Emergency Quarterback

by Rich Wallace

  “We’ll come over and get you if you don’t show up. It’s mandatory.”

  “Says who?”

  “Me.”

  “Wow. I guess that’s final, huh?”

  “You bet it’s final. Fifteen minutes.”

  Twenty-five minutes later Jason was walking on the Boulevard toward the pizza place. The street was busy, but he could see Anthony, Miguel, and Calvin walking toward him. Anthony grinned when he caught sight of Jason.

  “We were on our way to drag your butt down here!” Anthony shouted from half a block away.

  Jason smiled. He stuck his hands in the pocket of his sweatshirt. “No need. I’m coming.”

  “You still blaming yourself?” Miguel asked as they met.

  Jason shrugged.

  “Good,” Miguel said. He grinned broadly and grabbed Jason’s shoulder. “You blew it, my man. Sure can’t blame anybody else. Can’t blame the line that didn’t protect you, or the running backs that couldn’t gain any yardage, or the receivers that couldn’t get open.”

  “Or the starting quarterback who never got you the ball,” Calvin added.

  Jason nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “I know—T-E-A-M. But it’s mostly my fault. You all know that.”

  “Are you the reason we won our first five games?” Anthony asked.

  Jason bit down on his lip and squirmed a little. “No. I’m one of the reasons.”

  “But you’re the reason we lost last night?”

  “The biggest reason.”

  “The guy who was in your face when you threw the interception was my responsibility,” Anthony said. “He knocked me on my butt and took off after you.”

  “And the guy who caused that fumble blew right by me,” Miguel said.

  “Okay. You made your point,” Jason said. “We all stunk last night.”

  “Not entirely,” Calvin said. “The game was dead even except for two plays.”

  Jason laughed. “Okay. So now we’re back where we started. Two plays—big—time mistakes by the emergency quarterback.”

  “And now it’s over,” Anthony said. He was laughing, too. “I’ll sit on anybody who brings it up again. Take it out on Palisades next week. Now, I’m starving. Let’s go eat.”

  They spent an hour at Villa Roma, splitting two pizzas and playing pinball and video games. Jason was in a better mood until Wade walked in. He was wearing a leather jacket and a Yankees cap.

  Wade was alone. He walked over and leaned against the pinball machine. “Great game last night,” he said sarcastically to Jason.

  “Oh, hi, Wade,” Jason said. He waved at the air. “Hi, all of Wade’s friends.”

  “Real funny,” Wade said. “At least I have friends.”

  “And I don’t?”

  Wade looked around at the group. “Friends of my own kind, I mean.”

  Jason shook his head and took a step closer to Wade. “You’re such an idiot.”

  Anthony stepped forward, too. “What you sayin’, Wade?”

  Wade put up a hand, motioning for Anthony to stop. “This doesn’t involve you.”

  “Oh no?” Anthony said. “What’s with that crack about his ‘own kind’?”

  “You know what he meant,” Jason said. He kept his eyes squarely on Wade. “I got plenty of white friends, stupid. But you look at these guys and see a bunch of blacks and Mexicans, right? Well I got news for you: They’re all my kind.”

  Jason pointed at Anthony. “Lineman, sprinter, shot-putter.” He thrust his thumb toward Miguel—“Centerfielder, linebacker”—then toward Calvin—“Soccer player, track guy. My kind of people. And they’re all winners, Wade, not whiners.”

  “They sure weren’t winners last night.”

  “More than you were.”

  Wade gave a dismissive laugh. “Oh yeah? I didn’t piss the ball away for two Bayonne touchdowns.”

  “At least I was in there.”

  “You never should have been.”

  “I wouldn’t have been if you were any good,” Jason said. “You were so pathetic the coach had to pull you.”

  “I bet he’s kicking himself now for putting you in there. Bet he learned his lesson.”

  Anthony stepped between Jason and Wade and put a finger on Wade’s chest. “You’re gonna get us kicked out of here if you don’t shut up,” he said. “And one of us is going to stomp you if that happens.”

