Chapter 19: A Winning Season

Jack managed to finagle a ride home with a couple of cheerleaders who were juniors. I have no idea if he got anything more from them than a lift home, and I didn’t want to know. One of these days my brother’s love life was going to bite him in the ass. Some girl was going to find him with another girl, and there would be hell to pay. Hopefully she wouldn’t be carrying a weapon when that happened.

The Sports Section headline Saturday morning was “UNDERDOG PIONEERS CRUSH WARRIORS!” I had no idea why they still considered us an underdog and not worthy of playing against the Warriors. I wondered if the Sports Editor had a kid playing for East Matucket. This was our thirteenth straight regular season victory and East Matucket had a losing season last year. The actual article was mostly fair and played it straight. A second short article wasn’t as balanced and focused on the intimidating brutality of the Goon Squad and how various East Matucket parents were demanding an investigation. That was going to go nowhere, of that we were all sure.

Saturday morning, we all went back over to the school to watch the JV game. The Matucket side of the field was pretty raucous, but the East Matucket side looked pretty surly. The cops were out in force again. Most of the talk in the stands was about the varsity game the night before.

The first thing just about anybody asked was the status of Dix Vercolo. He wasn’t there, and nobody had heard anything the other night. I know that Coach Summers was planning on heading over to the hospital after the game, but none of us knew anything. Dax was at Georgia State as a freshman, and Dix was his kid brother. We’d have to ask Coach when we saw him.

That moved into our need for a new kicker. Terry was decent enough in practice, but when out on the playing field with big hairy monsters racing in for him, he froze up and caved under the pressure. I could see Coach Summers down on the sidelines talking to Coach Halifax, and the conversation tended to get more animated anytime the sophomore kicker on the JV team, Will Tyrell, was out on the field. Most of us had a funny feeling that Will was going to get a promotion shortly, and Coach Halifax was going to be pissed at Coach Summers. I figured we could ask him at halftime.

The other topic, at least among the rest of my teammates, was our new middle linebacker. Brax had the perfect take on it. “It’s a good thing you’re graduating at the end of the season, Grim, because otherwise he’d be taking your job!”

“We’ll see. One game does not make a career. You guys have him already in the Hall of Fame!”

“I’m just saying, watch your ass, bro!”

Brax wasn’t too worried about being replaced. College scouts and coaches were already starting to snoop around, asking questions, and making phone calls to Coach Summers. There were a lot of rules about talking to the students themselves, but coaches were fair game. There were two graduating seniors this year who were locks for Division I bids. The most obvious was Speed Demon, who had over 400 yards receiving in his first three games, along with seven touchdowns and another hundred yards rushing. He was either at or near the lead in every major offensive category in the state.

The other guy being looked at by the colleges was his defensive counterpart, Brax Hughes. Brax had more interceptions and touchdowns than any other defensive player in the state! He was so fast that Coach Summers was talking about putting him in as a kickoff return specialist on our special team, a position normally only held by wide receivers and running backs from the offense. Brax was going to go Division I for sure.

Other than those two, the rest of us were questionable for college. We were pretty good, and we really had come together as a team, but that was it. Somebody might get a Division II or III bid, or a chance for a walk-on at some school, but that was it, and that was questionable at best. Certainly, nobody was looking at me, for example, at least nobody but the U.S. Army.

The Army was still interested. Sergeant Donaldson was at the JV game, and he came over to me in the stands. I saw him and waved. “Sergeant, how’s it going?” I asked.

“Just fine, Graham, just fine. Can I talk to you for a moment?”

“Sure, have a seat.” I shifted sideways, and Kelly shifted, so the sergeant could sit down.

Instead, he shook his head and said, “Let’s take a walk.”

I looked over at Kelly and gave her a curious look but stood up. “Hold my seat.” I climbed down to the ground and asked, “What’s up?”

“Just curious. Are you working out with some of the guys?”

I nodded. “More like they’re working out with me. Clyde Wilcox asked me to help him, and then he brought around a few more of the guys. Is there a problem?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet. What are you doing?” he asked.

