Chapter 49

Game time approached. The team wandered in and suited up and the cheerleaders did the same and Toby and Hank became involved in a certain amount of hosting for the visiting Marauders. The stands at the football field began to fill with students, parents, and alumni. Tyrone got Antoine as far as the school, then separated himself from the man for their mutual protection, hunting down Otis, who was positioned where he could see Beverly better than football -- which made sense, given the fact that this was the first time Otis had ever bothered to attend a football game. "Fuckin' chilly," he grunted to Tyrone.

"You should have worn a better jacket," Tyrone chuckled. "How are you gonna keep Beverly warm in THAT?" Otis was wearing a windbreaker.

"Got a blanket in the car..."

"Maybe you ought to get it."

Otis sighed. "Save my seat -- I ain't used to this crap." Tyrone nodded, grinning. The good news? When Otis returned ten minutes later, it was with two hot chocolates from the snack bar.

Cindy, down on the sidelines, found them in the stands and pointed them out to Beverly and they both waved. Tyrone waved back, and after a moment, Otis followed suit. "I just ain't used to this," Otis grumbled.

"It's worth it, isn't it?" Tyrone asked.

"Yeah." Otis watched his little brunette bombshell bounce on the sidelines. "Damned straight. I'll manage. Thanks for reminding me." Beverly was the hottest property he'd ever laid his hands on -- and Tyrone had prepped her perfectly for him. She was Otis' little slut -- she looked like a million bucks and fucked like a mink and was all his! And her old man couldn't look Otis in the eye and her old lady wanted a rematch -- bad -- and Otis was in the driver's seat. No, this was a sweet deal, all right ... It was WELL worth the effort involved in breaking old, bad habits.

The older generation was represented in the stands -- the Beckwiths were there, and the Carters -- Louise and Fred were sitting together. Harmon Thornton was there -- with Noreen and Donna. Ron Parker was there; Frank had entrusted Miriam to him for the game. Ron was thinking seriously about seeing if Abby was available for afterward; the scrawny bitch was addictive. Jean Flanders was there to support Martin. Mark Torres' father was there, but his mother was home. Janice sat with Rafael Torres, rather diffidently, but she needn't have worried -- he approved of her. Most of the players had at least one parent in the stands.

Other adults were busy elsewhere. Phyllis was entertaining Luis -- and planned to do so all weekend. Adele, similarly, had Ed over -- Friday nights were becoming a tradition. Trish and Alyssa were both out, and Randy was at the game with Bernice. Lillian, and Brie, on the other hand, were at home ... Maddie Reyes was in the stands to support Hank, but Pietro and Marta were home.

In any case the stands filled and the appointed time arrived, and the two teams lumbered onto the field. After a little pre-game pageantry, the game began...

As Martin had predicted, the Marauders went after Ben Ellis with a vengeance, starting right after the kickoff return. Ben, pre-warned, occupied himself with avoiding demolition at the hands of the Marauder defensive line. While they were learning, however, Tad, Clint, and Ray Thinnes hooked up eight different times, taking advantage of the distraction and moving the ball forty yards. When the Marauders shifted their focus to Ray, Martin let it go two downs and sent in a play to Ben -- which bought them four more downs. After that, the Marauders settled back, wary, and it was time to switch up, so Martin sent Damian in to take the helm from Tad.

It worked like gangbusters -- Damian's first pass to Mark Torres went in for a touchdown and the Eagles were up 7-0 after Chris' easy extra point kick.

The Marauders came back howling for blood on the kickoff return, but the Eagle defense was fast enough getting downfield that they only made it to the twenty-five yard line. The Marauders settled in for their usual yardage-eating ground game, but Vince's study of the offensive line paid immediate dividends. The Marauders opened their usual hole to the left of their center for the running back to plow through, but Terence plugged it, charging between the offensive linemen to drop the back for a loss. On the next play, Eddie Ray rushed through with Terence behind to plug and was in the Marauder backfield in time to interfere with the handoff -- which caused the Marauder quarterback to have to attempt a pass that no one was prepared to receive. Ultimately, he spent too much time scrambling in the backfield and ended up sacked. The Marauder offensive line had no idea how they were screwing up and lost all momentum; they ended up punting on fourth down, giving the Eagles a position on their forty-five yard line.