  “Sure,” Wade said. “I’d like to see you try.”

  “I don’t think you would,” Anthony said. “It wouldn’t be pretty.”

  “I’m shaking,” Wade said sarcastically, but then he softened his tone. “Listen, I didn’t mean nothing about ‘his own kind.’ I got no problem with the rest of you guys.” But he glared at Jason again. “Don’t hold your breath waiting for the ball to come your way next week. I’ll be looking for a receiver who doesn’t fumble.”

  Wade turned to leave the restaurant. Miguel balled up a napkin and threw it at him. It hit him in the back and fell to the floor.

  “Biggest jerk I ever met,” Calvin said. “How did he get to be a quarterback?”

  7

  Halloween

  Coach Podesta blew his whistle midway through Monday’s practice session and gathered the team around him. He hadn’t said a word so far about Saturday’s loss, just put the team through the usual routine of calisthenics, stretching, tackling drills, and passing. They’d been scrimmaging for about fifteen uninspired minutes, with Wade at quarterback and Jason at wingback.

  “I’m not seeing much life out there today,” Coach said. “You’re either dwelling too much on that loss to Bayonne or planning your Halloween costumes.”

  Many of the players laughed. Halloween was two days away, and Coach had said he’d end practice early on Wednesday so the players could watch the city’s parade that evening.

  “Let’s refocus, all right?” Coach said. “Palisades always gives us a tough game, so we’ll need everything we’ve got. Do we have enough?”

  “Yes!” shouted some of the players.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes!” yelled everybody else.

  “Okay. Back to the scrimmage. Fiorelli at quarterback. Let’s go.”

  “Wait!” Wade shouted as the players ran back to their positions. “You kidding me, Coach? You still haven’t given up on that loser?”

  Coach stared at Wade for several seconds. Wade turned red and looked away. “Sorry,” he said softly.

  “Take a seat, Wade,” Coach said. “We win and lose as a team. And I make the calls around here.”

  Coach walked over to the huddle and faced Jason. “The starting job is yours,” he said firmly. “Run the team.”

  Jason nodded and called for a handoff to Miguel. “I guess I’m the quarterback,” he said. “You guys with me?”

  “Always have been,” Calvin said.

  “Then let’s do it. On one.”

  Jason hurried through dinner on Wednesday and dashed toward the Boulevard. The parade was scheduled to begin in less than an hour, but he and some others needed to prepare their costumes. It was dark as he walked excitedly along 12th Street. A breeze was blowing, but the night wasn’t too cold.

  Vinnie was waiting as planned beneath the digital clock outside the bank. The clock said 6:13 and forty-two degrees.

  It had been a good practice that day. Jason had found Calvin for a long touchdown pass, and later he’d dashed thirty yards for one of his own.

  “You’re the man now,” Vinnie said as they shook left hands. “No question about that.”

  “For two games only,” Jason said. “It’s your job again next season, believe me.”

  “Hope so,” Vinnie said.

  “I know so. DiMarco-to-Fiorelli for years to come. State champions by the time we finish high school.”

  “That’d be something.”

  “Look at this town,” Jason said, waving his arm up the Boulevard, which was packed with small stores and restaurants—the block they were on included Lupita Music, wh
ich had sponsored his first Little League team, and the Envigado Bakery, which provided doughnuts and juice for many of the Saturday-morning YMCA leagues.

  He’d always felt supported here, in this little town in the shadow of the giant New York City and the bigger neighbors of Hoboken and Jersey City. He loved the Hudson City YMCA, where he’d become hooked on athletics during a season of indoor floor hockey as a first-grader. He’d won his first championship as a second-grader in that gym, leading the purple-T-shirted Hudson City National Bank Buckeyes basketball team to victory. So many of the businesses in town kicked in by sponsoring teams and soccer clinics and youth basketball tournaments.

  “I love it here,” Jason said. “The people are good. They deserve something big. We can make that happen.”

  Vinnie lifted his cast. “Maybe you can. I’m damaged goods.”

  “You’ll heal. I’m talking later—other years. This group we’ve got can be big-time champions. We just have to stick together and work it.”

