Not Everyone Likes Football
Chapter 7: Undercurrents
Brendan didn't like bicycling on windy days. Especially if they were like that day, when the wind came after a long dry spell and stirred up all the dust that had been gathering. A few years ago he would have jumped at the chance to ride his bike to school on his own and avoid listening to Panther Radio. Now, though, that he'd managed 60 miles in a day more than once, a ride to school was routine, no more of a challenge than walking around the block. The wind just made it worse, as the dust got into his eyes and nose and mouth. He'd fought the wind on his rides before, but this was wind plus ten days' worth of dust. Still, there was a reason for it: his mother had told him that it would be a good idea if he met Quinn Chandler early just to help him get used to his new school. Jason Street's speech to his former teammates had definitely made an impression, but Tami Taylor trusted most football players as far as she could throw them, which she couldn't actually do. So she'd sent Brendan on this new mission just to make sure, and he'd called in Jay Greer, who was supposed to show up in another ten minutes.
Quinn was already waiting for him in front of the school. "What's up," Quinn said to him once Brendan stopped his bike right in front of him.
"Dusty as the desert," Brendan grumbled. "Let me lock up a sec and I'll be right there." After Quinn gave him a quick nod, Brendan locked up his bicycle quickly and headed over to meet him.
"Have you and your dad had any luck finding a place to live in Dillon?" Brendan asked the question his mom had reminded him to ask.
"Yeah, we lucked out, actually," Quinn said with a smile. "Dad met this guy who runs a barbecue place on the east side of town, Ray's, and he said he'll rent us a couple of rooms over it if I work there on weekends and Dad helps out with repairs."
"I haven't ever eaten there," Brendan said, "but it sounds like a good deal."
"How come?" Quinn's expression changed immediately. "Too good to visit the black side of town?"
"Are you kidding me, Quinn?" Brendan threw his arms back. "I told you yesterday, my best friend is black, Jay Greer. He should be here in a minute or so. You can ask him about me if you want. It's just that when I go out on a ride, I like to get out of town, go as far away as I can, change the scenery around me. Exploring the town was what I did my first few months here, I'm past that now. 'Sides, I don't usually eat much when I'm riding. Something eating you here or what?"
"Yeah, sorry, man," Quinn shook his head. "Somebody from Westerby found out we're leaving and left us a bit of a going-away present overnight." In the form of a broken window, Quinn told him, more spray paint on the walls, and a smelly bag with a note attached to it reading "Good riddance, chickenshit."
"Twisted fuckers." Brendan had been taught not to swear in front of his family, but they weren't there to hear him now. "You're better off without 'em."
"Hope they don't come here," Quinn said, and the edge came back into his voice. "And can you guarantee folks around here are any less twisted?"
Before Brendan could provide any kind of answer, Jay had walked over and join them. He stood off to one side from Brendan and gave him a military salute, saying "Sergeant Taylor, Sir, Soldier Greer here reporting for Operation Welcome New Guy." Then his voice turned normal as he turned to Quinn and said "New Guy must be you. I'm Jay. Welcome to town, bro," and put out his hand. He and Quinn shook quickly before Brendan could object to being called "Sergeant".
"You thinkin' of goin' into the Army after school, Jay?" Quinn asked him. Jay replied that he'd been thinking about the GI Bill to pay for college, if they'd let him serve, because his citizenship application was still being processed. When Brendan heard Quinn start asking Jay some of the same questions he'd been asked himself when they first met, he was starting to feel like he'd vanished. And then when Jay took charge of acting as Quinn's tour guide on his own, with no more than "I got this, B, catch ya later" to Brendan, he decided to do just that, vanish and see if anyone would notice. Well, not quite vanish, just head for his first class of the day twenty minutes early. The classroom door wasn't open yet, of course, so he just had to stand out there in the hall and wait. He frowned. One more case of no good deed going unpunished.
He'd think the same thought again a few hours later at lunchtime, when he found Jay, Quinn, and Smash Williams engrossed in a conversation about the merits of hip-hop versus jazz versus reggae. Odd man was out again, he guessed – so since Julie was by herself, he had lunch with her. That was their unspoken agreement: if either one of them was with friends, the other one stayed away unless there was an urgent reason why they needed to talk. If they were by themselves, they could find each other if they felt like it.