Damian went in at the quarterback position and started with two straight short slants to Mark. The Marauders pulled in their defensive secondary to try to double-cover and keep Mark from making five to eight yards a reception and totally missed Clint dashing twenty-five yards downfield to pull in a long bomb from Damian with hands that seemed to be magnetic. The free safety didn't catch him until he was inside the twenty yard line, where Clint ducked out of bounds. On the next play, the Marauders were all over Clint, so Damian ducked the defensive line rushing in for a sack, circled back to tuck himself behind Isaiah Morse and let the huge center poke a hole in what was left of the Marauder line before passing him and loping to the goal line. Marauders wandered the field, apparently dazed, while their coaching staff tried to figure out what had caused the disaster, then formed up to waste their time trying to block Chris Baxter's kick. The Eagles were up by two touchdowns before the end of the first quarter!

After that, though, the Marauders started getting a grip; their coaching staff began to get a feel for the Eagles' capabilities and started finding ways to cope. Martin sent Tad back in and the Eagles worked their ground game for most of the second quarter, not making anything, but always moving things far enough that the Marauders couldn't get enough momentum behind them to get in deep and at least get off an attempt at a field goal. And that apparently led to the incident...

The Eagles had the ball, third down, with four yards to go. Tad had just handed off to Ben when a Marauder linebacker came roaring through and tackled Tad -- and then tried to stomp his knee!

All Hell broke loose, because it was so clear. Tad WAS injured, but the player didn't get it under his cleat and his foot slipped past the tendons in the back of the knee. The referees were all over it and the Marauders got called for unsportsmanlike conduct, but Tad was done for the game and maybe for the season. The team doctors, Toby, and Hank got him off the field for an exam and an ice bath. War had been declared, however...

Fortunately, there were only seconds to go until halftime, so no fisticuffs broke out. The Eagles ran one more play with Damian at the helm -- a running play, because the Marauders expected a pass -- and the teams went into the locker rooms while the marching bands came out.

There were a few tense moments, but the doctors came back and told Martin that Tad would need to stay out for the rest of the game, but did not appear to be seriously injured. Martin filed a formal protest with the referees, citing a pattern of abuse that had injured players on several teams, and it WAS taken seriously. Then he went in to deal with his team...

"Men, Tad will be okay. The Marauder who attempted to take him out was clumsy and didn't succeed, as well as being absolutely obvious. Damian has the helm for the rest of tonight, but Tad will be back next week."

There was a murmur of relief, and Martin resumed, "Do not -- do NOT -- return this act in kind. We've filed a formal protest and I expect that the Marauders' coaching staff is going to get a serious reprimand at the very least -- but if you return the favor, you'll blunt things. You can run them into the ground if you like, but I want to see NO UNSPORTSMANLIKE CONDUCT! Make 'em hurt -- but do it all legally, with good solid tackles. They've been practicing intimidation on other teams for a long, long time -- I'd like to see THEM worry -- and YOU can make that happen! Outplay them! Grind them into the dust! But I will bench anybody who incurs a penalty for anything but an obvious accident! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

"YES, COACH!" the team roared.

"All right. Rest up -- we want to be ready to give 'em Hell in a few minutes!"

The Marauders got to receive the opening kickoff of the second half -- and right away, they could see that an error had been made. The Eagles were grim and angry -- and executing like machines. The Eagle defensive line, which heretofore had been satisfied with deflecting themselves from the offensive targets and moving on, now pressed blocks -- HARD -- beating on the Marauder offense. After two downs, the Marauders were conditioned to set hard in order to handle the impacts -- and half of the Eagle defensive line and all of the linebackers streaked around them and into the Marauder backfield where the Marauder quarterback and his running back BOTH found themselves grounded -- hard! It was an eight yard loss -- one the Marauders couldn't recover from, so they had to punt. -- and THAT nearly didn't get off in the face of the Eagle blitz!