“Nothing much, just basic diet and exercise stuff. They come to football practice after school and exercise over on the sidelines and run some laps. Coach Summers knows about it and lets them, at least if they’re students. Something about insurance, he said. I also got on them about eating better, no junk food, that sort of stuff. I even made Clyde show me his lunch bag the first few days, until he got the idea. He’s doing some exercise and eating better at home, too, I think.” I looked at him oddly. “Have I done something wrong, Sergeant? Am I in trouble or something?”

“No. I just wanted to find out what was going on. You haven’t been at our weekend exercise sessions since your season started, but your buddies have been, and they have been losing weight and doing better on their physical tests. That’s the sort of thing we want to see, and they all gave you a lot of the credit,” he told me.

I pointed out at the field. “I might not know much about how the Army works, Sergeant, but I know how teams work. I’ve been on one since I could pick up a football! You need people to help you. It’s not just me who’s been helping, either. Once they got used to the idea, a lot of my teammates have been helping these guys.”

“Graham, it’s more than that. It’s leadership. Let me know if you need some help with this. When the season’s over, you’re back with me on Saturdays.” He looked back at the stands where Kelly and the rest of the guys were. “You guys going to go to State this year?”

“All the way, Sergeant, all the way!”

He laughed. “Good luck, Graham. I’ll see you around.”

“Thanks, Sergeant.”

I went back up into the stands and sat down with Kelly. “What was that all about?” she asked.

“Just some stuff about the Army. He reminded me that when the season’s over I need to work out on Saturdays down at the recruiting center.”

She looked at me strangely. “This is real, isn’t it? You’re really going to join the Army.”

I nodded. “I really think I will. I don’t think I’ll make a career of it but so far, it’s the only thing that has at all interested me since I started trying to figure out what I’m doing after I get out of here.”

“It’s just so strange thinking about not having you around. I mean, aside from the time we spent in New York, I feel like I’ve had you my entire life!” she replied.

“It would have happened anyway,” I told her. “You’re going to be off at Harvard or someplace, and the only way I’m going to be there is if I get a job working in the kitchen! We’ll be good. Don’t worry about it.”

Kelly hugged me, but we got distracted when Will Tyrell hit another perfect point after. I heard Tony Vancuso comment, “We need to hire this guy!”

He said it a little too loud. A few steps lower in the bleachers was Terry Toussaint, who looked around glumly. “Hey, I’m sorry. I know I screwed up, okay.”

I moved down behind Terry and grabbed his shoulders from behind. “So, what! We don’t care! You’re still a Pioneer! We’ll all keep practicing and we’ll all keep scoring and we’ll all keep winning. Screw it! Forget about it!” I shook him gently and got him to laughing.

“Yeah, forget it, Terry!” added Tony. “Even if you miss the kick, we’re going to have Moose and Bull pick you up and use you as a battering ram!”

“Don’t sweat it Terry,” I told him. “You’re an asshole, but you’re our asshole!”

“You’re a lot of help, Grim!” he replied.

We got Terry laughing, and I went back up to sit with Kelly. Anything else was interrupted by some more cheering as halftime began.

At halftime we dug up Coach and asked him about Dix. The answer was that he didn’t really know yet, but it probably wasn’t good. “I went over to the hospital last night and spoke with his father, but Dix was in with a doctor and his mother. He’s on some painkillers right now. They were hoping for the swelling to come down and then they’ll run some tests this week.”

“He out for the season?” asked Tony.

“He’s probably out forever,” replied Coach Summers. “The bones aren’t broken, but that would be easier to heal than torn ligaments and tendons. He might never play again.”

“So, what are we doing about a kicker,” I asked, quietly. Terry was still in the stands with his girlfriend.

Coach glanced in Terry’s direction but didn’t say anything other than, “We’ll see, Mister Reaper. We’ll see. You worry about your own position.”

“Yes, sir.”

The JV Pioneers squeaked out a win, 17-14. They were a good team, but if the varsity kept stealing their players, they weren’t going to have a perfect record for much longer. As long as the varsity kept winning, however, nobody would complain. I figured Will Tyrell was going to show up Monday afternoon for practice.

