At ten-thirty, Boobie announced that he was going over to his aunt’s house. L.V. told him he was crazy to get up and go somewhere after major knee surgery.
“I’m through working with you,” said L.V.
“I’m through with you,” said Boobie.
“Then get your stuff out.”
And Boobie did just that, because nothing meant anything to him anymore, not even his uncle.
L.V. waited for him to return. It had just been an argument and surely he would come back once he calmed down, once he got hold of himself. But then hours went by and then a day, and then another one and then another one. And it became clear to L.V. that there wasn’t much use waiting for the crooked front door to open on Boobie standing there with that infectious smile on his face begging for forgiveness.
He wasn’t coming back.
L.V. felt pain. He felt anger. He felt rejection. But like everything else in his life, he ultimately accepted it as another disappointment that would somehow settle in, just like the wall in Crane that fenced him and the other blacks in like cattle, just like not being able to play high school football because he wasn’t allowed to go to the white school, just like not being able to find a job. “I miss him, but as time goes on, I’ll learn to live with it,” he said. “It kind of wears away, but it’s somethin’ you think about all the time. Boobie was just like my own.”
Boobie came by the house after about a week. L.V. was livid and told him he was never going to make it, but Boobie was in no mood to listen. He packed up the rest of his stuff and just left. When L.V. looked into his room, it was bare. Boobie had taken virtually everything with him, the poster of his idol Michael Jordan, the one of Lawrence Taylor that had been given to him by the coaches as an inducement to play defense, even the recruiting letters that had once glowed so powerfully.
But the dream still floated, still beckoned, as beautiful and elusive as the green light at the end of Gatsby’s dock. “He’s got the physical ability to play pro football,” said L.V. one afternoon, lingering by the practice field even though Boobie wasn’t there. “Everybody in the world knows that. But he’s got to have the mental attitude. I hate to see it all go up in smoke. Three or four more years, I would have had ’im ready.
“It’s a bad situation,” he said, his voice as soft and sorrowful as an autumn leaf slip-sliding to the ground, “but I’ll let it go.”
POST-SEASON
(14)
FRIDAY NIGHT ADDICTION
I
Permian beat Amarillo Tascosa in the first round of the playoffs with ease, 31-7. Then the team flew to El Paso by chartered jet to face the Andress Eagles. Everything seemed off that night. The temperature was freezing with a bitter wind and little flecks of snow, and the ten thousand or so fans in the stands of the gigantic Sun Bowl looked like little bits of paper swirling in a vacant street. Gaines, usually so silent and focused on the strategy of the game, prowled the sidelines with fury. He had gotten his reprieve and made it to the playoffs, but there was no room now for mistakes or sloppiness.
“That’s horse crap and you know it! . . . Crap! Absolutely horsecrap! Can’t make a foot because you can’t block anyone, Mannix! . . . Quit tacklin’ like a girl, Ivory! . . . Hustle off the field! Get your heads out of your ass!”
His anger extended to the locker room at halftime, when the score was only 21-7 in Permian’s favor. He yelled at Winchell for throwing two interceptions. He yelled at Steve Womack and Billy Steen for not being able to tackle anyone. Then he started screaming at the top of his lungs and it didn’t seem like some calculated tantrum.
“We’re not gonna win a state championship playin’ like that! We are not going to win a state championship playin’ that way!”
Permian was easily victorious with a 41-13 score, but if the outburst was designed to steer the players toward greater discipline, it didn’t work. Back in Odessa, the players celebrated with a party at one of their houses (since they had traveled by chartered jet, they got home way before their parents, most of whom made the 286-mile trip by car), and there were reports of one player wandering around dead drunk in the middle of the field house parking lot at three in the morning.
The following Wednesday, with school out for the Thanksgiving break, the players found a mysterious note in their lockers when they came in for morning practice to prepare for the third-round playoff game against the Irving Nimitz Vikings.
