by Alan Janney
Coach Garrett called a running play and Jesse fell forward for two yards. The other team knew we didn’t want to throw a pass, making it simple for them to clog our runs. Coach Garrett called an option. My first action.
An option play is designed to have both the quarterback and running back run in the same direction around the pile and then turn upfield. If the quarterback sees a lot of running room, he keeps the football and tries to get as many yards as possible. However if the quarterback sees no running room, he fakes the run but actually tosses it sideways to the running back who might have a better chance at successfully gaining yardage.
“We can do this,” I told myself. “We can do this.” And I believed it. Sometime in the last minute my fear had turned into excitement and anger. We could beat these guys.
We approached the line of scrimmage, which was the invisible line that the defense couldn’t cross until we hiked the ball. I had the impression every Panther defender knew exactly what play I’d called, even though that was impossible. I crouched under the center with the same impression of impending doom and called, “Hut!”
Jesse and I both turned to our right and sprinted away from the crashing linemen. The Panther linebackers saw the option play instantly and began hunting us down. Everything happened so fast I had no time to think, the world bouncing beyond my facemask.
WecandothisWecandothisWecandothis!
Jesse and I were faster than the defense and I had plenty of open field ahead of me, so I tucked the ball safely into my arms, put my head down and charged. One of the hulking linebackers flew in from the side but I veered away from him, closer to the sideline. He reached out a hand and snatched my jersey with his fingertips as we ran parallel down the field. The cornerback ahead broke off his block and came up to tackle me. At the last second, I jumped out of bounds, safely ending the play while the referees blew their whistles. The Panther linebacker smacked the ball out of my grip spitefully before hurrying to his huddle.
I couldn’t believe it. We’d gained fourteen yards! My heart was pumping and jumping in my chest, and the drum section above me pounded out our first down cheer. The delirious crowd released their craziness and it crashed over me.
First down, Eagles!
Coach called another option play, but this time I pitched the ball to Jesse who scooted ahead for another first down. Then another option play, but the referee threw a yellow flag and declared a holding penalty, which sent us backwards ten yards. Three more runs and we gained sufficient yards for our kicker to make a field goal, giving us the lead.
The whistle blew to end the first quarter.
Panthers – 0. Eagles – 3.
While Coach Garrett was congratulating me on the sidelines, I saw that Andy was now propped up on crutches. “Andy’s out,” he said, noticing my stare. “You’re our quarterback for the rest of the game.”
“Yes sir,” I said.
“You’re going to have to throw it eventually,” he said.
“You’re going to let me throw it?”
“We’ll lose if we don’t, Jackson,” he said in resignation. “Trial by fire. We might lose anyway, but damn it if we don’t at least try.”
I can do this. My confidence was rising, although it had no right to.
The first passing play he called was simple. Jesse ran towards the sideline and I threw him the ball while everyone else blocked. I could literally throw that pass with my eyes closed. Jesse caught the ball and gained four yards. We needed six more yards in order to get a first down and keep the ball, and we had two more tries, or downs, to get those six yards.
Coach Garrett decided to get wild. He called a monster passing play.
“Shotgun wide pump fifty-four, on one,” I said. Fifty-four meant that Adam Mendoza would be running a go route straight up the field. The eyes in the huddle widened.
We lined up with two wide receivers on the field, Jon Mayweather the big senior, and Adam Mendoza, the school’s track star. I stood three yards behind the center in a formation called shotgun. Jesse stood beside me, hands on his knees.
“Super twelve!” I called out, which was a pre-snap signal that I liked how the defense lined up. I could change the number to Super Eleven or Super Thirteen to adjust our play. “Super twelve!” Everyone dug in and tensed. “Hut!” I called, and the center snapped the ball straight backwards. Eight of their eleven defenders rushed, clawing to get at me.
I had about three seconds to throw the ball.
