mind is just as axle-wrapped. Boy’s got chains hanging off his feet and mind.” I loved the way Ray talked about football. “If you want to help that boy—” Ray tapped himself in the temple. “Break the chains on his mind and the ones on his feet will follow.”
We sat, enjoying each other’s presence. And the quiet. Something prison had done for me and age had done for him. After a few minutes, I said, “Ray?”
His eyes moved. His head didn’t.
“What happened to Audrey? I mean, really.”
He chuckled. “You happened to her.”
“No, I know that. I mean… she’s not the same.” He nodded knowingly. “You’ve been watching over her. I know that. And she loves you. Always has. It’s part of the reason she’s here.”
Ray chose his words. “The trial broke her. Didn’t eat for weeks. Ended up in the ER on IVs. I brought her home, fed her chicken soup for about two weeks, and when she got her strength back, I told her this foolishness has got to stop. Convinced her to go see you in prison. That she owed you that much.” He sipped. “If Ginger succeeded in one thing, it was in causing Audrey to question you. She’d never done that. And once the seed of that question took root, no power on earth could uproot it.” He shook his head. “The testimony, witnesses, video, all too damning. She needed irrefutable evidence to the contrary, and you didn’t offer it. Didn’t come through.” He pointed toward the school. “That garden? All that digging in the dirt? That’s just her hands trying to work out what her mind can’t.” He thumbed over his shoulder toward the barn. “Your own private hall of fame? That’s her digging through your past trying to find the answer to her future.” He shook his head. “How many times has she watched you lead a fourth-quarter comeback?” He answered his own question. “Dozens. And yet when it mattered most, you didn’t do it. Couldn’t. In her mind, you’re good at winning when it comes to a bunch of sweaty guys in a huddle, but when it comes to her and her heart, you failed. Lost. Plain and simple.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding since I walked out of prison.
He continued. “Rocket, I’m gonna tell you something, and you may not want to hear it but here it is… beneath her anger—and believe me there’s lots of that, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve helped her patch that dang scarecrow back together—there’s a grain of hope. It’s small but it’s there. And try as she might, she can’t kill it. Can’t snuff it out. Can’t get past it.”
“Hope in what?”
“You.”
“How?”
“ ’Cause you haven’t gotten her out of this mess yet. I know that’s backwards, but a woman’s heart don’t always make sense.”
“After all this time? You really believe that?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Boy—we’re talking ’bout Audrey. You need me to remind you? They don’t call her Spider Monkey for nothing.” He waved his hand across an imaginary field in front of us. “When you got hurt, she bled. She bleeding still.” He looked at me. “Only one thing stop that.”
“But I can’t make that happen.”
He weighed his head side to side. A tear trickled down his face. “I once watched a boy play ball out on that field. Watched him do things I didn’t think possible. Despite what all the newspapers and magazines and talk shows say, he became great because he did one thing better than all the rest.” A single shake of his head. “He never walked off that field with anything left in his tank. Left it all out there. Emptied himself.” Silence followed by a slow, knowing nod. His eyes turned to me. “I remember carrying you from the sideline to the locker room because you couldn’t physically stand up. That’s the Rocket I remember.” He sucked through his teeth. “I don’t care if you ever play another down, and I don’t care what you’re up against, but I do care what happens to that girl.” He tapped me in the chest. “You owe it to her to try.” He blinked, pushed out the rest of the tears, and tapped himself in the chest. “And you owe it to me.”
I love that old man. I put my arm around his neck, pulled him to me, and hugged him. He patted my hand, and I kissed his head. “Yes, I do.”
Audrey and Dee showed at daylight. He held his cleats in one hand, helmet in the other, and the ball was tucked under his arm. I walked outside wearing a sweatshirt, sweat pants, and an old pair of black army combat boots. No ball. He looked confused. Audrey handed me the bag draped over her shoulder. I reached in the bag and handed him the new pair of black boots that matched the older pair on my feet. He held out his hand. “You serious?”
“Are you questioning me?”
He sat quickly, started lacing them up, and chuckled to himself. “Didn’t know I was joining the army.”
During high school, Wood’s folks had given him a street-legal 125cc Honda trail bike that we used around his property. While Dee pulled on his boots, I rolled Wood’s bike up next to Audrey, she swung a leg over it and kicked it started. I took Dee’s helmet from him and said, “Not yet. The position of quarterback starts in your feet. So let’s go see what’s in them.”
He lifted his feet, testing the weight of the boots, and eyed my older but matching pair. “Not the lightest things I’ve ever put on.”
“That’s the point.” I pointed to Audrey. “Blame her.”
“There’s probably a story behind this, isn’t there?”