"Lose a friend again, big guy?" Julie asked him in a soft voice. She'd followed his gaze to the other table.
"Sure looks like it." he replied. "At least it looks like the football team won't need me to clobber them. Right now, I'm starting to feel that's a bit of a shame."
"Another punching bag and weights evening?" Julie gave him half a smile. She knew his tactics for working off frustration too well. In fact, she'd suggested to him once that he should make the garage his room, with all the equipment he'd piled in there and the time he spent there.
"Right again." He shook his head and then leaned over towards his sister. "I want out of small town Texas and into the rest of the world so bad I can almost taste it. The irony is, one of the few things I like about here is the food."
"Maybe we should open a restaurant somewhere in another time zone," Julie said and gave him a quick pat on the shoulder. "You man the grill, I'll make the salads."
"Let's practice on our parents first, Julie." he said. "I get quality control on the cheese fries though."
"Dibs on the desserts!" Julie countered. This was how they'd been for all those years moving from one town to another: whenever life didn't feel right, they'd try to find a game to play together, a joke to share. And usually it helped, at least briefly.
Voodoo Tatum showed up for his first practice on Thursday afternoon. Buddy Garrity brought him ten minutes after practice had started, announcing his presence with a loud "We got ourselves a quarterback", which made Matt Saracen wince visibly and a lot of other players look at each other with baffled expressions. Voodoo was scanning the field and his future teammates and Eric couldn't read his expression, except there was too much swagger in it for his taste.
"Practice started ten minutes ago," he told Voodoo. "You show up on time, not when you feel like it. Four o'clock is when we start, and that means we start work on the field. One minute past that is late."
"OK, Coach," Tatum nodded and gave a dismissive half-wave of his hand. "I was depending on my ride to get here."
"Locker room's that way," Eric pointed it out to the new player. "Jimmy's inside, he'll get you set up with what you need, then come right back out and work with Andy. No time to waste."
Voodoo frowned and walked off in the direction he'd been shown, but not very fast. What did he expect, to be welcomed like a conquering hero? He hadn't conquered anything here yet, except for Buddy Garrity's favor, obviously. Coach Taylor turned back to his players. "That's enough of a break for now," he barked, "get back to your drills!"
Things would have been much easier for Coach Taylor if Voodoo Tatum had shown himself to be an inept quarterback. Then he could have been relegated to backup status or kept off the team. Instead, it was clear that he knew what he was doing: reading defenses, accurate passing, and turning busted plays into successful runs were all part of his skill set. He already had two Louisiana state championship rings to his credit, while Matt Saracen had played only two games so far, less than one and a half. If only Tatum had at least a few ounces of Jason Street's character, it might actually have been enjoyable to work with someone that had his level of talent.
"He's got it together all right," Mac McGill said to him while Voodoo ran a set of plays. "Looks like he ought to start against Arnett Mead."
One day was too soon to be saying things like that, Eric thought. Besides, that was his call and only his to make. So his only reply was "Thank you for your opinion." A few minutes later, he walked over to Matt, who was, to put it kindly, still going through the learning curve and clearly unnerved by Voodoo's arrival, and said to him "Forget about the other guy. Work on being the best quarterback you can be. You're my QB1 unless you hear me say different."
"Yes, Sir," Matt said, nodding and kind of swallowing at the same time. To his credit, though, his play seemed to improve during the practice, and he didn't shy away from difficult throws the way inexperienced quarterbacks often did.
After the practice, Eric found McGill in his office, making a bunch of copies. More specifically, sitting in Eric's chair waiting for the copy machine to finish.
"Comfortable in here?" Eric asked him.
"Just puttin' together a copy of the playbook for Voodoo," his offensive coordinator answered.
"Right, well I like to know what's going on in my office," Eric said, "Just like I like to know what's going on with my offense. And I don't like seein' my OC chat up Buddy Garrity like he's on a date."
"What are you thinkin' now, that I want your job?" the older man countered, squaring his shoulders and taking a step forward. "You're damn right I do. Way I see it, you're sittin' in my chair right now. Position coaches become coordinators, coordinators become head coaches. That's the way it's done, and you leapfrogged the system. When Norm – and he was defense – called it quits and moved to California, it was my turn now. So I got a right to be sore. But before you start thinkin' I want the team to fail so I can get that job, these are my boys too and I want them to win just as bad as you do."