One Mississippi. I faked handing the ball to Jesse, who pretended to take it from me, hopefully stalling the coming horde.
Two Mississippi. I turned and fake pumped a pass to Jon Mayweather, who was running across the middle of the field.
Three Mississippi. I found Adam Mendoza streaking down the field, far beyond his suckered defender. I cocked and released the ball, shooting a tight spiral above the heads of the defeated defense, which had been a half second too late.
The crowd rose to its feet in an eerie hush, watching this unexpected pass soar with surprising grace from a rookie quarterback up into the atmosphere and plummet down perfectly into Adam Mendoza’s hands. He jogged untouched into the end zone and the stadium erupted like a bomb going off.
Touchdown!
Joy, delirium, and frenzied madness greeted me as I returned to the sidelines. I was pounded by congratulatory fists to such extent I declined taking my helmet off. Adam was similarly mobbed and bruised.
Panthers - 0. Eagles - 10.
“Hey man,” I said, when Adam Mendoza locked his arm around my neck. “Great catch.”
“Naw. Great throw, that’s what that was,” he said. “Hey. You noticed we’re a lot faster than these suckers?”
“Seems that way,” I agreed.
“Then why we running? Let’s throw.” “Tell the Coach,” I smiled. “Not me.”
I sat down on an aluminum bench and put on a pair of headphones that connected me directly with the offensive coordinator up in the press box at the top of the stadium.
“Jackson!” Todd Keith yelled into my ear. “Nice pass!” “Thanks!” I said. “Adam is telling me we’re faster than their defense.”
“Yes, we’re noticing the same thing,” he said. The static made his voice a little hard to follow. “Don’t get cocky, though. That play worked because we’d run about a hundred straight rushing plays.”
Andy Babington was sitting beside me, spinning a football in his hands. He looked like a zombie. I felt terrible for him. His whole life had been building up to this season, and now he couldn’t even play the first game.
“How’s the ankle?” I asked him.
“Sweet pass, kid,” he said, not looking up. “I didn’t see it, but…sounded good. Way to go. Beginner’s luck, huh?” To my astonishment, big tears began to spill down his cheeks. His face crumpled and he buried it in his hands.
“I’ll keep the football warm for you, until you get back,” I offered lamely and then gave him some privacy. I found Cory and dropped down beside him.
The Panthers finally found some running room and rushed down to kick a field goal. During the timeout, our cheerleaders pranced onto the field to dance while music blasted from the stadium speakers. Hannah popped and spun and twisted and stretched and bounced, and smiled at me during the routine.
Panthers - 3. Eagles - 10.
On our following drive we rushed the ball well. When I wasn’t handing the ball off to Jesse, I could stand safely in the pocket of protection created by my giant linemen and complete passes to Adam Mendoza, Jon Mayweather, and Josh Magee. This was actually working. It shouldn’t be. But it was.
Right before time ran out in the half, we kicked another field goal.
Panthers…three. Your Eagles..thirteen.
We stormed into the locker room and Coach gave orders like a general addressing his troops. We listened, nodded, drank fluids, and howled at each other in partial madness. The Eagles exited the locker room and returned to the field like infantry hell-bent
on crushing invaders.
We took the field first and Coach Garrett started calling nothing but passing plays. Our wide receivers flew like jet-fighters across an empty sky. They would cut and turn and leave the defenders in their after-burn, and I was a rocket launcher delivering strikes all over the field. Anywhere my receivers went I could hit them hard with a football, and the Panthers were helpless against the missiles streaking over their heads. We worked our way down the field like a machine incinerating all resistance. Anytime the Panthers were actually able to cover the Eagle receivers, I’d simply dump the ball to Jesse who would be waiting nearby as a safety outlet. After we’d score, the defense would march out and quell the Panthers’ offensive uprising. As we thrived, so did the raucous stadium, making my vision shake.