“I ran in them in high school because I thought the additional weight would make me faster, which it did. When I got to college, I kept it up until I won the Heisman, and maybe my head swelled a bit because that’s the year I quit wearing them and we lost in the national championship.” A shrug. “The morning after, Audrey changed my workout schedule to avoid the media, had Roddy waiting on me at the field, and—” I eyed the boots on my feet. “Had these next to my bed when the alarm went off at three a.m. I wore them in every workout, and my speed picked up.”
He smiled. “And you threw that backside to Roddy in the corner. Forty-seven yards. Three defenders. Made SI’s top ten plays of the decade.”
“Well…” I paused to look at Audrey. “Without ten other guys, and one woman, that never would have happened.”
Dee set the ball down next to his helmet, signaling he was ready to go. I picked up the ball and set it back in his hands. “For the next eight weeks, this doesn’t leave your hands. If I catch you without it either in your hands or just having thrown it, you’ll wish I hadn’t caught you.”
He smiled. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m talking about eating. Sleeping. Going to the bathroom. Only one place you’re allowed to set it down. Work. Agreed?”
“What about the shower?”
“Hold it above your head.”
“Man, you’re hard core.”
“I’m just getting warmed up. Let’s go.”
We jogged down the dirt road that led from the cabin to the railroad tracks
. Audrey trailed alongside or behind us in the dirt—just idling in second gear. To say she was skilled on the dirt bike would not have been true, but she’d put hundreds of miles on it doing the very same thing with me so she didn’t need instruction.
Dee copied my every move. I climbed up the embankment and began jogging, my toes hitting every railroad tie. We did this over a mile. Then stretched it to two. Dee did likewise. Mirroring me. At mile three, I stretched it out and Dee again followed. As we ran, I talked to him about defenses, offenses, reads, audibles, and possible down-and-distance situations against various defenses. I wanted to know what he knew. I also wanted to know if he could process and communicate under physical stress.
He could. The kid was smart. And all the hours Audrey had spent watching film with him were evident.
At four miles we turned around. Given the extra few ounces of weight, my anklet was digging into the lower part of my shin. Before we started running, I’d taped it and laced the top of my boot around it so it wouldn’t bounce around as much, but by the time we turned around at mile four, it’d pretty well worked its way loose. At mile six, we slowed and started skipping from tie to tie. Then we started crossing left foot over right, right foot over left, skip one, then skip two. Left foot over right, right foot over left, skip one, then skip two. At first, he bobbled it, even tripping. But once he found the rhythm, he fell in step with me.
Audrey was never far away, and as my eyes were glued to the tracks in front of me, I couldn’t see her face. I just knew she was close. Her body language suggested she was interested in Dee and disinterested in me.
When we left the tracks, he was breathing heavy but not slowing, so I pushed him farther. We ran across the yard through rows of cars and out to the edge of the lot to the foot of the Bucket. I pointed to the top. “Every workout ends up there.” He followed me every step. Tired and gorging on air, we left Audrey at the bottom and began sprinting up the hill. After the first slight hump, he faltered just a bit. I slowed, put my hand on his back, and gently pushed. He caught his breath and regained his stride. So I stretched him again and pushed farther. Three-quarters of the way up, he’d redlined. Which was good. I needed to know his limits. I also needed him to know that he could push past them, so I stretched him farther and upped the tempo one last time. He dropped a step or two behind me. I slowed and ran alongside him. My shoulder bumping his. “Nope. Not now. You want to be something other than what you are, then run up here alongside me. I know you’re tired, and I don’t really care. You can breathe when we get to the top. You want to become better? Then this is where it starts.” He gave me all he had and never offered an excuse. When he reached the top, he bent at the waist trying to catch his breath but he didn’t take his eyes off me. He was waiting for the next call—the next play. Every quarterback, sooner or later, will face a point in a game where all hades has broken loose and very little, if anything, is in his control. It usually comes somewhere in the fourth quarter when he’s tired and hurting, when his body is bruised and battered and his mind is screaming at him to lie down and quit. To make the bad man stop. Audrey believed in Dee and that told me a lot, but I needed to know what was in him. How deep was his well. Could he respond to me when his mind was screaming at him to quit? And how much did all of this matter? I needed to know if he was enamored with the idea of being a quarterback or playing quarterback.
The difference matters.
My punishment of him the first morning out may seem insensitive but I didn’t want to waste my time or his. So I pushed him until his body cracked. That very moment is what I wanted to see. And when I did, when his body had done all it could, his eyes and ears were trained on me.
And you can’t coach that. This kid wanted to play quarterback.
After he caught his breath, we jogged down. At the bottom, he was strapping on his cleats when I stopped him. “Not now. Get some rest.”
He smiled, relieved. “What? I wear you out, old man?”
I laughed. “Go home. Eat. Protein first. Start with what’s easily digestible. Like eggs. And I don’t care if you like them or not. Eggs are your new best friend. Then complex carbs. No sugars. No white carbs. And drink. Lots of fluid. No sodas. No milk. Water primarily. Something with electrolytes. And stay away from dairy. Dairy is not your friend.”
