Bleachers (14 page)

“I still can’t believe I did that.”

“Well, you did.” Her voice was edgy and there was a slight crack. She clenched her teeth, determined to show no emotion. He would not make her cry again.

“I’m so sorry.” Neely slowly got to his feet, careful not to put too much weight on his left knee. He touched her on the arm and said, “Thanks for giving me the chance to say so.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Good-bye.”

He walked down the sidewalk with a slight limp, through the gate. When he was near his car, she called out, “Neely, wait.”

______________

Because of his high-voltage romance with Brandy Skimmel, aka Screamer, now also known, by a very few, as Tessa Canyon, Neely knew all the back alleys and deserted streets of Messina. He circled
Karr’s Hill, where they paused for a moment to look down at the football field. The line of well-wishers still ran along the track and out the front gate. The lights on the home side were on. The parking lot was full of cars coming and going.

“They say Rake would sit up here, after they fired him, and watch the games.”

“They should’ve put him in jail,” Cameron said, her first and only words since leaving home.

They parked near a practice field and sneaked through a gate on the visitors’ side. They climbed to the top of the bleachers and sat down, still with a gap between them, though closer than on her front porch. For a long time they watched the scene on the other side of the field.

The white tent rose like a small pyramid in front of the home stands. The casket was barely visible under it. A crowd was gathered around, enjoying the vigil. Miss Lila and the family had left. Racks of flowers were accumulating around the tent and up and down the sideline. A silent parade of mourners inched along the track, patiently waiting for the chance to sign the register, see the casket, perhaps shed a tear, and say
farewell to their legend. Up in the stands behind the line of people, Rake’s boys of all ages were grouped in small packs, some talking, some laughing, most just staring at the field and the tent and the casket.

Only two people were in the visitors’ stands, unnoticed.

Cameron spoke first, very softly. “Who are those people up in the bleachers?”

“Players. I was up there last night and the night before, waiting for Rake to die.”

“So they’re all coming home?”

“Most of us. You came home.”

“Of course. We’re burying our most famous citizen.”

“You didn’t like Rake, did you?”

“I was not a fan. Miss Lila is a strong woman, but she was no match for him. He was a dictator on the field, and he had trouble turning it off when he got home. No, I didn’t care for Eddie Rake.”

“You hated football.”

“I hated you, and that made me hate football.”

“Atta girl.”

“It was silly. Grown men crying after a loss. The entire town living and dying with each game. Prayer breakfasts every Friday morning, as if God cares who wins a high school football game. More money spent on the football team than on all other student groups combined. Worshiping seventeen-year-old boys who quickly become convinced they are truly worthy of being worshiped. The double standard—a football player cheats on a test, everybody scrambles to cover it up. A nonathlete cheats, and he gets suspended. The stupid little girls who can’t wait to give it up to a Spartan. All for the good of the team. Messina needs its young virgins to sacrifice everything. Oh, and I almost forgot. The Pep Girls! Each player gets his own little slave who bakes him cookies on Wednesday and puts a spirit sign in his front yard on Thursday and polishes his helmet on Friday and what do you get on Saturday, Neely, a quickie?”

“Only if you want it.”

“It’s a sad scene. Thank you for shoving me out of it.”

Looking back with the clear hindsight of fifteen years, it did indeed seem silly.

“But you came to the games,” Neely said.

“A few of them. You have any idea what this town is like on Friday night away from the field? There’s not a soul anywhere. Phoebe Cox and I would sneak over here, on the visitors’ side and watch the games. We always wanted Messina to lose, but it never happened, not here. We ridiculed the band and the cheerleaders and the Pep Squad and everything else, and we did so because we were not a part of it. I couldn’t wait to get to college.”

“I knew you were up here.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I swear. I knew.”

Faint laughter drifted across the field as another Rake story found its mark among his boys. Neely could barely make out Silo and Paul in a group of ten others just under the press box. The beer was flowing.

