In the fourth quarter the Shermanater breaks through to lay a huge lick on their quarterback in their own end zone for a two-point safety, so now they lead 51-19 for the game but we lead 16-14 for the second half.
Rock Hill starts picking on Elvis, probably seeing he’s hurt. But they try to pass his way once too often and he intercepts one and runs it in for his third TD. The game’s out of reach, course, at 51-26, but now we’re up 23-14 on the chalkboard.
Then it was like the Raiders got tired of toying with us. They break back for two fast TDs, and now they lead 65-26 with just minutes to go. It’s hardly possible to score that many points in forty-eight minutes. We’re deflated, cause after all our work we even trail the half now, 28-23.
We need a touchdown, but their defense breaks through on a blitz, and Brian is chased to our sideline and crushed right in front of us. Coach and I kneel over him. “Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere. My hair hurts.”
Coach says, “I’m proud of you, Brian. Let’s call it a night.”
“Coach, please. I don’t want to walk off this field till the gun sounds. I can’t throw, but maybe I can still run.”
Elvis says, “What’s Schuler’s commandment number one?”
“Let the bone roll,” Coach says.
With less than a minute to go, Brian keeps pitching out to Elvis, who keeps gaining yard after yard. Once I heard a Raider defender grunt, “Stay down!”
Rock Hill’s coach is screaming, “We will not lose this half to a team of fifteen players!”
Our guys are racing to the line with no huddle, and Rock Hill, who should already be celebrating their third straight undefeated season and state title, are sucking wind and trying to keep from losing this half. With less than twenty seconds on the clock and us inside their 10-yard line, Rock Hill calls a time-out. Nobody’s ever heard of a team ahead by thirty-nine points calling time-out. We hear Rock Hill’s coach ranting, “I will not give them the satisfaction.”
Coach tells our guys, “This is it. Maybe two more plays in Crusader history. Use what you’ve got and do it any way you can.”
Our crowd’s chanting, “El-vis! El-vis!”
Raider fans are shouting, “De-fense! De-fense!”
Brian pitches to Elvis, who gets blasted out of bounds and over the Rock Hill bench. Five seconds show on the clock. Even the Rock Hill coach is urging him to stay down. But he gets up. Rock Hill players are shaking their heads.
Brian pitches back to Elvis and he starts one more run, barely eluding defenders as the gun sounds. The world goes into slow motion. The roar of the crowd deafens me and I feel like I’m alone before the biggest high school crowd ever. The lights, the color, the action all swim together and somehow I’ve got the time to realize how ludicrous this is. Elvis can’t get back to the line of scrimmage, and I’m yelling I don’t know what, pumping my fists and hopping down the sidelines, trying to will him to get somewhere, do something. We’ve been slaughtered, but a touchdown will give us this half, and there’s nothing in the world that matters more.
Out of gas and stumbling, Elvis is swarmed by Raiders. They look as whipped as he does. Somehow, some way he twists and keeps his arm free as they climb his back, drive into his knees, and grab him around his neck.
I’m dying, screaming, hopping. And as the best high school football player I’ve ever seen finally buckles under the bulk of all that weight and starts to crumble to the turf, he launches a desperate pass. At first I don’t even follow the ball. I don’t believe he’s unleashed it. He disappears under hundreds of pounds of Raiders, and I’m guessing they think it’s over too. But there’s no whistle. The ball’s still in play.
I search the sky and pick it up, a pitiful dying quail of an end-over-end toss that doesn’t look to have a prayer of getting past the wide-eyed Rock Hill defenders. They quickly crouch and leap, trying to tip the wobbly ball away. But it somehow eludes em.
Brian Schuler is running like a madman, snaking through the secondary, eyes wild, mouth wide open, desperately looking over his shoulder. Inside the 5-yard line the ball drops just behind him. He slows and stretches and reaches and it hits his shoulder pad and bounces just above his helmet. Now he’s fair game and a corner back drives his helmet into Brian’s back and wraps his arms around him, just above the waist.