"Well, then that's something we can agree on," Eric deadpanned. "And when I got hired, they told me I had full authority to hire any coach or coordinator I wanted, nobody had a guaranteed spot. So there's a reason why I kept you on. Don't prove me wrong here."
McGill nodded, picked up the playbook and the copy, and made his way out without another word. It wasn't really a nod of agreement, though, more like a truce. For the team's sake.
"Tell me again why we have to do this, Mom," Julie turned to her mother as they both piled about ten different cuts of meat into their shopping cart. Seeing all those chopped bits of dead animals together reminded her of why she'd decided to go vegetarian three years ago. She needed to look at something else.
"Because of your dad's job, you know that," Tami answered in a tone that made it clear she wasn't happy about this either. "At least Coach Crowley was nice enough to stop by my office and tell me how many people I should really expect and give me a rough idea of how much these boys eat."
"Like Brendan after skipping breakfast?" Julie suggested.
"And a fifty-mile bike ride," Tami nodded emphatically as she switched one tray of ribs for another. "Multiply that by sixty players and add at least half of their parents." She placed the tray on top of several others in the cart.
"Ick." Julie said as she tried to figure the amounts of meat that would be necessary. "Mom, I'm going to get sick if I keep looking at all this stuff. Is there something else I can get for us?"
"Sauces, dry rubs, a couple pounds of onions, and peppers, both bell and hot." Her mother looked back at her. "Grab a basket and just come and go bringing me what you can, I need the cart here."
"Thanks, Mom, I'm on it," Julie was relieved to be away from the meat. She rounded the corner and went to the front of the supermarket to find a basket. She picked it up and then heard a boy's voice that sounded vaguely familiar to her say "Hi, Julie."
She turned around and saw Matt Saracen a few feet behind her giving her a slight wave. An older woman who absolutely had to be his grandmother was standing next to him, with an empty shopping cart behind him that he was holding with one hand.
Here in the supermarket Julie had to be a bit more gracious than in the lunch room. Besides, how much trouble could a guy be if he had his grandmother with him? "How are you, Matt?" she said with a bright smile.
"Uh, all right," he said, "Grandma and I are just taking care of this week's shopping. Grandma, this is Julie, Coach Taylor's daughter."
"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Saracen," Julie said and offered her hand to the older woman, who took it in both of hers and then came out with "Now don't you 'Mrs. Saracen' me, young lady, everybody in Dillon your age that I've met the last ten years just calls me Grandma, so you do it too."
Julie had to laugh at that, although she noticed a bit of an embarrassed blink from Matt. "All right, Grandma." She didn't see her own grandmothers much: her dad's mother lived in Lubbock but she hadn't ever been close to the family for as long as Julie could remember, and her mom's mother had married an Italian man and had moved to Boston with him. It might be weird for Matt to live with a grandmother and no parents around.
Grandma Saracen wasn't one to shy away from talking to near-strangers. "Julie, you tell your daddy that Matt has what it takes to play quarterback for the Panthers, he's just got to keep his feet movin' and learn to get rid of the ball faster. We got a future champion under our roof, I believe in him."
Now Matt's face had turned more than slightly red. "Grandma," he said in a soft voice, "we don't need to bother Julie about that, Coach knows his job." Then he mouthed a quick "sorry" to Julie.
"Oh, no, Matthew, I gotta tell her," Grandma insisted, "Coach Taylor's probably got Buddy Garrity and the boosters bending his ear nonstop, so I got just as much of a right to speak my own mind! Just believe in yourself, young fella, and you'll show 'em all that you can play." Then she hugged her grandson warmly.
Matt looked torn between being embarrassed at his grandmother's outspokenness and affection and happy that she was proud of him. "Are you shopping for the Rivalry Week barbecue?" he asked Julie, with his eyes fixed on her face.
"Yep," she nodded, "Mom's over in the meat section worried about how we're going to feed all the Panthers and whoever else comes around. Are you going to be there, Grandma?"
