Friday, September 22, later
Joey called me after dinner and announced, "I'm coming to your school on Monday."
"Whoa! What happened?"
"I took your advice. I went into the office with Dad. You were right. Mrs. Gates came out all smiles, you know? She shook Dad's hand. She said, 'Tell me what I can do for you.'"
"And what did you say?"
"I didn't say anything. My lawyer did all the talking. Basically, she did whatever we said."
"You said 'Jump' and she said 'How high?'"
"Exactly. She went in herself and got my folder out of the files. Dad asked her to put a note in there saying I should have all the same classes as you."
"She did that?"
"She said she was 'more than happy to.' Then we went to find Coach Walski to give him the uniform back."
"How was he?"
"Not cool. He started telling me that I shouldn't leave, that I won't be allowed to play at Tangerine Middle because I live in the Lake Windsor district. But Dad was ready for him. He cut him right off and said, 'We'll see about that. Wait here.'"
"He said that?"
"So we hustled back over to the office, right? Dad had Gates write out a letter giving me special permission to play soccer at Tangerine Middle School."
"All right!"
"Then we took it back to Walski. My dad stuck it under his nose and made him sign it."
"Awesome! What did he say?"
"Not a word. Not one word." Joey paused. Then he continued awkwardly, "So, uh, you think you'll be able to show me around on Monday?"
My mouth opened up to answer him, but I couldn't. I couldn't see myself leading Joey around the halls of Tangerine Middle School. That had to be somebody else's job. I said, "I'll tell you what you should do. When you get to the office, ask to see Dr. Johnson. Right? Then ask her to let Theresa Cruz take you around."
Joey repeated the name, like he was writing it down. "Theresa Cruz. Why? Is she cute or something?"
I hesitated. "Yeah, I guess she's kinda cute. But that's not it. She's connected. At Tangerine, it's all about being connected."
Joey said, "Uh-huh," but I don't think he understood. Then he said, "What about the soccer team? What are those guys like?"
That was a good question. I didn't have an answer to it. Not yet. I finally said, "They're super-focused on the game, you know. On winning. It's like it's life or death for them."
Joey once again repeated my words. "Life or death. OK. I can handle that. I'll see you on Monday."
Saturday, September 23
Today was the first day of football season for the Lake Windsor High Seagulls. They played a home game against the Cypress Bay High Cardinals.
Dad was pretty hyper, like this was the most important day of his life or something. We got there at one o'clock for a two o'clock game, but I was glad we did. We barely managed to crowd into the home-side bleachers. We sat with the other Lake Windsor fans, and with the few Cypress Bay fans who remembered that half our bleachers had been condemned.
I hadn't seen the bleachers since the day of the sinkhole. There they sat, a big gray Erector set, now looped with yellow police ribbons that said DO NOT CROSS. Like a big VIP section reserved for people who were never going to show up.
By one-thirty the rest of the Cypress Bay fans had gotten the message: There was nowhere for them to sit. They were milling around both end zones, trying to find open places to stand and watch the game. Mom kept saying, "This isn't right. Didn't anybody plan for this?"
Finally a group of teenagers wearing red-and-white Cardinals shirts decided to do something about it. They walked around to the visitors' side, ducked under the yellow ribbon, and sat down in the front row. They then gestured back to the other Cypress Bay fans, like they were pantomiming, See? We made it. It didn't collapse.
Other fans started heading over there. Then suddenly we saw this fat guy in a gray suit go running across the field. Mom called out, "Look! That's Mr. Bridges!"
Sure enough. Mr. Bridges was yelling and waving at the Cypress Bay fans to go back, to get out of there, but they weren't listening. In fact more and more red-and-white shirts seemed willing to take a chance on the condemned bleachers.
A photographer in a Tangerine Times cap started bobbing in front of Mr. Bridges, taking pictures of him trying to turn the mob back. He finally gave up yelling and came stomping back across the grass, red faced, like he was about to have a heart attack.
