The Rome of Fall

by Chad Alan Gibbs

  “No one is coming,” I said. “This was a terrible idea.”

  “The party doesn’t start until seven,” Silas said. “Why would anyone be here now?”

  “But what if he doesn’t come?” I asked.

  “Then it wasn’t meant to be. But at least you’ll have thrown a straight bangin’ party, which couldn’t hurt your social standing.”

  “He’ll be here,” Jackson said. “What else would he do?”

  “I don’t know. Rest? The announcer said he was limping after the game.”

  “He limps after every game,” Jackson said. “It’s all for show.”

  MeghanJennifer arrived at seven sharp, followed by Maggie Duncan and Rachel, then Chase Malone and two dozen members of the Marching Legion. Brent Holdbrooks and Darryl the atheist came together, and then Jake Norton, second-string quarterback who had no idea how much his life was about to change, showed up with his girlfriend, Tabatha Thompson. Rita Bell rode with Mandy Duke, and Mark Porter and some other freshmen who lived within walking distance strolled up too. By eight, when Marshall and Fletcher arrived, there were over two hundred people in my house, and our street was jam-packed with cars. I knew my neighbors would call the police soon, if they hadn’t already.

  At half past eight, I found Silas bumping and grinding with Mandy Duke while “Flava in Ya Ear” blasted through my mom’s stereo system. I pulled him away and whispered, “He’s not coming. I’m telling everyone to go home.”

  “The hell you are,” Silas said. “This is the best party I’ve ever been to. He’ll be here, Brinks. Just relax.”

  I went upstairs to my mother’s bathroom and splashed some water on my face, and when I came out saw two sophomores going at it in my mother’s bed. I cursed and walked downstairs and there he was, with Becca Walsh on his arm. Someone handed Deacon a beer, and he downed it in one gigantic gulp, then Jackson handed him another, and he chugged that one too.

  Deacon left Becca to mingle with his worshipers, and I walked over to her and said, “Hey.”

  “Hey Marcus,” she said, hugging me. “Thanks for throwing the party.”

  “Yeah, no problem,” I said. “Do you want a beer?”

  “Not tonight,” she said, pointing at Deacon. “I need to make sure that one gets home safe.”

  “Cool,” I said then stared at my feet before saying, “I haven’t really talked to you lately. How’ve you been?”

  “Oh good,” she said. “And I’m sorry about my parents the other day. I’m sorry about every—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “We’re cool, I promise.”

  “You're the best,” she said, squeezing my arm, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Deacon follow Silas through the kitchen and into the garage. I told Becca I needed to kick some sophomores out of my mother’s bedroom but went into the garage, where Deacon was already sitting in the back seat of my Mazda.

  “Brinks,” he said, when he saw me. “This party is the shit. You are the shit, man. I love you so much. How many ... shit—”

  He passed out onto the back seat, and Silas shoved his legs into the car and slammed the door.

  “Holy shit,” I said, “how much of that stuff did Jackson put in his beer?”

  “Just a drop,” Silas said. “Paul said that’s all it would take.”

  “What was it again?”

  “He told me I didn’t want to know.”

  “Shit. Okay. We’ve got to leave.”

  My driveway was blocked, but we managed to get out through the yard then made the ten-mile drive to Carthage. We parked downtown, near city hall, and when we were sure no one was around, we pulled the hibernating quarterback from the back seat and, with considerable effort, placed him on a bench.

  “He looks so peaceful,” Silas said then emptied a can of beer on Deacon’s head, and we jumped in my car and raced back to Rome, not breathing again until we passed the city limits sign.

  There were now cars in the yard blocking my way into our garage, so Silas and I parked down the street and walked to my house where the party had reached new levels of insanity. A skater dude I recognized from gym was on our roof, literally howling at the moon. Someone had pulled our front door from its hinges, and it lay in the yard where Jackson, who’d apparently drunk his weight in vodka since we left, was pissing on my neighbor’s Dachshund.

  “Dude,” I shouted at Jackson, “you were supposed to keep this under control.”

