Erik and Arthur continued on through the patio doors, passing through them into Mom's world, changing their ghoulish routine about Mike Costello into one about the National Honor Society, or the student government, or some other bull for Mom's ears.
Joey turned to me with a pleading look. He said, "What are they talking about? Who's Mohawk Man?"
"Forget about it. They're idiots."
"No. Tell me. You obviously know."
Joey was right. I took a deep breath of the smoky air and explained, "Joey, they're making fun of your brother. They're making fun of Mike when his hair got burned off by the lightning. And they're making fun of you for trying to take his shoes off at the field."
Joey thought for a minute. Then he whispered, "That's what I thought they were doing." He sat down on the picnic-table bench. "I should've punched them out for that. I should've tried, anyway." He looked at me. "That's what Mike would have done. Mike had guts. He stood up to people when he had to." Joey's voice dropped even lower. "He wasn't a coward like me."
"Hey! You're not a coward. We saved people's lives at that sinkhole, right?"
"This is different. This is personal. It's about me. They knew they could do that to me. They knew I wouldn't do anything back."
"They're idiots, Joey. And they're just not worth it. You don't see me standing up to them, do you? I just let them be idiots."
Joey stared at the wall. "I know a lot of those football guys are laughing at me because of what I did. Because of the shoes. But I never, in a million years, thought they were laughing at Mike."
"Hey. Nobody who's worth thinking about is laughing at Mike. Or at you. Who are we talking about here? Erik? Erik's laughing at everybody. It's all a big joke to him. Arthur Bauer? He's a big zero. But now he's getting his chance, right? He's gonna hold the ball for Erik. But he's no Mike Costello. Nowhere near. He doesn't have the talent. He doesn't have the character. So what's he going to do? He's going to mock him.
He's going to put him down. He'd never do it to Mike's face, so he's doing it this way. He's the coward, not you."
Joey may or may not have been listening. I don't know. Tears were pouring down his face. He tried to talk through them. "I wanted to explain to Coach Warner about the shoes. He—I guess he thought I had cracked up or something." Joey let the sorrow pump out of him now, like blood from an artery. "But—but I saw Mike lying there. Maybe I even knew he was dead. I don't know. I had to do something for him, somehow. Mike always felt better when he got his shoes off. That's the first thing he did when he came home, always. He took his shoes off. And that's all I was trying to do." He sniffed and sat up straight. "It was stupid. And it wouldn't have done him any good. But none of the other stupid things they tried did him any good, either, did they?"
I shook my head. "No."
"I know people are laughing at me. I hate it. I hate that school. I hate that football field. I hate that goalpost."
"So why don't you come to Tangerine with me?"
"It's too late now. I'm on the split shift."
"So get off the split shift. Get your dad up there. They're afraid of him. Believe me, they'll do anything he says."
Joey picked up his uniform and wiped his face in it. "What do you mean? Why are they afraid of him?"
I opened my eyes wide with surprise. It seemed so obvious to me. "Your dad's a lawyer. Your brother got killed on their property. In their care. They're afraid he'll sue them."
Joey looked at me dumbly, and I realized that the Costellos weren't thinking anything of the kind. They were mourning Mike, and that was all. I said, "Sorry. Bad idea. I'll shut up. But I could sure use some company at Tangerine."
"I'll bet you could. Anybody try to kill you yet?"
"No."
"Anybody mess with you at all?"
"Nobody who's still alive."
"Oh yeah. Right." Joey rolled up his uniform into a blue-and-white ball. "OK if I hop over your wall?"
"Sure."
"I just don't want to walk past..." He stopped and nodded toward the house.
"I don't blame you. How are you going to get to your house?"
"I'll go around to the guardhouse." Joey pulled himself to the top of the six-foot wall. He sat there for a minute before he said, "So Tangerine's not that tough?"
"I didn't say that."
"What about the soccer team?"
"They got some tough guys on that. Girls, too."
"Tough girls?"
"No. But they got girls. And they start."
"Wow. Any chance I'd start?"
"None. You'd stand next to me on the sideline."
