by Mike Lupica
Bill Spencer of the Los Angeles Times finally directed the last question of the day at Joe Warren.
“Joe,” he said, “you’re always saying that this season is the one when the Bulldogs finally make the grade. Have you been referring to middle grade?”
“Ladies and gentleman, I can’t top a line like that,” Joe Warren said. “Thank you for coming. And remember: be nice.”
Then he’d helped Charlie down off his chair and the two of them had walked through the curtain.
Now Charlie and Anna were here in the park, Charlie saying to her, “Your uncle is really okay with this?”
“Probably not,” she said. “But I have to say, he showed me something today, not losing his temper, because he’s got one. It couldn’t have been easy for him being a part of that. Not his style. He’d rather be in some dark room looking at film. But even when Sal Pal came at him, I thought he handled himself great.”
“Same,” Charlie said.
“But nobody had a better time than Gramps,” Anna said. “He took something that people acted like was this big embarrassment . . .”
“Meaning me,” Charlie said.
She nodded. “Handing out advice to the owner of the team and the general manager. Yeah, he took that and somehow made it a good thing.”
“Like he told my mom he would.”
“Tell you what about Gramps,” Anna said. “He wants people to think he’s all shy and everything. But he likes having the spotlight on him. Maybe it’s because he’s lived his whole life in Los Angeles, but I think he likes to think of himself as some kind of showman. My mom does, too.”
“He gets off some pretty good lines,” Charlie said, “even though he acts like he’s not trying to.”
“Mom calls him an old ham to his face,” she said. “Then Gramps always comes back at her and says she’s got the wrong lunch meat, most Bulldog fans think he’s just an old turkey.”
They sat silently for a few minutes, watching all the life in the park, all the people, Charlie wondering how many of them cared about the Bulldogs or what had happened at Bulldogs Stadium earlier in the day.
Anna said, “My mom said the best part of the day for her was watching Gramps and Uncle Matt work things out this way, with the spotlight on both of them. But I guess that’s what fathers and sons always do in the end, right? Figure it out.”
She must have heard what she was saying as soon as the words were out of her mouth, hovering in the air between them.
“Well, that just made me sound dumber than a sock drawer,” she said.
“Forget it,” Charlie said. “You’re totally right. It’s what dads do with their sons. Real dads, anyway.”
They were quiet for what felt like a long time, until Anna brightened and said that tomorrow’s Charlie Show was going to be the best yet.
“I am kind of on a roll,” he said. “I mean, I could have choked my brains out today, but I thought I crushed it.”
She stared at him now. Serious look on her face.
“Easy there, big time,” she said.
“C’mon, how about when I was telling Sal Pal from ESPN all about how I evaluated Tom Pinkett?”
She didn’t say anything now. Still staring. One eyebrow raised.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“You’ve got that look.”
“No,” she said, “I don’t. I know you think you know me as well as I know you. But you don’t. So stop trying.”
“You sound like you’re some kind of course I should take in school,” he said.
“If you knew me as well as you think you do, you’d know what I’m thinking, but you don’t.”
“And you’re not going to tell me.”
“If I wanted to share, I’d share.”
Then she reached into the back pocket of her jeans shorts, got out her phone, said her mom would be there in ten to pick them both up.
“Pretty amazing day for you, all around,” she said, and then before Charlie could respond, she hit him with one of her short punches to his shoulder and said, “You’re welcome, by the way.”
Then she ran across the park, daring him to catch her, both of them knowing he couldn’t, Charlie feeling the same way he always did with Anna, that not only was he a couple of steps behind now—he was always going to be.
Twenty-One
THE CULVER CITY CARDINALS BEAT Santa Monica on Saturday morning and as good as that news was, the better news was that it could not have happened without the contributions of Charlie Gaines.
Not because of what he did on the field, even though he played more than he usually did and was in on three tackles before halftime. A half like that would have been enough to send him home feeling pretty good about himself—so much better than he ever thought he would this season—if that was his entire contribution to the Cardinals on this day.
But he did even more this time as Assistant Coach Gaines. With four minutes left in the game, Culver City and Santa Monica tied 13–all, Jarrod Benedict had just missed Sean Barkley, who was wide open in the middle of the field, and now the Cardinals were facing fourth-and-ten, getting ready to punt from midfield.
Charlie was standing next to Coach Dayley by then.
“Coach, you always tell me to tell you if I notice something,” Charlie said. “Well, I did.”
Coach was about to send the rest of the punting team on the field, but there was an official’s time-out because the defensive back who’d been covering Sean was still down on the field, holding his right hand, having fallen awkwardly breaking up the play.
“What you got?” Coach said.
Charlie told him that Santa Monica had come hard with nine guys trying to block the Cardinals’ last two punts, and had nearly gotten the last one. Both times they had flooded the outside, Charlie noticing how open the middle of the line looked.
“You’ve got my attention,” Coach Dayley said.
“I believe if we short-snapped the ball to our up guy, he could run the middle of the field right past everybody,” Charlie said.