  Jackson looked at us, then at the Dachshund, and fell over laughing hysterically. I shook my head and went inside. I found some sophomores from the Marching Legion playing tennis in my living room, and they’d already broken two picture frames when I screamed at them to stop. In the kitchen, Mark Porter and some freshmen were microwaving a ball of aluminum foil to see what would happen; spoiler alert, it caught on fire, and when I went upstairs, I found two more couples had joined the first one on my mother’s bed. Running back downstairs, I bumped into Becca, who looked more panicked than me.

  “Have you seen Deacon?” she asked. “He’s wandered off and—”

  “He left with some girls from Carthage,” I lied. “I heard them say something about a party back in the fire roads.”

  “That shit,” Becca said. “I’m going to kill him. Marcus, can you—”

  The buzzer on my mother’s oven clock went off, and Fletcher Morgan punched it, shattering the glass.

  “Becca, I’m sorry. I’ve got to—”

  “Police!” someone shouted, and red and blue lights lit up the windows as Romans ran in every direction. Kids were jumping out windows and hiding in closets, and before I could even move, a Rome police officer entered the hole where our door used to be and shouted, “Who lives here?”

  I stepped up and said I did, and he asked, “Son, are you a member of the football team?”

  “No sir.”

  The officer sighed in relief. “Thank God,” he said, then he shouted, “Everyone go home, now!”

  The crowd quickly dispersed, leaving me alone with the officer and his partner, who sat me down on the couch and were offering detailed descriptions of the juvenile detention center where I’d soon live, when Marshall Ford and two sophomore cheerleaders emerged from the downstairs guest bedroom.

  “Good evening, officers,” Marshall said then passed my mom and Steve on his way out our doorless front entry. When I saw Mom’s face, I knew juvie was a fate too kind.

  I was a dead man.

  Chapter Twenty-Two (2017)

  “I hate to tell you this, Coach, but he’s worse now than when we spoke back in the summer. No, I agree, what he’s done here is nothing short of amazing, but I can tell you, it’s taking a mighty toll on him. Next season? No, Coach, I don’t think so. I’m not sure if he has four more weeks left in him. Hell, every Friday he’s in the booth I count as a miracle. I honestly can’t see a way he’s still doing this next season. This’ll be his last rodeo, and I’d love to send him out on top.”

  I was in Jackson’s office on the Monday following his first playoff victory as Rome’s head coach, a 63-17 destruction of E. O. Smith High School. He’d summoned me, I assumed, to change another football player’s literature grade, but when I walked into the room, he was on the phone, and he raised a finger to say he’d only be another minute. I took a seat across from his desk and checked my email and pretended not to listen to his conversation.

  “Hey, you too, Coach. Thanks for calling. It’s always good to hear from you. Who, Kyler? Sure, Coach, just send the material to me, and I’ll hand it to him personally. But I’ve got to tell you now, so you don’t get your hopes up, we’re talking about a five-star recruit here. Alabama, Michigan, Southern Cal, they’re all after him. Of course, Coach, you too. Take care now.”

  Jackson hung up his phone, scribbled on a note pad in front of him, then said to me, “Coach Thompson, from Newberry College.”

  “Silas’s alma mater?”

  “Yeah,” Jackson said, standing up and looking out his picture wi
ndow onto the Colosseum below. “He called me two seasons ago, wanted to hire Silas as an offensive analyst.”

  “No shit,” I said.

  “Yeah, but he had concerns ... about his health. I told him Silas wasn’t well, and I doubted he’d make it through the season.”

  “Wait, why’d you—”

  “He was calling to check in, see how Silas was doing. He still wants to hire him, but—”

  “But what?”

  Jackson sat back behind his desk and said, “But I can’t afford to lose him.”

  I jumped up and said, “Hold on. You’re telling me a Division I football program—”

  Jackson scoffed. “They’re DII, Brinks; don’t be dramatic.”

  I glared at him. “You’re seriously telling me an honest-to-God college football program wants to hire Silas, our friend, Silas, who’s dreamed of being a college coach since we were kids, and you lied about his health so he’d be stuck calling plays for this stupid high school team forever? God, Jackson, you’re such a dick.”