So now they’re both flying across the goal line, the force of the blow pushing Brian’s hands out in front of him. The ball drops into his arms as he’s slammed to the ground. The whistle blows, the ref signals touchdown, and I drop to my knees overcome at the best loss I’ve ever suffered as a player or coach.
The Crusaders are all over the field, high-fiving, piling atop one another, and I run out to meet em in the end zone where they’re hugging Brian and Elvis. Rock Hill has won 65-32, but Andy Gordon has scribbled on the chalk-board Crusaders 29, Raiders 28.
Rock Hill looks beat. State champs and they’re dragging. Their fans are silent. A Raider pulls Elvis out of the scrum. “Don’t you guys get it? You lost!”
“Not this half, we didn’t,” Elvis says.
The Raiders trudge off the field while our fans gather around the goal posts and start to climb. Soon the goals come toppling.
Rachel shoots past me into Elvis’s arms. “I am so proud of you,” she says. “Look who’s here.” Jenny Lucas jumps on Elvis and brings him to his knees.
That was about all I could take.
Coach was off looking to see where Kim had taken his wife. Bev grabbed me from behind and I had to remind myself she was still recuperating. “Guess you know I got a million questions,” I said over my shoulder.
“All in good time, cowboy.”
47
Turns out I’m marrying a lot more woman than I ever dreamed. Kim says it’s cause I’m still basically oblivious. I tell her I’m not oblivious, I’m Protestant, and she says, “That was mildly funny the first time.” My vote against her being in the wedding will likely go unheeded.
Anyway, if you could believe the rest of Bev’s bevy, this was all her idea. Soon as she learned about Jenny and made her the point of all their meetings, they started conniving to do something about her. It took all kinds a legal rigmarole just to get permission to take her out of Indiana to visit strangers who cared about her. I guess all of us were checked out by the authorities, and one of the rules was that the girl couldn’t be under the sole care of a lady still in treatment for alcoholism. Course it turns out Jenny hit it off with Miz Schuler as well as anybody, maybe cause Helena was older and seemed like a grandma.
Jenny just knocked us over. The fact that she was scared and shy and tired didn’t keep her from stealing our hearts. She had those huge, curious eyes, and she was so glad to be with Elvis again, you could tell she was fighting to stay awake. She eventually lost the battle and Rachel put her in her bed.
Elvis wasn’t much more comfortable with all us oldsters around, but he mustered enough courage to thank the ladies. Best of all, and he said this in front of us though he was talking to Rachel, “I don’t want to get all dramatic and I don’t want a big fuss, but Jenny wants me to take her to church Sunday.”
Bev and me and the rest of us traded glances but tried to pretend we hadn’t heard that. Naw, there shouldn’t be much of a commotion when the best football player in Athens City history and its resident atheist shows up in church. “I don’t want people expecting me to come running down the aisle or something,” he said.
“At least not without a football.”
That was Coach and he looked mighty proud of himself to have got a laugh. I heard Rachel whisper to Elvis, “People will let you move at your own pace. You’re on your way, but God won’t push you.”
• • •
Course Jenny had to be back to Indiana by the middle of the following week, and that was hard. You sure had to feel for the little thing, especially when she had to say her good-byes. I’d hardly had much time with her, but I couldn’t keep from crying. What must it be like to have al
l these new friends and then hear promises you’ve heard before and be expected to believe em?
We told her we’d call. We told her we’d write. We told her we’d come visit sometime and even bring her back down to Athens City. She hugged our necks so tight we wondered if we could peel her off, and I can still feel her hot tears running down my neck.
• • •
Bev hadn’t been back from Indiana twenty-four hours before she told me we had to talk. “I don’t wanna catch you when you’re vulnerable or make you think this is the only way to make me happy,” she said. “But you know I did my homework. You’ve just about raised your daughter, Cal, and this may be the last thing you even wanna consider, so stop me now if it’s out of the question.”
