Home of the Braves

by David Klass

  The Phenom grinned. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t need to. His amused grin told me I was crazy, and that I didn’t know what I was talking about. “I see my car is ready,” he said. “Excuse me.”

  “We’re playing today at two o’clock,” I told him. “Why don’t you put on your ridiculous sunglasses and get in your flashy car and drive your rich, useless butt over to the field, and see if we’re playing soccer or not. You might learn something. But I won’t hold my breath waiting for you to show up. No doubt you have more important things to do. Like look at yourself in the mirror, and blow-dry your hair.”

  The Phenom put his sunglasses back on. “Nice talking to you, Joseph.” He walked over to his powder-blue Mustang. Ed the Mouse opened the door for him, and the Phenom tipped him a dollar. I saw them exchange a few words. The Phenom got in, started the car up, peeled out loudly, and roared away across the parking lot.

  The Mouse came over to me. “So,” he said, “did you tell him he’s a jerk?”

  “He knows what I think,” I muttered.

  “Did informing him that he’s a jerk make you feel better?”

  “No,” I admitted, “it made me feel worse. That guy really, really knows how to irritate me. How can anyone so young be so conceited and … arrogant?”

  “Yeah, well, at least he’s a big tipper,” the Mouse said. “And he’s a good-looking guy. And real friendly.”

  “What were you two talking about?” I asked.

  “He wanted directions to our field. He said he might come to our game today, if he doesn’t have anything better to do.”

  4

  It was like the Alamo. We were under siege. That’s my word for what happens in soccer when a defense holds up into the middle of the game, without much assistance from its midfield, and with no help at all from its forward line.

  Carson High was attacking us in waves, winging it around the sides of our defense, juking and faking it through our midfield, and sometimes ramming it right down the center of our throats. Time after time our defense cleared the ball, either by long kicks or by a series of short passes. And then our midfielders would make a bad pass, or our forwards would get pushed off the ball, and the Carson High attack would come roaring back at us.

  I was in the middle—the sweeper—the last man back. To my left, at left fullback, was Harlan James, black, stocky, a tough, physical defender who specialized in sliding tackles that toppled enemy forwards like so many bowling pins. To my right was Hector Martinez, a fast little sophomore with great ball skills. In front of me, at stopper, was Patrick Dunn, a tall, soft-spoken Irish kid whose job was literally to stop the Carson attack before it got started. His polite manners off the soccer field were misleading—Pat seemed to enjoy bone-jolting full-speed collisions, exchanges of elbows, and trades of crunching shoulder shoves.

  But if and when they did get around Harlan, or over Hector, or through Patrick, it was up to me. The sweeper isn’t assigned to guard one attacking player—he floats, sensing the threat as it develops, and then charging in at the right moment to snuff out the danger. If you guess right, you’re a hero. If you guess wrong, you leave the goalie all alone, and pay for getting beat with the instant shame of the other team scoring and celebrating all around you.

  I was guessing right against Carson. They had two very dangerous forwards—a tall, broad-shouldered Viking of a striker named Anderson, and a speedster named Conley who was an All League sprinter during track season. Twice they centered the ball to Anderson right in front of our net, but both times I managed to head it out of danger. When Conley sprinted past the rest of our defense in a brilliant solo breakaway, I stopped him with a sliding tackle that made a ZWOCK sound and ripped his soccer shoe half off his foot.

  During breaks in the action, I couldn’t help stealing a few glances at our mostly empty bleachers. The Lawndale football team draws four hundred fans for home games; our soccer team is lucky if we draw forty—almost all family members. I admit I was a little disappointed at not seeing Kris among our forty or so faithful fans, but I figured she had bicycled to our last away game, so I couldn’t expect her to show up every time.

  I tried to keep my mind on the game—or should I say the siege. I had no illusions: we weren’t going to get any reinforcements, and a defense without a midfield or an offense is a losing proposition—ultimately it’s going to crack apart. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from playing on a team with no offense for three years, it’s that if you can only play defense, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.

