I knocked on the door. Finally he answered. He screamed.
“Boy, what in the goddamn hell! You ain’t supposed to be here!”
I had to laugh. “I just came for a visit.”
“Well, is you crazy or what? Mary will bust both our butts.”
“I don’t think so. The way they were carrying on, she’ll be on the porch for a while. I got a good feeling that we’ll be okay.”
“Well, just in case you a little rusty on applying yo’ intuitions, I thank we ought to go out back of the shed just in case she gets a mind to come home early. Let me get my elixir of life.”
After he’d gone back in and gotten his whiskey, we went out behind his shed, leaned against its rotting wood and stared up at the sky.
“So, tell me something. How you been doing?” he asked. “I must say, I do miss you,” he continued while slowly nodding. “Yeah, I reckon I do.”
“Likewise,” I replied. “I’m okay. You know, ups and downs.”
He turned to me with a look of amused disbelief. “Shit, did I hear there was an up in there?”
I laughed. “Yeah, that’s different for a change, huh?”
“Well, tell me about the down first. I’m in a proper groove where the blues is concerned.”
I told the story of the Canaan Hogs and Taliferro Pitts and Bojack didn’t seem surprised.
“I’ve heard tell about his attitude, and I seen him play, of course.”
“And?”
“I thank he average at best. You way better than he is.”
“That’s the other part of the problem. Not only am I an Uncle Tom, but I’m a good Uncle Tom athlete. I don’t know what to do.”
“You stand up to him. What else? He ain’t gone leave you alone if you don’t, so you might as well.”
“You do remember how big he is, right?”
“You ain’t so small. You right at six feet and solid. You pretty powerful. I bet you can punch just as hard as you tackle. Here, hit this.”
He held up an open palm and I adjusted my position, drew back a fist, and thrust it into his hand.
“Ooooh, baby!” Bojack said. “You hear that shit?”
I dropped my head, covering a modest smile while he shook his hand.
“Yeah, it was a good pop, huh?”
“For real, baby. Sweet! Now you tell me if you don’t thank that peach Pitts’ old face won’t feel that.”
“I guess he would.”
“Damn straight. So you go on doing what you been doing. If he bothers you again, pop the sucker one. Them damn bullies. You pop ’em one, and they soon enough leave you alone.”
“I sort of figured that’s what you’d say.”
“And I knew you knew what needed to be done.”
“Mama Jennie used to say that when we came upon a problem, we knew what we should do. We just needed someone to confirm what we felt.”
“There you has it, then.”
“Thanks, Bojack,” I said, punching him lightly on the shoulder. “You’re a good friend.”
“Yeah, well, so what else is new? Now tell me the up side of the visit.”
I couldn’t control the smile that took over my face. Before he spoke, Bojack began nodding and smiling.
“Womanhood done finally caught up to your behind. Got your Johnson at attention, right?” he laughed.
“Don’t be so crude.”
“Oh, excuse me! I reckon this is some serious shit, then. I’m sorry and surprised, too. What sister girl up there got enough nerve to be out with you?”
“She’s not black.”
“Well then she must be Puerto Rican.”
“There are no Puerto Ricans in Canaan. You know that.”
“Then she must be Indian.”
“Nope.”
“Chinese?”
“No Chinese here, either.”
“Mulatto?”
“Close.”
“Lord help me, Jesus. I just know you ain’t gone tell me she’s a white girl, is you?”
“What else can she be? You named everything else.”
“What is you thanking, Evan?” Now, he was angry. “What color satin do you want in your coffin, boy?”
“Be serious.”
“Oh, my ass is serious, alright. What can you be thanking ’bout? Ain’t you had enough shit to deal with? Your daddy gone kick you out for sure if he finds out you dating a white girl. You ain’t gone get no sympathy from nobody around here, ’cause they all consider that a mortal sin.”
“I can’t recall when I got support around here for anything anyway. What do you think?”
