Fourth Down Baby: A May-December Romance (28 page)

T
here's
nothing in the cabinets, yet again. I'm losing weight, I know it, and I can't keep going like this. Practice is too tough, and I'm burning too many calories each day. I can barely stay awake in class. I have so little energy, and even Whitney is starting to notice. Coach is right. I can't survive on pizza and school lunch.

"I'm going out," I say, reaching for my keys. I've only got a quarter tank of gas, but it's all I've got. Fuck it, maybe I can scam Russ's mom into letting me stay for dinner.

"Get in here, boy," Dad says, and I try to ignore him, but I sigh and turn around. Who knows, he doesn't sound all that drunk yet. Maybe he has something useful to say.

"What do you need, Dad?" I ask, surprised to see him off the couch. He's still wearing the same dirty t-shirt from yesterday, though, and the funk that drifts off him tells me its been longer since he had a shower.

"Gimme the money you stole," Dad says, his voice quavering. "I know you stole twenty bucks from my wallet. Give it back!"

"I didn't take any money from you. You used it a week ago, remember? That stuff you brought home in the box, whatever it was? Smelled like turpentine and paint thinner?"

Dad gets in my face, his eyes bloodshot, and I wonder if maybe he's got the DTs. He's certainly been forced to pull back on the booze this month. We're going fucking broke. The only reason I still drive my car to school every day is because I'm worried if I leave it at home, I'm going to come back from practice one day and find that Dad's hawked it for booze money. "You're getting a smart mouth, you son of a bitch. You ain't cursing much anymore, and you've been acting uppity more and more. That little twat that I hear you talking to on the phone making you think you're more than a shit stain on the planet? Or are you stealing money from me to pay for some pussy?"

"You leave her out of it!” I yell, pushing him away. Dad can say what he wants about me, but there is nobody who’s allowed to denigrate Whitney. Maybe he’s right. Maybe since getting together with her, I've started to try and study when I can stay awake, and maybe my language is cleaning up a little bit, but that's not a bad thing. After we made love the week before and then had the homecoming dance, I feel like I could become a better person. "She's better than you!"

Dad comes back with something in his hand, and just before it catches me in the face, I recognize it as the old cordless phone that we still have on the wall. I never use the damn thing anymore. I have my cell, and I'm not even sure if it works. I think the service was shut off a few weeks ago after we got a bunch of notifications in the mail.

The handset cracks when it smashes against the side of my head, and I'm down, blood dripping from my temple. I've been hit harder in football, but before I can recover, Dad kicks me in the ribs, and even if he's just a shell of the man he used to be, he's still got almost two hundred pounds to drive into the kick. Pain explodes in my stomach, and I roll over into a ball while he stomps the shit outta me.

I know I should fight back. I know that I can. I could kick his ass if I wanted. But it's Dad, and even if Whitney makes me feel like I might actually be a good person, inside the four walls of my house, the truth is different, and the beatings have been going on too long. I promise myself that I won't cry though, and at least I hold onto that while he kicks me over and over until he's gasping and out of breath. "Stupid lying little shit," he gasps, spitting on me. "I should just kill you and save the state the trouble later on. You're going to end up in jail, Troy. I know it. You're just going to be some prison bitch who takes it up the ass for protection. That's what you want, isn't it? A big cock up your ass on a nightly basis. You make me sick!"

Dad stops screaming and holds his chest. I hope he's having a heart attack—maybe then the nightmare can stop—but instead, he turns and staggers back toward the living room. "You're eighteen," Dad says as he walks away. "Find your own house to live in. I'm done with you."

I crawl out of the house, drops of blood staining the walkway as I do, and I see our neighbors gather outside as I somehow get into the driver's seat of my car. Well, take a fucking picture, people. It'll last you longer. Come see the truth, that the big man on campus, Silver Lake Falls boy hero, is nothing but a cowardly little punk who runs away from his father. I start up my car and drive off, not caring anymore. I wipe the blood out of my eye every once in a while when it stings, but I make my way to the school, not really knowing why, since my original plan had been to try and find some food. The world swims, and I lean my head back, closing my eyes for just a bit to catch my breath.