The offensive line was just as angry and determined, if not more so! The Marauder defense did NOT get past Isaiah Morse and his line, and Damian had PLENTY of time to pick his targets -- and he did so, hitting Clint and Mark and Ray with pinpoint accuracy at virtually any range! Damian proved himself to be fully capable of directing a ground game, too, setting up and handing off to Ben or Ray for deep penetrations that continued to roll the hapless Marauders back toward their goal line again and again while mixing them with a deadly passing attack that rolled up two touchdowns in the third quarter.

The Marauders were generally bigger than the Eagles, however, so after a while the Eagles began to get tired and give ground -- and eventually, late in the fourth quarter, the Marauders scored, largely because their fresher offense outlasted the exhausted Eagle defense. Their joy was short-lived, however; the Eagles took the kickoff return and on first down, Damian threw twenty-six yards to Clint, who was wide open and had no coverage, and he loped in for another touchdown.

As the final minute ticked away, the appearance -- if not the reality -- was that the Eagle defense allowed the Marauder offense just enough forward motion to be able to keep them on the field and beat on them. The Marauders couldn't get into field goal range, however, before the clock ticked away to zero and the Eagles came away again victorious, 35 -- 7.

Local sports commentators were agog! Sure, the Eagles had been doing well this season, but they were SUPPOSED to be an 'also ran'! The team they watched put it to the Marauders was anything but! TV sports directors rushed off to their stations to beg for extra time to show highlights of a game that clearly foreshadowed an Eagle run for the state championships! Video of the Marauder trying to stomp Tad's knee was going to push public attention to the unsportsmanlike conduct charges and the formal protest to a fever pitch -- and the fact that the Eagles played the second half totally without penalties made the whole thing even more highly visible! People listening to the game on the radio were already flooding the switchboard of the Superintendent of Schools over in Waynesboro.

Little Anita had been trying to tear the locker room door off its hinges since halftime -- and at least one TV crew had video of her wailing inconsolably at the injury done to her boyfriend. Hank, who had been detailed to watch Tad, sneaked her in a little bit after the third quarter started. When the team returned to the lockers after the game, Anita's first pass answer to a mild comment that she was not supposed to be there was, "I've seen you guys naked -- just go on about your business!" Martin had to eject her, telling her that she would get Tad in trouble and that there were reporters waiting to get in so they couldn't paper the whole thing over. They managed to sneak her out through the laundry and the girls' lockers, but the news team checked back and found her in the stands with the other team girlfriends -- and the result was Anita's tear-streaked face smiling on the local news telling everyone that despite the dastardly attack, Tad would be okay. The news reporter was heard to say, off-camera, "The fact that she's a little homely and not a cheerleader with big boobs and a toothpaste smile makes this SOOO much hotter ... We're gonna get an Emmy for this!" The station in question, smelling blood in the water, put the thing on as their lead story. By morning, regional outlets were playing the footage during the Saturday morning news, complete with editorial pieces about the lack of some schools systems' ability to instill the proper mindset in sports teams -- but that was later...

Anita, of course, informed her family "I'm gonna be on TV!" upon her return from the game to change into her dress for the dance, and the entire Shepherdson family -- minus Anita, who had returned to school by then and was sitting beside her injured hero -- sat, agog, watching the whole thing go down. Tad, whose initial contact with the Shepherdsons had been lukewarm at best, could do no wrong now...

Abigail, waiting in the van in the parking lot, could tell by the change in the tone of the crowd's roar when the game was over -- but it was twenty minutes before Janice climbed into the cab and began breathlessly relating the excitement on and off the field. Ten minutes later, a young black man approached the van and said, "They said meet a white van..."

"Get in the back," Abigail cut him off. "We'll talk when we arrive. Right now we're waiting for the other guy to get here -- and he's on the team, I'm told, so he'll be a few minutes."