"No way, Miss Julie," Grandma's eyes went wide, "all those young fellers running around and listenin' to wild music would just give me a big ol' heart attack, and Lord knows I don't need one of those. Games are enough excitement for me. Just don't put too much garlic in the barbecue sauce or all the players' girlfriends are gonna be complainin' later."
"Well, I got to get back to my Mom," Julie said, "I'll see you at school, Matt. And it was nice meeting you, Grandma." Matt smiled at her, and Grandma reminded her to tell her father what she said. Julie walked down the aisle and clearly heard Grandma Saracen telling Matt "Now that's the kind of young lady that would be good for you, Matthew." Wait, where did that come from?
Julie practically jumped with the next words that she barely heard. "C'mon, Grandma. She's Coach's daughter. I know she's beautiful, and she's smart too, but I can't get myself into trouble here." If she didn't actually jump, she could definitely feel that her heart did.
Julie was too busy smiling to herself to hear whatever came after that. About twenty steps later she realized that her basket was still empty. What was she supposed to get again? After what she'd heard, it would be way too much to run into Matt and his grandma a second time. She took a deep breath to make sure the shelves didn't start spinning. A boy said she was beautiful.
Maybe it was frustration at having lost to the Gatling Eagles on Friday night. Maybe it was just the ugly side of rivalry appearing one more time. Maybe it was revenge for having recruited Voodoo Tatum. Maybe it was an attempt to neutralize the Panthers' advantage of coming off a bye week. The only thing that was clear was that between Friday night and Saturday morning practice, some supporters of the Arnett Mead Tigers – if not some players as well – broke into the Dillon Panthers' locker room and vandalized it in every way imaginable, even using bolt cutters to open the players' lockers and urinating or pouring other smelly liquids inside them.
Coach Taylor noticed his players' disgust. He'd seen plenty of nasty exploits due to small town high school rivalry in his day, and he'd seen how easily things could escalate, even to the point of serious injury. What he said to the Panthers in the field house as he surveyed the damage – and tried to calculate how much time and money would be needed to repair everything – was, in his sternest voice possible, "This ends here. I say from today on we focus, and on Friday night we punish."
Still, he knew that inevitably, every football team had at least a few hotheads on it, and there was no guarantee that his instructions would be obeyed. Only being the coach's son had kept him from being required or even forced to participate in similar shenanigans back in his own days as a high school quarterback. It hadn't kept him from being targeted, though: the unofficial code of rivalry said coaches, players, and their homes were fair game, while wives and other family members weren't. Why should anything be different now? The only option open to him, if there was any kind of reprisal that took place and he actually found out about it, was to punish whoever he found out was involved – or everyone, if no names came out – after the fact. For him, seeing Arnett Mead lose to the Panthers would be enough revenge. He'd beaten them before as a quarterback, wearing the same blue and gold Dillon Panther uniform, spoiling what had been an undefeated season for the Tigers until then and handing them their only loss until the State semifinals. It could be done.
"Guy just won't listen." Andy's voice barely registered in Eric's ear. He'd been so lost in thought that he hadn't noticed his quarterbacks coach at his side. Andy's voice was low but his face was redder than the weather would explain.
"Which guy?" Eric asked, although he was pretty sure he already new the answer.
"Nickname." Eric had taught his assistants to speak about players in code during practices, so they wouldn't overhear comments directed at themselves and be affected by them. It was one of the useful things his father had taught him, which Eric would have appreciated more if his father's way of teaching had been different. "Thinks he knows everything already, and the problem is, he's not too far off on that. Might be better than Lucas." That meant something, coming from Andy, who'd been Lucas Mize's backup and definitely no friend of his.
"What about sophomore?" That meant Matt Saracen, because the third quarterback, Brad Weston, was a junior.
"Not ready yet, but turning himself inside out to get there." Kind of like Andy himself had been, except he'd never gotten his chance to start.
"OK, just keep it up and let me know." Eric gave his assistant a quick pat on the shoulder. "If there's too much of a problem, get Mac to deal with it. Thanks for the heads-up."
And the practice went on. Andy went back to work with his players, and Eric called over his defensive assistants to instruct them on specific packages to work on. This wasn't going to be an easy game, so he wanted all his units to be tested. He winced at hearing his father's voice inside his head again "Nobody wins games by givin' players a break, kid. If you're not tough on them, they're not tough on themselves and on the other guys. If you could see things right you'd thank me for it."
