Pop (22 page)

Surely that gave Marcus the right to play this
his
way—the way he'd learned from the master. When in doubt, get out there and hit somebody.

The play from the bench was a pass, but Marcus called an audible for a halfback draw. He dropped into the pocket, faked a throw, and slapped the ball into Ron's breadbasket. Then he targeted the biggest monster on the Warriors' line and planted his shoulder so deep into the guy's abdomen that he knocked him back a full five yards. Expecting a pass, the defense was caught flat-footed. By the time they recovered, Ron was through the hole and gone. They managed to haul him down from behind, but by then he had galloped sixty yards. Two plays later, Marcus was in the end zone on a quarterback sneak.

The fans came back to life, and so did Coach Barker, whose head was in full bobble as the crowd roared its approval.

Marcus was so excited that he nearly botched the hold on the extra point. But somehow the kicker managed to get the ball between the uprights, and the Raiders had cut the deficit to 14–10.

On the sidelines Coach Barker greeted his quarterback with an ecstatic bear hug, then held him at arm's length and bawled, “You're not running my plays!”

“It's the shoes.” Marcus grinned. “They pinch.”

Barker stared at him, perplexed, but he asked no questions. He did not want to argue with the sole ray of sunshine on this dark day.

As Marcus took the field to play cornerback on defense, Alyssa grasped his arm as he passed her. “One more score, Marcus! I know you can do it!”

He inclined his head toward Troy on the bench. “What happened to him?”

“Can't really tell.” She turned uncharacteristically serious. “I'm kind of worried about him.”

And before he could reply, a whistle called him into formation.

The Raiders' defense held firm, and four plays later, Marcus was back under center, armed with another Barker play that he didn't intend to execute. No football team had anything in the playbook that made a hard-hitting blocker out of the quarterback. But that's exactly what Marcus was now—taking on much larger opponents, running right over them, and then looking for someone else to flatten. The Raiders' offense ground out yardage with old-school smashmouth football, gaining five or six yards at a try, piling up first downs. Then, just when the Warriors had settled in to defend the running attack, Marcus uncorked a long pass to Calvin, who had snuck unobserved into the end zone: 17–14, Raiders. The crowd went berserk.

Tasting victory, the defense returned to protect its three-point lead for the final four minutes.
One more stop should do it
, Marcus thought, lining up at cornerback. Then they could play possession and eat up the clock.

Running out of time, the visitors grew desperate, launching hurried passes their receivers had little chance of catching. Soon it was fourth and ten, and the Warriors' offense had no choice but to try a Hail Mary. The long throw was tipped at the line of scrimmage, and it twirled in a lofty arc—a high-flying bean in the late-afternoon sky, anybody's ball.

Marcus was determined to get there first. He was airborne, diving for the spot where it would come down. He registered the touch of his fingertips on the pigskin, the texture of the laces as he began to gather it in.

He was so focused on making the catch that he never saw the offensive lineman, even though the kid must have weighed nearly three hundred pounds. He was running full out when his knee slammed into Marcus's helmet. The impact was like being hit by a small car.

Marcus heard rather than felt the collision and was aware of a violent motion deep inside his skull.

Pop!

Darkness.

T
he kiss was soft and—skillful?

Marcus had no idea where he was, but as he rose through hazy semiconsciousness, he knew the unmistakable silky pressure of lips against his own.

Am I dreaming?

It felt like a dream—those last few seconds before waking.

But whose lips—?

Troy grabbed Alyssa by the back of the cheerleading tunic and yanked her off Marcus's prostrate form. “
Jeez
, Lyss—”

She cut him off. “He's waking up!”

Marcus's eyelids fluttered.

Dr. Prossky held a tiny bottle of smelling salts under the injured player's nose. Marcus's head jerked as he tried to avoid the powerful odor, and he sat up in the coach's arms.

“Easy, kid,” Barker ordered. “You're okay.”

Marcus took in the stadium, the crowd noise, the circle of anxious faces around him.

The coach answered his unasked question. “You got kneed in the coconut by a bull moose.”

Dr. Prossky shone a penlight into Marcus's eyes. “Pupils are responding.” He held up a V-for-victory sign. “How many fingers?”

Marcus's returning focus shifted from the doctor's hand to the scoreboard. “Three.”

“Three?”
bawled the coach.

Marcus struggled to his feet. “Three-point game.” He picked up his helmet and crammed it down over his head.

The rush was sudden and violent, like an explosion inside his skull. For one frantic moment, he was afraid he might leave his lunch on the turf in front of him. The nausea passed, but the tight headgear caused a persistent ringing in his ears.

Barker gazed anxiously into his quarterback's eyes. “You're good to go, right?”

“I'm fine,” Marcus replied firmly, figuring if he said it enough, that would make it so. And he felt fine—sort of. Except for that rice pudding where his knees used to be. Jogging in place made that go away, but it amped up the ringing, so he could hardly hear it when the doctor pronounced him fit to return to the game.

Everyone looked to the unofficial member of the Raiders' coaching staff—the head cheerleader.

Alyssa shrugged. “It's a contact sport. You can't take out every guy who gets his bell rung. Otherwise there'd be nobody left on the field.”

“I agree,” put in Dr. Prossky. “This isn't uncommon.”

Barker put his arm around Marcus's shoulders. “Okay, kid, this is almost over. Just get in there and hand off quick. The guys will protect you. And for God's sake, no more of that blocking. Okay, go.”

“Don't,” came a quiet voice behind them.

Troy.

The coach frowned mightily. “Stay out of this, Popovich. Who asked you?”

