Fantasy League

by Mike Lupica

  Later on in the same story the guy wrote:

  I was always a sucker for stories about boys and their dogs when I was a boy. I just never thought I’d grow up to hear one involving a boy and the L.A. Bulldogs.

  Charlie had to admit that wasn’t too bad.

  He finally stopped reading when he got to a story that said if this was all true, Mr. Warren was acting like a “desperate old fool resorting to publicity stunts as a way of somehow keeping his team relevant.” That one was on an NFL website Charlie had never heard of, and he thought he’d heard of almost all of them.

  So he did stop reading, then closed his laptop like he was closing out the rest of the world. He thought about calling Anna, knowing she’d still be up. But also knowing you couldn’t be tired and hold up your end of the conversation with Anna Bretton.

  And Charlie was tired.

  Like he had spent a whole entire twenty-four hours at Disneyland, going from one ride to another without stopping, the way he did when he was little.

  On his bed now, hands behind his head.

  But how much fun was he having, really?

  He’d always thought Anna was luckier than he was. Not only because her family owned an NFL team, but because she had such a big family. She had her mom and her dad and an older brother and sister, both of them in college. Then came Anna’s gramps and her uncle.

  When Anna’s brother and sister were in town, the Brettons and Warrens were all together at Bulldogs home games.

  Like every one of those Sundays was a family reunion.

  Charlie’s family reunions?

  Him and his mom at dinner.

  And he had to admit, seeing Anna’s family from the inside this way, seeing how her uncle Matt in particular was reacting to everything, Charlie wasn’t so sure now if Anna had it as good as he’d always thought she did.

  His mom chose that moment to come in and say good night to him.

  “Wow,” she said, “didn’t even have to tell you lights-out tonight.”

  “I’m a whupped dog,” he said.

  “A whupped L.A. Bulldog?” she said.

  “Good one, Mom,” he said, adding, “Love you.”

  “Loved you first.”

  He thought he would go right to sleep, but didn’t, head still spinning with everything going on, good and bad. So he was still awake when he heard the buzzing from his phone on his bedside table that meant a text, incoming.

  Didn’t reach over for the phone at first, thinking it had to be from Anna. But then worried it might be from a reporter who’d somehow gotten his number. Hoping it wasn’t. Because if it was from a reporter he’d have to go and tell his mom, because he’d promised her that he would.

  Charlie reached over, saw that it was a blocked number.

  If it was from a reporter, nothing he could do about it, didn’t mean he had to respond, just had to report to Mom.

  Only it wasn’t from a reporter.

  Charlie: Hope this isn’t too late. And hope you don’t mind. Got your number from Mr. Warren. Just wanted to say thanks for the faith. Tom Pinkett.

  The phone call came right after that, from Mr. Warren. Asking Charlie if he could talk to his mom.

  Nineteen

  THE CARTOON WAS IN THE sports section of the Los Angeles Times that morning, Charlie’s mom saying he might as well see it before he went to school. And pointing out that the Times hardly ever ran cartoons anywhere except on the editorial page.

  “If it wasn’t about you, it would actually be kind of amusing,” she said.

  “But it is about me,” Charlie said.

  “That it is.”

  The boy in the cartoon was identified as “Charlie,” but looked almost exactly like Charlie Brown in the Christmas TV special that was one of Charlie Gaines’s favorites when he was little.

  But the Charlie in the Times was a puppet master, pulling strings for cartoon figures of Joe and Matt Warren, the two of them flopping in midair above Bulldogs Stadium.

  “Well, I have to say they have made you look adorable,” his mom said.

  “But it’s not me,” he said. “And the Warrens aren’t going to be happy.”

  He groaned.

  “I went to bed feeling good,” he said. “But now I’m feeling bad about this all over again.”

  His mom patted his hand.

  “Fame is a cruel mistress,” she said.

  “Is that supposed to be funny?” Charlie said.

  That was the way the day started.

  Now Charlie was waiting for the Bulldogs’ press conference to begin. It was being held in the interview room underneath Bulldogs Stadium, the same one they used for the coaches and players after games.

  Matt Warren stepped to the microphone at exactly four o’clock, Joe Warren behind him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming,” Matt said, “to what is probably the most unusual gathering that we’ve ever had here. But then my dad and I just felt that it was the best way to handle an unusual situation.

  “There has been so much speculation over the past day and a half about our new quarterback, Tom Pinkett, that we decided to just clear the air, set the record straight, and move on to what we feel are slightly more important matters—like, oh I don’t know, the rest of the season.”

  Joe Warren, who didn’t have a microphone, nodded and said, “In no particular order,” and smiled himself when he heard some of the people in the audience laugh.

  Matt laughed, too.

  “Sometimes my dad and I get the idea that you guys don’t think we can laugh at ourselves,” Matt said. “But we can.” He looked out at the media crowd. “We manage to have fun around here, even though losing is never fun. But when the fun stops, we go back to doing what we always do in this organization, and that means making decisions that we think are in the best interests of the organization. And think you’d all agree that we made the right call bringing in Tom Pinkett to compete for the quarterback job, and ultimately win it, off what he’s shown so far,” Matt said.

