A Hopeless Game

by Daniel Carson

  “I assume he won more state titles there?” I asked.

  Granny held out her hand. “Five! Five state championships at Crete City!”

  “And then he came here,” Kevin said. “For what everyone agrees is his single greatest challenge to date. And what has he done? He’s taken a team that hadn’t won a game in three years, and he took them to a five-hundred record in his first year, a first-round playoff loss the second year, and now…” He gestured around him as if the “and now” was obvious.

  “Like I said,” said Granny, “I’ve watched a lot of football, and these boys are playing as well as any team I’ve seen in a long time.” She patted Kevin on the shoulder and winked at me. “Don’t worry, granddaughter, we’ll be celebrating tonight. We will definitely be celebrating tonight.”

  A horn honked behind me, and I turned to see a large black pickup waiting at the edge of the beer garden. Fireman Bob jumped out. He was wearing blue jeans, a blue Hopeless Football sweatshirt, and a blue Hopeless Football baseball cap. He’d completed the look by applying eyeblack under both eyes.

  He pumped his fist into the air and whooped like he was entering a pep rally.

  I was about to go on my first real date in over twelve years. And by the looks of it, I was going with a football team mascot.

  Chapter 4

  “Looking good, Lucky Charms!” Fireman Bob said as he stepped into the beer garden.

  “Do you even know my name?”

  He shrugged. “No clue.”

  “And yet you asked me out on a date.”

  “Not sure what one thing has to do with the other,” he said. I was beginning to think that his clueless expression was actually just his normal expression.

  “My name is Hope.”

  He grinned like a great big good-looking idiot. “A cool name! That’s even better than no name!” He shot me a double thumbs-up. “And you look great. Not quite as great as last night… but still great.”

  I looked over at Granny. She and Kevin Sunderland appeared to be enjoying every bit of this.

  “I take it we’re going to the football game?” I asked Fireman Bob.

  “The biggest football game in the history of Hopeless football? Of course we’re going to the game!” He said it with so much enthusiasm I was shocked he didn’t add a “Yeehaw!” at the end.

  “I’m a little confused. I thought you asked me out on a date.”

  “And this might end up being the greatest date in history. You look great, I look great, we go plow through a bunch of food and watch Hopeless win the biggest football game in school history. We might even make out in the bed of my pickup. Oh yes…” He put a hand on my shoulder. “This date has the chance to be epic.”

  While Fireman Bob drove us to the high school football stadium, I texted Katie.

  My date is taking place at the football game. Which means you HAVE to come.

  She texted back immediately. Ha! That’s funny and depressing all at the same time.

  Why depressing? I didn’t ask her about the “funny.” That was obvious.

  Because now I have to take my kids to a stupid football game.

  But you also get to see me on my first official date in over a decade. It could be a disaster. He already told me we might make out in the back of his pickup truck.

  Shut the front door. That is FANTASTIC! You’re right, I can’t miss this. Will Alex be there?

  Probably. I told him to bring all his girlfriends.

  Say what?

  Long story.

  If Gemima’s there, promise not to punch her. I’d hate to see Sheriff Kramer have to arrest you in front of Fireman Bob.

  Don’t worry. I’ll be my usual cool self.

  I think I know you better than that.

  The parking lot was already bursting at the seams when we arrived, but several big guys were standing in one of the parking spots, and as soon as they saw our truck, they moved out of the way to let Fireman Bob pull in.

  As soon as we got out of the truck, one of the guys, a stocky bald man with a mustache, threw Fireman Bob two beers. Bob slammed the first one like he was part of a drinking montage in a fraternity movie, then he crushed the can on his head and started drinking beer number two.

  “Is this Lucky Charms?” asked Bald Mustache Man.

  Fireman Bob waved his hands. “The lady has a name. It’s Hope.”

  My name apparently agreed with Mustache, because he nodded in approval. “Cool name.”

  “That’s what I said,” said Fireman Bob.

  “Hey, aren’t women allowed to drink beer here?” I asked.

  A tall guy by the cooler smiled. “Cool chick!” He grabbed a beer from the cooler and tossed it my way. I caught it with my left hand.

  “I only get one?”

  This time he laughed. “Very cool chick.” He tossed me a second beer and I caught it in my right hand. I opened it up and slammed it just like Fireman Bob had. I hadn’t slammed a beer like that in a very long time—but somehow I managed, and when I was done, the assembled firefighters roared and gave each other high-fives.

  Fireman Bob pointed at me like we had suddenly become teammates. “What’d I tell you? This date is gonna be epic!”

  Katie and her kids found me, Fireman Bob, and the rest of our fraternal order of firefighters in the stands just as the teams were lining up for the kickoff. Dominic was dressed like Spider-Man, and Lucy was dressed like Anna from Frozen.

  “Katie,” I said, “Halloween was last week. Please tell me you’ve changed your children’s clothes since then.”

  “At least once. Possibly even twice. But the only way I could get them here was to let them come in their costumes.” She tilted her head toward Fireman Bob. “And I wasn’t going to miss this for anything in the world.”

  “I already got into a drinking contest with him and his buddies out in the parking lot.”

