The Corn Husk Experiment

by Andrea Cale

  Teach rolled down his window. Henry rolled his down too. The sound made Teach remember that he wasn’t with his college buddies.

  “Hey Henry, dude, I’m not going to lose my cool,” Teach said as calmly as he could manage. “I’m just going to ask where the next closest garage is.”

  “Well, I have a mind to give them a word or two,” Misty said.

  For the first time that day, the pair locked eyes and smiled. From her passenger seat, Misty felt the same electricity as the night before, only this time it traveled along the left side of her body.

  Wasting only a few extra minutes to find another parking spot, the teacher, student, and parent excitedly made their way into Sun Life Stadium at long last.

  “University of Boston has to win,” Henry said for the fourth time that day as he wore his favorite Falcons shirt. “Devin Madison just has to pull it out.”

  Of the more than seventy-five thousand people in the stadium, exactly a dozen would eventually become professional athletes. Devin Madison, University of Boston’s golden boy quarterback, was going to be one of them. As he led the Falcons out of the tunnel in a full sprint on the biggest night of his life, his guts felt the vibrations from Falcons fans’ lively cheers. He passed Caroline quickly among the lineup of cheerleaders screaming his name. Devin had plotted against glancing her way, but he couldn’t help himself. He wondered how it felt to be in her shoes, forced to cheer him on. He got satisfaction out of that thought. He turned and nodded his head instead toward the club seating where he knew his esteemed grandfather and father were watching before finally turning his focus to only the game.

  Roughly a third of the fans in the stadium were dressed in maroon and gold. Another third were dressed in orange and navy. The remaining attendees were simply fans of the game, with the majority of them rooting for Craig Whistler, JP Hemmings, and the rest of the Syracuse College team because they were the determined underdogs.

  The cheers for Devin’s opposition as the Orange and Navy exited their tunnel sounded even more exuberant, even though moments earlier, that hadn’t felt possible. Devin’s anger grew along with the opposition’s support. He vowed to take everything out on the field.

  To his delight, University of Boston won the coin toss and chose offensive play first.

  From the stands, Henry’s eyes grew wide at the sight of Devin and the rest of Devin’s team—Henry’s team.

  From the end zone, a wisp of an International Presswire photographer barely noticed the heaviest belt of equipment she had ever carried on assignment. Maxine clicked shot after shot, desperate to get accustomed to the lighting and the commotion before the game began. Her job hung on the line, yet she felt only excitement for the opportunity to cover an event like this. The thunderous noise rolling through the stadium made sure of that.

  At the football field’s center following the coin toss, Whistler offered Devin a pre-game handshake with a polite, genuine nod of his head. The golden boy accepted Whistler’s giant hand, despite knowing the oversized defensive lineman nicknamed the Master, along with the rest of Syracuse’s defensive unit, The Keys, would be after him all game.

  The golden boy couldn’t resist attempting to shake them all up.

  “You guys are in way over your damn heads, but try to have some fun out there, huh?” Devin said.

  Whistler simply pivoted in response and jogged to his Orange and Navy sideline, where he would be happy to use the star quarterback’s comment for motivation. For the second time in minutes, a star player vowed to take everything out on the field.

  From their unfamiliar, luxurious seats above, the professors came to life at the sight of their son’s giant roommate.

  “You can do it, Whistler!” screamed JP’s mother, even though she had not always been the young man’s greatest cheerleader when he was in her classroom.

  Her husband began sputtering out letters. While the fans around him initially assumed he’d spell defense, JP’s mother knew better. Her husband never went with the masses despite teaching about their rituals during his anthropology courses at Syracuse College.

  “D-E-B-I-L-I-T-A-T-E!” he belted out.

  “A little violent, don’t you think?” his wife said as she shot him a look. “Our boy is going to be playing on that field soon enough.”

  Intensity spread from the teams’ captains to the rest of the teams’ sidelines as both sets of special teams took the field.