Joey turned and looked over the wall to the other side. He said, "I'll think about it. See you." And he vaulted down into the mud of the perimeter road.
Friday, September 22
We played our first soccer game today, an away game against Palmetto Middle School.
After seventh period, Tino, Henry D., and I used the second-floor bathroom to change into our uniforms. We went out the back door to the bus lanes, where an old khaki green bus, with a noisy engine and no air-conditioning, was waiting.
I climbed up the steps and slid into an empty seat. Henry D. took the seat across the aisle. Nita and Maya sat together behind him. Victor and his boys were spread out across the back, but no one was talking. Shandra got on, and then Coach Bright, who hopped into the driver's seat. She looked in the rearview mirror and called, "Count 'em up, Victor."
Victor counted our heads and shouted, "Sixteen, Coach."
The coach closed the bus door, threw it in gear, and pulled away. We drove east, past small farms and dead citrus groves, past forests of scrubby-looking pine trees, past a sign that said, THE TURPENTINE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD.
After thirty minutes we reached a one-block downtown area. We rounded the corner and pulled into a school that looked very much like our own. It must have been built around the same time by the same people. We drove around back and parked in their bus lane, which was exactly like ours. They even had the same baseball diamond and the same green scoreboard. This one said, PALMETTO MIDDLE SCHOOL—HOME OF THE WHIPPOORWILLS.
Before she opened the bus door, the coach said, "Remember who you are. Remember who you represent. Victor, you lead them once around and then meet me at midfield. All right, everybody, let's look like a team."
Victor and his gang piled out of the bus and took off at a fast clip toward the field. The rest of us hurried to catch up.
I don't know why—maybe they were mad about having such a wimpy nickname—but these guys turned out to be really nasty. So did their fans.
The near side of the field was lined with people watching the Palmetto players warm up. There were middle school kids of course, but there were also many grown-ups, local people. They turned to us and started jeering as we began our lap around the field. I swear some of them spit at us before we made it to the turn and headed toward the far side, the visitors' side. We could still hear them yelling nasty stuff behind us.
I looked up at Victor. He was totally focused. He didn't seem to be listening to any of it. He led us at a sprint down the far sideline. Then we turned and cut a path through the green uniforms of the Palmetto players. They had some rude things to say to us, too, especially to the girls. We formed a circle around the coach at midfield.
Now I could see Victor's eyes. They were blazing with rage, and the muscles of his face were knotted like a fist. Betty Bright extended her long arm into the circle. Each player put a hand on top of hers. I squeezed in and did the same. She yelled, "Who are we?" and we yelled back, "War Eagles!"
"Who are we?"
"War Eagles!"
"Who are we?"
"War Eagles!"
Betty Bright pulled her arm back and stepped out of the circle. Victor picked up the chant, but all he was screaming was, "War! War! War!" We all started screaming with him, blocking out the catcalls from the Whippoorwills and their fans. "War! War! War!"—in a frenzy that drove away all the fear and
intimidation that I felt from our opening lap.
Our circle broke up and the game began. There was only one referee, and he didn't seem like he knew too much about soccer. He seemed like a football guy. He lost control of the game in the opening minute, and he never got it back.
Of course, it wasn't really a game. It was a war. The Palmetto players got down and dirty right away, and their fans cheered them on. They tripped us, pulled our jerseys, got up in our faces, and pretended to throw punches. Their fans loved it.
The longer the referee failed to blow his whistle, the bolder they got, and the more bloodthirsty their fans became.
I was standing on the sideline with Betty Bright and the other four kids who weren't playing. Directly behind us, about twenty yards away, was a line of trees. Some kids from the middle school had gathered handfuls of acorns from there. They started throwing them at us and then running back to get more. What could we do except duck?
The coach said to us, "You stand here by me, all of you. And stand up straight. Don't let some fool make you bow your head."
The Palmetto team had two big fullbacks who couldn't play soccer at all but who wiped out anybody who got near the goal. They were tripping, throwing elbows, getting away with murder back there.