The fans were drunk with our good fortune. Coach Garrett was shocked close to speechlessness whenever we scored. Football teams didn’t score like this with the starting quarterback on the bench. They couldn’t.
What was happening on the football field made no sense. Everything had slowed down. I simply knew exactly what to do and how to do it. My body felt like it was under someone else’s control, similar to the night I’d found Katie’s phone.
I threw a touchdown pass to Josh, Jon, and then another one to Adam. I wanted to throw one to Jesse but Coach Garrett reeled us in, told us the game was no longer in doubt and we shouldn’t run up the score. He pulled out all of the starters except me because we didn’t have another quarterback.
A few minutes later, as the clock began to wind down, I glanced at the score board.
Panthers - 10. Eagles - 34. 1:32 remaining.
If we got one more first down, we could hold onto the ball and end the game. We lined up and I called, “Hut!”
Our second string unit was not as fast or as fierce, so I had to wait a little longer than I wanted. If I completed this pass, the game would end. One of the receivers would break free any second and I’d throw the ball, but he was taking too long. Then the world exploded.
The Panthers’ middle linebacker ran around our linemen unblocked. He sprinted towards me, lowered his shoulders and drove straight into my lungs. I came apart at the joints, every part of my body on fire and blasted into different directions, and I slowly crashed into pieces on the cruel ground.
Or so it felt.
I’m dying!
Or so it felt.
Number Nine is sacked!
I couldn’t breathe, partially because the evil beast remained on top of me, breathing hateful hot air into my face. I was drowning, unable to move, on the verge of unconsciousness. Eventually, after an eternity of pain, he left and I could see the stars in the sky past the brutally bright stadium lights.
The linemen hauled me to my feet, but I still couldn’t get air. I gasped and sucked and breathed and nothing happened. We had to punt so I staggered off the field, close to panicking when finally a small stream of air began to filter into my lungs. I collapsed near the bench.
The stadium had grown so quiet I could hear children chattering from the farthest row, and Coach Garrett was absolutely destroying the linemen that had let me get sacked. Even the band kept silent. My helmet was gone, and I had no idea where. So was one of my cleats. My pulse pounded in my eyes, making the world jump rhythmically. The team’s physician was bent over me, saying things that made no sense. Through the mute fog of agony I could tell the twenty thousand fans had turned into a concerned audience for just me. They held their collective breath so I forced myself to rise and give them a thumbs-up.
Cautiously optimistic applause and relief spread through the ranks of onlookers like an epidemic, and I fell onto the bench and was forgotten. The only sound I could remember was Andy’s quiet, sarcastic laugh.
At school the following Monday, our victory was big news. But almost as big was the news story about a failed robbery attempt downtown. Robberies, even failed robberies, were not uncommon, but this story was gaining notoriety for two reasons.
One, this botched ATM robbery was caught on video tape, and the footage was hard to believe.
Two, the girl that had been rescued was the famous movie star Natalie North.
Chapter Six
Monday, September 10. 2017
I hadn’t recovered by Monday.
I’d spent Friday night being examined by the team physician and resting in an ice bath. I had a monster headache so I went to bed after eating half a dozen bologna sandwiches.
Saturday I’d done nothing but catch up on homework and laundry. I couldn’t do much because my chest felt shattered. Coach had said that I hadn’t been sacked, I’d been decimated. I was practically immobile. He also told me Quarterbacks get hit like that a lot.
Speaking of quarterbacks, what had HAPPENED to me Friday night? Rookies like me do not play that well. They can’t throw the ball that hard or that accurately. They can’t think that fast. I had no explanation for my success.
On Sunday, Lee visited to help me with math because I’d gotten a D on my first quiz, and later Katie came over to rub my shoulders while we watched a movie. Katie was a sucker for chick flicks, and she’d purposefully wait to watch recent releases until I could watch them with her. She liked to torture me for some reason.