Dix showed up at school on Monday, after getting a lift from his mom. He was hobbling around on crutches, with his right leg all wrapped up in Ace bandages. I wasn’t there when he got to school, but I ran across him at lunch. One of the cheerleaders was carrying his books, which made me think they were dating. Well, as the saying goes, chicks dig scars! Most of us gathered around and quizzed him. “I got out of the hospital yesterday morning,” he told us. “I read the paper. You guys did all right!”

“Payback’s a bitch, man!” said Tyrell Vander.

“Good! Sonsabitches needed to be taught a lesson!” responded Dix.

“You going to be good?” I asked.

Dix shook his head sadly. “My knee is all fucked up. They think I have a torn ACL and maybe some other stuff wrong. I’m going for X-rays and CAT scans and stuff the end of the week, and I’ll probably need surgery. I’m out for the rest of the season. I’m going to need physical therapy just to be able to walk again.”

“Shit!” I muttered.

“We should have hurt them more,” commented Tony. Several other people agreed with him.

“You talk to Dax yet?” Bo asked.

Dix grinned. “What an asshole! The first thing he asked me was if we won! How I was doing was his second question, the son of a bitch!” That caused all of us to laugh.

“You’ll get better,” I told him. “Remember me last year? I was all messed up! Just be glad you don’t have to use the wheelchair. I had a broken leg and a broken arm at the same time.”

“Screw that! This thing is bad enough as it is. Do you realize I’ve never even had stitches up until now, and now I’m looking at multiple surgeries? This sucks!”

We all sympathized with him, and Jennifer Lemon, the cheerleader who was helping him, gave him a hug. I raised an eyebrow at this, and he gave me a smile and a shrug. Well, good for Dix. Maybe she’d provide him with some physical therapy that wouldn’t be normally prescribed by the doctors. Couldn’t hurt, anyway.

As we all suspected, Will Tyrell showed up that afternoon for practice, wearing the red shirt that meant we weren’t supposed to pound on him. I didn’t know him very well, but my brother did, and he made the introductions. Terry went back to being our backup kicker. Will spent a lot of time practicing with us that week. He had decent accuracy, and he was a lot ballsier than Terry was, but didn’t quite have the speed and strength to go long distances yet. Still, he was a sophomore, and he might pick up more power as he got older. Most of us felt that even if he wasn’t a Eugene Strackmeyer or Dix Vercolo he was still a shitload better than nothing, which was what Terry Toussaint effectively was. No, we didn’t say that to Terry. He felt bad enough as it was. We felt positive going into our next game on Friday.

Our fourth game was against Pebblebrook High School in Mableton. This was the perfect example of what happened when you started getting cocky. Yes, we won, but it took an overtime field goal to do it, and the final score was 17-14. The Falcons damn near handed us our asses on a couple of occasions. Coach Summers didn’t have to chew on us all that much to convince us to knock our shit off and stop screwing around. They were a very unpleasant reminder of that.

The following week it was an off week; we didn’t have a game, but we did have practice anyway. Dix had surgery that week, and it was both his ACL and his MCL, or medial collateral ligament which had been trashed, along with a torn lateral meniscus. Dix said it was something called O’Donaghue’s Triad. He was going to need surgery followed by physical therapy and a knee brace, and it would take until the end of the school year to be decently healed up. No way was he playing college football now. On the bright side, if he did what he was supposed to do, and did the rehab and therapy, he would probably be able to live a perfectly normal life otherwise, without pain or a limp. That was a positive outlook.

When we came back from our break, it was time to start playing some serious and error-free football. We had been chastened by our narrow victory over the Falcons. We had six weeks to go in the regular season. Our next two games were non-regional games, facing the Kennesaw Mountain Mustangs and the Osborne Cardinals. We took both games by twenty-point margins or more. After that it was back to Region Three for the rest of the season.