  “I’m with you.”

  “And I’m with you. The future starts now. It starts Saturday. We’ll beat Palisades, then turn it all toward Hoboken. After that, who knows? We’ll just keep getting better ... until we’re great.”

  They’d walked a couple of blocks and turned down 14th toward Anthony’s. “Time to paint the faces,” Vinnie said.

  “Yeah. I decided to be orange,” Jason said. The group was going to wear their football jerseys and paint their faces wild colors. They weren’t in the parade, but lots of spectators dressed up for the event.

  “We should go through the cemetery later,” Jason said.

  “What for?”

  “It’s spooky. And it’s Halloween, man. If there’s ever going to be ghosts around, it’d be tonight.”

  Vinnie shrugged. The cemetery was very small, only about a square block, and was surrounded by a tall fence of thin iron posts. It overlooked the cliffs on the edge of town, which overlooked the Hudson River and New York City.

  “I don’t think anybody’s been buried in there for eighty years,” Vinnie said.

  “So? Ghosts stay around forever.”

  Vinnie laughed. “No such thing.”

  “How do you know?”

  Vinnie shrugged again. “I guess I don’t.”

  “It’s Halloween, buddy. Strange things happen.”

  Anthony’s mother had bought several tubes of face paint, but she insisted the kids put it on in the basement. “That stuffs greasy and it smells,” she said. “Don’t wipe it on my walls.”

  Anthony had a big glob of yellow paint in his palm. “I’m doing a yellow face and a red nose,” he said. “We got trick-or-treat candy, Ma?”

  “We got plenty. But save that for the little kids who come around. You can get your own.”

  Within a few minutes, Jason had an orange face, Vinnie was green, Calvin was blue, and Lamont had green and yellow stripes.

  “Let’s go get a spot,” Anthony said. “I don’t want to be behind a bunch of people.”

  They walked up and stood at the curb by the post office, about midway along the parade route. They could hear the high-school band in the distance, warming up.

  “Be sure to make a lot of noise for my brother,” Lamont said.

  “What’s he do?”

  “Cymbals. He has to walk backwards because he’s in charge of the percussionists.”

  “He walks backwards and plays the cymbals at the same time?” Anthony asked.

  “Yup.”

  Anthony shook his head slowly. “He must be a musical genius. How come you didn’t get none of that?”

  “I did,” Lamont said. “You never heard me sing?”

  “Not what I’d call singing.”

  “You don’t know talent when you hear it.”

  The parade had started with a line of Boy Scouts carrying a Troop 47 banner, then a fire engine. The boys whooped and waved when the Hornets’ junior cheerleading squad went by. That was followed by a couple of police officers on horseback, then some young girls twirling batons, and then the high-school band.

  “Go Omar!” Lamont shouted as his brother went past. Omar looked over and winked, then banged his cymbals together. The band was playing The Doors’ song “Light My Fire.” Omar was writhing in rhythm with the song.

  “Good band,” Anthony said.

  “Better than the football team,” Lamont replied. “This year, anyway.”

  Members of the city council and the mayor went by on a float, tossing candy to the crowd. Jason picked up a mini chocolate bar that landed by his feet and unwrapped it. He popped the whole thing into his mouth.

  The next group surprised them, not because it was a troop of Brownies, but because Wade was walking alongside them. He was holding hands with a tiny girl who looked a lot like him. The girl had trouble walking but was gamely marching on.

  “Did you join the Girl Scouts, Wade?” shouted Lamont.

  Wade gave an embarrassed grin. “My sister’s got a leg problem,” he said. “But she’s toughing it out.”

  “You earning a merit badge for helping her?” Calvin asked.

  Wade rolled his eyes. “Real funny.”

  Wade’s sister waved to the boys. She said something to Wade that Jason couldn’t hear, but he patted her head and smiled at her. They kept walking. Jason turned and watched them go. It was something to see Wade thinking outside of himself, helping his little sister like that.