“Love it. But who? They’d notice if we struck Kevin or Sean in there.”
“Nick’s fast enough,” Charlie said. “He only needs one hole to pick up the first down.”
Nick Tierney, the Cards’ fullback, a better blocker than runner, not that fast out of the blocks. But once he got going, he was tough to bring down in the open field, built more like a tight end.
Coach Dayley said, “A fake punt, tie game, four minutes left? That’s your blueprint for success today?”
“Pretty much,” Charlie said.
“Well, like old Herm Edwards used to say when he was coaching the Jets,” Coach Dayley said. “You play to win the game.”
Coach grabbed Nick and told him what they were going to do. Told him to tell their center and to tell the rest of the guys in the offensive line to block like they were blocking for a punt, and push to the outside.
“Sort of hoping you and I are right here, Charlie,” Coach Dayley said to Charlie in a low voice.
“Sort of?” Charlie said. “I can’t even breathe.”
Their punter lined up as normal, ten yards behind the long snapper. The ball was snapped. But instead of the ball going to the punter, it landed right in the hands of Nick Tierney, who paused just long enough to allow the punter to fake the kick as the linemen on both teams settled into their blocks. Then Nick shot right up the middle and into the open field, made the best open field move Nick Tierney had ever made in his life, and dropped the last guy with a chance to tackle him, Santa Monica’s punt returner. Nick ran the rest of the way untouched, into the end zone for the score that would end up winning the game for the Cardinals.
Charlie stayed where he was, watching Nick run the play out, but, Coach Dayley ended up thirty yards down the sideline, cheering Ni
ck on the whole way. When he came back, out of breath, he put a bear hug on Charlie and lifted him into the air.
• • •
The good times got even better the next day when the Bulldogs won again, 27–24 against the Jets. Tom Pinkett led the Dogs down the field with under a minute left and no time-outs, completing the game-winning pass to Harrison Mays in the right corner of the end zone with six seconds left.
On Monday, Carlos, Mr. Warren’s driver, picked Charlie up from school and drove him to practice. Charlie had asked Anna to go with him, but she had soccer practice.
This time they didn’t go down to the field, just sat in Mr. Warren’s office, the small deck behind it looking down on the practice field.
Talking football. Bulldogs football.
What else?
“We’ll just stay here today,” the old man said. “We gave them enough of a photo op the other day.”
Charlie said, “It seemed like you had a good time the other day, though.”
“Not gonna lie, Charlie boy, this season looks like it might provide more fun to an old man than he ever thought possible.”
“Yesterday was as good as we’ve looked in a long time.”
“Starts with the fact that we’ve finally got ourselves a real live QB.”
Charlie said, “It’s more than that, Mr. Warren. Look at all the stops we made on defense when we had to, especially in the fourth quarter.”
“Yeah, Coach Fiore tried to explain why when it was over, all about his cover two and all the rest of it. But when he goes all inside football on me, I just tell him how happy I am that we’re finally covering somebody.”
“I love inside football,” Charlie said. “And outside football. My mom says I dream in Xs and Os.”
“Matt was like that,” Joe Warren said. “But he was more interested in playing when he was your age.”
“I like playing, too.”
“Anna tells me you’re better than you like to let on,” the old man said.
This was a noncontact day for the Bulldogs, but they were still going through plays, Tom throwing the ball as well as he had the day before. He’d said to the sideline reporter after the game that he’d forgotten what it was like to throw that kind of pass to win the game.
“The great quarterbacks, they get to do it all the time, feels like,” he’d said. “Been a while for me. But maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks.”
“You mean teach an old Bulldog new tricks, don’t you?” the woman had said.
The only bad part of the victory had been the Bulldogs losing their Pro Bowl middle linebacker, Oradell Monroe, in the fourth quarter with what turned out to be a torn ACL. He was scheduled to undergo surgery the next day and would be out for the rest of the season.
On the field below them Oradell’s replacement, Bart Tubbs, was working with the rest of the linebackers and defensive backs on some zone defenses against Tom’s passing offense.
Bart Tubbs was supposed to have been one of Matt Warren’s best draft-day moves two years ago. But since Tubbs had gotten to the pros, he’d been involved in a couple of fights at clubs and had been picked up once for driving without a license.
On the field, he hadn’t come close to being the player he’d been in college, or the one the Bulldogs expected him to be. He’d never come close to challenging Oradell for the starting job.
All of his off-the-field trouble had been in his rookie year. But as far as Charlie was concerned, the real problem with Bart Tubbs was that he hardly ever caused any trouble for the opposing team, be it tackling, dropping back into coverage, or forcing turnovers.
“This may be just the chance that Bart needed,” Joe Warren said. “And a chance to reward Matt’s faith in the young man.”
Charlie didn’t say anything.
Mr. Warren noticed. “You don’t agree?”
Charlie took a deep breath.
“You always want me to tell you the truth, right?”
“I think I’ve already mentioned that I’ve got enough people around telling me what I want to hear, Charlie.”
