Gutless

by Carl Deuker

  Took a step back as sophomore. Unproven.

  Beside his name was a red arrow pointing down.

  That summer, I was at Gilman Park nearly every day. Hunter Gates and his dad showed up about half the time. Hunter would stretch for a few minutes, and then his father would supervise while he did agility drills and ran wind sprints. Once he was loose, Hunter would throw the ball to his father, who scrutinized every movement.

  Eventually, Mr. Gates’s eyes would look around the playing field, and I’d step away from my buddies. “We need you for a little bit, kid,” he’d say, his hand motioning for me to join them. Sometimes he’d even say “Brock.”

  Mainly we worked on the slant pattern. Mr. Gates insisted I get the footwork perfect so that Hunter could get his timing right. “To run a good slant,” Mr. Gates explained, “you take three steps and then cut hard on your outside foot. Do it right, and the cornerback will be tripping over his own feet.”

  Again and again, I’d run about five yards and then cut at a sharp angle toward the center of the field. Hunter would fire the ball to me, and I’d catch it. There was nothing much to it that I could see, but when I told Mr. Gates that, he snorted. “What you’re doing now hardly counts. Making the catch when there’s a linebacker or a safety about to unload on you—that’s when you’ll find out if you’re a player.”

  Once Hunter and I had the timing of the slant down, we switched to the out. I’d drive up the field five yards and then make a sharp cut toward the sideline. “You won’t have to worry about hanging on after being hit on this one,” Mr. Gates said. “The pass will carry you to the sideline. Just be sure to get a foot down before you step out of bounds.”

  At first, I ran the route like a robot, counting my steps, watching my plant foot. Then, somehow, I didn’t have to. I had my back to Hunter, so I couldn’t see him, but I knew when his arm was raised, knew when he’d released the ball, knew when to turn. I could tell from his eyes that he knew what I was going to do before I did.

  Quarterbacks and receivers work hard to get that kind of feel for each other. Sometimes it never comes, no matter how much work they put in. But Hunter and I had it. I don’t know why or how; I just know that we did. It was as if our minds were synched.

  One day in July, a Chinese kid about my age came traipsing across the field with his parents. I’d seen him before, running down my block in the morning. He was shorter than me, but stockier. He wasn’t a sprinter, but a middle distance guy. Like my father, he looked as if he could run through a wall.

  There are a million better places to have a picnic in Seattle than Gilman Park, but the kid and his parents carried a couple of baskets over to a ratty picnic bench near the chainlink fence. The kid’s mother spread out a tablecloth and soon they were using chopsticks to eat from the white takeout containers you get at Chinese restaurants.

  After a short time, the kid’s father started shouting in a high-pitched, angry voice, noodles hanging out of his mouth. His wife, who was dressed in black except for a red bandanna about her head, lowered her eyes. She took a few bites of her food, but within minutes the father was at her again, waving his chopsticks around while talking fast. The whole thing was so strange that it was impossible not to stare.

  A bunch of guys who looked about twenty—shirts off, jeans sagging, cigarettes dangling from their lips—wandered from the street onto the field. They were either high or pretending to be high—shoving one another, fake fighting, dropping f-bombs left and right.

  When they spotted the Chinese kid and his parents, big smiles came to their faces. The kid’s father had started yelling again, ordering his wife to eat, and shoving food into his mouth as if he was demonstrating to her how it was done. The saggy-jeans guys started mimicking the father, pretending to gobble from imaginary bowls, loudly sucking up imaginary noodles. They bowed mockingly to one another, hands joined as if in prayer.

  I started to turn away—who wants to see stuff like that?—but out of the corner of my eye I saw the Chinese kid jump to his feet. When I looked back, he was up in the faces of those guys, telling them to go away. They were laughing at him, sticking their teeth out and pretending to speak Chinese. The kid’s father was yelling for him to come back to the table; his mother started crying.

  The Chinese kid looked back to his parents, and in that split second, one of the guys stuck his foot behind the kid and shoved him. The kid went flying back, falling hard. He got up and charged the guy who had tripped him. But as he ran at him, one of the other guys stuck his foot out and the kid went down again, this time face first.