  The referee whistled the start of the game.

  Syracuse’s place kicker booted the football solidly in the air with fine, soccer-like style as Whistler, JP, and their fellow Orange and Navy pounded their helmets in approval. The ball soared to reach eight yards from the distant end zone, yet it would soon be Devin and the rest of the University of Boston Falcons’ turn to cheer.

  The Falcons’ kick returner eluded one Orange and Navy body after the next with a ninety-two-yard touchdown in his sights. While he fell short of that goal, he succeeded in running the ball an impressive seventy-one yards to the twenty-one-yard line.

  As Devin stepped on the field to take over on offense, he passed his special teams players without a word or a pat of thanks, not even for the kick returner who had nearly put the first points on the board for Devin’s Falcons. If there were going to be any superstars in the stadium on this night, Devin wanted himself to be the one and only.

  Caroline’s fellow cheerleaders joined the fans dressed in maroon and gold in screaming their delight over University of Boston’s desirable field position. As Devin took the field, nearly everyone in the stadium, even the Syracuse fans, sensed an early University of Boston touchdown. Caroline thought of her father in the stands. She knew he was watching her with pride and maybe even screaming right along with them. It was her single motivator for cheering on the very young man she had grown to loathe so passionately.

  “Let’s go, Boston!” Caroline shouted genuinely with the others. “Let’s go, Offense! Let’s go, Devin!”

  As Devin’s fingers touched the leather and laces that had felt like a security blanket since his youth, he began his work with precision. The Hustler looked down on his son in the stadium with expectations that would appear unreachable for anyone but the golden boy. Devin managed to keep an eye on a charging, hungry Whistler while getting the football off just in time to his go-to player, a receiver who let the ball slip through his fingertips.

  Whistler immediately worked to end his defensive charge, successfully stopping just before hitting his quarterback target. The competitors brushed shoulder pads with even less force than the motion in their handshake moments ago, but on the field, in the classroom, and in girls’ hearts, Devin was used to getting whatever he wanted. He faked a late hit and crashed himself to the ground, looking desperately in false pain at the closest referee.

  Orange and Navy fans booed for the first of what would be many times that game as the referee threw a flag and a personal foul against Whistler.

  Devin may not have thrown a completion on his first play, but his acting won his University of Boston Falcons fifteen yards and a first down at the six-yard line.

  Syracuse Coach Flash kept a calm demeanor and immediately signaled for a change in players to swap his small, fast defenders for ones shaped more like Whistler. Despite the warning from Flash’s twin brother during the team’s pep talk, the Eagle’s offensive center succeeded in drawing the Orange and Navy offside by snapping the football quickly. The play gave the Orange and Navy their second penalty in as many minutes, earning the Falcons half the distance to the goal and another first down.

  Heat traveled up Whistler’s already sweaty body. The defensive lineman felt disappointed in himself and the rest of his Syracuse defense. He knew they were better than this. No one could’ve prevented Devin’s acting performance, but they should’ve been ready for the center’s quick snap following Crash’s information. Boston’s center had outsmarted them.

  From the stands, an eleven-year-old boy, his teacher, and his mother rose
to their feet as they watched Devin Madison throw a fast, short ball for a University of Boston Falcons touchdown. The three fans embraced in a single hug, and the mother wished she could bottle that moment for her shy boy whom she had never seen so happy.

  Of the more than 75,000 people in the stadium, exactly 7,167 were physically unable to have children during what was supposed to be the fertile years of their lives. A pair of them looked down now on their adopted son with great pride. The parents wondered in silence how they had managed to get so lucky.

  The professor adjusted her oversized glasses and felt surprised at feeling peace within her belly despite watching her small son take the field for the third time that night in one of the biggest college football games of the year.

  She absorbed all the cheers for JP as complete strangers transformed their screams into a synchronized chorus. The sight of the orange T-shirts surrounding her made her feel like she was wrapped in a warm blanket. The air in the stadium smelled like a music concert and a ballpark as fans wore their perfumes and colognes worthy of a big event and snacked on hotdogs and beer. She reached for her husband’s free hand, which felt like sandpaper. His other one was full of stadium candies.