  Matt Warren clearly didn’t really want to be here or doing this, but Charlie thought he was acting cool about the whole thing. Certainly not acting like some kind of cartoon puppet.

  “What I want you all to know is that there’s no controversy here,” Matt said, “the way there’s no controversy about bringing Tom to the Bulldogs in the first place.” He smiled. “And no more family drama than we usually have around here.”

  He turned and said, “Right, Dad?”

  “Well,” Joe Warren said, “not like the kind they have in that family where the girls keep marrying basketball players and I keep wondering why Bruce Jenner looks the way he does.”

  Got an even bigger laugh this time.

  The Bulldogs’ PR man, Greg Arguello, whom Charlie had met at practice, stepped to the microphone now.

  “Okay, Matt and Joe will take a few questions,” Greg said.

  A reporter in the first row who introduced herself as being from Fox 1 said, “Matt, is it true that the Bulldogs originally brought Tom Pinkett here against your wishes? And is it also true that the idea about Tom came from a twelve-year-old friend of your niece?”

  Matt Warren managed to keep smiling. “If you ask my niece, she doesn’t think any of this would have happened without her.”

  “Tell me about it,” Charlie said to his mom.

  “Anna will be so pleased,” Karla Gaines said.

  The Fox 1 woman said, “So you’re not embarrassed?”

  Matt Warren was ready for that one. “My dad always told me that the problem with a good idea is that once it gets inside your head, you can never get it out. No matter how it gets in there. That’s how we all feel about Tom Pinkett.”

  Now a reporter Charlie recognized, Sal Paolantonio from ESPN, stood up.

  “So, Matt, yo
u didn’t have to get talked into this, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Neither my dad nor I ever has to be talked into something that has a chance to improve our team. If you ever came up with a good idea, we’d even listen to you, Sal.”

  Now Matt Warren was the one in the family getting a laugh.

  But the guy known as Sal Pal wasn’t backing off.

  “So you’re saying that almost anybody can make personnel decisions now with the Bulldogs?”

  “Sal,” Matt Warren, still keeping his cool, “I don’t think we’re going to start polling all the middle schools in Los Angeles when next year’s draft rolls around. Listen, my dad used to love to play the horses at Santa Anita. And believe me, he’d take tips from guys in the hot dog line if he thought they were giving him a winner.”

  “There are a lot of smart people in those lines,” Joe Warren said.

  Charlie didn’t know how much of this Joe and Matt Warren had prepared. But it was working for them. Like he and Matt had an act.

  Sal Paolantonio took one more run at Matt.

  “Matt, I’m sure you saw the Times today. You’re telling me you’re not at all bothered that you’re being portrayed as a puppet?”

  “Sal, the only thing that bothered me is that I thought I looked a little fat,” Matt said. “First thing I said to my dad this morning was, ‘You think I look fat in this cartoon?’”

  Joe Warren said, “I told my son that while I love him very much, yes, the cartoon did make it look as if he could lose a few pounds.”

  “One last question, one I’m asking for a lot of local football fans,” Sal said. “Who’s really running the Los Angeles Bulldogs?”

  “The same people who’ve run them from day one,” Matt said.

  Smile gone now. Suddenly it was as if he and Sal Paolantonio were the only two people in the room.

  “You sure about that, Matt?”

  “Well, as sure as you were when you picked us to go 4–12 this season.”

  “This isn’t about me, Matt.”

  “You sure?”

  Greg Arguello leaned in front of Matt Warren now, said, “I’m sorry, Sal, but when did this turn into one of those debate shows on your network?”

  Before Sal could answer, Joe Warren took over.

  Put a shaky hand out, made his way between his son and his PR man, stepped to the microphone himself.

  “Sal,” he said, “the Bulldogs are, and always have been, my team. My son, in whom I have great trust and confidence, ultimately works for me the way the coach does, the players, the scouts. And the groundskeepers. It’s always been that way. I’m an old-fashioned guy who likes old-fashioned expressions, so here’s one that explains all that: It’s still my nickel. You want to come at somebody, come at me.”

  Then Joe turned to Matt and said, “You think it’s time to bring out the one they really want to be talking to?”

  “Absolutely,” Matt said.

  He turned and looked over his shoulder. There were curtains over there. It was where one player waited while another one was being interviewed after games.

  “Charlie,” Matt said, “why don’t you come out here so all these nice people can meet you.”

  Charlie’s mom, behind the curtain with him, where they’d been all along, the two of them watching the press conference on the television back there, said, “Go get ’em, big boy.”

  She pulled back the curtain.

  At first Charlie just poked his head out, as every reporter and photographer turned his way, and he heard people shouting his name and saw all the TV cameras pointed right at him.

  “Charlie!”

  “Charlie, over here!”

  “Smile, Charlie!”

  Charlie came all the way out now, looked across at Joe Warren, who winked at him, motioned for him to come over to the stage.

  “Meet our new special assistant, Charlie Gaines,” Joe Warren announced into the microphone.

  Twenty

  AFTER SUPPER, CHARLIE’S MOM DROPPED him off in town; Anna’s mom did the same with her.