We had played the Mustangs on their home field in Kennesaw, but we played Osborne in Matucket. That was October 11, our Homecoming weekend. The day was warm and dry, perfect fall football weather. It cooled off enough that evening that the back seat of the Sienna was a better choice than out under the stars up at the lake for the private after-dance after-party. Still, it worked out pretty good, romance wise. Ever since we had rigged up the dock, Kelly and I would go up on weekends and putter around the place, fixing it up. The lawn furniture was cleaned or replaced, we created a small fire pit and built a small pile of kindling and tinder if we wanted a campfire, and we replaced the ancient blankets and ground cloths with newer and cleaner versions. During the summer we would go up there on weekends, sometimes with friends, but often it was just the two of us. We’d start a small campfire, and just lounge around watching the lake as the sun set, and then make love under the stars.

Homecoming weekend we did pretty much the same, though we didn’t get up there until dark, and the temperature was down in the sixties. We just snuggled under a blanket together and created some heat of our own. Kelly had gone for dramatic at the dance, with a very short and very tight white mini-dress that she must have been poured into. My eyes had popped open wide when I saw her in it when I drove over to pick her up. Once we got outside, I said, “Holy shit! Your mother let you buy that?”

“Well, I don’t think she’s really happy with it, but she didn’t tell me no. Grim, it’s not like she doesn’t know that you and I are having sex.”

“Maybe so, but she seems pretty calm about it.”

Kelly shrugged, which did something wonderful to the cleavage I could see. The top of the dress was slightly off-shoulder and dipped down to highlight her bust. “Mom’s pretty progressive in that regard. We’ve certainly talked about sex, even before you and I started. It’s like I told you last year. When Randy and his gang tried to grab me and rape me, the possibility that I would one day have sex went from more than just a probability to a real concern. There is no way I would want to have the baby of a rapist! That’s why I got the IUD and that’s why Mom and I have talked about it.”

I nodded. “No, I would imagine that would really suck.” She looked over at me. “I won’t bullshit you and say I know what it would be like. I don’t. For what it’s worth, though, I’ve heard that it can be even more traumatic for guys who get raped, like in prison. Another good reason not to go to jail, I guess.”

“Yuck!”

“Yeah, yuck. So, you and your mom have talked, but I’m guessing you didn’t have that conversation with your dad.”

Kelly giggled. “Daddy’s a little more old-fashioned, probably because he grew up in Ireland. No, we didn’t have that talk, at least not until he came home early that time.” I groaned at that reminder. “I don’t think he’d have let me out of the house in this dress.”

“Good thing he’s in London this week. Hopefully the next time he comes back I’ll be out of the country or something.”

“It’s next weekend, so I’ll drive over to your place,” she told me.

“Deal!”

By that point people began whispering about going to the playoffs again. We were 6-0 for the season. Since the top four teams from each region went to the playoffs, even if we lost the rest of the season we were probably still going to the playoffs. I heard somebody say that and I shut them down quick. The goal now wasn’t just making the playoffs. The goal now was an undefeated season! We had done it last year, and we would damn well do it again!

Our seventh game was against Langston Hughes in Fairburn. I’d never played them before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. They were supposed to be a good team, with a big school to draw from, but that didn’t mean much this year. Matucket High was one of the smaller schools in Class 5-A, but we had been kicking ass and taking names all season long. So far, our cumulative score was 193-60; we were outscoring our larger, richer, and better equipped rivals by more than three to one!

The Langston Hughes Panthers came out through a breakaway banner with their school motto, ‘UNITED IN THE PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE!’ That was about as thrilling as ‘WISDOM AND EXCELLENCE!’ It sure didn’t have the drama and spirit of ‘EAT ‘EM ALIVE AND S*IT OUT THE BONES!’, now up high in the stands. The Panthers also didn’t have the drama and spirit of the Pioneers. We ate them alive; we shit out the bones. Final score: Pioneers 36, Panthers 10.

Our next victim, on the last Friday of October, was Campbell High in Smyrna. We had played them last year, and we whipped them last year, and this year we were even a stronger team. We whipped them handily, beating them, as my grandfather would say, like a rented mule. They might have been named the Spartans, but they played like the Persians. At least that’s what Kelly said, although only a few of us understood the reference. Bo had to explain it to me later. “Uh, huh. Just remember, the Persians might have lost the war, but they beat the Spartans at a place called Thermopylae,” I told him.