I looked at my teammates, the victims of all of this, and was amazed at how calm their faces were. I was the only one who was freaking out. The rest of them had been through it before. They were acting like it was business as usual here at Palmetto Middle School—Home of the Whippoorwills.
So the War Eagles stayed focused and played their game. They controlled the ball. They passed to the open guy or girl. They got the ball to the people who knew how to score. Maya got off two excellent shots, hitting the goalpost once and just missing high with the other one. It was only a matter of time until she found the range and scored, in spite of those menacing fullbacks. Victor hadn't tried a shot yet. Maybe he was too caught up with being the enforcer for our side, with insulting the Whippoorwills' defenders and threatening their lives. Underneath all this ugliness was one fact: We were the better team. We had these guys dead. We played much better soccer, and we played it like a team.
Palmetto has a few individual players, but they don't work together. Our fullbacks, Dolly Elias and a big guy they call Mano, were able to clear out every ball that came close. Shandra only touched the ball once, when Dolly kicked it back to her.
Of course, whenever you think things are as bad as they're going to get, they get worse. An afternoon storm came rumbling in. In a matter of minutes it got cold; then it got dark; then the rain started pouring down on the field, turning it into mud. That was good news for the big fullbacks from Palmetto. They could knock our players flying—Maya, Tino, Henry D., Hernando—all of them were flying through the mud at one time or another. And still the referee's whistle remained silent.
The half ended at 0–0. We all ran back to our bus to escape from the pelting of the rain. Betty Bright pulled out a brown bag and tossed everyone a tangerine. She spoke to us calmly, like she, too, had been through this before. "Maya, you find yourself a dry spot out there and stay in it. The rest of you, get the ball to Maya. I want to see her take twenty shots on goal this half. Victor, they're playing you for a fool out there. Forget about that bad-boy stuff and play ball." She waited until Victor responded with a disgusted snort. She continued, but not as calmly, "There's no way this team can beat you. You can only beat yourselves. And that's all I have to say. Let's go."
The coach opened the bus door. We all waited for Victor to get up and stalk to the front. He stopped on the bus steps and looked back at all of us. Then he jumped out into the rain and started running back toward the field, with the rest of us right behind.
Mercifully the rain let up in the second half. A Palmetto forward upended Tino right in front of our goal. Tino fell on top of the guy and started punching at his face. Betty Bright ran out on the field and pulled him off, his arms still punching away at the air. She dragged Tino to our sideline as the remaining Palmetto fans screamed for a foul. Suddenly the coach was looking straight at me. "Paul Fisher! Have you ever played anything but goal?"
I stared at her dumbly. I hadn't played, or even thought about playing, anything but goal for the past two years. But I heard myself saying, "Yes, ma'am. I've played soccer since I was six."
I guess that was good enough, because she said, "Get in there for Tino. Play center forward."
The referee responded to the fans. He awarded a penalty kick to Palmetto. A penalty kick is like a free throw in basketball, only better, because the coach picks the player who takes it. You really should make it 100 percent of the time. Your best kicker gets an unobstructed shot at the goalie from just twelve yards away.
Shandra got set, her heels on the goal line. She faced the kicker, the Palmetto captain. The kicker ran up and drove a low, hard shot to the left side. Shandra dove and got a piece of it, but it hit the inside of the goalpost and rolled in. The kicker threw his arms up into the air. The Palmetto players all came running up and jumped on him. They led 1–0.
It took a long time for them to get back into their positions. When they finally did, one of them wiped out Henry D. on the wing and then kicked the ball out of bounds. Some kids got a hold of it and kicked it even farther away, into the woods. Betty Bright yelled to the referee, "Time's out! Time's out on this play. Right?"
The referee himself wound up getting the ball. When he got back onto the field, he yelled over, "Five minutes left to play, Coach."
Dolly threw the ball in to Maya, who dribbled it all the way down the right sideline. I ran as hard as I could toward the goal. The defender took off after Maya, who looped the ball over him, right to me, in front of the goal.
