The Field

by Tracy Richardson

  I walk to the edge of the penalty box, bounce the ball three times and take the punt. I know it’s good when my foot connects with the ball. It sails 70 yards across the center line into the opposite end of the field. All my pre-game nerves are gone, washed away in the surge of adrenaline and the rush of making the save. Saving the first real shot on goal is critical. It energizes the team and keeps the momentum on your side. Not to mention making me totally stoked. I still feel the power coursing through me. I barely notice my ribs, but I’m sure I’ll be sore after the game when all the other bruises and contusions start to appear.

  We’re putting the pressure on Fort Ben, keeping the play in their defensive third. It’s a physical match with a lot of pushing and shoving that the ref isn’t calling. Like they didn’t call the foul on the striker when he plowed into me. Paul takes a shot which is deflected wide by their keeper, giving us a corner kick. Dameon, our freshman holding midfielder takes the corner and sends it in a perfect arc towards the goal. All the players leap into the air trying to get a head on it, but Paul gets there first and heads it into the goal. The ball zooms past the keeper and into the back of the net.

  GOOOOAAAAL!!

  Our team goes wild, mobbing Paul. The Monroe fans are screaming. The stands are a blur of purple and white towels waiving furiously.

  We keep the score at one to nothing until halftime. I’m pretty tired from making saves, but nothing I can’t handle. I feel totally on my game today. I don’t need to visualize now, it’s real. Fort Ben is good, but so is Monroe, and so am I.

  Coach Swenson calls the team over to a shady area at the end of the field for our halftime talk. I get one more cup of water from the big cooler on the sidelines and sit on the edge of the group in the back. Brett is up front, near Coach. I’m sure it sucks for him to watch me rocking the goal, but there’s not much I can do about that.

  “It’s a well fought game; the teams are pretty evenly matched, but we have the upper hand and the momentum, so let’s keep it that way.” Coach Swenson is saying. “Offense needs to keep the pressure on and take shots. No hesitation. Don’t hang onto the ball. One touch, pass or shoot. And keep switching the ball—diagonal balls are going to slice them open.” Paul and Hernando, the other striker, nod. “Defense, keep doing what you’re doing. Asplunth, you’re doing a good job shutting down their striker and Horton you’re keeping us on top. Don’t let them get one past you.”

  The second half starts with Monroe taking the ball downfield and getting off a shot, but the Fort Ben keeper makes the save and punts it all the way to my penalty box. Will and Tyler, my other center back, collect the ball. Both teams keep the pressure on and play all out, but can’t finish with a goal. We’re still up one-nothing with five minutes left. The play’s been aggressive on both sides and the refs have pretty much let it go. Now, Fort Ben is getting desperate and the play is brutal. Tyler’s been battling with the Fort Ben striker in the backfield and between him and Will, they’ve been able to mostly shut him down. The striker is obviously frustrated and angry, which makes him dangerous.

  In the last play of the game, their striker gets the ball and starts dribbling down the field. I try to judge if he’s going to pass it off or try to score himself. I’m crouched and ready in the goal, coiled for action. Tyler runs on to him, trying to push him wide or get the ball. They’re getting close to the penalty box when the striker comes down hard on Tyler’s instep with his cleats and gives him a vicious elbow to the ribs.

  Tyler drops like a rock, head over heels, and he takes the striker down with him. The ref blows the whistle and calls the foul, but it’s on Tyler! No way! Will and the other Monroe players are yelling at the ref that the foul was on the striker, but the ref’s already positioning the ball for a free kick. At least it’s not a penalty kick—point blank at the goal. Two more steps and they would have been in the box.

  “Wall! Four!” I yell, directing four guys on the wall to block their free kick. Will and Tyler and the two midfielders form the wall between me and the ball. I judge the angle of the striker. “Right, right! Okay. Stop!” I’m not getting any feeling about where the ball is going, but I still feel the energy coursing through me. Deep breath. Focus. Move to the center of the goal, get the angle right. Think—where’s it going? The striker’s been playing it to the lower right corner all night, so I’m anticipating that shot. The ref blows the whistle.