“I never said it was a great analogy. Take it up with Kelly,” he said, shrugging.

“You know, sometimes I think you smart guys are too smart for your own good.”

He grinned at me. “Take that up with Kelly, too!”

By Game Nine, we were basically a lock for the playoffs, and were probably the top seed for our region. So far, we had been undefeated, just like last year, and were the only undefeated team in the region. Curiously, there was a possibility that we might face one of the teams we had already defeated when we got to the playoffs. The rules were that the top four teams in each region went to the playoffs. In fact, it was theoretically possible for the top four teams to come from a single region.

How could that happen? Thirty-two teams, the top four from each of the eight regions, went to the playoffs. They got divvied up into four groups of eight teams each, one team from each region per group. After the first playoff game you were down to four teams. After the second playoff game you were down to two teams. Those two teams played each other in the quarter-final game, to determine the winner of their grouping. It would be theoretically possible for the four teams in a region to all win in their individual groupings, and thus face each other in the semi-finals and championship, though Kelly worked it out and said there was only two-hundredths of a percent chance that this could occur, assuming all the teams were of equal talent.

It wasn’t even that likely. The various teams were not of equal talent, so it wasn’t a random event. For instance, we would be the top seed in Region Three, so in our first playoff game, we would be facing the fourth seed in Region Four. We had already beaten three of the Region Four teams in regular season play and would be facing their fourth best team. It might even be one of the teams we had already beaten! Likewise, somebody else, a higher seed in another grouping, would be facing Region Three’s lower seeded teams, and would probably be beating them. That’s not to say miracles didn’t happen, but it would probably take a real Act-of-God miracle for the four Region Three teams to all make it to the semi-finals.

Our last two games of the regular season were against Westlake High in Atlanta and then Newnan High down in Newnan. Both teams put up a fight, but we were in the zone all season long. We whipped on both the Lions and the Cougars and forced the Mercy Rule in both games. We were going to the playoffs undefeated, as the top seed in Region Three.

Most of the season I was playing with a wrist brace on my left wrist. I had sprained it playing against East Matucket back in our third game, and then reinjured it in the fourth quarter against Pebblebrook. I needed the two weeks off to let it heal. That worked for another couple of games, but then in the game against Hughes I injured it again. For the rest of the season, I kept it in a heavy wrist brace, and for games we would tape over it. It wasn’t like I needed the wrist supple so I could catch a football, since that was impossible in any case. No, I just needed to be able to get in reach of somebody so I could grab them and drag them to the ground. Subtlety wasn’t a requirement.

Our first playoff game was against the Region Four fourth-seeded team, which happened to be Kennesaw Mountain. We had already beaten them during the regular season, 42-20, and we saw no reason not to do it again. As the top seed, we were playing host. The game was Friday night, November 15, the week after the regular season ended. There were no more off weeks until the state championship game on December 13. That was played at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta!

Kennesaw Mountain was tougher than we expected, but not tough enough to win. We had beaten them before, and we beat them again. The final score was 34-17. For me, though, the celebration that night felt premature. The next week we would play in the second round of the playoffs, against the winner of a Region Five and Region Six match. In fact, the winner of that game was Alpharetta from Region Six, the same team that had kicked us out of the playoffs last year. They had beaten us 14-13, only winning when Eugene missed the point after in the fourth quarter. That was a real heartbreaker. The Raiders hadn’t made it much further, though, losing in the quarterfinals.

We were tougher this year, older and more experienced than their team. They were still tough bastards, though, and we played dead even through the third quarter. It was 14-14 halfway through the fourth quarter when we finally caught a break. They had to punt, and Speed Demon took it all the way to the Raider 5. Randy Thibodeaux then pulled off a quarterback sneak that just barely broke through to the goal line, but it did manage to cross the plane, so it counted. Will Tyrell then kicked the point after. That made it 21-14, and we put it away in the middle of the next Raider drive, after we kicked it back to them. Brax Hughes snagged an interception and took it all the way home. The final score was Pioneers 28, Raiders 14, but it felt a lot closer than that. It was brutally close for the first forty minutes of the game.

