The Corn Husk Experiment

by Andrea Cale

  As the star quarterback passed by special teams to take the field on offense, he snapped at those players too.

  “Oh great,” he said. “I love starting my drive practically in the other team’s end zone. Bravo, crapheads.”

  His talented offensive line worked hard at inching the team’s way out of the danger zone to prevent a touchback, but Whistler’s Keys were determined to prevent a Falcons first down.

  The ref signaled third down.

  Syracuse fans removed the keys from their pockets and, as if choreographed, began shaking them as though they were watching from the stands in their stadium at home. Whistler was determined not to let Crash’s advice go to waste once again. He watched the golden boy twitch his right shoulder in the huddle.

  “Chantilly!” Whistler yelled repeatedly toward his fastest defenders in the unit.

  It was a play name the defensive line had created at the half to signal Devin’s plan to throw deep. With great trust in their captain and zero hesitation, the Orange and Navy defenders sprinted as fast as they could following the Boston snap. They tightly covered a pair of Devin’s receivers, who took off too and matched them stride for stride.

  The star quarterback should’ve abandoned his plan and thrown short because his team was seven points ahead with another full quarter of play to go, but his pride got the best of him. To his coach’s dismay, Devin stuck with his own plan and hoped for either a miracle or a pass interference call against the defenders.

  But Whistler’s Keys had been warned at the half about drawing a flag on their newfound Chantilly play. Their hands remained at their sides as they ran. Devin chose a receiver. The Orange defender leaped to intercept the ball and was successful. Devin called to the closest referee for pass interference, but this time his acting wouldn’t be bought.

  In the stands, Henry seemed to lose his new flow of words with each misstep by the Falcons. He sat on crossed fingers while his mother stole quick, worried glances at him and Teach, who no longer appeared in the mood to joke. The trio sadly watched JP run in a third touchdown for the Orange and Navy.

  As Falcons fans yelled disappointedly at the risky turn of events, the Orange and Navy fans smelled a great comeback victory.

  Henry silently uncrossed his fingers and folded his arms across a small, pounding chest.

  Of the more than 75,000 people in the stadium, exactly 22,939 of them had never been married. Maxine was keenly aware of being in the single category from the friends and family members who would insist she was hitched to her job. But being alone was not the thought running through the photographer’s head as she watched Syracuse’s small running back prepare for work in the final minutes of the fourth quarter. Her camera was at the ready.

  From the sidelines, the typically impartial journalist couldn’t help but feel swayed by JP’s strong work ethic. She thought of his youthful room in central New York where Most Improved Player certificates and other awards covered the plaid walls like a second, competing layer of wallpaper. Each certificate reminded Maxine of her own victories toward reaching this game too.

  In a pause for a television timeout from Orange Bowl play, she thought of her trips a decade ago to three northern New York farms where she had established ties that would later bear fruitful images on the morning of the men’s insurance reform testimony in Washington, DC. She thought about the exhausting time she spent in Syracuse College’s stadium on her weekends off from the northern New York newspaper for only the sake of creating a portfolio of sports shots that she knew might or might not get her somewhere. She thought too about finally landing the sports job of her dreams at Syracuse’s International Presswire Bureau, where she had recently managed to build a relationship with JP amidst tight protection by his coach and parents at the most critical time in her career. Each struggle had led her to a grander one until finally she reached a bowl game that the very best in her industry had hoped to cover. Along the way, each grumpy editor had appeared to follow another as she managed to exceed expectations to get to this moment.

  Don’t make us both regret me taking a chance on you.

  With only a couple minutes remaining on the game clock, Maxine’s opportunities to secure the shot of the game were dwindling. The warning from the wire’s sports editor at their New York City lunch in preparation of this assignment rang a second time through her head.

  Don’t make us both regret me taking a chance on you.

  Maxine had a number of solid action shots to file, but none captured the level of greatness she needed. The photographer knew that the full story of the game had yet to unfold. She refused to let herself panic. There was still a little time left. There was still hope.

  As the commercial break of new beer, car, and insurance ads wrapped up on the sets of the more than ten million television viewers of the Orange Bowl, the players came to life on the field. Energized by the respite and the desire to avoid going into overtime, neither team appeared as though they’d already played fifty-three aggressive minutes. Both sides of the crowd amplified their energy too, as cheers for the offense and defense morphed into one unbearably loud noise.

  Two University of Boston male cheerleaders tossed Caroline high into the air. Her legs shot up with force. Her father proudly joined the crowd’s cheers from the stands as he uncharacteristically clapped and hollered with the rest.

  “Come on, Boston!” he shouted even though he was the only one who could hear his words above everyone else’s. “Defense, let’s go now!”

  Nearby, Henry clenched his hands in fists as he stomped and screamed as loud as he could. With all fans on their feet, Teach signaled for Henry to stand on the bleachers to better see the field. The boy looked to his mother silently for approval. Misty lifted him up there herself.

  As the crowd heated up, the smell of hotdogs, pretzels, perfume, and cologne transformed into a warm stench of spilled beer and sweat. JP’s father was nearly out of breath as he jumped and cheered with the sportiest of fans.