  The striker lines up to take the shot, runs onto the ball and past it! A second player runs onto the ball to take the kick and just before he connects it flashes in my head—upper 90, left corner! I’d been thinking lower right corner, so I’m slightly out of position and off balance. Can I make it? Don’t think! Move! He’s leftfooted, and he shoots, sending the ball with pace towards the center of the goal. Then it starts curving, bending to my left. I’m off the ground, flying, reaching—the tips of my fingers connect with the ball and I crash to the ground. It goes wide of the goal, but not far enough. I’m on my hands and knees scrambling to get to the ball—where are my defenders?—but the striker is on to it before I can collect it and he sends it past me into the goal, lower right corner. Damn.

  The game ends in a tie. We’re 14-0-1 for the season, not 15-0-0. No perfect season. None of the great saves I made matter when the one I miss means we didn’t win the game. Of course, it wasn’t my fault that the call went the wrong way and there was a free kick. And everyone knows that it’s a team effort, but I’m the one who got scored on. Will and Tyler should have been there to clear the ball, but in the end I over-thought it. And let them score.

  We walk back to the bus deflated. The Fort Ben team is pumped, happy about avoiding a loss, but we were ahead almost the whole game and I let it slip away. I still have to act confident and cocky, so I don’t look weak, but I feel like shit.

  “Hey, dude, don’t sweat it,” Paul says, walking beside me. “It was a brutal game and you saved like twenty shots. You can’t save them all. Will and Tyler needed to shut that guy down. And that had to be a home town ref.”

  “Whatever,” I say. I’m pissed at myself and I don’t feel like being let off the hook. Somehow I need to figure out how to get out of my own way and not over-think the play. Let it just come to me. I’m not sure how to do it.

  “Anyway, save it for the tournament. We could face them again if we make it to the finals, and we will shut them down.”

  The coaches pass out box lunches and drinks when everyone is back on the bus. Sub sandwich, chips and an apple. It’s always the same thing, but I’m starving, so I wolf it down and take four ibuprofen from the bottle in my bag. My ribs and various other places on my body are starting to hurt.

  Oblivion is what I need. I shove my soccer bag against the window as a pillow and go right to sleep as the bus pulls out of the parking lot.

  I dream that I’m in the goal saving shots. Will and some other faceless players are taking shots on goal. They’re coming at me fast and furious, but I’m deflecting them easily. It’s dark outside, and there are millions of stars in the sky overhead. The field is illuminated from a glowing fog that floats around it, on the edge of my vision. Now the shots are even faster and they’ve become like comets, blazing down on me in fiery balls from the sky. I catch them and they explode in my hands, but my gloves protect me from the flames. Then the comets are raining down all around me in a hailstorm of bright, burning lights that cover the field. The dream morphs and I’m walking with Renee through the woods at the lagoons. It’s still night time and we’re holding hands. I feel a strength and comfort from her touch. Up ahead we see an orange glow through the trees. It gets brighter as we approach. We step past the edge of the trees into the clearing and before us is the star gazing rock rising up into the sky, glowing red and orange and gold in the night; hot and molten. It throbs with energy that bathes us in waves of power and light.

  My phone buzzes in the bag under my head, waking me up. It’s Renee texting me that she’ll meet me at the concert tonight. I text back ‘ok
ay’ that I will see her there. She’s going with friends from her AP Studio Art class to the PantheRock concert on the practice field behind the football stadium. All the garage bands from school try out to get a chance to play in the concert. Some of them are totally awesome and some of them suck. It’s a big deal to the bands that get in, and we get to listen to some pretty tight music. I check the time on my phone. I’ve been asleep for almost two hours. My fingers tentatively probe my ribs. Definitely sore, but I don’t think they’re broken. I’ll be purple and green by morning though.