  With ten minutes to go in the half, Harlan cleared the ball out of bounds. I followed the flight of the ball and saw her. Kris had just settled onto a bleacher with her best friend, Anne, and she caught me looking at her and waved back. She looked good—no, scratch that, she looked great. She was wearing jeans and a green sweater, and her long brown hair blew off her shoulders in the breeze. She waved and smiled, and even from across a soccer field I could see tiny sparks jump around in her hazel eyes.

  Don’t ask me to explain how or why, but at that moment, when I saw her smile and wave at me, I decided two things. First, Carson High was not going to score that day. And second, I was going to ask Kris out. Maybe not right after the game, but the next day, or at the very latest the next after that. I’d ask her to a movie, and if she suggested bringing some friends, I’d say, “No, let’s go just the two of us.” Or, “Kris, friends are fine, but I kind of think of you as more than that.”

  I would do it. Definitely.

  Meanwhile, our defense was hanging on for dear life. Carson High didn’t want to go off the field at the half tied zero–zero. They pressed forward furiously, sending extra men up to join the attack, changing sides to create imbalances, working to open space, looking for an opening.

  My shirt was drenched in sweat. The sweeper organizes the defense, and as I sprinted back and forth, I hollered out assignments, and ordered halfbacks back from midfield to pick up free men: “Harlan, watch the winger! Pat, two free in the center. That’s your guy, Murray! Stay right on him!”

  Those last few minutes of siege dragged by impossibly slowly, but the ref finally glanced at his watch, brought his silver whistle to his lips, and blew the first half to a close. Zero to zero. Our Lawndale Braves team wasn’t winning, we weren’t controlling play or generating any real threats, but so far our defense had kept the score even.

  I jogged off the field with the rest of the team, over to our bench. Bottles of cold water were passed around, and I took one and filled up my mouth with a long squirt. I didn’t swallow, though. I believe that drinking too much water during a game produces cramps. So I swished it around in my mouth and spat it out onto the grass.

  Then I took a little shower. I pointed the squirt bottle at the crown of my head and squeezed, and in a few seconds streams of ice water were winding down through my forest of thick hair to form cooling cascades over my nose, shoulders, and back. I shook my head from side to side, creating a little rainstorm, and glanced up into our stands.

  Kris was looking right at me, smiling. I must have looked like a shaggy dog, shaking off after a swim. She gestured to her forehead, and I touched my own. My hand came away dark with mud. I guess on one of my tumbles to the turf I had picked up a little bit of the soccer field, and I was carrying it around with me for all the world to see. I hosed my face off again with the squirt bottle, and tried to wipe it clean with my shirt. It wasn’t exactly a clean towel. It had been white when we started the game, but sometime during the siege it had magically changed color. Now it was brown with sand and black with mud and green with grass stains and even red with a little dried blood.

  I glanced back at Kris, and now she was really laughing. Her hazel eyes flashed merrily in the afternoon sunlight, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as pretty as her, in her jeans and green sweater, laughing at me and with me on a high bleacher, outlined against a cloudy October sky.

  I laughed with her, till Coach Collins
broke the moment by shouting, “LISTEN UP, EVERYONE.” We crowded around him. His pep talks were never very inspirational, but then again there was nothing he could say that would do much good. “WE’RE LUCKY TO STILL BE IN THIS GAME!” he roared. “We’re getting our butts kicked. WE’VE GOT TO CONTROL THE BALL …”

  I listened to his instructions, but at the same time I knew they wouldn’t do any good. It wasn’t that Greg “Maniac” Murray, our excitable center half, who stood listening to Coach while chewing on his upper lip as if it was a stick of gum, or Norm “Zigzag” Zigler, our center forward, who dribbled the ball in wildly erratic directions which at first seemed brilliant till you realized that he himself had little idea where his touches would end up, or Ed the Mouse, who was having another of his awful games at wing—it wasn’t as if they didn’t all want to trap the ball, find passes, and move the ball upfield in a controlled manner. They had all the desire in the world—they just didn’t have the talent. When faced with the reality of the ball at their feet in a game situation with a rival player running at them, they would just kick it wildly and hope for the best. And nothing Coach Collins could say would give them the talent.

