#1 Out of the Tunnel

by Patrick Jones

  Coach Z stopped, pivoted, and faced the team front and center. We all looked to him for his wisdom and guidance. He was pompous but with purpose.

  “Maximum effort, discipline, and sportsmanship matter most. They define success.”

  “And so does going undefeated and winning state,” Dylan whispered for just me to hear.

  “And getting lots of babes,” Shane said loud enough for everyone to hear. Coach Z shot Shane another glare but didn’t tell him to run steps. For all his high-minded speeches and Lombardi quotes, we knew Coach Z really believed winning was the only thing.

  Coach Whitson gathered the backs and ends, while Coach Colby worked with the linebackers. Other coaches handled special teams, corner-backs, and the linemen. Me being with Coach Whitson’s group rather than Coach Colby’s squad created more than a little buzz outside my circle. “So, let’s see what you got. Groups of five on the field, now!”

  I dashed onto the grass. Terry, Dylan, Mike, and two nobodies took positions. Coach Whitson hiked the ball to Shane, who dropped back to pass. Terry ran deep, while the rest of us sprinted ten yards, pivoted, and prepared to take the pass. Shane threw it to me, a perfect spiral.

  “Good catch for a linebacker lady!” Coach Whitson said. “Let’s do it again!”

  Another lineup, hike, drop back, and toss. This time to Mike—well, Mike’s feet.

  “You got to catch those, 54!” Coach Whitson yelled. Shane shouted his agreement. As we concluded our final tosses, it became clear that Shane was making me and Terry look good, Mike look bad, and the other two kids look invisible. “Next group. Gary, you’re in at QB.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered to Shane as we walked toward the sideline.

  “Nothing’s free, BN.” He wasn’t even breathing heavy or sweating. “I gave you three perfect passes, now you got to give me and the rest of my crew something in return.”

  “What’s that?” I whispered, dreading the request since I had so little to offer.

  “Party this weekend before athletic code of conduct kicks in,” Shane said and then motioned for Devon, Orlando, and Terry to join him. “I’ll bring the girls; you bring the booze.”

  I had a hundred doubts but three questions. “Where? What time? How much?”

  4 / FRIDAY, JUNE 22—BEFORE THE FIRST BIG SIX PARTY

  “Are you going to Shane’s party?” I asked Dylan as we walked home on still aching legs from morning conditioning. The kind coaching staff let us take a Friday afternoon off, for now.

  “I don’t know, Brian,” he answered. “What about you?”

  On the field, Dylan was a leader, knocking down defensive players like a tank, throwing strong blocks so Devon could run free for serious yards. Off the field, he’d always looked to me.

  “We’ve heard about these parties since seventh grade,” I reminded Dylan. Troy was a small city, about twenty-five thousand people. It was hard to keep a secret. Yet these parties were like aliens: most everybody thought they existed, and some people even claimed to have seen one, but few actually had. At the big, adultled bonfire parties Dylan and I went to last year, almost everybody on the football team attended except Shane, Orlando, Devon, Terry, and the senior starting fullback and tight end.

  Dylan looked at the ground when we walked, not at me. “What if Coach Z found out?”

  “He has to know,” I said. Coach Z was such a control freak, it just made logical sense.

  “Why do you think that?” Dylan asked.

  “Coach Z was Big Six in his day.”

  Dylan laughed. “But what about the code of conduct?” To play sports, every student athlete signed a code of conduct. The code included provisions about sportsmanship, responsibility to teammates, and prohibited activities. Partying was number one on a long list.

  I kicked a small stone in front of me. “Technically, the season hasn’t started, so . . .”

  “So.”

  “So.”

  We walked in silence the rest of the way home.

  “What up, Little Bill?” Cousin Stan snapped. I’d shown up at his place unannounced.

  “Nothing,” I lied. He had to know I needed something, or I wouldn’t be there. His father, Dad’s brother Uncle Steve, was the family black sheep. Dad invited him to the reunions, but just for the joy of tackling him. Life had beat up on Steve enough; I don’t know why Dad added to his pain.

  “So how’s football?” Stan opened the falling-off screen door to his trailer. Cars on nearby Interstate 75 buzzed past. Few slowed to give Troy a glance.