  “Jumpin’ jellybeans!” the anthropology professor shouted. “Did you see that?”

  JP finished running the ball with great heart as he attempted to create a path through a thick forest of bodies shaped like tree trunks. He had jumped over one of his own down men to advance five yards. His fans applauded his effort while reserving their more boisterous cheers for an overdue first down. JP came up just short.

  “Jumpin’ jellybeans!” the professor yelled again as he munched. “Hey, Mum, maybe that’s why JP’s biological mother named him JP in the womb.”

  His wife looked at him with puzzlement, as she often did.

  “JP for J-U-M-P,” the man explained. “Maybe that kid was really bouncing about in utero just as he does on this great earth.”

  His wife rolled her eyes, as she often did with him. His comment, though, made her think of the girl who had given them the greatest gift of their lives. She adjusted her glasses again as she felt both love and sadness for the mysterious young lady. She felt love for making JP’s birth possible. She felt sadness for the girl’s lack of opportunity to see who he’d become. The professor did the math and realized she was now a woman in her thirties. The professor hoped JP’s biological mother was one of the ten million viewers watching the game on television. She also wished that the sound of JP’s uncommon name from a sportscaster would make the woman who gave birth to him think it was possible for JP to be the baby she had given up so long ago.

  Syracuse’s quarterback threw an incomplete pass on the third down before its special teams emerged again to punt the ball away to University of Boston. JP’s Orange and Navy remained scoreless into the second quarter, and it did not appear to be their night.

  Devin moved his Falcons down the field with rhythmic, military precision before throwing his second touchdown of the evening. After a quick Orange and Navy turnover, he marched again and threw for his third. At the half, the Falcons posted twenty-one points to the Orange and Navy’s zero. Syracuse fans’ cheers faded into weak applause for the halftime performances.

  JP’s mother managed to stay upbeat despite the scoreless performance by her son’s team. After all, JP had not made any mistakes, she thought. He was playing as solidly as anyone else. There were no boos rolling down on her son’s overworked shoulders on this night. Things could definitely be worse, she thought.

  On the other side of the stadium, a proud father named Kenny watched his daughter perform to the halftime music. He secretly couldn’t wait to tell the guys at work of all that his daughter had managed to accomplish against odds that he wasn’t even fully aware of. Kenny would have to dish out some rare boasting on coffee breaks as all these years later, the whizzing, drumming, and popping sounds of Harper’s manufacturing floor still kept conversation to a minimum at his beloved workplace. Kenny knew his buddies were watching the game on this night from their television sets in Rhode Island. He wondered if they were trying to pick Caroline out of the lineup of University of Boston cheerleaders. He felt proud that the Falcons were on top thanks to a star quarterback who, unbeknownst to Kenny, had further broken his daughter’s already fractured heart.

  Kenny thought he felt the majority of the crowd’s eyes on his captivating daughter. Caroline still reminded him of his late wife. He hoped Lindsay was looking down on their daughter with pride tonight. During his most recent trip to Mass at St. Matthew’s Church last Sunday, he had prayed for it.

  A few sections away, the shy boy named Henry was still trading high-fives with his mother and teacher in unusually grand, extroverted spirits.

  “They’re going to pull it off, Teach,” Henry said. “I just know it. Devin’s gonna do this, Mom.”

  A pop band that had been popular in the 80s took the field as Teach and Misty tried to come up with the group’s name.

  “It will come to me,” Teach said. “Just hang on a second.”

  “I bet it will come to me first,” flirted Misty.

  The stadium lights made her dark hair shine. Teach believed that even if Henry hadn’t been a student in his classroom, the woman would still be out of his reach. In different ways, he believed Misty was more beautiful than the dental student he had nearly taken as his date.