  Jackson shrugged, and after I sat back down, he said, “Brinks, in this job, you’ve got to be a dick sometimes, and what Silas doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Besides, one day he will be too sick to coach. If not next season, then the next or the next.”

  “Maybe, but that’s not your call to make, you asshole.”

  Jackson smirked. “But it is my call to make, Brinks, and I just made it.” He picked up his cell phone, held up a different photograph of that crazy girl and me, and said, “And I trust you won’t talk to Silas about it either.”

  I stared at Jackson hard until he smiled and said, “Come on, Brinks. Let’s not argue. Besides, I called you in here to say thanks. Without Kyler, we’d have never beaten Carthage. And you saw what we did to E. O. Smith Friday night. We’re rolling, and there isn’t a team in the state that can stop us now.”

  “Oh, go to hell,” I said. “Kyler is eligible because you threatened me.”

  “Well, all the same,” Jackson said, “thanks.”

  I stood up to leave and Jackson said, “Hold on, Brinks. Let’s not leave this on such a sour note. How’s your mom?”

  “Dying.”

  “Okay,” Jackson said, “well how about you and Becca? Things are good, or so I hear.”

  “We’re fine.”

  “Just fine?”

  I bent down to pick up a football off the floor and said, “What do you want me to say, Jackson? That I’m thinking of buying her a ring? That the only reason I changed your dumbass quarterback’s grade is because I want to stay with Becca in this shit town, and it would be impossible to live here if everyone thought I cost them a state championship?”

  Jackson laughed and I said, “What?”

  “Brinks, I don’t know what sort of ideas she’s planted in that head of yours, but that girl ain’t the settling down type.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Jackson raised his hands and said, “I’m just trying to save you from some heartache, friend.”

  I tried to throw the football through his window, but it was military-grade Plexiglas and bounced off toward Jackson’s desk, knocking his coffee mug into his lap. He was shouting at me as I burst out of his office into the weight room, where a group of football players completing their morning workouts looked on in meat-headed bewilderment.

  ~ ~ ~

  Rome defeated Mytilene in the second round of the playoffs, a 35-0 victory I did not attend because the game was in Mytilene, and try as you might, you cannot get to Mytilene from Rome. The next week, Mansfield came to town, and I went to the game because Becca went to the game and I wanted to be with her. Rome won big again, this time 42-14, and it set up a semifinal with Gaul, the team we’d faced in the state championship game my senior year. Rome hadn’t played Gaul since 1994, and I knew the excitement of a semifinal, combined with a week of town-wide vomit-inducing nostalgia over the last meeting, would have the Rome Quarterback Club panicked about what the future might hold.

  Deacon caught me in the high school parking lot on the Monday before Thanksgiving, the Monday before Gaul. He had on his uniform, dark jeans and a camelhair blazer, but he looked like he’d slept in them, and I almost felt sorry for him that this stupid game was stressing him toward a massive cardiac event. Almost.

  “Good morning, Brinks,” Deacon said, hopping out of his truck as I made my way from my car toward the school.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “Now Brinks, is that how you talk to friends?”

  “Friend? You had Darryl trick my dying mother into giving him an interview because I wouldn’t help with your stupid little coup. Now what do you want? I’ve got to get to class.”

  Deacon put a paw on my shoulder and said, “It’s not what I want, Brinks; it’s what I don’t want. And I don’t want Jackson leading that team into Tuscaloosa next week to win the state championship.”

  “Well, I don’t play for Gaul, so I’m not sure how I can help you there.”

  He squeezed my shoulder hard, and I jerked free and turned to walk away. “Good God, Brinks,” Deacon said over my shoulder, “why do you even care? This town doesn’t mean shit to you, and neither does the team or Jackson. When your mama dies, you’ll leave here and never come back, so why don’t you help me out? I heard you need money. I’ve got plenty. Just say a number.”

  I turned to face him and said, “You’re right. Jackson is an asshole.” Deacon grinned until I added, “But so are you, and not only that, you’re wrong about me. I’m staying in Rome for good.”

  “Wait, because of Becca?” Deacon asked, the wheels in his head turning slowly.

  “Yes, for Becca.”