  The siege was about to start again. It would be up to our defense. And with Kris in the stands, looking so lovely, I wasn’t about to give Carson any easy goals.

  The ref blew his whistle, signaling the start of the second half, and as I trotted back onto the field I suddenly found a new and unexpected source of motivation. A classic-model Mustang was pulling up in our parking lot. As we lined up for the second half kickoff, I just had time to see the door of the Mustang open and the Phenom get out.

  He threw a casual glance at our field, as if he wasn’t sure it was worth his while sauntering over to have a look. For a long moment he stood all alone in the parking lot, posing for an invisible camera. His blow-dried hair barely stirred in the breeze—maybe he used some kind of gel. He had the reflecting sunglasses on. Then he slammed the car door shut and headed for our bleachers.

  The second half started, and as I turned my attention back to the game I felt a new tension in my gut, and an even stronger resolve: Carson High would not score that day.

  I don’t think I’ve ever played a tougher half. I never stopped moving, running side to side, shuffling, and back-stepping. I sucked down so many rasping breaths that I seemed to inhale the whole field—not the sweet green taste of midsummer but the dry, almost smoky grass smell of autumn that leaves your nose and throat parched and thick. They weren’t going to score. Not now. Not today. Not with Kris watching my every step. Not in front of the Phenom, who had climbed our bleachers and now stood alone near the top as if he didn’t even deign to sit because it would be an admission that we were really playing soccer.

  Carson High penetrated into our half. Anderson sent a lovely through ball to Conley, their speed-demon striker, who split Pat and Hector like two lampposts on either side of a highway and came zipping right down the middle at me. Pat was sprinting back to try to help, but there was no way he was going to catch up. It was up to me.

  I gave ground, watching Conley’s feet as he dribbled toward me. He would touch the ball a few feet ahead with his right, and stride forward with his left. I waited … and waited … till he neared our penalty box and I could hear Charley “the Fish” Geller, our goalie, shouting at me, the panic building in his voice, “Too close, Joe. Get on him!” The one quality a goalie needs above all others is fearlessness, and, unfortunately, Charley the Fish was not exactly the bravest guy in the world. “Stop him, Joe,” he pleaded, his scream quivering. “Stoooppp himm!”

  Still I waited, watching Conley’s feet, till he touched the ball right, and then I made my move. When someone is dribbling at you at high speed, the instant they touch the ball forward is the moment when they have the least control till they can touch it again. As soon as Conley’s right toe connected with the ball, I shifted direction, stopped backing up, and darted forward. Conley saw what I was doing and sprinted toward the ball, but my abrupt change of direction surprised him and I got there first. I knocked the ball sideways. Conley tried to jam on the brakes, but he skidded past me, slipped, and fell flat on his face on the turf.

  I cleared the ball, and when it was safely out of our half I allowed myself a glance to see if Kris had appreciated that effort. She wasn’t there! I spotted her friend Anne, but Kris had vanished.

  Then I saw her. She was on the top bleacher, standing next to the Phenom, and neither one of them appeared to be watching the soccer game. I don’t believe they had seen my brilliant defensive maneuver on Conley. They were looking at each other. And, dope though I may be when it comes to girls, I knew what it meant that she was on his top bleacher. He hadn’t gone to her—she had come to him.

  The rest of the second half dragged by for me excruciatingly slowly, like a nightmare in slow motion. I did my very best to concentrate on the game. I was seeing the flow of play very clearly, and continued to get to the right place at the right time and snuff out threats. But I couldn’t help glancing up at the stands every chance I got. The Phenom and Kris were alone on the top bleacher, standing together, deep in conversation. I could have run off the soccer field and dove headfirst into Overpeck Creek and neither of them would have noticed.