Charlie feeling as if he were standing next to Coach Dayley during a Cardinals game. He took another deep breath and said, “Even though Oradell’s hurt, Bart shouldn’t start.”
“You really think that?”
“I’ve watched him when he’s played,” Charlie said. “His specialty is getting in on tackles that somebody else already made. I see guys on my team, the Cardinals, like that. Making themselves look busy, but not really doing anything. And one more thing, Mr. Warren? He can’t cover you.”
On the field Bart Tubbs seemed to be in perfect position to break up a pass in the flat, but mistimed his jump, and Tom Pinkett still got a completion out of it.
Joe Warren said, “Can we get by with him and still be a solid defense the rest of the way?”
The old man was seriously picking his brain here, so Charlie knew enough to pick his words carefully.
“No, I don’t think so,” Charlie said. “I think there’s going to be way too many times when it looks as if we’re playing ten against eleven if he’s in the middle.”
It made the old man smile. “Well, doesn’t that suck through a straw?”
Charlie laughed, not knowing whether it was what Mr. Warren had just said or the way he’d said it.
“It would be a lot funnier if we hadn’t wasted another high draft pick on him.”
“I sure didn’t think it was wasted at the time,” Charlie said. “Nobody did.”
“If he can’t help us when we need him to help us, it was wasted.”
They went back to watching practice. But Charlie kept trying to sneak looks at Mr. Warren. He had been in such a good mood until they started talking about Bart Tubbs, happy about yesterday’s win, happy to have Charlie as company, unless he was faking it. Mostly happy about the way the season had started.
When Bart Tubbs did break up a pass Charlie said, “Maybe he’s not as bad as I think. And the guys around him and behind him can pick him up and we still can be a solid defense.”
The old man turned, pointed a finger at Charlie. Hand shaking, as usual.
“Now that right there sounded exactly like somebody trying to tell me what I want to hear.”
Charlie knew it was true.
Twenty-Two
MR. WARREN SAID HE’D WALK Charlie to the car when practice was over.
But when they came out of the elevator, Mr. Warren said he’d forgotten to do something, mumbling to himself, saying he’d lose his head if it wasn’t attached to his ancient body. He took Charlie by the arm, telling him to come on. Mr. Warren walked faster than he usually did until he was knocking on a door that said “Film Room.”
When the door opened, the person on the other side of it was Tom Pinkett. He was already out of his pads, just wearing a gray Bulldogs football T-shirt and black workout shorts that came down to his knees, his hair still wet, Charlie not sure whether he’d taken the world’s quickest shower once practice ended, or whether he was still sweating.
Grinning at Mr. Warren.
Charlie knowing in that moment he’d been set up.
But in a good way.
“You must be Charlie,” Tom Pinkett said, sticking out his right hand.
Charlie shook his hand.
“Wow” was the best he could do.
“Boy can talk about football till the cows come,” Joe Warren said. “But put him in the presence of a live player and it’s as if he’s lost the ability to speak.”
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Charlie said.
“No,” Tom Pinkett replied, “it’s nice for me to finally meet you with something more than a text.”
Charlie looked at Mr. Warren. “So we aren’t going to the car?”
“Not just yet, no.”
“I was abo
ut to take a closer look at Sunday’s game,” Tom said. “And Mr. Warren thought you might want to join me.”
“If I’d played the way you did,” Charlie said, “I’d want to watch that last drive until my eyes fell out of my head.”
“But what I want you to watch on that drive isn’t what I did right. I want you to see what I did wrong, especially on one play that could have cost us the game.”
“The throw to Harrison that nearly got picked off?” Charlie said.
Tom turned to Joe Warren. “Smart boy.”
“What,” Mr. Warren said, “you needed more proof than how much he likes you?”
“How much time do Charlie and I have?” Tom said.
“I don’t have to be anywhere,” Charlie said, a little too quickly, and loudly.
“Text your mom and tell her you’re going to be a little late,” Joe Warren said. “If it’s all right with her it’s all right with me.”
It was all right, his mom saying she just wanted him home by six thirty at the latest. Mr. Warren said he had some calls to make up in his office before he called it a day. He’d be back in a little while. When he was gone Tom Pinkett told Charlie he’d cleared it with his coaches for Charlie to sit with him, see the game film shot by the team’s video coordinator from his perch in the press box.
The guy Tom called his “eye in the sky.”
It was actually like a small theater, the cushy seats rising up toward the back of the room, Charlie starting to wonder if they were going to have buttered popcorn and soft drinks, too.
“You’re going to see what the coaches see from upstairs, like the snapshots that get sent down for me to look at while the game is going on,” Tom said. “And what I’m supposed to be seeing in real time.”
“Cool,” Charlie said.
They were in the front row. Tom hit a button on the arm of his chair and the room went dark. Pointed his remote at the huge screen in front of them. “Lights, camera, action,” he said. “Isn’t that what they say in the movies?”
“Something like that,” Charlie said. Ridiculously, stupidly excited to be here with him, just looking at the image on the screen, Tom frozen over center.