“Well, I don’t know nothing about sin, seeing that I don’t go to church no more. But it’s hard to stand behind you on this one.”
“Then don’t. All I know is that she makes me happy, and I’m going to keep talking to her. And talking is all we’ve been doing. I’m not dating anybody.”
“But you’d like to be dating her?”
“Yes.”
“My Lord, Jesus, Joseph, Mary, and the Holy Ghost!”
I felt my friendship with Bojack unraveling. He looked truly disappointed.
“All I said was that you should want to be a success in life. Success ain’t measured in being with a white girl. That don’t get you nothing. It just makes everything harder.”
I got up to leave. If he didn’t want to support me, it didn’t matter much. It wasn’t like we’d seen much of each other lately, and I had been doing all right. Patty made me happy, and I wasn’t about to give up that feeling. I hadn’t had it since the night he talked me into being somebody.
“Okay, okay,” he called to me as I rounded the corner of the shed. “I know you ain’t been happy for a long, long time. And I know a lot of that is my fault. All I hope is that the extra pain you gone get is worth sitting around talking to a white girl.”
“You don’t know her.”
“Well, go on, tell me about her, then.”
I hesitated.
“No, I mean it. Come on back, and sit your butt down here beside me.”
So I did. I told him all about Patty Cunningham. After which I admitted that I was falling in love.
“But that’s one-sided,” I continued. “I thought about asking for more, but I don’t want to come on too fast and ruin things. We can really talk to each other. And I learn so much from her.”
“Smart lady, huh?”
“Very. Talking to her lets me know that there is more to life than Canaan. I mean, I always knew there was, but she’s living proof.”
“Whew,” Bojack said. “Sounds too deep for me. See, all that intellectual stuff makes me nervous.”
“Me too. In the beginning, I tried to keep the conversation on everyday stuff. Then I decided it was stupid. So, I let it go deeper, and I got embarrassed.”
“What happened?”
“She asked what my favorite museum was.”
“And what you say?”
“The Pro Football Hall of Fame.”
“Umph, umph, umph,” he said, shaking his head. “And you ain’t even been to it.”
“Yeah.”
We laughed, and Bojack put his arm around me. It was a touch of love, and I shivered a little beneath it, hoping that he didn’t notice. But even if he had, I’m sure he didn’t care, because I think he was feeling the same thing.
“Well, now that we have talked about me, what about you?” I asked.
“What you mean?”
“I saw you inside. With the checkers and the booze. It didn’t look healthy. In fact, it seemed pretty sad, Bojack.”
“Yeah, well, I been playing that same game of checkers for a while now. I sit here every night feeling sorry for my ass. Mary’s gone tonight, but when she home, we don’t talk much.”
“What happened?”
“Human beings ain’t meant to be dictated to, especially in they own homes.”
“Is that what she’s trying to do?”
“Hell, she done it, ain’t s
he? You and me is just one example. Love can’t survive under no dictatorship. I just spend a lot of time sitting around talking to myself.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, don’t be. While I’m sitting, I’m thanking, too. I’ll get thangs straight. Don’t you worry none. We both gone get thangs straight.”
“Works for me.”
“Here, drink some of this before you go.”
“But that’s whiskey.”
“Yeah, and as far as I can see, you needs a taste.”
I took a sip and winced as it burned my throat.
“Good. Take it like a man, and get up and gets your behind on home. Get some rest, and I mean in bed for a change. If I was your coach, I’d beat your butt for being out this late the night before a game.”
FIFTEEN
There were no movie theaters in Canaan. No bowling alleys, no skating rinks, and no place to sit and drink while listening to live music. There wasn’t even a McDonald’s. Save for visiting the local watering holes, there just wasn’t much entertainment to be had. So in Canaan, like similar rural towns, high school football reigned supreme.
The night after Bojack and I sat behind his shed, our football stadium was filled to capacity. You could feel the excitement. People felt good about the season’s prospects. The year before, the Canaan Hogs had made it to the regionals. It was the last game that I watched in the stands with Bojack. We had driven all the way to Richmond to see it.