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE 1988 PERMIAN PANTHER FOOTBALL TEAM
Gentlemen:
It has become quite evident in the last few weeks that the 1988 edition of the Permian Panthers is blessed with a great deal of physical talent. Impressive performances have indicated this and many of your opponents will testify to your physical prowess. But we fear that your continued success is in much jeopardy.
What we make reference to is the obvious lack of moral integrity and discipline among several members of your group. It has become painfully evident that the winning of a State Championship is not a high priority of every member of this team. The primary goal of many of you appears to be seeing how intoxicated you can become, while others of you try to see how many rules you can flaunt and get by with. The tradition of MOJO was built over a period of several years. Each succeeding team has contributed to this tradition. All of them have not contributed, for example, the 1986 team, but the vast majority of the teams have contributed in many different ways.
At this point in time all the 1988 team is doing is feeding off of what was done in previous times. As a team you have not made a single contribution to the tradition. In fact at the present rate of decline this Saturday will probably be the end of your season and then you will join the 1986 team in history. That place is marked by a large sign with one word on it
!!!!!!!LOSER!!!!!!!
Senior class, the choice is yours. No one can play the games for you. You must make a commitment to winning the remaining games or be prepared to have the stigma of being called a loser attached to your team for the rest of history.
The letter was unsigned, but most of the players suspected it had been written by one of the coaches.
“I know those cocksuckers wrote it,” said Jerrod McDougal, the key tip-off being the use of a four-syllable word. “Intoxicants, that’s a coaches’ word.”
He didn’t find the letter amusing at all. Here it was, the day before Thanksgiving, and there they were on a field that had turned from lush green to stunted yellow, practicing, just as they had done the day before, and the day before that, going over the Nimitz defenses, 80 Loose C-5, 80 Solid C-5 Invert Weak, 68 Storm C-3 Man, and the Nimitz offenses, Right Pro Strong, Right Squirm, Right Tite F Bump to Unbalanced, until they were blue in the face, just as they had done for every other opponent, like they were robots or something, or mechanical arms on an assembly line. They had started practice in the middle of August, those wretched two-a-days when every muscle ached and it wasn’t unusual to lose five or six or seven pounds from one practice to the next, and they were about to play their thirteenth game of the season. It was impossible not to feel mentally and physically exhausted. But more than that, they were also scared to death.
“We’ve dedicated our lives to it. And they’ve already fucked it up once,” said Jerrod, the memory of the loss to the Rebels as searing as it had ever been. And now he had to contend with an unsigned typed letter in his locker as untraceable as a ransom note accusing him of being a loser in capital letters if the team didn’t win the state championship.
Several days later, starting linebackers Ivory Christian and Chad Payne found jerseys with the numbers of Irving Nimitz’s starting running backs on them. Nimitz’s backfield was the finest in the state. There were notes attached to the uniforms; the one to Payne said, “I’m gonna wear your ass out!”
The one to Christian, who because of his religious beliefs and his preaching hated profanity, said: “You ain’t shit and I’m gonna drive your dick in the dirt. MOJO my ass and you ain’t shit.” The source of thes
e notes wasn’t discovered either.
On Saturday, about an hour before game time, Coach Belew met, as usual, with the defensive ends. He went over basic strategy, how to read the keys for the six sweep and the ten tackle trap and the waggle at eight, what to do depending on how Nimitz lined up on offense.
“Okay, twenty-nine cover five versus one back or no back, we’re just stayin’ straight twenty-nine unless you get a swap call, okay, right? Get a swap call and then you play a foot technique. Other than that cover five means nothing to you, it means nothing, cover five means nothing unless your linebacker gives you a swap call and then of course that means you’re in a foot technique on the tackle or if you have a tight end you’re in a seven technique, okay, that’s all that means. Bump to eight flip, like always, check loose to B over, okay, not strong set, okay?”
There were no questions. Everyone understood perfectly because it was something everyone had practiced and studied religiously. Belew then continued in a slightly different vein.