“After you took the plunge in the backseat,” she said, “and I was tossed aside, we still had two years left in this place. There were moments when I would see you in the hall, or the library, or even in the classroom, and our eyes would meet, just for a second. Gone was the cocky sneer, the
arrogant look of everybody’s hero. Just for a split-second you would look at me like a real person, and I would know that you still cared. I would’ve taken you back in a heartbeat.”

“And I wanted you.”

“That’s hard to believe.”

“It’s true.”

“But, of course, the joy of sex.”

“I couldn’t help myself.”

“Congratulations, Neely. You and Screamer began your adventures at the age of sixteen. Look at her now. Fat and tired.”

“Did you ever hear the rumor that she was pregnant?”

“Are you kidding? Rumors are like mosquitoes in this town.”

“The summer before our senior year, she tells me she’s pregnant.”

“What a surprise. Basic biology.”

“So we drove to Atlanta, got an abortion, drove back to Messina. I swear I never told a soul.”

“Rested twenty-four hours, then back in the rut.”

“Close.”

“Look, Neely, I’m really tired of your sex life. It was my curse for many years. Either change the subject, or I’m out of here.”

Another long awkward pause as they watched the receiving line and thought about what to say next. A breeze blew in their faces and she held her arms close to her chest. He fought the desire to reach over and hold her. It wouldn’t work.

“You’ve asked nothing about my life these days,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I stopped thinking about you a long time ago. I can’t lie, Neely. You’re just not a factor anymore.”

“You were always blunt.”

“Blunt is good. It saves so much time.”

“I sell real estate, live alone with a dog, date a girl I really don’t like, date another one with two children, and I really miss my ex-wife.”

“What caused the divorce?”

“She cracked up. She miscarried twice, the second one in the fourth month. I made the mistake of telling her I once paid for an abortion, so she blamed me for losing the babies. She was right. The real cost of an abortion is much more than the lousy three hundred bucks at the clinic.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ten years to the week after Screamer and I made our little road trip to Atlanta, my wife had the second miscarriage. A little boy.”

“I really want to leave now.”

“I’m sorry.”

______________

They sat on the front steps again. The lights were off. Mr. and Mrs. Lane were asleep. It was after eleven. “I think you should go now,” Cameron said after a few minutes.

“You’re right.”

“You said earlier that you think about me all the time now. I’m curious as to why.”

“I had no idea how painful a broken heart can be until my wife packed up and left. It was a nightmare. For the first time, I realized what you had suffered through. I realized how cruel I had been.”

“You’ll get over it. Takes about ten years.”

“Thanks.”

He walked down the sidewalk, then turned around and walked back. “How old is Jack?” he asked.

“Thirty-seven.”

“Then, statistically, he should die first. Give me a call when he’s gone. I’ll be waiting.”

“Sure you will.”

“I swear. Isn’t it comforting to know that someone will always be waiting for you?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

He leaned down and looked her in the eyes. “Can I kiss you on the cheek?”

“No.”

“There’s something magical about the first love, Cameron, something I’ll miss forever.”

“Good-bye Neely.”

“Can I say I love you?”

“No. Good-bye Neely.”

Friday

Messina mourned like never before. By ten on Friday morning the shops and cafés and offices around the square were locked. All students were dismissed from school. The courthouse was closed. The factories on the edges of the town were shut down, a free holiday, though few felt like celebrating.

Mal Brown placed his deputies around the high school, where by mid-morning the traffic was bumper to bumper on the road to Rake Field.
By eleven, the home stands were almost full, and the ex-players, the former heroes, were gathering and milling around the tent at the fifty-yard line. Most of them wore their green game jerseys, a gift to every senior. And most jerseys were stretched tighter around the midsections. A few—the lawyers and doctors and bankers—wore sports coats over their game shirts, but the green was visible.

From the bleachers up above the fans looked down at the tent and the field and enjoyed the chance to identify their old heroes. Those with retired numbers caused the most excitement. “There’s Roman Armstead, number 81, played for the Packers.” “There’s Neely, number 19.”

The senior class string quartet played under the tent and the P.A. system lifted its sounds from end zone to end zone. The town kept coming.