  “Did you do a sister proud?”

  I shrugged. “Fireman Bob is your typical meathead lightweight. But I think I impressed his friends. I received an obnoxious amount of high-fiving and chest-bumping.”

  “Thank God you’ve got little boobs.”

  “They’re finally good for something.”

  Although I grew up going to games with Granny, I didn’t attend very often in high school. The football team was terrible, and Jimmy didn’t even play. He probably could have—he was a pretty good athlete—but he didn’t care about football. He preferred fixing up his dad’s old motorcycle or hiking through Moose Mountain with me. Still, I knew the game well. Not only because of Granny, but because of an investigative report I did in Portland a few years back on the use of performance-enhancing drugs among high school athletes. That investigation required me to attend more high school football games than I could remember—and I learned quite a bit about the game.

  So I fully understood that what I was seeing this night was truly something special. I wouldn’t have thought they could fit that many people into City Stadium. And with each touchdown that Hopeless scored, that huge crowd went absolutely nuts. Hopeless was a weird little town with a very unfortunate name. It was… inspiring to see the town come together like this. Coach Mossback really was a miracle worker.

  And I realized something else. This was, without a doubt, the best Official First Date I could have possibly gone on. Fireman Bob hardly even spoke to me. He mostly screamed at his friends. Occasionally he would break my hand with a galactic high-five, and a couple of times he leaned over and said,”Pretty good date, don’t you think?” Both times I responded the exact same way: “Epic.” And he gave me a big goofy smile.

  He actually was a good-looking guy, but dressed up in Hopeless blue and wearing the eyeblack under his eyes, it was hard to take him seriously. Which was exactly what I wanted.

  Though I did wonder, from time to time, if Fireman Bob really thought we were going to make out in his truck later that night.

  I was contemplating all of this as I came back from the snack shack,
where I’d been refilling Katie’s hot dog and hot cocoa order. A woman coming from the other direction stopped when she saw me.

  “Excuse me, are you Hope Walker?”

  She was in her mid to late thirties. Short dirty-blond hair. Glasses. Long angular nose. Just a bit taller than me.

  “I am, and if I weren’t holding so much food, I’d shake your hand.” I could feel people pressing up behind me, so I stepped toward the short fence that surrounded the football field.

  “I don’t mean to hold you up. My name is Mandy Broderick. I teach Physics at the high school, and I also moderate the Journalism Club. I just wanted to say that I’ve been using your stories for my kids to study.”

  I wasn’t expecting that. “Wow!” I said. “That’s really cool. That’s got to be one of the nicest things anyone has ever told me.”

  “Well, you’re a great writer. And you’re one of our own, which means you’re a real inspiration to these kids.”

  “Sure, if by ‘inspiration’ you mean working for practically nothing at the Hopeless News.”

  Mandy laughed. “I’m guessing that’s more of a temporary situation. We’ve been studying your stuff from when you were in Portland. And rumor on the street is you might be on TV in the future?”

  That rumor was true. At least, I thought it was. I hadn’t made up my mind yet. “I’m talking to a producer. He wants me to go out to New York and do a screen test.”

  “You should!” said Mandy.

  “You think so?”

  “Definitely. These kids need something to shoot for. To know it’s possible. Especially being from a small town. Well, you know all about that.”

  The crowd erupted, and I turned my head to see Kevin Sunderland’s son Elliot, the star running back, cross the goal line for yet another touchdown. Hopeless was now up by twenty-one.

  “Talk about inspirational,” I said.

  Mandy shrugged.

  I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seem impressed.”

  “It’s kind of a dumb game if you ask me. Not what I’d call inspirational.”

  “You don’t think sports can be inspirational?”

  “Sorry, I guess I’m just tired of everyone putting so much emphasis on them. I help kids learn about the physical world and how to communicate with the written word. These are real skills that kids are going to use the rest of their lives. What good is football ever going to do anybody?”

  “What if they play professionally?”

  Mandy raised a finger. “Funny thing—I actually checked that one time, just to see. Since the 1920s, seventy-two kids from Idaho have played professional football. That’s less than one per year. Think about it: each year you have to be the very best, not one of the best, but the very best football player in the entire state to even think about having a chance to someday make money playing a sport that will one day leave you a cripple.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I bet Coach Mossback had you give the pep talk before the game.”

  She smiled and rolled her eyes. “Don’t even get me started on him.”

  “I get the feeling most people around here think he’s a god. Not you?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Definitely not me. Do you know he only has to teach two classes per day, and those are just weightlifting classes? And yet he makes more than any other teacher at our school.”

  “Can they even do that?” I said.

  “The school board can do whatever they want. And what they wanted was for their precious football team to finally win. So they brought in a mercenary.” She visibly shivered. “The guy makes my skin crawl.”

  “So what are you doing here tonight?”

  She shrugged. “I’m a teacher. I support my students. I support my school. I support my town. Even when it’s just a dumb game.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry to go off like that. That wasn’t my intention. I just wanted you to know that although I may not worship at the feet of football, I do think quite highly of good writers.” She pointed at me. “And you are a very good writer.”