Most of us were limping as we left the field. My brother Jack joined me on the semi-injured list with a sprained wrist of his own. Coach Summers once told us that the real state champion wasn’t the best team, but the team that simply survived the longest through fifteen games. I could believe it! How in the hell the pros did it for eighteen games in the pre-season and the regular season and then survived through the playoffs was beyond me. As much as I loved playing football, I wasn’t sure I could handle that.

On the other hand, chicks dig scars, and cheerleaders dig football players. An injured football player was a football player who was likely to get some very sympathetic and personal nursing that evening. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure about my brother, but I didn’t think he was a virgin any longer. I mean, it wasn’t like I had ever walked in on him, and I wasn’t snooping through his drawers to see if he had a box of rubbers hidden away. However, even though he was still fifteen and a sophomore he had a lot of junior cheerleaders offering to give him a ride home after some mandatory time at the Pizza Palace after a game. In this he played it smart, since I had stressed the importance of keeping his big fat yap shut when talking about his girlfriends. Guys who told about who or what they were doing were guys who wouldn’t be doing it much more! Kelly actually found out more information from her side of the War Between The Sexes than I found out from him.

In any case, our victory over Alpharetta put us into the semi-finals for our grouping. We would be playing the top dog from Regions One, Two, Seven, and Eight. Our opponent was Collins Hill High, from way the hell over in Suwanee. That was over on the far side of Atlanta, about halfway to Athens, probably two hours away. They had only lost one regular season game and were the top seed in Region Seven, and since the top seed got to play at home, and we were both top seeds, they had to flip a coin ahead of time to see who would play at home. We won, thank God! Still, we wouldn’t be playing at Matucket High. We didn’t have the seating capacity to act as host. We would be playing over at Matucket State, which was pretty cool. They had some great facilities over there, and the Eagles wouldn’t need to borrow the girl’s locker room.

The Eagles were, without a doubt, going to be a bitch. They were supposedly the largest high school in all of Georgia. They had something like 4,000 students there, more than both Matucket and East Matucket combined! Why they didn’t split the place in two was beyond me. I mentioned this to Kelly, and she started up again about Gaussian distributions and standard deviations. I made the time-out sign and said, “Put it in English, babe.”

“Their smallest player is probably going to be bigger than your biggest player. Is that English enough for you?” she replied.

“Your English sucks. Start speaking math again,” I answered.

None of this really mattered. We were going to have to play the game with the team we had, as big or as small as we already were. It was too late to go out and find a bunch of bigger and better guys. We just went to practice after school every day and prepared as best we could.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, and we had dinner over at Uncle Dave and Aunt Laurie’s. We alternated each year between our house and theirs. Grandma and Grandpa always came, too. Nana and Papa were visiting Uncle Joe and his family in Savannah. We invited Kelly and her mom, because it’s no fun to have Thanksgiving without family, but it turned out her father had flown back for a long weekend. I decided to not visit Kelly that weekend, and she promised to come over after dinner for dessert. The weather was damn chilly - down in the thirties! - and I just hoped like hell it warmed up before the game on Friday night.

Friday was warmer, up into the forties, which was still chilly for Georgia. By the afternoon it had moved up into the mid-fifties, but it stalled there and started dropping as the sun set. There was a blustery cold wind coming out of the west, too, which would probably raise hell with our kicking and passing games. The only good thing I could say was that at least it wasn’t raining.

Friday night we took the bus over to Matucket State. We were playing at Boleson Stadium, named for somebody nobody had ever heard of but who had donated a shitload of bucks to get it named after him. We got off the bus and walked in and looked around. Matucket State wasn’t all that big a state college, but it was a whole lot bigger than Matucket High. The field looked so immense, the grass looked so green, the stands looked so big. Even the little things looked fancy. At Matucket High we had bleachers that were a bunch of aluminum and steel pipes and fiberglass planks as seats. This was a real stadium, with fixed individual seats and armrests and cup holders and bathrooms in the building and not in temporary Port-A-Potties. I looked around and said, “Whoa!”

Speed was standing next to me and said, “No shit, baby!”