It was past the time to start the game, but nothing was happening on the field. Mom spotted Erik in his uniform—light blue helmet, white pants, and light blue jersey with SEAGULLS written across the front. He had a white number 1 on his back. Arthur Bauer was standing next to him, of course. He was wearing number 4.
We continued to sit, baking in the sun, for nearly thirty minutes while nothing happened. Finally a squadron of police cruisers appeared on Seagull Way. They had their sirens sounding and their lights flashing. Right behind them came a square white truck with a big satellite dish on the top and CHANNEL 2 NEWS on the side.
They all pulled in behind the home bleachers. While the other cops spread out, two big sheriff's deputies marched across the field and confronted the Cypress Bay fans. It was all over in a minute. The fans weren't there to fight. They surrendered immediately, ducking back under the ribbons and finding places to stand along the far sideline. At last the referees and players took the field to start the game.
It turned out to be a pretty sloppy game, considering that the Tangerine Times had picked both the Lake Windsor Seagulls and the Cypress Bay Cardinals as "Teams to Watch" in its preseason poll.
Erik kicked off for our side, driving the ball deep into the Cypress Bay end zone. But then he stood on the sideline for the rest of the half. Neither offense could get anything going. Each side would run three plays and then punt the ball away. Erik was the placekicker, but Antoine Thomas, in addition to everything else, did the punting. By the end of the first half, Antoine had run for about fifty yards, but nearly all of his passes had been dropped. The Seagulls had never gotten the ball close enough for Erik to try a field goal.
The Cypress Bay offense was no better. They had a big fullback who could pick up three yards through the middle, but that was about it. It was 0–0 at the half.
Tina, Paige, and the rest of the Lake Windsor cheerleaders (the Seagirls) took the field for a halftime dance routine.
The third quarter was as dull as the first two, but Cypress Bay's offense suddenly got it together in the final period. They drove eighty-five yards for a touchdown, most of those yards coming from that big fullback. The kick for the extra point was good, and Cypress Bay led 7–0.
Antoine responded with two short runs and then a beautiful forty-yard pass to Terry Donnelly, who was wide open down the left sideline. I could have caught that pass. My grandmother could have caught it, for that matter, but Terry Donnelly dropped it. Antoine had to punt again.
That's when I noticed the black clouds rolling in. That whole mess with the visitors' bleachers and Mr. Bridges and the cops had pushed the game past the four o'clock barrier. In a matter of minutes we went from sunny skies to kaboom! And then down it came, a hard, cold rain. Most of the fans climbed down from the bleachers and ran for their cars. Mom yelled, "Come on, you two!" but Dad said, "No, you go ahead. I'm staying," so I said, "I'm staying, too."
Mom was already on the ground. She yelled back, "Fine. Stay. I hope neither of you gets killed." She ran back to the Volvo, leaving us to get soaked. Or worse.
The rain turned out to be a blessing for Lake Windsor. The offensive line started pushing Cypress Bay back, letting Antoine move the ball steadily down the field—five yards, six yards, five yards, seven yards. With two minutes to play, the Seagulls were all the way down to the Cypress Bay five-yard line. Antoine faked a run to the right and lofted a pass into the left corner of the end zone that some mud-covered Seagull receiver caught for the touchdown. A soggy cheer went up from the few fans l
eft in the bleachers. The score was 7–6, and Erik's big moment had arrived.
He came running onto the field in his perfectly clean, mud-free uniform to kick the extra point that would tie the game. Erik had never missed an extra point. Never. I was expecting to see Arthur Bauer trotting out with him, but number 4 was still standing there on the sideline with the other clean uniforms.
The two muddy teams lined up. Erik got into his kicking stance, and Antoine Thomas crouched down in front of him to hold the ball. I said, "Check it out, Dad. Antoine's the holder."
"I see," he said grimly. "Erik told me that Arthur would be his holder. I don't think it's such a good idea to throw a surprise like this at your kicker."
Dad, and Erik, and I, and everybody else figured that Arthur had taken over Mike Costello's job. But no. There was Antoine, in the crouch, getting ready to spin the laces and set the ball down for Erik.