  Deacon thought for a second then reached out his hand and said, “All right, Brinks. I had no idea things between you two were that serious.”

  “They are,” I said, reluctantly shaking his hand.

  “Well, I still wish you’d help us out, Brinks,” Deacon said, “but I understand if you don’t want to rock any boats.” Then he slapped me on the back and said, “You and Becca have a Happy Thanksgiving,” and drove away, leaving me to wonder what exactly he was up to.

  ~ ~ ~

  Becca asked me to Thanksgiving at her parent’s house then immediately took it back, saying, “Sorry, I know you wouldn’t want to leave your mother alone.”

  “You could come to our house for dinner that evening,” I offered, without consulting my mother, and Becca accepted, arriving around six carrying half a dozen Tupperware containers full of sweet potato casserole, green beans, cranberry sauce, and whatever else she could scavenge from her parents’ lunch. These, combined with the ten-dollar turkey I purchased at the Riverton Publix that morning, made up the Thanksgiving dinner we shared around my mother’s hospice bed. It was about as awkward as it sounds, and Becca and I picked at our food while my mother ignored hers completely.

  “I know you must love having Marcus back in town,” Becca said to my mother at one point, to which my mother replied, “It beats dying alone.” I choked on my grape salad and, after recovering with a swig of sweet tea, tried to change the subject. “Mom, what has the paper said about Gaul this week? Can Rome beat them?”

  “They’ve got a running back that’s already committed to Georgia,” Mom said, “but if we can stop him, we should be okay. Six of their so-called experts picked us to win; the other four idiots picked Gaul.”

  “I remember playing Gaul all those years ago in Montgomery,” Becca said, and my mom snapped, “I bet you do.”

  Becca looked at me, confused, and I stared at my mother, trying to shut her up through sheer force of will, but she wouldn’t look my way, so I said to Becca, “Sorry, her medicine makes her talk out of her head sometimes.”

  “The hell it does, Marcus Brinks,” my mom said. “You take these dishes and go wash them up. I’d like a word with Ms. Walsh ... in private.”

  I looked at Becca, and she handed me her plate and flashed a reassuring smile. “It’s okay,” she mout
hed, and I gathered the rest of the plates and went downstairs.

  In the kitchen, I scrubbed dishes and listened upstairs for shouts or perhaps a gunshot but thankfully heard neither, and after half an hour, the stairs creaked when Becca came down. I met her in the living room and asked if everything was okay, and Becca kissed me on the cheek and said, “Marcus, you have a sweet mother, and she loves you very much.”

  “She threatened you, didn’t she?”

  Becca smiled. “No, we had a nice talk. Now, do you need any help with the dishes?”

  “They’re done. Now seriously, tell me what you two talked about.”

  “Marcus Brinks, you heard your mother. Our conversation was private. But I bet she’ll share some of the highlights later. Now, are you sure you don’t want to go with us to Gaul tomorrow night?”

  “Yeah, I should stay home with Mom, but I’ll see you Saturday, right?”

  Becca kissed me again, this time on the mouth, and said, “Of course you will.”

  Upstairs, Mom was asleep, so I sat in the chair in the corner of her room and read for an hour until she woke up and asked, “Did Becca go home?”

  “She did. Now, what the hell did you two talk about?”

  With effort, Mom sat up in bed and coughed for half a minute before saying, “We talked about you, and Rome, and the past.”

  “You didn’t bring up—”

  “No, Marcus, that’s between the two of you. We talked about my past, and my mistakes, and then I asked her about her intentions with my son.”

  “Oh, God, tell me you didn’t,” I said, rubbing my temples.

  “I did,” my mother said. “You’ll be alone soon, with no one to look after you, and—”

  “Mom, I’m forty years old. I can look after myself.”

  “I was forty-three when we moved back to Rome. You’re never too old to screw up, son.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Now, I’ve spoken to Rebecca, so why don’t you tell me your intentions with her?”

  “Because that would be awkward.”

  Mom glared at me until I said, “Fine. I didn’t come home with any intentions. When you called and said you were dying, I figured I’d come home, help out as best I could for a few months, then sell your house and move back to Jamaica until that money ran out too.”