  “Hey, Mum, that’s my boy people are cheering for!” he screamed. “Did I mention that is my boy?”

  At the referee’s signal, the teams broke from their respective huddles and lined up for what each side believed would be a fight. JP’s quarterback threw one incomplete pass followed by a second as Devin cheered his opposition’s mistakes from his sideline. The Orange and Navy lost yardage and needed an improbable twelve yards on their third attempt to make a first down.

  Coach Flash signaled a timeout from the sidelines, knowing he’d still have one left to hold in his pocket.

  “Hurry up, guys,” he yelled above the cheers as his Syracuse players were already sprinting to meet him. JP led the V-shaped pack like a captain of wild geese.

  “We’re going for the first down obviously, but we need at least five yards to get in field goal position. If we can just get ourselves a field goal, we’ll be up a few points. From there, we can rely on Whistler and the rest of the defense to hold us there for the win.”

  Coach Crash turned to his quarterback and made succinct, clear orders.

  “I need you to pump fake.”

  He turned to his fastest wide receiver.

  “I need you to run out of the gate as though you are going to catch it.”

  He turned to his offensive linemen.

  “I need you to exert every last bit of energy on this play to block for JP.”

  He turned to the young man who just a couple of weeks ago had served as the unlikeliest of players to end up with the ball.

  “I need you to run. JP, I need you to run for at least five yards.”

  Whistler stood within earshot and screamed for his offense when they took back the field. He watched his team’s center complete the snap. His wide receiver sprinted. His quarterback did a pump fake. His offensive line pushed. His roommate grasped the ball.

  Maxine’s heart raced as she squinted through her lens and realized that this might be the play of the game. JP’s mother held onto her oversized glasses
while her heart raced too.

  JP saw no clear pathway. He darted left and then right as the amount of time that the pump fake bought him quickly ran out. The running back became every defender’s target. He advanced two yards before being laid out by a duo of swift University of Boston Falcons.

  JP knew it wasn’t enough. Coach Crash was a wise man and wasn’t going to risk attempting a field goal from out of reach only to give Devin Madison great field position in their final drive. They would still rely on Whistler to hold their score. They would hope now for overtime.

  “It’s not his fault,” JP’s mother said to herself amidst an instantly quiet crowd.

  Some SC fans laced their fingers behind their heads. Some wore freshly made rally caps. Others wore complete disappointment on their faces.

  “You’re right, it is not his fault, Mum,” her husband responded. “After all, it was I who served as his horrendous first instructor of football one fateful afternoon so long ago when my bum caught more air off the ground than the ball on my own attempt at a punt. It’s my fault for getting the three of us in this most difficult of spots.”

  The man cleared his throat and raised his voice for the benefit of the disappointed people sitting around him.

  “That is still my boy out there.”

  The professor hoisted himself to his feet to give JP a solo standing ovation as he watched his son slink off the field.

  JP didn’t blame his offensive line even though he could have. He was disappointed only in himself.

  On the other side of the stadium, Devin threatened his own teammates despite finding himself suddenly in great spirits.

  “If you buttheads don’t block for me, I will personally destroy you,” he said.

  The quarterback knew he had the talent to pull off a win. With a challenging twenty seconds left on the game clock, he was the only one left on the field who didn’t want the final bit of the game to be framed any other way. Devin believed it was his shot at making the play of the game. This was his chance to change his family bowl game history. For the second time that night, he looked up at the club seats and gave a nod toward the family who had pushed him harder and more harshly than any of the coaches ever had.

  With the snap, Devin’s wide receivers sprinted toward the edges of the sidelines as the quarterback threw one of the young men a ball that landed precisely between the jersey numbers for a first down. The receiver willingly stepped out of bounds to stop the clock.

  Whistler growled in frustration, but it wouldn’t help him any. In deja vu fashion, the golden boy repeated the same play. A second receiver dressed in maroon and gold stepped out of bounds with the ball for a second first down.

  With the clock down to mere seconds, Devin knew it was time to make good on his failed Hail Mary attempt from earlier. He twitched his right shoulder before Whistler once again called a Chantilly play for his defenders.

  Seeing no opportunities for a long throw for a touchdown, Devin wisely tossed the ball to his running back, who managed to accomplish what JP hadn’t moments earlier—the Eagle ran his team into field goal position.

  Maxine clicked away at the rapid turn of events.

  Just behind her, Boston’s newfound momentum made a smile reappear on Henry’s face.

  Kenny watched Caroline do a flip on the sideline, but it was the stomach of Caroline’s cheerleading coach that did a flop.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Tommy?” the woman whispered as she recalled the morning back at University of Boston’s practice field when Devin had harassed his kicker with those exact words. At the time, Tommy had clearly been anticipating this exact scenario.

  Somewhere in the stands, the kicker’s family members were feeling their own stomachs turn as well.

  Coach Flash called his final timeout in an attempt to ice him. On the Orange and Navy sidelines, there was only one instruction left for Flash to give his own team.

  “Let’s hope for a miss,” he said.

  Some of his players knelt in prayer. JP stood tall with his chin up high. He refused to rest until the match was over.