“Hell, guys, there’s only sixteen teams [left] and hell, there’s only gonna be eight teams remaining after tonight. You guys are in the elite few in the state of Texas. Hell, I’m proud of you, real proud of you.
“Hell, play balls out, it’s a great chance to show your stuff, okay. If we beat these guys and we play great defense, hell, everybody’s gonna know it, right? All the eyes are on us. All the eyes are going to be focused on you, all the sportswriters, all the TV, all the fans, everybody, there ain’t nobody else playin’. Okay? So you got a chance to really stand out, okay?
“One thing about it, I’ve been associated with state championship teams. In eighty-four we won a state championship and in eighty-five we played for it. God dang, guys, there’s nothin’ else like it. There’s nothin’ else like it and I still hear from those guys. One of them called me last night just to wish me good luck. . . . It’s still a real special feeling and those guys are twenty-one, twenty-two years old, twenty-three, they’re grown men now. It’s still real important to ’em and it still means a lot.
“I know it’s been a long season, hittin’ and runnin’ and gassers and all that stuff, I know it’s not any fun. Hell, it never has been and it never will be any fun but it’s the reward that you get for payin’ the price, payin’ your dues, okay? That’s why you do it and that’s why we want you to do it and that’s why we ask you to do it.
“And there’s nothin’ else like it. There’s no other feeling like it that you can feel from being on a championship team and playin’ with a group of guys like you’ve played with. It’s some-thin’ you always have. Later on in life they can take your money away from you, they can take your house, they can take your car, they can’t take this kind of stuff away from you, somethin’ that you’ll always have and you’ll always be proud of.
“Let’s play hard today and let’s knock the hell out of ’em. Rodrick, okay, let’s light ’im up. Let’s see how good he really is, okay, let’s put some helmets on ’im.”
Rodrick Walker came into the game the state’s leading rusher in Class AAAAA with 2,048 yards and 196 points. Coach after coach paid him the highest possible praise: they pulled out every possible time-worn cliché to describe him. He was unstoppable. He was as good a runner as they had ever gone against. He was poised to assume his place in the state record books with the stud duck list of other great schoolboy runners—Billy Sims, Eric Dicker-son, Earl Campbell, Kenneth Hall.
After the team meetings, the atmosphere in the Permian locker room seemed more grim and determined than it ever had been. The players finished dressing with the methodical pride of a bride preparing for her wedding, every piece of equipment adjusted and pulled until it was perfect, and as they slowly paced back and forth on the black carpet they glanced at the new spate of quotations that had been tacked to the bulletin board. From Sam Huff:People pay money to see great hits.
From Howie Long:
They call me Caveman because of the way I attack people. I like to think of myself as being relentless.
And from Chariots of Fire:
Let each of you discover where your chance for greatness lies. Seize that chance and let no power on earth deter you.
In the trainer’s room, Alan Stewart, the Odessa police chief, was on the phone making sure there was a police escort for the buses. Two police cars showed up and the buses made their way to the stadium in a swirling wind that sent little veins of dust down the empty road like slithering snakes.
About fifteen hundred fans from Nimitz were already there, some of them having made the 330-mile trip in chartered Greyhound buses that were shoe-polished on the side with the words WE LUV YOU BLUE. When the first group of Nimitz players took the field for the pre-game warm-up, the blue-clad, bell-ringing, flag-waving supporters rose to their feet.
“GO VIKES GO! GO VIKES GO! GO VIKES GO!”
On the field, Walker ran side by side with his teammate in the backfield and best friend, Byron Miles. They ran in such beautiful sync that they looked for a moment like Siamese twins, and they had the cocky jaunt that all athletes have when they want to draw attention to themselves quietly, the stride smooth and effortless.
The enormous phalanx of the Permian band, led by the majorettes in their black velvet costumes, unfolded like the Russian army in a Victory Day parade in Moscow. Not a single person was out of step. Not a single costume looked droopy or saggy. The band made its traditional circle around the stadium, not even remotely rattled by the tireless efforts of the Nimitz fans to drown it out with their continued rosaries.