  I gave Stan a quick rundown on the preseason so far, including my switch to tight end.

  “That’s a good move for you,” Stan said as we sat in his small and crowded living room. On the wall were his varsity jacket, sans letter, and a replica of his Trojan jersey. Unlike his dad or mine, he had no trophies. Stan had been a second stringer, a human tackling dummy for starters. “You never looked like a killer out there at linebacker. You didn’t take control of the game.”

  I agreed with him, which was another lie, but I needed his help more than my pride.

  Stan rambled on about football, like everybody else in Troy. The town was too small for even a minor league or college team, so high school football was the only game in town. The game mattered so much to everyone, especially when we played Athens High. I asked Stan a few questions to help him recall his football glory days, or glory game, the ten seconds when he recovered a fumble on a punt return and ran it for a few yards. Once he was in a good mood, I was like a running back with the ball: I saw the opening and raced for daylight.

  “Stan, I need a favor,” I said. I never asked anybody but Dylan for favors. I hated it.

  “What can I do for you, Little Bill?”

  For starters, I thought, stop calling me Little Bill.

  I explained about the party. From the number of empty bottles and cans about, alcohol seemed dear to Stan’s heart and home. “I was hoping since you’re twenty-five, you could buy.”

  “A man could get in trouble. I’ll need extra incentive.” He rubbed his fingers together.

  “That’s the thing, I don’t have any money.” Football left no time for a part-time job.

  “So, you want me to not only buy you beer, but pay for it myself.”

  “We need vodka too,” I said. “For Shane.”

  Stan laughed. “Shane Hunter? The quarterback?” I nodded in agreement. “Little Bill, he’d better not hear you’re dropping names like that. You’ll never get in the Big Six.”

  The inner circle seemed to have its own code of conduct. I’d need to learn it, fast.

  “If that’s the case, I’ll front the money, but you gotta pay me double after the Friend’s Carnival. And that means you need to win the Tunnel of Love bet.” Like the Big Six, the Tunnel of Love bet was a Troy tradition I’d heard of, although Dad supplied few details when I asked.

  “So, Stan, what was that like in your day?”

  Stan breathed in deeply.

  “All the Big Six guys put in twenty-five bucks, and it was winner take all,” Stan said.

  I paused, so he kept talking. “I didn’t take part in the bet, of course, but like everybody on the team, I enjoyed the show.” Stan laughed, rose from his chair, and walked through clutter to a desk. He opened the desk, moved around some papers, and then sat back next to me. In his hand was a brown envelope. He took out a piece of paper and held it up for us both to see. “You couldn’t send photos by your phone in my day, so you had to print them out,” he said.

  The faded picture showed a girl with her face covered by her shirt. Next to her in the Tunnel of Love ride sat the guy who’d pulled up her shirt so she flashed the crowd. “You get in the Big Six, get your girlfriend to play along, win the bet, and you’ll pay me back double. Deal?”

  “Sure,” I lied again. Even though I shook his hand, I knew I’d never pay him back. I wasn’t in the Big Six yet; I didn’t have a girlfriend; and if I did, I wouldn’t do that to her. What kind of perso
n would do something like that? Oh, right. Troy football legend Big Bill Norwood.

  5 / MONDAY, JUNE 25—FIRST DAY OF WEIGHT LIFTING

  “Are you happy with yourself, Norwood?” Coach Colby hissed like a broken hose. I lay on the bench under two hundred pounds of weight, so I couldn’t escape. Nor could I ask him to get out of my sweaty face.

  “Coach Zachary thought my move to tight end was best for the team,” I answered.

  “Blatnik has three left feet at linebacker,” Coach Colby said. “He’s got his two and one of mine kicking his behind.” This caused lots of laughing, except from Joe Blatnik, who wasn’t more than ten feet away. He shut his eyes tight and did his curls a little faster. Nobody worked harder in the weight room than Joe except Dylan and Mike, who were muscle-building machines.

  “He’ll get better,” I said loud enough for Joe to hear. “And I’ll excel at tight end.”