Canaan led by three points. The Thomas Jefferson High Cougars from Richmond, winners of the last eight state championships, were on their twenty-five-yard line and there was only a minute left in the game.
“If them Jefferson coaches know they football, they gone take advantage of the weak deep coverage,” Bojack yelled in my ear. “I wouldn’t waste my time like they normally do with moving the ball ten yards here and there, trying to get out of bounds to stop the clock. No, I’d play action, fake that run, and go deep.”
“Isn’t that what everyone would expect them to do?”
“Not at all. See, they got a whole minute. That’s forever in a football game. Especially in a two-minute drill when you got all your timeouts. No, our coaches ain’t thanking they gone try for it all in one pop. But I bet they is. If you was back there, I wouldn’t worry, though.”
“Not even with Bill Jackson as a receiver?” I yelled back.
Bill Jackson was Jefferson’s deep threat. He had the most career yardage receiving in the history of high school football in Virginia. He was also already Olympic material in the 100-yard dash.
“He might be a little faster than you, but you could outthank him and that quarterback. You got to remember that brains and physical strength makes you a winner. Just strength can only beat just strength. And that’s all most kids your age do. That’s all that boy out there do. He just rely on how fast he is. But if you been listening to me—”
“I have,” I interrupted.
“Then I know you could handle the situation.”
I had smiled because on the very next play, the Jefferson quarterback dropped back in the pocket. Our pass rush was fierce, but it got distracted because Jefferson had faked a reverse, which sent our defenders in the wrong direction. The quarterback took advantage and found Jackson had beaten the cornerback and the free safety by ten yards. The game was over. Thomas Jefferson was on its way to its ninth state championship.
“Damn,” Bojack shouted. “See how I read that call? I ought to be coaching somebody’s damn team somewhere, instead of stuck in that damn plant.”
A year later, a similar crowd gathered to watch the Hogs embark on a new season. The press had dubbed Canaan the number one contender for Jefferson’s throne, since we had been the only team to lead them during a game. I was smiling all day because the morning of the game, a special edition of our weekly paper, the Canaan Courier, came out. It had been proclaimed that I was the best addition to the varsity team. “Walls’ skill and savvy should fill a great hole in the Canaan defensive backfield. If the rest of the defense remains as solid as it was last season, no one should score many points on them.”
Daddy had actually given me the paper that morning. I’d slept in my bed instead of the woods, as Bojack had ordered. Daddy came into my room while I was sitting there waiting for him to clear out. He handed me the paper and patted me on the head.
“I don’t guess they be saying how strange you is now at the plant,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”
I was stunned. My face must have shown it, but he chose to overlook that. After the years of barely speaking to me, now he was telling me that he was proud of me. But then I remembered that image was everything to my parents. My athletic ability was something that no one could say anything negative about. And begrudgingly, they had to respect it. After all this time, I had finally done something that was within the realm of social acceptance. And I was happy. If I played well, then maybe—just maybe—I could turn things around.
After I showered and dressed, I found a warm breakfast waiting for me on the table and money for lunch. Before, I had always eaten cereal, and I had to beg for lunch money.
The first team to test the Canaan Hogs was the Rebels of Merchant’s Hope. Every year, we opened against them. They were the arch rivals from the next county, and though they weren’t considered a good team, Canaan always had problems beating them. That’s the way it was with intense rivalries, Bojack had said. In the past, during halftime of this game, the principal of the school leading at the half had the privilege of being pushed up and down the field in a wheelbarrow by the trailing principal. The tradition was ended the previous year because Merchant’s Hope principal fell out of the wheelbarrow after celebrating a little too early.
I was smiling about that very fact as I stared down the Rebels, who were loosening up on the other side of the field. I’d spent most of my free time that week reading up on their projected strengths, and our team had watched a lot of film with our coaches. I felt I knew their offense pretty well.