There would be no casket. Eddie Rake was already in the ground. Miss Lila and her family arrived without ceremony and spent half an hour hugging former players in front of the tent. Just before noon, the priest appeared, and then a choir, but the crowd was far from settled. When the home bleachers were full, they began lining
the fence around the track. There was no hurry. This was a moment Messina would cherish and remember.

Rake wanted his boys on the field, packed around the small podium near the edge of the tent. And he wanted them to wear their jerseys, a request that had been quietly spread in his last days. A tarp covered the track and several hundred folding chairs had been arranged in a half-moon. Around twelve-thirty, Father McCabe gave the signal and the players began packing into their seats. Miss Lila and the family sat in the front rows.

Neely was between Paul Curry and Silo Mooney, with thirty other members of the 1987 team around them. Two were dead and six had disappeared. The rest couldn’t make it.

A bagpipe at the north goalpost began wailing and the crowd became still. Silo was wiping tears almost immediately, and he was not alone. As the last melancholy notes drifted across the field, the mourners were softened up and ready for some serious emotion. Father McCabe slowly approached the makeshift podium and adjusted the microphone.

“Good afternoon,” he said in a high-pitched voice that broke sharply through the stadium speakers and could be heard half a mile away. “And welcome to our celebration of the life of Eddie Rake. On behalf of Mrs. Lila Rake, her three daughters, eight grandchildren, and the rest of the family, I welcome you and say thank you for coming.”

He flipped a page of notes. “Carl Edward Rake was born seventy-two years ago in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Forty-eight years ago he married the former Lila Saunders. Forty-four years ago he was hired by the Messina School Board as the head football Coach. At the time he was twenty-eight, had no head coaching experience, and always said he got the job because no one else wanted it. He coached here for thirty-four years, won over four hundred games, thirteen state titles, and we know the rest of the numbers. More important, he touched the lives of all of us. Coach Rake died Wednesday night. He was buried this morning in a private ceremony, family only, and at his personal request, and with the consent of the Reardon family, he was laid to rest beside Scotty. Coach Rake told me last week
that he was dreaming of Scotty, said he couldn’t wait to see him up in heaven, to hold him and hug him and tell him he was sorry.”

With perfect timing, he paused to allow this to choke up the crowd. He opened a Bible.

As he was about to speak, there was a commotion near the front gate. A loud radio squawked. Car doors slammed and there were voices. People were scrambling around. Father McCabe paused and looked, and this caused everyone else to look too.

A giant of a man was walking briskly through the gate, onto the track. It was Jesse Trapp, with a prison guard at each elbow. He was wearing perfectly pressed khaki pants and shirt, prison issue, and the handcuffs had been removed. His guards were in uniform, and not much smaller. The crowd froze when they recognized him. As he walked along the sideline his head was high, his back stiff, a proud man, but he also had a look of slight bewilderment. Where should he sit? Would he fit? Would he be welcome? As he approached the end of the stands, someone in the crowd caught his attention. A voice called out, and Jesse stopped cold.

It was his mother, a tiny woman holding a place along the fence. He lunged for her and hugged her tightly over the chain-link as his guards glanced at each other to make sure that, yes, it was okay for their prisoner to hug his mother.

From a wrinkled grocery bag, Mrs. Trapp pulled out a green jersey. Number 56, retired in 1985. Jesse held it and looked down the track at the former players, all straining to see him. In front of the same ten thousand people who once screamed for him to maim opposing players, he quickly unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. Suddenly, he exposed more brilliantly toned and tanned muscles than anyone had ever seen, and he seemed to pause so they, and he, could enjoy the moment. Father McCabe waited patiently, and so did everyone else.

When he had the jersey arranged just so, he pulled it over his head, then tugged here and there until it was properly in place. It strained over the biceps and was very tight across the chest and around the neck, but every other Spartan there would’ve killed to fill it so well. It was loose at the narrow waist, and when he carefully
tucked it into his pants the jersey looked as if it might burst open. He hugged his mother again.