  I could go to the concert with Paul and some of the other guys, but I might just go by myself so I have a car to take Renee home. Strange that she texted me right when I was dreaming about her. I want to tell her about the dream, but in person, not in a text. Maybe I’ll tell her tonight about the other dreams, too. I haven’t told anyone about them. Talking about them would have been like acknowledging them somehow. Giving them importance. At least in this one I didn’t wake up screaming, and no one seemed in any danger. Those other dreams had started to freak me out a little … really more than just a little. What with the remote viewing and the astral projection, who knows what I was actually seeing in those dreams or if it was in any way real. This one was more cool than anything else. I’d felt like the energy from the comets and the star gazing rock was somehow part of me and that it was good energy. It gave me a feeling of power, and I’d had this wonderful positive sense of everything being right. So why now, awake and sitting on the bus, do I still feel uneasy?

  17

  I END UP going to PantheRock with Paul, Tyler and Will. Tyler has a Jeep Cherokee with a wicked sound system, and I can hear the bass coming in through the open windows of my bedroom when they pull up to the house.

  My phone dings with a text from Paul. WE R HERE. WILL BROGHT A FLASK. Great. Now he’s gonna be drinking on school grounds. I don’t feel like dealing with this. Except for soccer, he’s been totally blowing me off, so why should I be his babysitter?

  GREAT… B RIGHT DN. I was actually surprised that Will wanted to go with us at all. It’s probably because his ‘cool’ friends started without him and he needed a ride.

  When I climb into the back seat next to Will, he’s leaning laconically against the opposite door with a cocky grin on his face. Paul turns around from the front seat and says angrily, “Normally I wouldn’t give a crap what you do, but Sectionals start next week and we need you if we’re gonna have a chance to win state. If you get kicked off the team for drinking, you’re not just screwing yourself.”

  “Chill out, dude. It’s just a little vodka. No one is gonna find out and no one is gonna get hurt.”

  “You don’t know that,” I say in a flat, determined voice. “You’re way overdoing the whole ‘party-guy’ thing. I mean a beer here and there is one thing, but a flask? What the hell is that about?” I hesitate and take a breath before I say, less harshly, “Acting like this isn’t going to change anything about your dad, you know.”

  Will takes a sharp intake of breath and says in a low, mocking voice, “What the hell do you know about it? Did you use some of your ‘magic powers’ to see what’s going on at my house or with my dad? How’s that going for you, anyway? Didn’t seem to help much with that last goal.”

  He couldn’t have hurt me more if he had actually hit me. I recoil as if he did strike me. My best friend gives me a cold stare. I know he’s dealing with the mess his dad left, but I’m done. I don’t need to be his punching bag. I turn away from him and look out the window.

  Paul jumps to my defense. “That was so low. We’re supposed to be a team, remember? Have each other’s backs. Eric’s trying to help you, don’t you get it?” He’s practically in the backseat now, yelling at Will, but it doesn’t do any good. Will pulls out the flask and takes a drink from it in defiance. Paul smacks the back of his chair and then turns back to the front. Tyler turns up the stereo as he pulls away from the curb. No one talks the rest of the way to school.

  We have to wait in line for a few minutes to get to the admissions table. The show started at four, but the best bands don’t play until 9 p.m., so people are really just starting to show up now. We pay our five bucks and the mom sitting at the table hands us the band schedule. As soon as we’re in, Will goes off on his own looking for his new friends, just like I thought he would.

  “Adios, amigos!” He calls to us over his shoulder, “Don’t wait up for me!” Even though he’s being a jerk and I don’t really want to hang out with him, it still hurts that he’s moved on from our friendship. He’s someone I thought I would always be able to count on. I guess there’s no question of me watching his back now since he won’t be around and frankly, I don’t much feel like it.

  “That dude is messed up,” says Paul. “We’ve got to keep an eye on him so he doesn’t do something stupid.”

  “Good luck with that,” I say and shove my hands in my pockets. “He doesn’t want our help.” We’ve moved to the back of the crowd to watch the band that’s currently playing. The stage is set up at one end of the practice field, and booths from different school groups ring the fenced-in perimeter selling food, drinks, t-shirts and stuff to raise money. The lights are on, but parts of the field are in shadows from the oncoming night. I scan the crowd hoping to get a glimpse of Renee, but there are too many people milling around. And she hasn’t replied to the text I sent when we got here.