“GO VIKES GO! GO VIKES GO! GO VIKES GO!”
Minutes before the kickoff, Gaines called the team around him in the stadium dressing room. For the first time all season, he had the players exactly where he wanted them. The letter, whoever had written it, had achieved its intended effect. They were angry, enraged, humiliated. You could feel it. Losers?
They would show the world who was a loser.
“They’re out there hollerin’ for Mojo,” said Gaines of the Nimitz fans. “We’re gonna give a little dose of Mojo. You got it?!”
“Yes sir.”
“Mojo’s gonna be the eleven on the field wearing black jerseys, you understand that?”
“Yes sir!”
“I hope all of you have prepared yourself to call on somethin’ extra, call on somethin’ extra from within you that’s gonna allow you to play even better than you’ve ever played in your life, a supreme, fanatical, wild-eyed effort that it’s gonna take to win this football game! Emotion! Enthusiasm! Intensity for four quarters! Four quarters! Can you go four quarters?!”
“Yes sir!”
He bent down in the middle of the circle and led the team in prayer, as he did before every game.
“Dear God, we’re thankful for this day, we’re thankful for this opportunity you’ve given us to display the talent that you’ve blessed us with. Heavenly Father, we thank you for these men and these black jerseys, thank you for the ability that you’ve given ’em and the character that you’ve given ’em. We ask your blessings on each one of them this afternoon. Help them, dear God, to play to the very best of their ability. Help them to play with some quality that they’ve never played with before, give them that something extra that they’ve never had to call up before.”
On the first play from scrimmage the great Rodrick Walker took the ball on a pitch. He moved to the right side, looking for the tiny sliver of space he needed to break upfield with his 4.4 speed, just as he had done against Trimble Tech and Arlington and L. D. Bell and Haltom. But he wasn’t prepared for the mass of black shirts coming at him in a crazy blur, like hungry rats jumping over each other’s backs to get to a speck of food. He tried to dodge, to somehow get out of the way, at least make it to the sideline and regroup a bit, but who the hell were these people? What possessed them? Defensive tackle Billy Steen clawed into him first and Payne came from the outside linebacker position and dove into him at full speed. On Payne’s back, dying for a l
ittle piece of the meat as well, was Ivory Christian. And right behind Ivory were other tacklers equally desperate to dismember Rodrick Walker.
Jerrod McDougal was right. It was like imperial Rome, like the Christians and the lions, violent, visceral, exciting, crazy. And Walker was about to become a sacrifice with twelve thousand fans screaming at the top of their lungs to finish him off, their thumbs raised so high to the sky they could almost touch it.
Walker was crushed, a pile of black shirts burying him so you couldn’t even see him anymore. The roar of the crowd grew louder and louder. A helmet hit him where he cradled the ball. It popped into the air like a lazily floating balloon. It was caught by defensive back Stan Wilkins for the fumble recovery.
Two plays later Comer took off for a forty-nine-yard touchdown run. With twenty-two seconds gone, the game was over.
The vaunted Walker managed a total of one yard on seven carries in the first half as Permian went into the locker room with a 27-0 lead against a team that had come into the game ranked sixth in the state. The final score was 48-7. Walker ended up with seventy-one yards on fifteen carries. Comer had 221 yards on twenty-six carries and four touchdowns.
The Nimitz fans, shamed but loyal to the bitter end, started chanting “WE LOVE YOU! WE LOVE YOU!” to their ever-noble heroes. On the other side the Permian players marched about giving each other high-fives, eager to take advantage of the fact that they still owned the town for another Saturday night as if they were legally licensed desperadoes, and some of them seemed doubly inspired by the letter they had found in their lockers, as well as by the discovery of a new, far more elegant word for the more traditional shit-faced.
Friday Night Lights Page 28
