Touchdown Kid Read online

  “Well . . .” Thorpe tipped his hat and turned to go.

  Cory watched them leave amid hooting and giggling from the younger neighborhood kids who had spilled back into the street. He saw the sad, knowing head wags of the adult neighbors tucked away on their front porches, hiding from the sun.

  Cory’s mom disappeared into the house without a word. He followed her on through, past the broken wall exposing wooden beams hammered together a hundred years ago, over the yellowed linoleum peeling up from the floor, and into the kitchen. The back door sagged open and Cory saw her empty lounge chair, her iced tea and magazine on a makeshift table. She loved sunbathing in the privacy of that wretched yard. Now she looked at him sadly. “I know you didn’t do it,” she said. “But how could you let yourself get in that situation?”

  “I’m sorry, Mom.” His voice oozed with apology, and he could see she was softening. “Mom, can you drive me over to the school? I’m really late for practice. I don’t think I can make it before it ends if I walk.”

  “Practice! Drive you!” Her anger flared. “You’re lucky I’m not punishing you. If you had a father, he’d punish you, I can promise you that.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  She clenched her teeth. “You were there, Cory. How many times do I have to tell you? You lie down with dogs, you’re gonna get fleas. You end up in jail, you can’t be a lawyer.”

  Cory stood his ground. “If I don’t get to practice, I can’t play, Mom.”

  “Who says you’re gonna play? Actually get in the game, I mean?” It wasn’t like her to be mean, but he figured she’d been stung by the sight of the police on their doorstep for all to see.

  His spirits sank as she walked out of the kitchen through the back door, ignoring his request. He followed her out into the yard where she sat back down.

  “I might.” Cory stood as tall as he could. “The HBS coach is gonna be there, Mom. He’s coming to see Liam, but what if he sees me, too? I could go to HBS. Get a scholarship. Get recruited. Play pro ball and buy you a big house. A car, too. A BMW, Mom.”

  She snorted and lay back and closed her eyes against the sun. She chewed on her words before spitting them out. “HBS. Howard Bissinger School. I knew a girl who went there. Kate. She was a snot. Lived above Needum’s Tavern, but acted like she was a princess.”

  Cory’s stomach flipped. He needed that ride. He couldn’t say whether or not he’d get a chance to play, but he had to be ready for the possibility. He knew that for certain—as certain as he knew his mother loved him infinitely and as certain as he knew his own name. Luck was when preparation met with opportunity. That was the one thing he’d learned from Mellon-head. Tomorrow could be the day that might somehow change his life.

  But he had to be ready. If he didn’t make it to Glenwood Park before the Cougars’ practice ended, Coach Mellon would tell him to stay home tomorrow. He’d be punished for being late, but he’d be outright banned for not making it all. Cory had seen both things happen to other kids before.

  “Please, Ma,” he whispered. “Please.”

  5

  Cory’s mom took a deep breath and let it out like a leaky bike tire. “Get your pads in the car.”

  He raced out the front and loaded his equipment in the green Hyundai’s back seat before his mom appeared in jeans with the dress shirt buttoned and the car keys jingling in her hand.

  Cory waited for her to get in.

  His mom started the weary engine that broke down nearly every other week. It caught and rumbled down the street. “Want to tell me who it was?”

  “Uh-uh.” Cory flattened a mosquito on the windshield and flicked it out the open window into the hot stream of air.

  “Thought so.” Cory’s mom grew up a Northside girl, but she still knew the Westside rules. “It was nice of those police to let you go.”

  Cory said nothing to that. He knew his mom always saw the bright side of things.

  Twenty minutes later, they were in Glenwood Park, where the team was going full tilt. Cory hopped out and retrieved his gear.

  “Hey.” His mom waved him back and puckered her lips. “Kiss.”

  “Mom . . . the guys.”

  “The guys shouldn’t be lookin’ at you and me. I’m your mom and I want a kiss.”

  Cory kissed her quickly, secretly happy, then dashed out onto the field.

  Coach Mellon ignored him. Even when he had all his gear on and helmet buckled and stood close, bouncing on his toes. He was ready for action, but he couldn’t catch the coach’s eye.