  Meanwhile, Carson High pressed the attack. They were a good team, and they had been held at bay for a long time. As the end of the game neared, they began sending extra men up—first halfbacks, and then even their fullbacks started making runs. They knew they deserved better than a tie. They came surging forward. It was the Alamo—it was Custer’s last stand, and we were the ones surrounded, battling for our lives, under increasingly heavy fire.

  With less than five minutes left, their right winger got around Harlan and made a strong run down the sideline. When our defense shifted over, their winger stopped on a dime and got off a lovely cross over the entire field to their left wing, who brought the ball down neatly and continued the run on our exposed flank.

  I was the only man back, facing their winger, Anderson, and Conley. One defender cannot cover three attackers. I backed up, hoping their wing would give up the ball too early and take himself out of the play. But he held it, angling in toward our goal, and as he neared our penalty box I had to go out and stop him. I knew that he would try to pass the ball around me, to either Anderson or Conley, both of whom had taken up onside positions in front of our goal. As I ran out at their wing with my whole body exposed for a sweeping, sliding tackle, I guessed the pass would go to Conley, but their wing passed the ball to Anderson, who slotted it neatly past Charley the Fish into the upper left corner of our goal.

  I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

  I just lay there, in the autumn grass, and listened to the cheers from their sidelines, and watched them celebrate.

  One to nothing, Carson High.

  Slowly I picked myself up off the sod.

  A few minutes later, the ref raised his whistle to his lips and blew the game over. A couple of my teammates came over and offered some kind words. “Tough game, Joe.” “You were a wall today.” “You really played great.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered. “You guys, too.” But sweat and even a little blood were in my eyes, and the taste of dry grass in my mouth had turned bitter, and I just wanted to be off that field more than anything in the world.

  We lined up at midfield and shook hands with the Carson team, and several of their best players went out of their way to let me know I had made an impression on them. Anderson gave me a good hard slap on the back and said, “No hard feelings. You hung tough in there. You were a monster.”

  “You guys are gonna win a lot of games,” I told him.

  And then we began walking off the field. I had a good view of our bleachers. Some members of our small cheering section remained in their seats to try to boost our spirits. There was a smattering of applause. A few pathetic shouts of “Good game, Braves.” But the Phenom had not lingered to congratulate us on our hard-fought
loss. He was walking across the parking lot, and he was not alone.

  Kris walked next to him. As I watched, he said something to her, and she tilted back her head and laughed.

  “Good game, Joe,” Coach Collins said to me. “Looks like you’re bleeding.”

  “It’s nothing,” I muttered. And it was nothing. Sweat and even a little blood were running down my forehead and into my eyes, and I kept blinking. The Phenom and Kris had reached the blue Mustang.

  “She’ll see right through him,” I tried to calm myself. “You’ve known Kristine for years. He’s known her for less than a week. She won’t be impressed by his fancy car or his blow-dried hair. She’ll look deep into his blue eyes and see what kind of a jerk he is and have nothing more to do with him. He might have her in his car now, but there are lots of things you can do later on.”

  But even as I tried to reassure myself, I saw the Phenom open the door for her, and then, when she was safely in, shut it gently and walk around to the driver’s side and get in next to her. The tires moved, the Mustang galloped forward over the gravel parking lot, and then it was gone.

  As I trudged through a gap in the fence with the rest of Lawndale High’s weary and defeated team, heading for our basement locker room, no matter how much I tried to reassure myself, deep down I was keenly aware of a reality that is as true in other areas of life as it is in soccer: If you can only play defense, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.

  5

  My house felt like a cage.

  I paced. Room to room. Living room. Ugly green couch and equally ugly black recliner facing big-screen TV For Joe and Dad to lie back on and watch sports hour after hour. But I didn’t feel like watching sports, and Dad was out on a hot date with Dianne Hutchings.