“Don't do it, man,” Troy told Marcus. “I'll take the snaps.”

“What about your broken hand?” the coach demanded.

“I said I'll take the snaps.”

Marcus regarded him in suspicion. “This is my game. Let me finish it.”

“Don't,” Troy repeated softly. “You don't want to end up like him.”

“End up like
who
?” the coach bawled. “What are you talking about?”

Marcus bit back an angry comeback. Even in his muzzy state, he couldn't help but notice what was different about this conversation. Troy
never
brought up the subject of his father and the illness that was slowly destroying him. This was as good as a lie detector test. He was trying to do the right thing—for someone he obviously loathed. It was as heroic as anything he had ever accomplished on a football field.

Marcus pulled off his helmet, struggling to tune out the ringing. “Maybe I am a little dizzy,” he admitted, and took a seat on the bench.

Barker was close to hysterics. “
Somebody
get in there!”

Troy began to unwrap the tape around his ice pack.

T
roy Popovich ran seven plays for a total of twenty-four yards and two first downs. It was a remarkably unheroic drive in an otherwise stellar high school career, but it was enough to kill the clock and win the game for the Raiders.

It was also the last time Number Seven would ever play football.

At practice on Monday, he simply was not there. Coach Barker communicated the news to his stunned team with his usual deadpan delivery. Troy was out; Marcus was in. “Drop and give me twenty push-ups.”

If Troy had told the coach the reason for his sudden retirement, Barker was opting to guard the privacy of the quarterback who had brought so much success to DNA football.

“Does he really have a broken hand?” Ron probed.

“He has
none of your business
, Rorschach!” Barker snapped. “Here's what this means to you. Popovich used to be QB. Now it's Jordan. Got it? It's not rocket science.”

The final hurdle in the way of Marcus's ascension to the starting job was cleared after practice in the office of Kennesaw's general practitioner.

“I see no ill effects whatsoever,” proclaimed Dr. Antilla. “If there was brain trauma, it must have been very slight.”

“I sat out for nothing,” Marcus said.

The doctor shook his head. “There's an odd math to concussions. One plus one doesn't equal two. When they're close together, one plus one equals fifty. Some sports researchers have begun to draw connections between frequent concussions and neurological disorders like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.”

“I think I heard something about that,” Marcus mumbled unhappily.

And now Mom had heard about it, too, which meant the cat was out of the bag. “Marcus, I don't know about this anymore. Are you sure you're safe?”

“Is anybody?” he challenged her.

“I don't care about anybody. I only care about you. It's pretty obvious that Troy Popovich got so spooked that he had to quit.”

“We can't know for sure what Troy was thinking,” Marcus reminded her. “We don't read minds, and even if we did, Troy's wouldn't be my choice of reading material.”

“Well, how would
you
explain it?” she persisted. “I'm told Troy was the best ever around here. What else would make him give it up?”

The best ever.
Even from my own mother
.

“Maybe that's the whole point, Mom. Troy
wasn't
the best because he
could
give it up. He was good, but there was something missing—the desire, the passion for the game. He just didn't…”

His voice trailed off. He'd almost finished with
He just didn't love the pop
, but that probably wasn't the best thing for Barbara Jordan to hear right then. Still, tragedy affected people in different ways, and it made sense that it would affect Charlie's son most of all. Troy had to hang up his cleats; Marcus couldn't wait to get back in there and cream somebody. To him, that was the ultimate tribute to the King of Pop.

Aloud, he said, “I promise I'll be safe. I'll know when it's time to get off the field.”

But
would
he know? On Saturday, he'd been all gung ho to finish the game. Jerk or not, he'd always owe Troy for keeping him on the sidelines.

Mrs. Jordan's interest in Charlie's condition wasn't just a campaign to scare Marcus off football. Mom was so genuinely relieved to learn from Officer Deluca that her son wasn't a juvenile delinquent—that Marcus's mystery accomplice actually existed—that she was blabbing it to everybody who would listen.

“Jeez, Mom, respect the guy's privacy!” Marcus exploded. “How would you like your private family business advertised on a Times Square billboard?”

“Well, I have to tell your father,” she reasoned. “We need to quash whatever ideas he might have gotten about having me declared an unfit parent.”

“Fine, but only Stalin. And maybe his lawyer.”

“And my boss at the paper,” she added. “He sees the police blotter, Marcus! Humor me, will you? I'm so happy you're not in trouble anymore. According to Michael—”

“Michael?”

“Officer Deluca. He said the fact that you were just covering for Charlie changes everything about your case.”

That was a positive development. But… Michael?

The plot thickened on Tuesday, when Marcus returned from practice to find Officer Deluca ensconced at the kitchen table.

“Great—you're home,” said Mrs. Jordan. “Tell him, Michael.”

“The December second court date has been canceled—all charges dropped,” Deluca announced. “You're clean, Marcus.”

He was grateful to be off the hook for Charlie's antics against Kenneth Oliver, but why hadn't the officer delivered the news by phone? The only thing worse than trouble with the cops was having Mike Deluca hitting on your mother.

Maybe he was reading too much into it. On the other hand, Mom deserved to be happy. Seventeen years of marriage to Comrade Stalin—if there was ever a definition of “suffered enough,” that had to be it. Now she had freedom, the Gunks, and a nonfelon for a son. Barbara Jordan had finally hit the trifecta. Good for her.

But he drew the line at Mom telling her editor the real reason behind Marcus's legal problems. “Let him think I'm an ax murderer for all I care. You can't tell a small-town paper that its most famous citizen has Alzheimer's.”