  The parade only lasted about thirty minutes, trailed by hundreds of younger kids in costume. A party was to follow at the Y, and prizes would be given for the best attire. Jason had won third place once when he dressed up as a Ghostbuster. But they were kind of old for that now.

  They walked up and down the Boulevard a couple of times, getting free candy at some of the shops. Jason almost suggested that they walk up to the cemetery, but decided that he didn’t want a big rowdy group for that. So he hung out for an hour or so until most of the group had gone home. Only Vinnie and Anthony remained.

  “Ready?”

  Vinnie looked at his cast and frowned. “I don’t know if I can get over the fence,” he said.

  “We can squeeze in through the gate,” Jason said. “I’ve done it.”

  “Done what?” Anthony asked.

  “Snuck into the cemetery. Sound okay?”

  “Okay by me,” Anthony said. “The way we look, any goblins in there tonight will think we fit right in.”

  Hudson City is small, densely populated, and busy with foot traffic and automobiles. Many of the houses don’t even have yards, and the ones that do exist are small. It’s hard to find any place that isn’t at least partly lit by a streetlight. But if you walk up past St. Joseph’s Church and make your way over to Terrace Street, then past the high-school baseball field and head for the cliffs, you reach the darkest stretch of town.

  The boys walked past rows of tightly clustered homes decorated with pumpkins—large blown-up plastic ones that sat on lawns, and carved real ones on porches with jack-o’-lantern faces lit by candles.

  On one side of Terrace, at the corner of Washington, is a small city park—just a bunch of tall maple trees, some wooden benches, a swing set, and a blacktop basketball court. If you follow the path to the edge of the park, you reach the gate to the tiny cemetery, where some of the city’s founders are buried and a few Civil War soldiers. Nobody goes down there much. The plots were all filled by the first half of the previous century, so not too many city residents have relatives buried there that they’d remember knowing.

  There was a chain around one old post and through the first post of the gate, but there was some slack in it. Jason and Vinnie had no trouble slipping in, and Anthony sucked in his breath and managed to squeeze through, too.

  The brush was dense near the gate. And though the leaves on the trees had turned brown, many had not yet fallen. Very little moonlight got through to the ground.

  “Could use a flashlight,” Anthony whispered. A misty condensation followed
his words. The evening had turned cold.

  “Just go slow,” Jason replied.

  They walked carefully, each step bringing with it the smell of dying grass and of the few dry, brittle leaves that had reached the ground.

  As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, Jason stopped in front of a small slate gravestone. JACOB ADDISON. JAN 15 1836—NOV 11 1904.

  “The guy’s been dead for more than a century,” Jason whispered.

  “That’s nothing,” Anthony said. “Here’s one from eighteen thirty-one.”

  They looked around some more, finding dozens of graves from the early 1800s, including many children who’d died soon after birth.

  “A lot of kids never even got to grow up back then,” Vinnie said.

  The narrow dirt path circled the perimeter of the grounds. It had been built long before automobiles, so the lane was tight. The trees were tall and old, and the gravestones were cracked and covered with lichens.

  Jason stopped and stared at a marker from 1827, topped by a marble lamb and the simple words At Rest. He was thinking hard about these people’s life spans. 1807—1861. 1840—1842. 1833—1918. Some lives had been long, some very short. And all had ended a long time ago.

  They stood quietly, respectfully for a few minutes, glancing at the gravestones, at the moon above the trees, at the skyline of New York City visible on the other side of the Hudson.

  “Life matters,” Jason said finally. “You have to leave a mark.”

  “You have to do what you can do,” Anthony replied. “Win or lose, you have to go after it.”

  Jason turned to Anthony, thinking of something equally solemn to add. But he’d forgotten that they were still wearing face paint. The sight of Anthony’s yellow face and red nose made him laugh instead.

  “What?” said Anthony.

  Jason pointed to his own orange face.

  Anthony smiled. “Let’s get back to town,” he said.

  They started walking, then stopped and looked back across the cemetery. “I never thought about it before tonight,” Jason said, “but life is short. We gotta make every day count for something, don’t we?”

  8

  A Secret Play