  Devin watched helplessly too from his own sideline, but he had reason to be much more hopeful. He knew that if Tommy missed the field goal, the story appearing in all of tomorrow’s newspapers and replaying on sports channels would be about Tommy’s miss that brought the teams into overtime. If the kicker made it—from an unspectacular distance of thirty-nine yards—the story would be about Devin’s much more spectacular drive that got Tommy within range. Devin stood tall with his chin up high. He too refused to rest until the match was over.

  Tommy’s tireless practice paid off as the Falcons kicker booted the ball easily between the uprights. Devin Madison and his University of Boston Falcons won the Orange Bowl by three points.

  A smile returned on Henry’s face, along with a steady flow of his words.

  Caroline cheered and searched for her father in the stands.

  Devin’s father and grandfather had already made their way onto the field, ready to celebrate their parts of the long-awaited bowl win for their family. As Devin moved toward them, flashing his star-like smile for the media, a dozen cameras surrounded them. Maxine watched the scene unfold, but didn’t edge her way in. She thought of her new mentor’s earlier words of advice regarding Devin’s family history.

  “That is an obvious angle,” the veteran had warned.

  Maxine chose instead a riskier route that would go on to win her placement on the front pages of major sports sections across the country. She jogged quickly and effortlessly toward JP. No one was surrounding him. She silently captured shot after shot of his pained yet tearless eyes. He was the complete picture of defeat. He carried the look of coming up short after making it so far, but he was also the epitome of honor in loss.

  Maxine would go on to win the prestigious “Best Photo of the Year” recognition by Newswire magazine for the shot, yet the far greater gift was delivered to her at the game’s close. It came as quickly as a bullet to the heart.

  Through staring at him through her camera’s lens, Maxine had an epiphany over the boy’s name. JP’s skin was slightly darker than her pale brown skin, but it matched that of her first sweetheart. Together as kids themselves, the young lovers had made the heartbreaking decision to give the boy up for adoption. Maxine had named the baby JP from the other side of her womb after a hero of hers named James Presley Ball, an African-American pioneer of black photography in the 1800s whom Maxine had read about in school. Even as a young girl, she had dreamed of great things for herself. She had wanted her son to be destined for great things too.

  The running back looked up, too drained to resist any shots from the lady he had already grown to admire. He would find out later that of the more than seventy-five thousand people in the stadium, exactly two were a lost mother and son.

  “JP,” Maxine said as though she were putting the letters together for the first time.

  Weeks of distraction from frenzied assignments had prevented her from figuring it all out sooner. She had spent years trying to keep the name at the back of her mind. She had never dreamed, until now, that the adoptive parents would’ve honored her request as an immature girl.

  Her neck strap caught the weight of the camera falling toward her belly.

  PART 3

  CHAPTER 34

  ALL

  What plates do you propose, Mom?” JP asked in advance of setting the splintered round table that still served as the family’s most treasured possession.

  “Well, let’s get out only the finest ones, of course. There’s much ado about everything tonight.”

  Over the noise of the professor’s outdated, handheld mixer in the family’s favorite cream cheese frosting, the mother and son each questioned whether they heard an additional buzz.

  “Juh-ames Puh-resley,” JP’s father shouted through the window over a grill and a chuckle. “Mum! I think our guest is here. The doorbell is ringing, you two!”

  It had be
en three and a half years since the Orange Bowl where Maxine had locked eyes with JP and realized who he was. It had taken her only a day to call the people who had raised the running back to reintroduce herself.

  “Hello, Mrs. Hemmings,” she had said. “It’s Maxine, the photographer from the Syracuse Bureau of International Presswire.”

  “Oh, Max, we were just conversing about you,” the professor had said. “Your fine photograph in today’s papers of my boy after the game severed my heart and brought a smile to my face all at once. I do believe you managed to take his first picture as a man. He just looks so…grown up.”

  “Glad you approve, Mrs. H. I love the picture too, despite its sadness. Thankfully, my editors did as well.”

  “As does everyone in America. It’s all over the national papers. If you’re looking for the superstar, he’s out to breakfast with Whistler. They’re sick over the bowl outcome, of course, but I think they’ve found substantial relief in having accomplished so much. The city’s response here at home has been quite welcoming since their return.”

  Maxine had grown accustomed to adrenaline rushes whenever she was on deadline for work, but the surges throughout her body were for unfamiliarly personal reasons now. The lonely photographer prepared to reveal to JP’s adoptive mother that she could be his biological one.

  “Well, it was actually you who I was hoping to catch.”

  “Maxine,” the professor said. “We grew to trust you at even the most stressful of times for our family. It is now your time to trust me. Whatever is it, my new friend?”

  “Where do I start? There are just too many coincidences. Please know that if you don’t want anything to do with me after I say what I’m about to tell you, I will absolutely respect that.”

  Maxine had gone on to explain her painful decision to give up a baby nineteen years ago. She explained, too, that the baby’s initials stood for the historic African-American man who had inspired her to become a photographer. She had even dared to disclose that she had recognized JP’s sparkly, driven eyes as her own.