I don't know what happened next. My brain got stuck somewhere between Shoot it now and Trap it first, then shoot it. Anyway, I swung my leg back to kick, but the ball went rolling right under me, through my legs, to the other Palmetto defender, who cleared it away.
Victor was in my face immediately, his finger nearly stabbing through my chest. He screamed, "If we lose this game, you're dead!"
A minute later I got another chance to shoot the ball, but one Palmetto fullback knocked me down and the other kicked it away. I started to get up, but before I could, the fullback stretched out my goggles from my face, scooped up a handful of mud, and smeared it in my eyes. In my eyes! I went berserk!
Before he could get away, I scrambled up and jumped on his back. I brought him down and started punching at him blindly, the way I'd seen Tino do it. A whistle started blowing, and soon I felt the coach's big hands yanking me off him and dragging me away.
I stood next to the coach for the rest of the game, mud all over me, blood pouring out of my nose, tears pouring out of my eyes. I heard my teammates screaming, so I took off my goggles, cleaned them the best I could, and put them back on.
Through the blurry plastic lenses, I watched Victor take the ball through the Palmetto defenders like a wild bull. He fought off one nasty tackle, and then another. He lowered his shoulder at the fullback and crashed into him. The Palmetto goalie slid at him, but Victor was too quick. He pushed the ball to the right and vaulted over him. Then he kicked it into the open goal. It was 1–1.
Our players didn't celebrate. With one minute left, they lined up and started again. It was an open brawl out there now between some of our guys and some of theirs, but the referee did not blow his whistle. He just wanted to get this over with.
Victor called for the ball, and Shandra got it to him with a mighty heave. He fought his way out of a pack at midfield and sprinted straight for the Palmetto goal. Two defenders sandwiched him and threw him off balance, but his momentum carried him on. The fullback hit him with a forearm to the shoulder that sent him sprawling forward, sliding through the mud. Then the fullback kicked the ball back toward his own goaltender, who only had to cradle it and run out the clock.
But the ball never got to him. Victor somehow scrambled to
his feet in the middle of his mudslide and lunged for it, flipping it with his foot. The ball flew up in an arc as Victor and the goaltender smacked heads. The ball bounced once and went in the goal. The referee threw up his arms, signaling the goal, and shouted, "That's it! The game's over!"
Victor staggered back to his feet and stood at the penalty line, the captain of the War Eagles, mud coating his entire body, blood streaming down from a cut over his eye. He held out his right fist and we all ran to him. We put our hands on his and jumped up and down, chanting, "War Eagles! War Eagles!" and "War! War! War!" in a frenzy. We ran in a pack, whooping and screaming and pounding on each other until we got back to the bus.
I looked out the window and saw that the acorn throwers had turned their attention to the referee, who was desperately trying to unlock his car. We heard some acorns hit the roof of the bus as the coach called out, "How many heads, Victor?"
Victor pulled off his shirt to tie it around his bleeding forehead. He scanned us quickly and yelled, "Sixteen, Coach!" and we pulled out of there, faster than the 5 M.P.H. sign allowed.
On the ride home, Victor smacked me on the back of the head and said, "Hey, Fisher Man. I'm sorry I got on your case like that."
"No problem, Victor. You're right. I should have had it."
"Yeah, yeah. Shut up. I'm just saying I'm sorry. I know that playin' goal is your thing. I get pumped up, you know?"
"Yeah, I know. You were great out there."
"Sure I was. But I saw you playing hard out there, too. And I saw you get a piece of that fullback." Victor paused. When he continued he was no longer bragging. He was dead serious. "Listen, Fisher Man, here it is. If you're gonna play with us, then you're gonna play with us. Do you understand?" I nodded. "If you're a War Eagle, then you're a War Eagle. You got brothers to back you up. Nobody's gonna mess with you, not anyplace, not anytime. Do you know what I'm sayin'?"
I looked into Victor's fierce dark eyes and nodded some more.
Victor returned to the back of the bus, leaving me sitting in a kind of daze. Did I hear him? Oh yeah, I heard him all right. I heard his words clearer than any words I had ever heard before. And I do believe I know what he's saying.