  “Hey, check it out, Winston is setting up,” Tyler says.

  “Awesome, they rock.” We know some of the guys in Winston, and they’re pretty good. The lead singer was telling me at lunch on Friday that they are totally stoked about playing tonight because they’ve scored a good time slot and they’re debuting a new original song.

  They’ve been playing for about ten minutes when we notice that the percussionist is doing something with his hair.

  “What’s Steven doing to his hair?” Tyler asks.

  “I think he’s got a pair of scissors and he’s cutting it!” Paul says, “Yeah, he totally is—check out the song lyrics—it’s ‘Cut Your Hair’ by Pavement!”

  “Holy crap, that is so awesome!” Steven’s hair is longish and thick, and he’s ratted it up on his head so it’s big and bushy. “He’s jabbing his hair with the scissors and cutting out chunks of it.”

  Then there’s some kind of commotion on stage and the music stops. Mrs. Stoat, the faculty advisor for the event, has appeared and is yelling at the band and gesturing at Steven and the floor of the stage.

  “What’s going on?” asks Tyler. “She looks pissed.”

  Now Mrs. Stoat has thrust a broom at Steven and he’s sweeping up the chunks of hair that fell from his head. The band has started pulling their equipment from the stage.

  “Oh, man, she made them stop playing. That sucks!” exclaims Paul.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. I fish it out hoping it’s a text from Renee.

  IM DOWN IN FRONT OF STAGE LEFT SIDE.

  B RIGHT THERE. I text back.

  “I’m going to meet up with Renee down by the stage. I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

  “We’ll come with you. I want to find out what happened with Winston and Mrs. Stoat.” Paul is already pushing his way through the crowd.

  Tyler and I follow Paul through the path he’s making as he weaves his way toward the stage. I can see over the heads of most of the crowd, and now that I know where to look, I see Renee standing with a group of people just in front of the stage. Her glossy dark hair catches the light as she throws her head back and laughs at something one of them is saying.

  “Hey, babe,” I say quietly when I get up beside her and touch her lightly on the shoulder. She turns to me and smiles, which makes my heart jump, and then puts her hand on my hip and gets up on her toes to kiss me on the cheek, which makes my heart pound.

  “We’ve been dancing,” she says, and I see that little wisps of her hair are clinging wetly to her forehead and her face is slightly damp. She looks beautiful.
>
  “Hmmm,” I say and lean down to give her a kiss on the mouth. She kisses me back and then pulls away when one of her friends says, “Hey, too much PDA here!”

  Renee looks up at me with her eyes crinkling at the corners and says, “Would you like to meet my friends?”

  “Okay,” I say and turn to them, but I really want to talk to Renee alone about my dreams.

  “This is Miles and Anna and Emily. We’re in AP Studio Art together.” I recognize them from the party the night we went to the star gazing rock. It’s the guy with the nasty vibe and the hipster look, and the girl with the long red hair and army boots.

  “Hey,” I say and nod to them. “Do you mind if I steal Renee away for a minute?” To Renee I say more quietly, “Can I talk to you alone. I want to tell you something.”

  I take her wrist and gently pull her over to the side of the stage. “That was totally abrupt,” she says. “I wanted you to meet my friends and talk to them.”

  “I’m sorry, we can go back in a minute, but I want to tell you about this wild dream I had on the ride home from the game. You were in it.”

  “Really, what were we doing?” she says, poking me in the gut and implying something entirely different than what I meant.

  “Not that kind of dream. We were walking in the woods at the lagoons, holding hands, and the star gazing rock was glowing, almost burning. I could feel a sort of emotional strength from you and an incredible power or energy from the rock. The weird thing is that it felt so real. Even when I’m remembering it now, it feels like it actually happened and wasn’t just a dream.”

  “Do you think it was energy from The Field? You felt something there before. That’s pretty wild.”

  “I’m not really sure, but, yeah, it could be something like The Field. There’s more—I’ve been having these other dreams. Really freakin’ crazy dreams with explosions and fire. I haven’t wanted to think too much about them because they pretty much scare the crap out of me, so I haven’t told anyone.”