Too late for that, Dad. His father was buried in Lubbock, dead of a heart attack at fifty-four, and that fact had thrown a chunk of ice into his relationship – and Tami and the kids' relationship as well - with his mother. Dammit, quit thinking about the past. He ran to midfield and started to address his players, telling them how they were going to have to execute their plays faster if they wanted to win this game.
Tami felt like her home, her space, and her life had been invaded. And objectively, they had. By barbecue smoke, loud music, garbage, and football players, with everything else that implied. Julie had been the smart one: she'd escaped to her friend Lois's house in the morning and was showing no signs of coming back. Brendan was out in the backyard working the grill, with the help of a few of the players and assistant coaches. Eric was alternating between the grill and talking to various groups of people, not staying long before he moved on to some others. Tami'd tried to be a good hostess, making all the appropriate pieces of conversation, but by now she'd had enough. Her son and daughter had good enough manners that she'd forgotten how dozens of other teenagers could act. Well, not exactly, but with that many of them in the same place, eating like there was no tomorrow and who cares where the food landed... she was way out of her comfort zone. And why did the whole barbecue have to be held at her house? Why not at school or at a park or in the stadium?
Her response to this situation surprised her more than the situation itself did. She hadn't hidden under a table since she was a little girl, not counting earthquake readiness drills in school. On the other hand, she didn't have a whole lot of options available to her if she wanted to take a breather and then put on her hostess mask again. What surprised her even more than that was that Eric had noticed and soon came to join her.
"Tami, I need you to help me host," he said. That wasn't helpful.
"I think I might stay down here a while," she countered.
"I'm sorry you're upset," Eric said, and he looked like he meant it. Of course. He always did. His problem was not understanding what made her upset. "Just take a deep breath so you don't end up saying anything you might regret."
"Like what?" Tami said. "OK, let's not go into that. I did it, Eric. I threw the party, with no advance notice, I put everything together, there's nothing at all your football players – who are absolute pigs, by the way – could complain about, I'm even cleaning up after everyone and when I go back out there I'll have a big smile on my face, but down here? I. Am. Pissed. And when everyone's gone, don't forget to thank our kids for helping to buy and bring all the stuff that you didn't tell me I was going to need for all the people I didn't know were going to come."
"Tami," and his voice was weary too, "I get it. I thought you remembered from the other years this is what happens. It's not like we haven't been to one of these before."
"Well, forgive me for thinking about other things than the obligations of a football coach's wife!" And Eric, he didn't rise to the bait, though – instead what he did was to take her hand in his and say "Honey, you've done a wonderful job. And tomorrow night I'm taking you out to the restaurant of your choice. Julie and Brendan can take care of each other or burn the house down." Dammit, this man made it impossible to enjoy a good argument. "Just please, when you're done and ready, help me host. I need help out there with everybody I got to deal with." And then he went back out there, and the next thing Tami heard was somebody with a loud voice asking him, "So, Coach, who exactly is gonna start on Friday, made up yer mind yet?"
"Actually, I think I'm going to revolutionize the game of football," Eric said in a voice that Tami knew was intended to be heard by the whole room. "I'm going to eliminate the quarterback position and put a whole bunch of running backs out there running every kind of counter and reverse known to man." She had to smile at that: Eric's favorite tactic had always been to render the other person speechless. No wonder he'd become the undisputed leader of the debate team – at her urging and in spite of his complete disinclination – back in high school. Others could talk big and conjure impressive sentences out of hot air, but her man, he always cut right to the point.
Just when she'd come back out from under the table and made her way out to the backyard, a brick came flying through the front window. The car the brick had been thrown from immediately sped away. All Tami could see was that it was black.
"Aw, man," Eric said in a voice Tami could decipher easily. It really meant "I know this kind of stuff happens all the time, but did it have to happen now?". He bent over and read the paper that the brick had come wrapped in. "Die Panther pigs," he read in a flat voice. "Couldn't they have come up with something a bit more original?"
"Like what?" Andy the quarterbacks coach said.
"I'm not saying," Eric replied. "Don't want anybody getting any ideas."