  “Just because your father is all buddy with Coach Z and on the Friends Board, don’t—”

  I pushed the weight up, hard and high. “That has nothing to do with my starting,” I said.

  Coach Colby snort-laughed. “Don’t kid yourself, Norwood.”

  “You’re wrong, and I’ll prove it,” I said, maybe telling a coach he was wrong for the first time ever. “I’ll start because I’m the best. I’ll help our team go undefeated and win state.”

  Another snort. “It’s good to set high expectations. But don’t kid yourself.”

  I started a second set of reps. The clanging weights drowned out Coach Colby. Unlike Coach Z, Coach Whitson, and my dad, Coach Colby didn’t attend Troy High. He didn’t get it.

  “This is the best team we’ve had in years. If we beat Athens, then we’ll beat everybody.”

  Coach Colby leaned over me, then put his hands on the weight. “That won’t happen.”

  What is your problem? I thought but said, “We can’t lose. Why do you think we will?”

  He leaned closer. He’d had garlic at lunch. “If you go undefeated, don’t you know what that does to all these people? If you win them all, then they lose it.”

  “Lose it? Lose what?”

  “Then the team Coach Z, Whitson, and your dad played on isn’t the only Troy team to go undefeated,” Coach Colby said. He took his hands off the weight, which felt closer to my chest—or maybe it was just my heart beating so fast that it was about to leap out of my sweat-stained shirt.

  “Looks like you’ll start,” Shane said after weights. To my surprise and delight, he’d invited me to join him, Terry, Orlando, and Devon in his hangout spot: the back of his Chevy pickup. With a cooler full of fortified orange juice, Shane lounged in a lawn chair soaking up sun. “Miller’s got nothing on you.”

  “Thanks.” For the compliment, I thought, and for making me look good. I was doing better in skills than Mike, in part because I worked harder and was a better natural athlete. But I could tell, even if the coaches didn’t seem to catch on, every pass Shane hurled toward Mike was just a little bit off.

  “We’re celebrating the fourth with a little Red, White, and Pabst Blue Ribbon,” Terry said.

  “Sounds like fun,” I lied. My head still hurt every now and then from last Friday’s party.

  “You’re not talking, are you, BN?” Devon asked. He’d been copying Shane’s initials thing.

  “Talking?”

  “Off the field, what happens in Big Six, stays in Big Six,” Devon said. “Got it?”

  I nodded. I was in. We’d yet to play a down, but my head felt up in the clouds.

  “So what about your friend, Dylan Davis?” Terry asked.

  “That kid’s gonna make it,” Devon said. “You see those blocks. He’s concrete and—”

  “You’re a cement head, Devon. That’s not what he means,” Shane said before he sipped from his bottle of OJ. “What he means is, is DD going to be part of our team? What about it, Brian?”

  6 / WEDNESDAY, JULY 4—BIG SIX PARTY

  “You’re sure about this, Brian?” Dylan asked.

  “Don’t worry, it will be fine,” I answered. We sat in his mom’s Impala and waited for Stan to bring us the booze. This time, it was Dylan’s turn to buy. He got some money from his dead-beat dad so he didn’t need to make a deal like I had with Stan.

  “I don’t like it.” Dylan tapped the steering wheel with his thumbs, including the right one that he broke in the last day of skills practice. He didn’t tell anyone but me. What happens in huddle stays in the huddle. “I know the Big Six is tradition, but I don’t want Coach Z to find—”

  “I told you, Brian, he has to know,” I whispered even though there wasn’t a car in sight. “Coach Z was Big Six back in the day. Don’t you see how he lets Shane get away with stuff?”

  “What if we get kicked off the team?” Dylan asked. “I’m not like you guys. If I don’t get a football scholarship, I won’t go to college. I’ll go into the army or end up working at Walmart.”

  “You won’t get kicked off the team,” I said very loudly as if to reassure myself. Football was a game of very clear rules with defined penalties: five yards for offside, ten for holding, and fifteen for a clip. But our Trojan team seemed to have two sets of rules: one for starting backs and ends, another set for everybody else. One group drew consequences; the Big Six did not.