There's a knock on my window, and I open my eyes to see Coach Jackson standing outside, a cop car parked behind his Toyota. Great. Dad called the cops on me, and now I'm going to get arrested. I open my door and try to get out, falling to my hands and knees when I try. Just perfect. Now I'm the one who looks like a drunk. "No statement."

Coach bends down and helps me to my feet, and I see his eyes are filled with tears. "Oh, Troy," he whispers, blinking. "Oh, dear God, son, what did he do to you?"

"Nothing I don't deserve," I mumble, trying to focus. "Don't you know, Coach? I'm a piece of shit, just like him. At least you might get a State Championship out of it before I fuck up my life. You know it's going to happen. It's fate. It’s a family tradition.”

Coach Jackson shakes his head, and the cop comes over. I see that it's George Walters, a crusty old coot who is one of the four cops in town, and he's got a camera. George lifts it up and snaps a few photos of my face, then turns to Coach. "Don't worry, Steve. This combined with what the neighbors said when they called in will keep Randy out of the house for a while. The rest depends on Troy here."

I don't understand, but Coach nods, waving George away. "All right, George. Let's get Troy cleaned up and looked to first. I'll take him to Dr. Burrows's clinic, if that's okay."

"That's fine, Steve. Want an escort?"

Coach shakes his head and leads me to his car. I collapse into the passenger seat, and he buckles me in before going around and getting behind the wheel. "I want you to know, Troy, the next few days are going to be tough, but I'll be with you the whole time. First, we're going to go to the clinic, get you patched up and checked out before you come home with me. In the meantime, don't close your eyes even if you want to. You may have a concussion, and I want Doc Burrows to give me a heads up if you're okay."

"Can't have a concussion, Coach," I mutter, leaning my forehead in my hand as he drives away. It's the only way I can keep my chin off my chest. I feel so weak. "If I have a concussion, Roberts is going to have to play QB Friday against Hartsville. No way we get by them with him under center."

"Some things are more important than football, son."

I spend the next two hours at Dr. Burrows's clinic, where it takes five stitches to close up the gash above my left eye, and the doctor tells me that I'm lucky I have a skull that's thicker than your average rhino's. After that, Coach takes me home, where the horror show continues as his wife helps me into some fresh clothes.

"All I've got in your size, Troy, is a team shirt, if you don't mind," Mrs. Jackson says. She's a few years older than Coach, and she has an accent that says she's not from Silver Lake Falls, but I've never been able to peg exactly what it is, even after knowing her for four years. It's kind of Southern, kind of New England. "Sorry, but our boy's nowhere near your age, you know."

The Jacksons have a little boy of their own, Gregory, who's in first grade and cute as hell. He and I have played together before, and usually, he's all up in my face, bugging me to mess around with him whenever I come to Coach's house. This time, though, he's not around, and I gather that they sent him to stay the weekend at his grandparents’ house. "It's fine, Mrs. Jackson. Thanks. I'm sorry to be any trouble."

"Oh, Troy, you've never been trouble," Mrs. Jackson says, wiping away the little bit of crusted blood that escaped Dr. Burrows' cleaning. "Difficult, of course. But I've been doing this for nearly twenty years now, and I've come to know that high school boys are often difficult. But you've never been trouble, Troy."

She leaves me alone to change, and I pull on the shirt and a pair of team shorts, hissing as I have to bend my knees to get my feet through the holes. I'm going to be stiff, and there's practice tomorrow. Shit.

I get out to the living room, where Coach and his wife watch with careful eyes as I walk across to the kitchen table and sit down. "Thank you. I guess I screwed up, didn't I?"

Coach shakes his head, and Mrs. Jackson leaves to go into the kitchen, opening the fridge. "Troy, you're not going to blame yourself, got it?" He says, his eyes burning with intensity. "What Randy did . . . there's bad parenting, and then there's damn evil. What he did to you this morning . . . that was evil. You have nothing to be ashamed of or to blame yourself for."

His words fall on my ears like lightning bolts, and I'm trying not to cry as Mrs. Jackson brings me a glass of milk. "But it's not all bad, Troy. Actually, Steve was looking for you at your house. You'd just left a little early. He’s got some wonderful news for you."