The referee blew his whistle, the clock started to tick, and Lake Windsor's big center snapped the ball. Erik, his head down in total concentration, took two steps forward, like he's rehearsed a million times. His foot started toward the ball in a powerful arc, and then—the most incredible thing happened. Antoine whipped the ball away at the last second, like Lucy does with Charlie Brown. He took off running around the right side and crossed the goal line, untouched, for a two-point conversion. Seagulls led 8–7.
At the same moment, Erik, who clearly did not expect Antoine to pull the ball away, kicked at nothing but the air. His left foot went flying off in one direction, his right foot in another. For a split second he was a parallel line three feet above the ground. Then he made a perfect banana-peel back-flop landing in the mud. The people around us started laughing, hooting, and cheering, all at the same time. Antoine spiked the ball in the end zone, and all the Lake Windsor players, except Erik, ran over and jumped on him. All the Lake Windsor players on the sideline, except Arthur, started jumping up and down, too.
Erik finally got up and walked to the sideline to get his kicking tee. His front was still clean and white, but his back was now filthy. He kicked the ball back to the Cardinals, but they fumbled it away, and that's how it ended. Lake Windsor 8, Cypress Bay 7.
When we got back to the car, Mom just said, "From here, it sounded like we won."
I wanted to tell her all about Erik's banana-peel back-flop special, but Dad cut in right away. "Yes. We won on a fake kick. They sent Erik out to fake the kick for the extra point. That drew the offense to him, and it cleared the way for Antoine to run it in for two points."
Mom thought for a minute. "So Erik did something that helped to win the game."
"Most definitely," Dad said. "It's not something that shows up in the stats in the newspaper. It's not something people will remember. But it helped win the game."
I thought to myself, Not remember? You've got to be kidding. Erik's flying banana-peel back-flop in the mud is the one thing about this game that everybody is going to remember.
Dad continued talking in this manner throughout dinner, pounding home his theme to Erik—that Erik had contributed big-time to the victory, that Erik had actually made victory possible by being the decoy. I don't think Erik was even listening. He was just sitting there, looking down, twisting his varsity ring around and around on his finger.
After dinner Dad flipped on the TV so we could all watch the local news. The lead story on channel 2 was the revolt of the Cypress Bay fans and their brief takeover of the condemned visitors' bleachers.
About two-thirds of the way through the broadcast came "The Saturday Sports Roundup." The sports anchorman went through the professional baseball and football stuff, then the college football scores, and then the high school scores. "Lake Windsor 8, Cypress Bay 7."
The broadcast ended with a feature called "The Weak in Sports." It was a collection of sports bloopers, and guess who they saved for last.
The anchorman said something like, "Finally, a play that looks like it was drawn up by the Three Stooges. Watch closely." And there it was. A ground-level view of the ball being snapped to Antoine, of Erik striding forward confidently, and Whooo! Up in the air he flew! It was even more comical than I had remembered. Erik went splashing down into the mud, but he didn't stay there. They rewound the tape so that he popped back up, flopped again, popped back up, and flopped again. Finally, the camera turned toward the end zone to catch Antoine spiking the ball. It zoomed in on his face. Antoine was laughing and pointing his finger at that big center, who was pointing back at him.
When the anchorman came back on, he was cracking up. So were all the other news people. The credits started rolling, and they started saying stuff like, "Does that school have a diving team?" and "I hear those mud baths are good for wrinkles."
Dad got up and snapped off the TV. The four of us sat there in stony silence.
I was thinking that if I were at somebody else's house, we'd be rolling on the floor and laughing at this. I was thinking that kids all over Florida were rolling on the floor and laughing at this, at Erik Fisher the Flying Placekicker. But this isn't somebody else's house. This is the house built on the Erik Fisher Football Dream.
Finally Dad said to Erik, "Hey! All you can do is laugh it off."
Mom agreed. "That's right. You just leave it behind you. That's all you can do. You leave it behind you, and it's over with."
The four of us got up and went our separate ways—me up to my room.