The captains of the teams met at midfield for the coin toss. Merchant’s Hope won and elected to receive the ball. I put my helmet on and psyched myself up as the band started into the national anthem. I saw Mama and Daddy in the stands smiling like I hadn’t seen since Daddy started earning enough money to stop renting our land to the white farmer. Aunt Mary sat beside them. I was surprised to see her. I knew she didn’t like football, but it was a social event, and I guessed she didn’t want to be at home with Bojack since things were not going well.
A few rows up from them, I saw Patty. She was obviously frowning at the cheerleaders. I smiled. “Some of them have such wastelands for minds,” she’d said to me one day as we walked past one of their practices. “All they talk about are boys. They actually get a thrill from riding in a jock’s car. They’re disgusting.”
“It’s their right to be,” I’d said, laughing.
When she saw me staring at her, she threw her hands over her face in embarrassment. I’d caught her red-handed. She shrugged and smiled. I tipped my helmet to her, and I proudly walked onto the field to play my first varsity game.
After the kickoff, Merchant’s Hope found itself on its thirty-yard line, first down and ten yards to go. Out onto the field ran their number one addition, Rudy Rainey. He was a transfer fullback who was just as big as Taliferro Pitts and equally intimidating.
When our two teams faced off at the scrimmage line, the big fullback stood over everyone. The ball was snapped, and the quarterback tossed the ball to his right.
“Sweep left!” Dee, at middle linebacker, yelled. Taliferro Pitts had broken through the offensive line and met Rudy Rainey head on. The Canaan crowd stood in disbelief as the Rebel fullback casually knocked Taliferro over, stepped on his face mask, broke it, and kept on running. It took five of us to get him down, but not before he had gained twenty yards. Taliferro changed helmets and in the huddle swore he was going to send this fullback out on a stretcher. “Put this sucker out for
the rest of the game!” he yelled. “That’s what I’m gone do.”
Merchant’s Hope’s quarterback took the next snap and began backpedaling, a sign that he was going to pass. The flanker came running out for me, and I went with him ten yards downfield. But the Rebels had called a draw play, a delayed run. On his way back, the quarterback handed the ball off to Rainey, who burst up the middle, leaving Hogs all over the ground. By the time I caught up to him and dived on the crowd already tackling him, he’d made it to our thirty-yard line. The Merchant’s Hope crowd was going wild.
When we lined up again, everyone knew where the ball was going. Quickly, I thought back to my Sundays with Bojack. “You can’t tackle a big running back with superior upper body strength by hitting him up high. And you is a fool to meet him head-on unless you bigger than he is.”
“What do you do then?” I’d asked.
“You take his legs out from underneath him. From a angle. If you hits him head on, you most probably catch a knee in the gut or something. Hit that sucker hard in the legs from a angle, and it’ll kill him every time.”
So I watched the quarterback and the big fullback carefully. I thought that they could pull a switch and throw a pass, so if I charged into the backfield, I might get burned. But I decided to gamble.
On the snap, Dee again yelled, “Sweep!” and Rudy Rainey came barreling around my side. He knocked over Taliferro and several other Hogs. When he broke into the clear, everyone in the stands rose to their feet. The Merchant’s Hope crowd screamed, feeling a touchdown was unfolding in front of them. The Canaan crowd was rows of open mouths and drooping chins. Rainey was at full speed when he saw me and tried to clash head-on. But I was too quick and dipped below his stiff-arm and into his legs at an angle, just like Bojack said.
The Canaan crowd roared when I sent the big fullback airborne. I jarred him so badly that he lost the ball. I landed on my stomach and saw the fumbled ball bouncing toward the sideline. Quickly I got up, grabbed it, and took off toward the goal line. As I passed the Canaan bench, I heard the coaches urging me on. Seconds later, with the crowd screaming, I crossed the goal line. When I reached the back of the end zone, a cheer came from the woods beyond the stadium fence. I saw Bojack bouncing up and down.
The Emancipation of Evan Walls Page 21