  “Thank you, Mandy. That means more than you probably know. And for what it’s worth, with that kind of passion, I bet you’re an amazing teacher.”

  “I don’t know about that. I know I care a lot. Probably too much.”

  “There’s no such thing as too much. Hey, not sure if you’ve heard, but there’s a big celebration on Main Street outside my Granny’s bar after the game.” I pointed to the scoreboard. “And it looks like there’ll be something to celebrate.”

  Mandy shook her head and let out a sigh. “Thanks, Hope, really. But honestly, I’ve got something better to do.”

  Chapter 5

  At exactly 9:25 that evening, when the final whistle blew, Coach Mossback and the Hopeless football team had done something no Hopeless football team had ever done before. For the first time in school history, Hopeless was going to the state finals. I saw Granny down in the front row jumping up and down like she was in college again. She was freaking out so much I thought she might just lose her blue sweatshirt in the process—and there weren’t enough emergency personnel in the entire state of Idaho to deal with the trauma that would have caused.

  Everyone was whooping and screaming. One guy next to us was screaming so loudly that Celia started to cry. So her big brother Dominic promptly punched the guy where you shall not punch a grown man.

  “Dominic Rodgers!” Katie yelled. “You can’t punch a stranger in the privates.”

  “What if I just punch him in the nuts, Mama?”

  “The privates are the nuts, Dominic!”

  Fireman Bob picked me up and hugged me so hard I thought I might poop myself. And I didn’t mind. Because this was the most joy I’d seen in the town of Hopeless since that summer day when I was eight and a truck carrying whiskey barrels overturned on Main Street.

  As the frenzy finally began to subside, the PA announcer made one last announcement for the night. “Remember to drive carefully and drink responsibly. And one last thing… PARTY AT GRANNY’S!”

  The scene on Main Street that night was one I’ll never forget. People from every walk of life. Families. Elderly. Players. Coaches. Teachers. Mayor Jenkins was there, and for once I didn’t want to punch her. Gemima waltzed in with a new man on her arm, and I didn’t even care. Okay, I still hated her, but not enough to punch her either. Okay, probably enough to punch her… but not enough to bother pushing my way through the crowd in order to punch her. Sheriff Kramer was there too, alone, with no girlfriends to speak of. He raised his eyebrows when he saw me with Fireman Bob, but it wasn’t a jealous look. I just hoped he and I were on the same page. The just-not-yet page.

  Stank helped Cup hand out football-shaped sugar cookies. Buck handed out free ham-and-swiss sliders. Pastor Leif handed out blessings. And all the while Granny and Bess slung beer and soda like it was going out of style. My job, aided by Katie and her kids, was to use some buckets Stank had brought down to collect donations for Mr. Tanaka.

  “Tonight we celebrate a great victory for Hopeless,” Granny said over a megaphone. “But we don’t just come together when things are good. Nope, the people of Hopeless help each other out when things are tough. Now, at one point or another, just about everyone in this town has been touched by Henry Tanaka and his flowers. I guess you could say that Henry’s flowers have been keeping Hopeless beautiful for a long, long time. And right now, Henry and his beautiful flowers have been dealt a tough blow. Tonight, Henry Tanaka needs you. He needs all of us. So I’ll make a deal with you. You all stop being cheap for one night, and I’ll say something I hope to never, ever say again: bartender, the drinks are on the house!”

  I’m a little embarrassed to admit that the cheers after Granny’s announcement were even louder than when the football team had won the game just a half hour earlier. I even saw Pastor Leif crying, and when his wife asked him what was wrong, he said, “Nothing’s wrong, honey. I just never thought I’d see Granny do such a thing.”

  Yep, that was Gra
nny, a regular Mother Teresa. And if free beer was your idea of great sacrifice, then Granny was practically a saint that night. True to her word, the taps flowed all night long.

  And the people responded generously. As glasses got poured, wallets were opened. Over the next thirty minutes, Katie and the kids and I collected a surprising amount of money. When we handed it over to Mr. Tanaka, he simply put his face into his hands and cried.

  “This is a good thing Granny’s done,” said Alex as he came up alongside me.

  “Like she says, this is what neighbors do.”

  “How’d the big date go?”

  All I did was laugh.

  “You and Fireman Bob getting engaged any time soon?”

  “He said if I’m lucky I’ll get to make out with him in the back of his truck at the end of the night.”

  Alex gave me a sideways glance. “And are you feeling lucky?”

  I winked. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

  Earl Denton came over and threw his arm around me. It was clear from his general aroma that he and Jim Beam had been working overtime most of the day.

  “Hope! Do you realize that no team from Hopeless has ever done what those boys did tonight?”

  “It’s pretty much all anybody can talk about, Earl.”

  “And it goes without saying that you’re going to write a big article about it for this week’s paper.”

  “Unless another goat winds up dead. Goat murder always gets top billing around here.”

  Earl waved his arm across the night sky like he was painting some kind of picture. “And not just one article, Hope. I’m talking special edition here. Folks are going to eat this up. And it’s got to be perfect, ’cause people are going to keep this edition of the paper long after I’m dead.”

  “Whoa! People are going to keep this paper until next month?”