I knew what she was talking about. Course I did. But when I didn’t say anything, she had to wonder. Maybe she was hoping I’d grin from ear to ear and tell her I was hoping she’d suggest this. “I mean it, Cal,” she said, studying me. “This is no light decision, no easy thing. This is a long-term commitment.”
“I made one of those recently,” I said. “And that may be plenty for now.”
“No, I’m listening.”
“Don’t let me waste my breath,” she said. “Because if I’m to let this go—which I’m willing to do, and I mean that— I don’t want to invest any more emotion in it. I love you, Cal, and I’d be thrilled if it was just you and me and Rachel for the rest of the time we’ve got together. If that’s what you want, I leave this right where it is.”
I gathered her in and she lay her head on my shoulder. Her heart was racing. “What’d you find out, sweetheart? What’d they tell you?”
“Cal, I’m not asking for a decision right now, but I’m serious—I don’t want to get into talking about this if there’s not even a chance.”
“And you wouldn’t see me as the guy who stood in the way of your dream?”
“You are my dream, Calvin. And I know I’m naive. I know this couldn’t be easy. There may be days when we regret it. We don’t know what this girl brings with her, what she’s suffered, how that’ll play out. And sometimes I think I get enough mothering satisfaction just interacting with Rachel. The Lord knows that girl has accepted me already, and that can’t be easy. But if this thing is not going to be, I need to know now so I can start shifting gears.”
“I don’t understand the maternal thing,” I said. “I don’t know how that feels. All I can do is try to imagine not having Rachel. Being her dad is who I am. I think back about what life would’ve been like with Estelle and no baby, and my mind won’t even conjure it. And then when Estelle died, well, I couldn’t’ve gone on without Rachel. I wouldn’t be quick to deny you the raising of a child.”
She shifted her weight. “I’ve gone forty-two years single and childless,” she said. “I imagine I could keep going.”
“Not single you couldn’t,” I said. “I’d have to sue you for breach of promise.”
She put a finger to my lips. “Legal stuff comes later.”
I had no idea what that meant, but I told her I was willing to hear her out about Jennifer Lucas. She pulled a folder from her bag and began running down the prerequisites for an out-of-state individual to adopt a child. “Parents have to be no more than forty years older than the child,” she began.
I said, “Hey, that leaves out the Schulers.”
“So does Helena’s condition,” Bev said, “but did she ever come alive with Jenny. And Coach loves her.”
“Godparents?”
“That’s what I was thinking.” Bev’s eyes were afire. “If we hadn’t worked together all these years, I might worry about bringing a little one into a new marriage. And it still won’t be easy. But it’ll be worth it, don’t you think? Or were you looking forward to an empty nest? Am I messing everything up, Cal?”
“Course you are! Kid or not, the nest ain’t gonna be empty with you here.”
We talked about it all afternoon, and it seemed Bev couldn’t think a nothing else for days. She was obsessed with Jenny, and I was getting there. My mind was clouded by the business falling apart, but come Christmas I finally found out what Bev meant about legal stuff. While she was arranging for the adoption, I was resigning myself to the fact that American Leather was dying, while still— recklessly, I know—keeping one eye on the ball glove market.
Bev and I drove down to the shore for a Christmas Eve dinner, and she looked beautiful. We’d talked with Jenny on the phone that day and told her the news. She could move in with Bev by the middle of January, and we would become a family on the twenty-third. No matter how the business deal came down, I wouldn’t have to work. But that wasn’t me. I told Bev, “I gotta start reading the want ads.”
“That sounds like a cue for my present,” she said.
“I didn’t bring it,” I said. “It’s under the tree.”
“I meant my present to you,” she said. But she had carried only a small purse. “Is now okay?”
I nodded and she pulled out a business-size envelope. It was from an insurance company and addressed to her. She had crossed out her name and address and written in, “To my darling Cal, with love forever. Merry Christmas 2001. What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is ours.”
“What’s this?” I said, studying it in the light of the table candle.
“I don’t know, darling. Maybe you should open it.”