  “I call the police!” the father screamed as he held up his cell phone, and at those words the guys took off, looking back and laughing as they half ran, half walked away.

  The Chinese kid got up and started back to the picnic table. As he walked, he looked over at me. For a moment, our eyes caught and held, and then he dropped his head. I turned away and went back to kicking the soccer ball around.

  A few minutes later, the mother gathered up all the picnic stuff and put it back in the basket. They left then, the Chinese kid staring at the grass as he walked back to his car.

  That was the first time I saw Richie Fang get shoved around for no reason, but it wasn’t the last. And it wasn’t the last time that he’d fight back, either.

  Hunter Gates didn’t show up that day, so I was home early. When I stepped inside my house, my dad was sitting in a rocking chair in the front room reading the main section of the Seattle Times. I said hello, and then my eye stopped on the photo at the top of the business section that was on the coffee table in front of him. Mr. Gates’s face was staring at me.

  My dad noticed. “Something wrong?”

  I pointed to the newspaper. “That’s Mr. Gates, right?”

  My father nodded. “Sure is. And he’ll be public enemy number one around here for a while.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s the lead attorney for the company pushing to run oil and coal trains to Cherry Point. Everybody hates the idea.”

  “Why’s he doing it, then?”

  “He’s a lawyer; it’s his job.” My father paused. “You know his son, right? Hunter, the quarterback.”

  “I know who he is, but I don’t really know him. Some days, I see him at Gilman Park throwing the football around with his dad.”

  “They’re at Gilman? That surprises me. I figured his kid would be at some NFL-sponsored football camp. I guess his father has to stay around here to work on the lawsuits.”

  It was the perfect opportunity to tell my dad that I wanted to try out for football, but I couldn’t bring the words out. There’s still time, I told myself.

  And then time ran out.

  One day in early August, after I’d finished running patterns and Hunter was headed to the car, Mr. Gates handed me a packet of papers—the forms for football. “Get your mom or dad to fill these out,” he said, and then he stopped. “How is your dad? Doing better?”

  “He’s a little better,” I lied.

  “Good,” Mr. Gates said. “Glad to hear it.” Then he tapped the papers he’d handed me. “Tryouts are in two weeks. You can’t participate unless these papers are signed and your medical forms are up to date. I’ll be helping out with quarterbacks and wide receivers. I’m a volunteer, not a paid coach, but you’ll have somebody in your corner.”

  “Dad, let’s go,” Hunter called out. “I’m hungry.”

  Mr. Gates looked over. “In a minute.” He turned back to me. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Renaldo Nehemiah, have you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Nehemiah was a track star, a world-class athlete. When his track career ended, he turned to football. For a few years, he was a deep threat for the 49ers. I can see you being the Renaldo Nehemiah of the Crown Hill High team. You’ve got the speed and you’ve got the hands”—he stopped and motioned with his head toward Hunter—“and you’ve got somebody who can get you the ball.”

  After dinner that night,
I followed my dad out of the kitchen. He had a new chair in the living room. It looked like a regular chair, but it came with a remote that let him raise and lower it, making it easier for him to get in and out. He kept a blanket over the arm so that no one could see the control panel, but there was no covering the hum of the machinery. It wasn’t until he was settled in his chair that he even noticed I’d followed him. “Got a minute?” I asked.

  “Of course. What’s on your mind?”

  Sitting on the sofa across from him, I took a deep breath and the words rushed out. I told him about working out with Hunter Gates under the eye of his father. “I know I’ve never played football,” I said, “but practicing with Hunter has changed me. Running routes and catching passes—it’s a million times better than playing goalie. I want to give football a try, but I need you to sign the permission forms. So, would you sign them for me?”

  When I finished, the room fell quiet. “No, Brock,” he said, breaking the silence. “No.”

  My body went cold. “Why not?’

  He ran his hand over his mouth a few times and then leaned forward. “Brock, you know why not. And it’s not just concussions. It’s knees, ribs, shoulders, ankles, hips. Football is brutal.”