  Liam ran a sweep for fifteen yards. The Cougars’ coach blasted his whistle, clapped his hands, and shouted at the offense, “That’s the way you come off the ball, boys! That’s the way to run a forty-six sweep.”

  Finally, Cory felt compelled to speak. “Sorry I’m late, Coach.”

  Coach Mellon raised his Cougars cap, scratched his bald head, and looked at his watch. “Liam said you’d be late. But you’re not just late. You missed it entirely. Go home.”

  Cory felt a chill shrink his skin. “I had to help Liam’s brother so he’d let Liam come to practice, Coach. I did it for the team.”

  Coach Mellon kept his attention straight ahead, watching his offense. He didn’t offer Cory so much as a glance, but instead lowered his eyelids. “You can’t miss practice. Pollack missed and he got suspended. One game. Those are the rules, Flapjack, and I’m not bending them for you. You’re not apt to play tomorrow anyway. You know that . . . tomorrow is a tough one, and it’s Liam’s coming-out party.”

  Cory already knew Coach Mellon underestimated him as a football player. Also, more than once, Coach Mellon had told the team that Cory was an example of how people too smart for their own good weren’t usually a good fit for the game of football. “Football requires obedience, boys,” Coach Mellon liked to say. “It’s like the army. I say ‘Jump,’ you say ‘How high?’”

  Now was not the time for Cory to jump, though. Now he needed to stick up for himself, to advocate, which meant argue why he was right, which is what good lawyers did for their clients.

  “Coach, Allred came late four weeks ago.” Cory was in his element now. “Practice ended five minutes after he got here and you said he could play because he didn’t miss practice entirely.”

  Cory’s mom swore he’d grow up to be a lawyer if he kept himself out of trouble, and he hoped to prove her right. Sometimes he’d search legal terms he’d heard on TV using the computer in the school library. The really interesting ones he committed to memory. Many a night, the two of them would watch The Good Wife, and Cory would belt out little legal truths he’d learned from previous shows and boned up on in the library.

  “That’s hearsay!”

  “They didn’t read him his rights!”

  “That judge has a conflict of interest!”

  When Cory was finished in the NFL, he had every intention of becoming a lawyer. A good one. An honest one.

  “That’s called a precedent, Coach,” he added. “Like when a court makes a ruling and says it’s illegal for the police to go into someone’s home without a warrant. Even if I’m not a starter like Allred, it wouldn’t look right if you went back on a precedent that you already established.”

  Coach Mellon turned toward him now. One of the coach’s dark eyes had a mind of its own and it drifted, lifeless as a shark’s eye, away from Cory, but his good eye had enough intensity for two. “You think you’re on that TV show How to Get Away with Murder or something, Flapjack? Arguing with me like a lawyer?”

  “No, sir. It’s just that you always say the rules are the rules, so . . .” Cory thought of Officer Thorpe’s pale green eyes and kept his gaze as steady as the scary policeman’s had been.

  Coach Mellon became the latest adult to huff at him that morning. “Go ahead. Get in there for Rashan. He looks like he’s about to pass out anyway.”

  “Thank you, Coach.” Cory flew across the grass. The football field was heaven to him. He loved the order of it—the
huddle, lining up, reading the other side and anticipating what was about to happen. Then when things really happened—sometimes what you expected, sometimes a complete surprise—either way you had to react, to run and hustle, hit or dodge or block or tackle. It was like running through a rainstorm and that thrill you got when lightning cracked and thunder boomed, sending a chill up your back.

  Rashan was so thick he made Cory look like a scarecrow. Cory tapped out the duck-footed Cougar to take his spot and play some defensive scout team linebacker in the closing minutes of practice. Some kids didn’t like scout team. Cory liked it all, just so long as he was out there, and he ran around like a puppy.

  After the final whistle and a pep talk from Coach Mellon about the importance of tomorrow’s game, Cory stripped down to his pants and began walking away alongside Liam. Before Cory could tell him the story about the police, Coach Mellon called him back.