Inside was a memo on the insurance company’s letterhead, regarding Athens City Memorial Hospital, Inc. “Ms. Raschke, enclosed is your portion of the settlement with the above-named corporation. It has been our pleasure serving you. We wish to remind you that the details herein are, by binding agreement, confidential. With your acceptance of the enclosed, you absolve the corporation and its staff, in part and in whole, from any legal liability related to your case. For purposes of public knowledge, you are stipulating that the corporation admits no guilt or fault in the matter.
“While the award enclosed could never compensate for your pain and suffering or permanent physical damage, we hope that it in a small way helps allow you to put behind you a difficult season in your life.
“Cordially …”
I looked up at her, afraid to peek at the “enclosed.”
“I, ah, never thought you’d pursue this, Bev. I really didn’t.”
“You know me well, Cal. I wouldn’t have. I listened. I said I wasn’t the type to bring action. I said everybody makes mistakes. I said there was no way someone did this with intent. They said, ‘You almost died. That colonoscopy almost killed you. And before they repaired the damage, the poison in your system took away your most natural female ability.’ I told em I understood but that I would not be making a claim against the hospital.”
“So what’s this?”
“They asked permission to withhold my wishes from the hospital while they pursued their own claim. They said, ‘We’re not about to pay for the further procedures necessary to keep you alive, which were the result of their error.’ I told em that sounded fair enough and that I was sure the hospital would waive those costs.”
“This is waiving costs?”
“Cal, their attorneys went in there with a handicap. I was a victim unwilling to file. But with my permission not to reveal that, as long as they didn’t imply otherwise, they started negotiating with the hospital corporation’s lawyers. They established the case for malpractice, just to make clear that they knew well what had happened.
“They tell me the corporation’s lawyers advised the hospital to settle. I argued with em, Cal. I told em to get back in there and tell em it was unnecessary, cause I wasn’t gonna file anyway. They said, ‘You can do what you want with your part of the money. If it were up to us, we would treat this as a first offer and try to get more.’ I said, ‘Let me see that,’ and they slid it across the desk. They said I could make a generous donation to the hospital if I wanted to. ‘Give it all back,’ they said. ‘We don’t care. But we’ll be keeping our portion.’ Cal, you can see I could give
half of it back and still have more than enough.”
I slid the check out from behind the memo and stopped breathing. I’ve been in a high ticket business all my life and I’d never personally seen so many zeroes on a check. “Bev,” I said, “you can’t take—”
“I didn’t ask for it. They offered it because of what they did to me. I like that hospital and I hope you’ll think about a generous donation.”
“Beverly, you can’t give this to me. I—”
“I can and I have,” she said, lifting her hands to show she wouldn’t take it back. “There’s nobody I’d trust more with it, sweetheart. Think of it. Think of the church, the hospital, the bank, the town, the factory, Rachel, Jenny, us.”
“The factory?”
“You been having trouble getting through to that liquidator, right?”
“Yeah, what’s with that?”
“I told him we were going a different direction.”
“We are?”
“Ball gloves, Cal. You know everybody wants to do it. Everybody has a job, morale goes up, we have a new challenge.”
“But it’s bad business, Bev. You don’t pour money down the drain just because you can. We can’t compete with the other manufacturers anymore.”
“You’ll find a way to make it turn, Cal. It’ll start making a profit sooner or later. And if it doesn’t, who says it’s money down the drain? People have jobs. Customers have quality. American Leather stays the best equipment manufacturer in the business. Everybody benefits. It helps the Athens City economy. The town stays alive.”
• • •
Mrs. Raschke coaxed one more trip out of Clifford, and he was able to get down the aisle to give the bride away. Kim was Bev’s maid of honor. Coach was my best man. Elvis and Rachel were witnesses. Jennifer was junior bridesmaid. Helena hosted the reception.
And the runners-up to the state high school football championship, all fifteen of em, stuffed an entire bag of marshmallows into the tail pipe of my car.
I didn’t shake the last of them Crusaders till I was nearly outside Mobile.
Hometown Legend Page 25