  “I’ll bet you a beer I can come up with it,” she added.

  Teach shook her delicate hand in agreement.

  “I don’t want to miss any of the game,” the boy said excitedly. “I think I’m going to go to the bathroom, like right now.”

  Misty looked around at the crowds, instantly worried about her eleven-year-old son going off alone.

  “I’ll go with you, Henry,” Teach said. “I could use a minute to freshen up.”

  Misty smiled at Teach’s thoughtfulness and humor. Just like the actors in the romantic films, she thought he was too good to be true. She believed that even if Henry hadn’t been in Teach’s classroom, Teach would be out of her reach.

  The unlikely pair made their way together through the crowds and stood in line in perhaps one of the only types of venues where the wait for the men’s room is often longer than that of the ladies. When they met back up, Teach could hear the music of the 80s band still playing.

  “Do you think we have time to get a couple beers and a soda, little man?” Teach asked.

  Henry looked at his watch and studied the shortening line for refreshments. He flashed his favorite teacher in the world a smile and a nod.

  Of the more than 75,000 people in the stadium, exactly 5,759 were adopted in their youth. The one among them with the shortest name carried on this night the greatest hope as he prepared to take the field in the third quarter.

  JP strapped on his helmet and repeated in his head the simple advice his old high-school coach had given him earlier that day. Don’t overthink it. Just find a way to run and you’ll pull this bowl off.

  The words grew to complement those of Crash’s twin brother, SC Coach Flash, from minutes earlier in an uncomfortably still locker room.

  “There are advantages to losing the coin toss,” Coach Flash had said. “And we’re about to prove it as we start fresh with the ball in the third quarter. We’ve all gone over each unit’s halftime adjustments. We know what we need to do to win this game. We will win this game. Now believe in yourselves. Just. Start. Fresh.”

  The Falcons kicked off the football in the third quarter to a physically and mentally renewed team as the week of Orange Bowl festivities and the deafening stands of Sun Life Stadium finally felt less shocking to a scoreless, underdog Syracuse College.

  The SC special teams blockers helped their returner advance to solid field position for JP and the rest of the offense. Whistler let out a deep growl of excitement from the sidelines. JP jumped with knees tucked momentarily into his armpits as he got himself ready for second-half play.


  “There he goes again, Mum,” JP’s father said from the stands as the SC fans surrounding him found renewed energy themselves. “Jumpin’ JP!”

  In only the second game of his college career, the small running back would quickly make the sportscasters who had been predicting a University of Boston win at the half end any more of that talk.

  JP’s offensive blockers appeared more focused as the running back suddenly had more paths to choose from. JP picked one on the far left, running dangerously close to where Devin Madison was watching out of bounds, before doing what he knew best. His small frame slipped past a final row of defenders before sprinting a distance he’d practiced all week, all season, and all of his twelve-year football career. He ran forty yards to the end zone.

  “Whatever,” Devin said from the Falcons’ sideline without making eye contact with anyone in particular. “We can give them one.”

  JP’s run led to only seven points on the board against the Falcons’ twenty-one, but it was enough to make the rest of JP’s team believe they could help come up with the rest.

  After an unusual interception on Devin’s first throw of the second half under pressure by Whistler, it was quickly the Orange and Navy’s turn to take over again on offense. JP’s quarterback took advantage of a wide receiver’s breakaway to put up another quick touchdown, bringing the Orange and Navy swiftly within seven.

  The shift in the momentum at the Sun Life Stadium was palpable as the fans switched roles. It was suddenly Boston fans’ turn to heckle and the Syracuse fans’ opportunity to come to life.

  From the sidelines, Devin’s anger at his own misstep prompted him to release his fury on his defensive line as special teams took the field.

  “What the hell are you jerk-offs doing out there?” Devin said as loudly as he could manage through clenched teeth as he attempted to avoid getting picked up by the national cameras. “These are rookies we’re playing against here. Get your damn helmets out of your butts.”