  “It isn’t all that different from soccer, and you let me play that. I’m not going to be a lineman or a running back. I’ll be a wide receiver.”

  “When wide receivers go over the middle, they take harder hits than anyone. And with your speed, the coach is sure to put you on special teams too. Those guys race downfield on kickoffs and punts. Nothing is more dangerous than that.”

  I felt a wave of desperation. I hadn’t realized how much I wanted to play football until I could see the chance slipping away. “This is high school football, Dad. Not the Seahawks. Guys don’t hit that hard. Besides, I want to prove to myself that I can do it.”

  “Do what?”

  I felt my body slump. I breathed out, slowly. “You know. Make the team. Play.”

  He looked at me for a while. “Stick with soccer, Brock. It’s safer, and you’re good at it.”

  “I’m not good at it. I don’t even play soccer. Not really. I stand in goal and watch everybody else play. I’m bored out of my mind ninety-nine percent of the time. But when Hunter Gates throws the football to me—that’s great. Sometimes I—”

  He interrupted me. “The answer is no.”

  “So you won’t listen? What I think doesn’t matter?”

  “On this topic, no.”

  “Fine,” I snapped, and then stomped upstairs to my room, flopped on my bed, and opened my laptop. I logged on to Halo and played on autopilot, my mind raging.

  I’d been playing for about an hour when I heard a light tap on my door. I was sure it was my mom, but when I opened up, my dad was in front of me. It was hard for him to get upstairs, so I felt guilty the moment I saw him.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Sure,” I said. I reached for my desk chair. “Do you want to sit down?”

  “No, I’ll stand. I won’t be long.” His eyes caught the computer screen. “Go on. Get to a good place to stop. I don’t want to spoil your game.”

  I shook my head. “I’m done.” I turned and hit the escape key, not bothering to save.

  I turned back to face him.

  “You know I wish I could do more with you.”

  My throat felt as if it were filled with gauze. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

  He laughed, a joyless laugh. “Well, I mind. I mind a lot.”

  He looked at his hands and then opened and closed his fingers three or four times, an exercise I’d seen him do often. His eyes came back to me. “Playing football is important?”

  “I want to play. I think I can be good, and I want the challenge.”

  “You’d be way behind the other players. You’d be one of the few guys, maybe the only guy, who has never played on a team, never been tackled, never thrown a block. You’ll probably end up on the freshman team, not the varsity.”

  I shrugged. Mr. Gates had just about begged me to try out. Why would he do that if he thought I couldn’t make varsity? “I just want to give it a try.”

  My father stared at me for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was businesslike. “Okay, here’s the deal. They say coaches are teaching safer ways to play the game. But if you get a concussion—that’s it. No more football. You understand?”

  My heart was pounding. “Are you saying that I can play?”

  “You can play.”

  “But what about Mom?”

  “I talked to her. She thinks it’s a stupid macho male thing, but she won’t stop you.”

  “The concussion rule is her idea?”

  My dad shook his head. “No. The concussion rule is our idea. If you don’t accept that condition, I’m not signing. So what do you say?”

  The first thing that surprised me about the tryouts was the number of guys on the field. There must have been a hundred—ranging in height from five two to six seven and in weight from one hundred twenty to three hundred.

  It was a hot summer day for Seattle, over eighty. The head coach was an older guy with a scary name: Coach Payne. He looked like he’d been coaching for a century. Guys said that this was going to be his last year.

  Coach Payne positioned himself on top of a tower and used a bullhorn to give directions to the assistant coaches and parent volunteers who directed the small groups.

  We started with stretches that morphed into pushups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks. Next came agility drills. Up . . . down . . . left . . . right . . . forward . . . backward—all with coaches and volunteers screaming at us to go faster and push harder. I didn’t see a football until an hour had passed.