  They tried to make things seem the way they always were on a night like this, first going to Cold Stone and then taking their ice cream to the park, crowded on this night, their usual bench taken, having to walk around for a little bit before they found an empty one.

  Both of them knowing that things were definitely not the same as they’d always been, probably weren’t going to be anytime soon.

  Not exactly the football season I expected, Charlie kept thinking.

  Anna said, “I thought I came off very well today, if we’re focusing on the positives.”

  “No kidding. Your uncle made it sound as if you practically had to take me by the hand to your grandfather so I could tell him what I thought about Tom Pinkett.”

  “Got a problem?” Anna said.

  Then she said, “You gonna finish your ice cream?”

  Charlie said, “Is that ever a serious question with you?”

  She reached over for his cup and spoon and finished what he hadn’t eaten of Oreo Overload. Somehow Anna Bretton seemed to be able to eat all day long and stay skinny. One more mystery about her. Sometimes Charlie thought that what he knew about her wasn’t nearly as interesting as what he didn’t.

  “You know what might be the most amazing part of the whole day?” Anna said after she’d tossed Charlie’s cup into a trash bin. “That your mom even let you go to the press conference!”

  “That one is on your gramps, totally,” Charlie said. “He can be pretty persuasive, I guess, when he wants to be.”

  “My mom says he wants people to think his head is full of the sky half the time; that’s the way she puts it. And I know he can look like a total frail. But the old guy can still get it done.”

  On the phone with Charlie’s mom after Charlie had gotten the text from Tom Pinkett, Joe Warren told her that the genie was officially out of the bottle—his words—and that the media wasn’t going away, they knew they had a good thing with the story of the old owner and the seventh grader, and they were going to be like dogs with bones.

  He told her that the only way to deal with it was to deal with it head-on, have Charlie make a surprise appearance at the press conference.

  Mr. Warren said they might as well just go ahead and put Charlie’s face on the whole thing, so people could stop speculating; the media fed on speculation almost as much as it did on gossip.

  “My son will help us set it up” was the way Mr. Warren put it to her. “Then we’ll bring out yours for the big finish.”

  Then he spelled out for her what he already had for Charlie, just in different words.

  “Why can’t we have some fun with this?” he’d said on the phone. “Can’t a geezer like me do that?”

  Then, according to Charlie’s mom, he told her that a little attention wasn’t going to ruin the boy’s life, girls would have plenty of time to do that later.

  Anna smiled now in the park and said, “He tells me the same thing about boys all the time.”

  Then she told Charlie that she’d been thinking about it all day, but her favorite part of the press conference was when Greg Arguello had to bring up a chair for Charlie to stand on so he could see over the podium and actually reach the microphone.

  “Thanks,” Charlie said, rolling his eyes.

  Charlie hadn’t been at the microphone long when Greg Arguello told the reporters they were going to be limited to a few questions.

  The first one came from somebody who said he was from Yahoo Sports, wanting to know what Charlie had seen in Tom Pinkett that nobody else had.

  “Numbers,” Charlie said, surprised he could get the word out, his mouth feeling as dry as dirt.

  At that point he felt like everybody in the room had shouted the same thing at once: “Louder!”

 
“Sorry,” he said.

  Mr. Warren reached over, adjusted the microphone one more time to get it closer to him.

  “My friend Charlie will get better at this when he’s hosting his own talk show,” Joe Warren said.

  “Actually, Mr. Warren, I already am.”

  That got Charlie his first laugh of the day, even though he was still way behind the old man.

  Watching the replay on TV later, Charlie saw the shocked look on his own face, all of these grown-ups actually laughing at something he’d said.

  Something else he saw? How happy he looked, the spotlight on him this way. He knew why, too. Once he got out there, and got over his nerves, something that happened faster than he thought it would, he felt good.

  Very good.

  Mr. Warren slapped his forehead at that point, leaned into the microphone, and said, “The Charlie Show. Completely forgot.” Grinned and said, “Check your local listings for times.”

  Charlie thinking at the time that it was like they’d worked out a little act to follow the one everybody had seen from Joe and Matt Warren. But it wasn’t an act. It was just happening, the way everything else was these days.

  Joe Warren said to Charlie, “Continue, please. Explain to the nice people about Tom Pinkett the way you did to me. Just go a little slower for them.”

  Charlie pretended he was explaining it to the reporters and cameras the way he would to his fantasy buddies. About how if you looked at the games he’d played all the way back to the Titans, made one sixteen-game season out of them, he was playing at a higher level than when he’d come out of college.

  He explained that he always liked to look at what he called MPT—Meaningful Playing Time—and project what a bench guy like Tom could do if he were getting as much MPT as the big boys did at quarterback.

  Sal Paolantonio got back up now, and said, “Kid, are you sure you’re only twelve?”

  Then somebody asked when Charlie was taping the next Charlie Show. Charlie said he’d have to check with his producer, and got another laugh.

  “He is referring to that granddaughter of mine that my son referenced earlier,” Joe Warren said. “Just so you know, she’s kind of a hot pistol, too, when it comes to the subject of the L.A. Bulldogs. She and Charlie are a team.”