  “Uh-oh,” Liam said, setting his helmet and shoulder pads down in the dusty grass beneath a tree. “I’ll wait for you.”

  Coach Mellon’s two assistants, Coach Travis and Coach Piccolo, stood with their caps pulled low and their arms folded across their chests, flanking Coach Mellon like bodyguards. Each of them had played college football up on The Hill back in the day. They were gruff, serious men, but now they looked downright grim.

  “Yeah, Coach?” Cory stood as straight as he could and sucked in his gut.

  “Well, Flapjack . . .” The coach leaned sideways and spit in the grass. “Don’t you want to know your punishment for being late?”

  6

  “Uh, Coach?” Cory sputtered.

  “You’re not much of a football player. I’ve told you that.” Coach Mellon looked at his two assistants and they nodded like it was the truth. A wave of nausea surged in Cory’s stomach.

  Coach Mellon sighed. “But you show up, so you’ve got a place on this team. We keep everyone at Glenwood Park. The Cougars are a football family, but . . . when someone in your family messes up, what happens?”

  Cory slowly shook his head, trying not to provoke the coach further.

  Coach Mellon’s lips curled with disgust. “Punishment . . . You just lost your spot as second-string running back. You can dress for the game tomorrow, but you’re third string now.”

  The words plunged into Cory’s heart like a knife. He’d taken great pride in working his way up the depth chart from fifth- to second-string running back. He’d done it by working out, but mostly by studying the plays and never making mistakes. A team like theirs needed two runners at least, and late in the game he’d sometimes get some action. Third string was for a kid like Reggie Mann, who lacked not only talent but effort. Reggie hadn’t even touched the ball in a game last season.

  Cory’s mouth sagged open. He wanted to explain exactly how it had all happened this morning—with Finn and Hoagie and Dirty. How he’d sacrificed himself for the betterment of the team, taking Liam’s place so their star runner could get to practice on time.

  Cory raised his hand, a habit from asking lots of questions in school. “I . . .”

  It was too late. The three coaches had turned their backs on him and were talking about the defensive strategy they planned to use in tomorrow’s game.

  Cory shook his head and shuffled back to Liam.

  “Hey, bud, what happened?” Liam asked.

  Cory gave him the news.

  “That’s a hot mess.” Liam scowled at the coaches.

  Cory’s face twisted in pain and he tried to muffle a certain amount of sniffing as they walked. “I was thinking if I got some carries in the game . . . I know the HBS coach—”

  “Coach McMahan,” interrupted Liam.

  “Yeah, Coach McMahan is gonna be there to see you and you’re gonna get a scholarship and—”

  “Maybe get a scholarship,” Liam interrupted again. “It looks good, but I don’t actually have it yet.”

  “The whole Westside knows you will, Liam. Heck, you’ve already been to meet the host family. Tomorrow is just a formality.” They stepped out of the shade onto the sidewalk, and the heat wilted Cory inside and out. “And I just thought, you know, if I had a couple nice runs late in the game that I could show him something, and if not this year—I know not this year, but maybe when I’m going into high school—I’m on his radar. Then we could play at HBS together. I hear they give out scholarships to a couple kids going into ninth grade every year, too.”

  “Well, if I get there and do my thing?” Liam put a hand on Cory’s sweaty bare shoulder. “I’m gonna tell them about my best friend. I’m gonna tell them they need the both of us if they want a state title.”

  Cory smiled at his friend, swelling now with affection. “You know what I really want all this for, Liam?”

  “To be great. Everyone wants to be great.” Liam nodded to himself.

  “Yeah, that,” Cory said, “but more. It’s my mom, really. I mean, you’ve seen how great she is.”

  “Yeah, she’s the best,” Liam said. “My mom’s a nag. ‘Liam, put the trash out. Liam, pick up your brother’s clothes. Liam, get me a beer.’ Man, it never ends.”

  Cory hesitated a moment to create some separation between moms before he continued, “See, all I need is a chance, then I’m gonna go to the League and buy her a big house with a pool, someplace nice, and a BMW, and she won’t have to work again, ever. She can just sit out by the pool and read her books and magazines and maybe even have a maid to bring her iced tea . . .”