"What's that?" I ask, sipping the milk. It's cold and delicious, and it helps. I chug the rest, and I realize it's been days since I had milk, since school lunch on Friday had unsweetened tea instead. "Hartsville's running back broke his leg?"

"No, but you don't need to worry about that for now," Coach said. "I got a call from Los Angeles today. I don't know if you knew it, but there were some scouts from the Pacific Conference at Homecoming last week."

"I met one, but I didn't think much of it. I was, well, distracted by other things."

He nods, and Mrs. Jackson takes my glass, going back to the fridge before coming back with it and the rest of the half-gallon container. "Here. We can buy all you want later."

"Thank you. So what was the call, Coach?"

"Well, they can't offer it officially until Friday afternoon, you know, but the head coach of Clement University wants to offer you a full-ride scholarship to play for them next year."

I’m floored, and I have to set the milk glass down on the table before I drop it. "What? What about State?"

He sobers and shakes his head. "Nothing yet from State, but if you want my opinion, I think Clement's a better fit for you anyway. I was meaning to have this conversation with you after the season, but this is as good a time as any, and with the scholarship offers coming in soon, we need to talk. Troy, you're a hell of a high school quarterback, but you're a runner. You can pass, but our lack of passing isn't all on the receivers. You don't have that natural ability to drop back and accept that the defensive linemen are coming to try and hit you like a great QB should. A QB like Manning, Brady, guys like that, they don't engage the linemen. They avoid them with tiny little steps and get the ball off even if it means they take a lick right afterward. It's part of their nature, and coupled with their arm strength, it makes them great QBs. You're a naturally combative guy, and despite four years of coaching from me, you're still naturally combative."

"I like the contact," I admit, "but that's a good thing, right?"

"For a linebacker, yes. For a quarterback, not so much," Coach says. “Did you know that about a third of all the guys in the NFL, almost all of the skill players, they played quarterback in high school? You know why? Because coaches like me know the best chance they have to win is to put the ball in the hands of their best athlete as often as possible. I'm both cursed and lucky in that our school is small enough I can play you both ways without getting a ton of flack from the boosters. You're a good enough natural athlete that even when you're tired or a little beat up, you're better than ninety-nine percent of the kids we face. But at the college level, everyone is like that, and the pros are the best of the best of the college players."

"So what are you saying? That I shouldn't play quarterback?"

Coach nods. "That's exactly what I'm saying. If you go to State, they'll play you at QB. They've got an option offense, and that produces a ton of great linemen and running backs for the NFL, but it doesn't produce good QBs. It produces QBs who've taken a pounding so massive, they're no good in the NFL. They don't know how to read defenses, they don't know how to sit in the pocket, all the things that a good NFL QB can do. Clement runs a pro-style offense."

"But they're stacked at QB. Last I checked, they're three deep with a returning senior, a junior, and two sophomores, and that's not including whoever else they recruit. So what do I do?"

"You be who you are," he says, giving me a tight smile. "You're a smart player, Troy. And depending on how you finish growing, you'd make one hell of a pro-level linebacker. Clement needs good linebackers, and they run a 3-4, just like we do. And face it, you like smashing people out there."

I nod, admitting it before I think of a problem. "Contracts for linebackers aren't as big as they are for quarterbacks though."

Coach nods. "But salaries for star linebackers are a lot bigger than salaries for guys who get cut from the scout team. Think about it."

I do, and I shake my head. "It's a lot to think about. Can I just chill on it for a few days?"

"Of course. In the meantime, you're having dinner with my family tonight, and if you want a bed, it's yours as well."

"What about Dad?" I ask.

"Randy's going to be spending at least a few days in jail for assault, maybe more. Why?"

"It's my house," I say, looking out the window. "All my stuff is there. And it wouldn't be right to mooch off you or someone else."

Coach studies me for a moment, then comes over and lays a strong hand on my shoulder. It's hard to believe that this hand belongs to a history teacher. "That, more than anything, is the reason I believe that you can make it to the pros. We'll help you out as we can, though."