  “But I don’t like to drink. It’s all so stupid,” Dylan rattled on. “I mean, that’s time I could be studying the playbook or doing my homework once schools starts, and—”

  “I bet once real practice starts, things will change,” I said. “Now, it’s just skills and drills, so I think Coach Z is just taking it easy before double sessions start in August. And then once school and the games start, I’m sure then he’ll have a zero-tolerance policy like last year.”

  “But nobody who got kicked off the team last year was a back or an end,” Dylan said.

  “Well, I guess that was our good luck.” We both laughed at other’s mistakes. It was because Reggie and Titus got booted from the team for violating the code that Dylan and I got our minutes. I took Reggie’s left linebacker slot, while Dylan spotted Titus at left guard.

  “But what if that good luck runs out?” Dylan shouted over the rattle and hum of Stan’s clunker Dodge pulling beside us. I stayed in the car, while Dylan finished the transaction.

  I glanced at my phone. I’d missed calls from Dad, Mom, Mike, and Shane. By the time Dylan got back in the car, I was telling Shane we were on our way.

  Unlike the last party at his uncle’s house, when Shane, Terry, and Orlando brought girls, this was stag and out under the stars by Pillman Lake. Without the girls around, there was way more cursing, which seemed to make Dylan uneasy, but a little less drinking, which was fine by us. Shane played music out of his car speakers, which almost covered up how loudly everybody laughed at Shane’s jokes or at the other guys as they made fun of our less talented teammates.

  “Look, I’m Mr. Graceful, Joe Blatnik,” Orlando said as he tripped over his own feet.

  Terry added his Coach Z impersonation, complete with wobbly knees and worn-out cliches. “As the late, great Vince Lombardi said, ‘I’m dead and I sure don’t smell so good.’”

  “Shane, toss me a beer,” I yelled. Shane complied. I let the can smack me in the chest.

  Around Devon, Terry, and Orlando lay six empty beer cans each. There were four between me and Dylan, only one his.

  It must have been the laughter or the music that covered up the sounds of the approaching feet. We didn’t see our new visitors until Shane said politely, “Good evening, officers, wanna beer?”

  7 / SATURDAY, JULY 14—FIRST MEETING OF THE BOARD OF THE FRIENDS OF TROY FOOTBALL

  “Is that one of them?” Dylan pointed from my second-story bedroom window at the crowded back porch where members of the Friends of Troy Football Board gathered below.

  “Sure looks like him.” The person in question looked like most everybody else in Troy: very white, a little overweight, and standing quite prou
d of himself and his city.

  “We got lucky,” Dylan reminded me.

  “You make your own luck,” I said for the hundredth time.

  “Now you sound like Coach Z.”

  The person Dylan and I had been staring at was Gary Sloan. Officer Gary Sloan. He and his partner, another former Troy Central High School football player, had let us off with a warning and a light punishment: they took the rest of our beer, although they left Shane’s screwdriver gallon jug. Shane had been more than generous in sharing what was left over.

  “Do you think we should be listening in like this?”

  I shook my head no.

  “But we’re going to anyway, right?”

  I nodded, and Dylan laughed.

  “Hey, Brian, we gotta talk now while we got the chance,” Dylan said. In two weeks, a lot of us from the team, including Shane and his crew, were going to a weeklong football camp at Ohio State. I’d gone every year since seventh grade, so I wasn’t that excited about the training. I was interested, however, in the social opportunities that Columbus might bring a small-town boy like me. To hear Shane tell it, girls were like bees there and the football dorm was the hive. In the past, I’d sit up late into the night with my roomie—never Dylan, he’d never been able to afford it—playing video games and slurping down Dew like some dumb kid. No more.

  I took Dylan up on the offer, and we swapped predictions for our coming season. Terry, who’d played at Athens in ninth and tenth grades, had given us some insight into their talents. As we talked, I wondered about telling Dylan what Coach Colby had said—that Coach Z didn’t even want us to go undefeated—but I figured that was just bitter talk by someone outside the inner circle.

  After plenty of laughs and more than a few drinks, the men—always men—of the Friends of Troy Football Board started their meeting. I’d never cared about the Friends before, but this year was different. The Friends looked after the starters, and I was a starter now.