  “And in the off-season,” Liam said, “maybe we could stay there, together, and train and get in shape for the upcoming season.”

  “And we’ll make a bet—like every season—that whoever gets the most yards, then the other guy has to take us all on a vacation, like Florida or Canada or anywhere. You too. You can bring your family if you win. I’ll pay.”

  Liam scowled and shook his head. “Not them, Cory. I want to get as far away from them as I can.”

  That dampened Cory’s spirits a bit, but they dropped their equipment at Cory’s house and headed for the park.

  They spent the afternoon pushing and shoving for an open spot in the public pool at Burnett Park, leaving the water only for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Cory’s mom had wrapped in reused aluminum foil. They drank water from the fountain, even though there was a line there too. Summer in the city wasn’t just hot, it was crowded.

  That night, Cory and his mom watched a video borrowed from the library. Sleep came slow. Even the whirring blades of the plastic fan right next to his head brought little relief from the heat held tight inside their house after a day of baking.

  When he woke, it was game day.

  Nervous electric spiders crawled up and down Cory’s arms and legs. Even though he didn’t expect to play, Cory felt the excitement of an entire community crowding the bleachers and sidelines to watch. The Westside took pride in the toughness and speed of its teams. On the Westside, any football game—even a kids’ Pop Warner team—was a serious event.

  After a breakfast of Cocoa Puffs and milk, they got ready.

  Cory’s mom wore team colors, white and green, with her long, dark hair tied up in a ribbon to match her clothes. Cory dressed carefully, wanting to look good if nothing else. He checked himself in the mirror to do the final tuck of his jersey into the white pants. His mom appeared, and in the mirror he saw the similarities in their faces: the big brown eyes with a slightly sad tilt, small ears, and that pointy chin. But Cory’s face was rounder than his mom’s and his neck much shorter and thicker, which he knew came from his father.

  The last time he’d seen his father, Cory had been just four, but he could still close his eyes and picture the man, standing in the doorway in his army uniform, kissing Cory’s mother good-bye. He’d been a fist of a man, compact and strong, with a wide, round face, and his arms had wrapped around Cory’s mom like pythons.

  Cory was seven when his mother told him that his father was dead. They never talked about how he died, and Cory wasn�
��t sure his father had actually been killed in combat in Afghanistan, even though that’s the story that had grown into an accepted fact by everyone over the past four years. There was never a funeral or any other mention of his father specifically, unless Cory counted the endless times his mother referred to the punishment he’d get if he had a father.

  Cory suspected his mom and dad were never married, which was why he shared his mom’s last name. It would also explain the absence of a funeral or any kind of army money. Maybe they had a kind of star-crossed–lover thing like Romeo and Juliet.

  As they pulled into Glenwood Park, Cory was shaken from his thoughts. Two dozen cars already had the best parking spots.

  “We’re late,” Cory said.

  “You’re not late,” his mom said.

  “If you’re not early, you’re late.”

  “Says who? It’s nine twenty and the sheet says nine thirty.”

  “Coach Mellon, Ma.” Cory launched himself out the car door.

  His mom shouted after him. “Good luck!”

  Cory waved a hand back over his head, dashing for the field. More than half the team was assembled, already zinging footballs back and forth. Cory’s three coaches stood off to the side, behind the bench, surrounding a man who towered over them. The HBS head coach, Coach McMahan, wore a crimson-and-silver HBS Football cap that shone like a rare jewel in the sea of green and white.

  Cory tried not to stare, but as he neared the sideline to drop his water bottle under the bench, he saw Coach McMahan’s bright blue eyes shining right at him. Cory froze beneath the coach’s gaze. The light in his eyes gave Cory a feeling of welcome, and a seed of joy burst open in his chest.

  Coach McMahan pointed right at him, him! Cory poked a finger in his own chest, still unsure, but all that did was make Coach McMahan smile more broadly. He motioned for Cory to come over.

  “Come on, Flapjack.” Coach Mellon’s face reddened with impatience. “Coach McMahan wants to talk to you.”

  Cory marched straight for the man, feeling certain that his entire life was about to change.