I stared out my window at the back wall. Forget it, Dad. Forget it, Mom. Erik can't laugh this off. Erik can't leave this humiliation behind him. Someone has to pay for this. I'm not sure why I'm sure. But I am. Someone has to pay for this.
Tuesday, September 26
Today was our second game of the season, and our first home game at Tangerine Middle. The opponents were from Kinnow Middle School. They wear black uniforms with silver letters. Pretty sharp. Henry D. told me they beat us last year.
We had an impressive turnout of fans. In fact I've never seen so many fans at a kids' soccer game. Some of them are obviously regulars, because they brought along water and tangerines for the team. I recognized Theresa and Luis Cruz. They were standing with a man who looked like he could be their father. Was he the Tomas whose name was written on the truck? There were a lot of mothers with little kids. A couple of ladies had lawn chairs, but everybody else—and there must have been a hundred kids and grownups—stood for the entire game.
I saw Shandra talking to a lady, and I overheard somebody say, "That's Shandra's mother with her."
That got me wondering. Why isn't my mother here? Or my father? They could be watching this game. So could Joey's parents. If we were playing football, they'd all be here.
We were all more relaxed before this game, except for Victor. He was already talking trash to some of the Kinnow players, reminding them about something that had happened last year. They were giving it right back to him, saying stuff like, "Hey, Guzman, why are you on the girls' team? Couldn't you make the boys' team?"
We started with the same lineup, with me on the sideline. This time, though, I was standing next to Joey. He's now wearing number 19 for the War Eagles.
The referee was clearly a cut above the last one we had. A Kinnow defender took Maya down in the penalty area, and he blew the whistle right away. Maya drilled the penalty kick, upper right, into the net, and we were up 1–0 in the first minute. But these were not the Palmetto Whippoorwills. They had a good offense. They were fast, and they knew how to move the ball.
Shandra was very busy in the goal. She looked sharp out there, really on her game. That's what I think when I watch Shandra in goal—how sharp she looks, how big she looks, like one of those American Gladiators. What must people think when they see me in goal? How small I look? How goofy I look in my goggles?
Dolly and Mano sandwiched a guy in front of our goal and got whistled for it. Penalty kick. Shandra never got a hand on the ball, and it was suddenly 1–1. I wouldn't have gotten a hand on it, either. At least I don't thi
nk I would have.
Standing on the sideline for this game was a pleasure after that awful time we had at Palmetto. These are two teams who know how to play soccer. Some highlights: Maya stopped on a dime and passed the ball back to Tino, who drove it into the goal. Then they came back and scored. Henry D. lifted a beautiful corner kick in to Victor, who leaped up and headed it into the goal. Then they came back and scored. At halftime it was 3–3, and there hadn't been one fight.
We all gathered in a circle on the sideline to eat our tangerines. The coach said "Good game" to a couple of players, then spent the rest of her time talking to Shandra about the three goals—how she shouldn't think anymore about them; how she should adjust for the second half. Finally she looked over at Victor. "Captain? Do you have anything to say?"
We all turned toward Victor, and we saw why he hadn't been talking or drawing any attention to himself. He had his hand pressed against his forehead, trying to stop a trickle of blood from running down his face. It was in the same spot where he had smacked heads with the Palmetto goalie. The head ball that he put into the net must have reopened the cut, because it was sure bleeding now. He said, "No, I got nothing to say here. I'll do my talking out there."
Betty Bright walked over and pulled his hand down from the cut. She shook her head and said, "Is your mother here today?"
He snarled, "My mother? No, my mother's not here. What are you talking about?"
"Tino, please ask your father if he'll drive Victor to the emergency room." She turned back to Victor. "I'm sorry. I should have had this stitched up when it happened. It's never going to heal like this. I hope Mr. Cruz can take you now."
"No way! I'm not going to any emergency room. I got a game to play!"
The coach said, "Not this game, Victor. You get yourself together for the next game. We'll have to win this one without you." Then, without even thinking about it, she turned to me and said, "Paul Fisher, you're in for Victor."