  Mr. Gates had told me that he’d work with the receivers, but he spent ninety-nine percent of his time with Hunter. Mr. Laurence, a young guy with long blond hair and tattoos of barbed wire running up his arms onto his neck, directed the receivers. He seemed more like a Hells Angel than a football coach. I felt so lost that I thought about gliding over to the side of the field, waiting for a moment when no one was looking, and then slipping away. But I couldn’t quit, not after begging my dad to sign.

  There were nine receivers in all. The freshmen were about my size. The other five guys weren’t particularly taller than me, but they were muscular and had stubbly beards. My arms looked like twigs compared with theirs.

  Mr. Gates and Mr. Laurence directed the passing drills together. Hunter had more velocity than the other two quarterbacks, and I was the best at hanging on to his passes. My sure-handedness was ticking off the returning receivers, especially Colton Sparks, a junior with strange green eyes who’d been Hunter’s best friend since middle school.

  After twenty minutes, Mr. Gates took the quarterbacks to the other side of the field, while Mr. Laurence had us follow him to the end zone. “Make a circle,” he commanded, and when we did he threw a towel onto the ground. “I know who can play catch. Now I want to find out who can play football.”

  It didn’t take long to figure out the drill, if you could call it a drill. It was a one-on-one tug of war, but instead of pulling a rope you pulled a towel. Colton snatched the towel and shoved it in my face. “Okay, you little wuss, get out here.”

  He took hold; I took hold. Mr. Laurence, his eyes excited, blew his whistle. Instantly, Colton was dragging me across the field. I thought my arms were going to come out of their sockets. Finally, Colton pulled me across some line I didn’t even know was there. When Mr. Laurence blew his whistle, Colton let go of the towel and I went flying back, landing on my butt. Colton stood over me, grinning down, while the other guys shrieked with laughter.

  Since I’d lost, I had to challenge somebody and pull again. I picked Ty Erdman, a five-foot-six guy with short arms and short legs. I thought I could beat him, but he was like a bulldog. That contest was over fast too.

  My shoulders burned, but I had to stay in the center until I beat somebody. Mr. Laurence enjoyed my hum
iliation as much as the other guys, grinning and shouting, “Pull! Pull! Pull!”

  After I’d lost my fourth straight, my muscles were twitching and I was gasping for breath. Mr. Laurence told me to sit down, which I did, salty sweat dripping into my eyes. Other guys pulled the towel then. I dropped my head between my knees and stared at the grass.

  Finally, the bullhorn’s siren wailed.

  All the groups reassembled at the north end zone. Coach Payne’s voice boomed out. “You’re going to be tired and sore tomorrow. That’s football. You go through pain to reach victory. We’ll have two sessions starting Thursday. Be here, on time, ready to go. Dismissed.”

  As I walked off the field, Colton sidled up next to me. “Not such a big deal after all, are you?”

  “At least I can catch a football,” I shot back.

  He snorted. “You won’t catch anything when there’s a safety waiting to lay you out. You don’t have the stones to play this game.”

  My mind was ablaze as I walked home. Colton Sparks could win all the towel pulls in the world, but that wouldn’t change the fact that I could catch passes that he dropped. And I wasn’t afraid of being tackled by a safety or a linebacker. Sparks could take that stupid towel, wrap it around his neck, and hang himself with it.

  Two-a-days started, and every day was more grueling than the day before. Each session ended with the same stupid towel pull. I was always the big winner when it came to catching passes and the big loser in the towel pull.

  On Monday afternoon of the second week, we put on shoulder pads and a helmet for the first time. I wanted to love the pads and the helmet, but with all those straps and plastic flaps, I couldn’t move my arms freely, so I wasn’t able to adjust quickly to the ball. And with a heavy hunk of plastic and foam surrounding my head, I had trouble seeing. I’d race out on a fly pattern, or make a quick cut on a down-and-out, look back, and not find the ball. The magic I’d had with Hunter disappeared. His passes were hitting the ground in front of me, behind me, to my left and right. Hunter would scowl at me and shake his head, and I saw Mr. Laurence look up to the sky in disbelief. I fell like a rock, from top receiver to middle of the pack to bottom guy. Colton Sparks and the older guys enjoyed every second of it.