I didn’t realize my ATM rescue antics had been caught on camera until lunch on Monday. Lee and Katie were discussing their model U.N. roles (Lee represented Japan and Katie represented Puerto Rico and most of Central America) when the news report aired.
“Oh, there it is!” Lee said around a bite of burrito, pointing at the television.
“There’s what?” Katie said. She and I turned around to see the news.
“The Natalie North thing,” Lee said.
“Oh yeah,” Katie said. “She’s so pretty. Chase and I rented her latest movie last month.”
Bewildered, I asked, “What Natalie North thing?”
“Bro, didn’t you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“Where you been?” Lee said. “Everyone is talking about it, dude. Did you know I met Natalie North once? She was at the coffee shop on Cypress Avenue in April, where I tutor. I wanted to take her picture but I chickened out.”
Natalie North is one of Hollywood’s youngest A-list celebrities. She had been a respected child actor in a television series but made the jump to the silver screen in late adolescence, starring in two teenage comedies and earning an Oscar nomination in a drama last year.
The only controversy surrounding the nationally treasured starlet was her notorious decision to go to college last year and only make movies during the summer. Now she was in the 2nd year of getting her English degree from USC, but she still made the tabloids despite dropping out of the public eye for nine months at a time.
I stared at the television, wondering why I sensed that I’d recently had a dream about Natalie North...
“By now many of you have seen the outrageous footage,” Teresa Triplett beamed into the camera with a grainy photograph above her shoulder. “The video online already has over a whooping four hundred thousand views in just three days. An ATM camera in uptown Los Angeles captured an attempted robbery that occurred late last Thursday night.”
ATM robbery? Last Thursday…
…Natalie North…
“And it just so happens the victim of the attempt is none other than the famous movie star Natalie North. As you see here, the footage is a little garbled but we can clearly recognize Natalie North is making a withdrawal at this well-lit ATM located on a ritzy block of uptown Los Angeles right across from her million-dollar apartment. What happens next is astonishing…”
“Check this out,” Lee said. “This is the part.” “…Two masked men quickly subdue her and take both her purse and cash. But, if we slow the video down we can see a shadowy figure in the background come sprinting into the picture…”
I gaped in disbelief as an enormous black shadow swooped into the scene, kicking one burglar so hard he was instantly propelled out of the shot. The
video was silent.
“Dang, bro! Kicked him so hard!” Lee shouted. Even Cory grunted.
The video switched to an interview with Natalie North.
“Natalie,” Teresa Triplett asked her. “How scary was this?”
“It was terrifying,” Natalie said. She sat with Teresa in the sunshine, wisps of her hair getting caught in a slight breeze. Teresa Triplett is very pretty…until she sits across from Natalie North, at which point the comparison is not kind to her. Natalie is world-wide beautiful. “But it occurred so quickly that I had no time to process it.”
“When did you realize that the attack had been caught on camera? Did you start getting text messages from friends who had seen it?”
“I started getting…” she paused, “emails Saturday night. I reported it to the police early Friday morning, but didn’t hear about it again for thirty six hours.”
“The video is silent, so we can’t hear if words were spoken. Can you tell us what was said?”
The grainy ATM camera started rolling while Natalie responded.
“The two assailants didn’t say anything at first. But then this huge guy shows up, and he kicks the first one so hard he began to cry, I think.”
“Wow,” Teresa replied.
“Yes, it was an intense kick,” she laughed. “Then the man in black stared at the second one and told him to let me go.”
While she spoke, we could see the big masked figure stare at the second mugger holding the girl. I couldn’t believe how big I looked. Could that possibly be me?
“And the second robber let you go?” Teresa asked.
“Yes, he said something like, ‘Oh crap,’ and fled.”
“Wow,” Teresa said again.
“That guy in black is enormous. I might have been more scared of him than the other two, because he’s so tall and so…big, and his voice is tremendously deep,” she said. “I don’t blame the second assailant for fleeing.”
“And then it looks like he says something to you. Did he?”