He sat down and then lay on his back, laughing. “Dude…” He pointed to the tracks and then the mountain. “I’m going to need more than electrolytes. I’m going to need a stretcher and a surgeon.”
I turned to Audrey. She wasn’t looking at me so I waited until she did—which she didn’t want to do. “I can’t coach an engine that’s tired or running on fumes. I need you to make sure he’s sleeping enough and eating and drinking what he ought. Chances are good that he’s never done to his body what I’m about to ask him to do to it.” She nodded, devoid of emotion.
I didn’t need to explain this to her. She knew this. And I knew this. And she knew that I knew that she knew. I said it for his benefit. To let him know that what I—we—were doing was twenty-four hours a day. The position of quarterback didn’t stop when he or I walked off the field. What he ate, when he slept, how much he slept, how much he drank, what he put in his system, everything mattered.
He was still lying on the ground. Sprawled out. I knelt next to him. “You got a girlfriend?”
He smirked. “Maybe.”
“It’s a yes or no thing. Like being pregnant. You either are or you aren’t.”
“I like her.”
“Does she know this?”
“I’m still trying to—”
Audrey interrupted him. “He has yet to ask her out.”
“When you do, curfew is ten p.m. Not a minute later. If I find you out after ten, you won’t enjoy the following morning. Time is precious. You can waste yours but not mine. And I’ve got a good bit less than I once had.”
He nodded.
“Nodding isn’t good enough. I need to hear you say it.”
He spoke through closed eyes. His stomach rose and fell inches with each breath. “Have you always worked out that hard?”
“Yes, but you’re changing the subject.”
“I got it. Ten p.m. Not a minute later.”
“If she loves you, she’ll understand.” For the first time all morning, Audrey’s eyes focused on me when I peeled the tape off my anklet, exposing the sight of my own blood. Dalton eyed the red stain that covered my sock. “Dude, does that hurt?”
I ignored his question. “One more thing.”
He sat up. “Audrey and Ray have both told me about you. Told me how you’d like to play in college. But what they say doesn’t really matter if you don’t agree. So what do you want?”
He took his time. He stared through the trees at the field in the distance. “My freshman year, we won district.” He pointed toward the field just beyond the trees. “Then we lost in the semis. It may not seem like a big deal to some, but I’m a senior. Or about to be. I’d like to take these guys back.” He looked at me. “Farther, if possible.” He turned the ball in his hands. “After that?” A shrug. “I’d like to know if I could play at the next level. Most guys at this point in their career have verbally committed. I threw five interceptions in the one game I started last year.” Another point to the far side of the field. “I’m not in the position I’d hoped to be in. I’ve got to change some perceptions, and I’d like to do that early and often.” He paused, nodding honestly. “I’m competing against the coach’s son. He’s pretty good, and I think he’s juicing so he’s getting bigger and better—fast. He’s been to a bunch of camps this summer and I’ve heard the scouts are impressed. He’s got his own website, and they’ve uploaded a bunch of film. Sister Lynn’s been telling me that I’ve got to be so much better that Coach can’t not play me. And I’ve got to be that good out of the gate.”
I kept peeling the tape. “First”—I tapped my temple—“quarterbacking takes place here. And”—I tapped my heart—“here.” Then I mimick
ed injecting drugs into my arm. “Not here.” Removing the tape had peeled off the caked blood and reopened the cut. A bright red line trickled down my ankle. “Second, the question is not whether you can play at that level. You can. You need to accept that right now and change the way you think about you. The question before you is, are you willing to do what is needed when the critics tell you that you can’t?”
He nodded.
“And are you willing to fight through circumstances you can’t control and are not in your favor?”
“Yes.”
I shrugged. “Well, we’re about to find out.” I put my hand on his shoulder. Other than the gentle nudge I’d given him running up the Bucket, it was the first time I’d touched him since we’d met. “Some things we can control. Some we cannot. Don’t get axle-wrapped on what you can’t. Focus on what we can. I can’t make the coach play you, but we can make his decision a lot tougher. Your job is to focus on every opportunity. Make the most of them and the fans will pull you off the bench if and when steroid-boy falters. Agreed?”
He smiled. “Agreed.”
“You got a job?”
He nodded matter-of-factly. “Mason’s.” He looked at Audrey, then back at me. “But I’ve got some money saved. I can pay you.”
I chuckled. “I don’t want your money.” Mason’s was the family-owned grocery. “Bagging groceries?”
“And stocking shelves.”
That meant he’d be standing on his feet all day. “Rest when you can. Eat wisely. Drink lots of fluids. See you tonight.” I tapped the dirt. “Right here, six p.m.”
“Um—”
“What?”
“I don’t get off till six.”
I chuckled. “Okay. Soon as you get off. If you’re going to be late, you let me know.”
“What’s your number?” he asked.
“Don’t have one.”
“You don’t have a cell phone?”