Did Baldy believe them? Had he seen it all from the bench? Had the play been clear from where he sat? Or was he trying to cover them up? All this Ronald thought as the Duke stood there looking down at him queerly.
The Duke glanced at Baldy, his hat pushed back on his wide forehead, perspiration showing from the heat of the steaming dressing room. Then he glanced back from the coach to Ronald sitting half-dressed on the bench, to Keith with a towel around his middle, to Tony leaning over his shoulder. Did the Duke believe them? Funny thing about the Duke; sometimes he didn’t say much, but you seldom fooled him.
“I suppose you can’t have football without injuries. But this is the first serious one we’ve had on the Hill for years. I’m sorry it had to happen here, like that, to a boy the type of Goldman, especially. They’re taking him over to the Infirmary now and Mr. Curry, the principal, is with them. I think maybe we’d better get across and see how things stand.”
He didn’t congratulate them as he usually did, or tell them how well they’d played, or anything. Just turned and went out and down the iron staircase followed by Baldy. Maybe from his seat in the stands the Duke had seen exactly what happened. Hang it, we didn’t mean to injure Goldman, honest we didn’t. We were just trying to stop him, to put him out of the play. To save that touchdown. That’s football, isn’t it?
But all the time Ronald wanted to jump up and run after them. If only the other boys hadn’t been there, sort of huddling around him, he would have leaped to his feet and shouted: It’s our fault, Mr. Hetherington. We wanted to get Goldman. We were out to get him. They’d been roughing me all afternoon, Stacey and Goldman and that Negro end of theirs. They’d been playing dirty football. We were out to get him. Someone said, “You take him high and I’ll take him low,” and they carried him off the field on a stretcher. Like that. Maybe it was an accident. No, it was our fault. That’s football. And if he’s hurt, if he’s badly hurt, I’ll never play football again. Never!
That’s what he wanted to jump up and shout. Instead he sat silently watching them disappear down the iron stairway which led to the basement and the visitors’ lockers.
They always had dinner in the small room in Pierce Hall after the High School game, and when the speeches were over, and the Duke and Baldy had finished and made their usual jokes and given the same talk about what a fine thing the game was for the school and how at the Academy victory didn’t really matter, that what counted was how you played; when that was all over they elected a captain for next season. Ronald had been in on three banquets. They were always the same.
That evening neither the Duke nor Baldy was there. They were over at the Infirmary waiting for the X-rays to be developed, while disquieting rumors came floating back to the squad sitting around the long table in the candlelight. Steve Ketchum, who did some work in the laboratory of the Infirmary for his scholarship and knew his way around over there, reported that the doctors were afraid of paralysis. Or maybe something worse, he hinted. A specialist had been called from town and was due any minute.
Usually it was fun, a dinner after beating the High School. To beat the High School was something; anyone could whip University and those other teams, but the High School was something else. They might be meatballs but they sure could play football. So a victory over the High School was something. To whip that gang, who called us softies and liked to beat up an Academy boy if they caught him alone in their part of town, to lick that crowd who even laughed at us to our faces, that was really fun. When we won, the dinner was grand, and even the speeches afterward, Ronald felt, weren’t hard to take. You had all the ice cream you wanted to eat when you really felt like eating it, too. When your bones had ceased aching so badly. When the throbbing of your nerves up and down your arm had died away, and you were warm and relaxed and happy in the candlelight around the table. Beside men you’d worked with all fall: Tony and Keith and Rog Treadway and the others who’d pulled you through. Who’d opened up the holes. When you were with the team. Football was a team game, no matter what they said.
Not tonight it wasn’t fun though. Not tonight. Tonight was different. For one thing, most of them weren’t thinking about the dinner. They were thinking about that room in the hospital and Meyer Goldman, the High School halfback. Maybe he wasn’t really hurt, maybe on the other hand he was. Maybe he’d die. Or would never walk again. His father kept a store on the corner of Main and State.
Gosh, we didn’t intend to injure your son, honest we didn’t, Mr. Goldman. We only wanted to stop him, to save a touchdown, that’s all.
Ronald suggested that Steve be sent across to the Infirmary to nosey around and report. He was gone a long while, and when he returned everyone had eaten their ice cream in silence and finished seconds. There wasn’t much conversation. Because there really wasn’t much anyone could say. Nobody felt like talking over the game as they usually did whenever they won. No one felt like discussing football that evening, Ronald least of all. He was waiting for Steve to return. At last he came in, and his face, Ronald noticed as he entered the side door, was worried.
“They aren’t sure yet, but they’re afraid his neck is broken.” The quiet in the room before was nothing to the silence now. It hung heavy over them.
“Then he’ll die,” someone said from the end of the table.
“Not necessarily. It depends, Miss Johnson the nurse told me. It seems the X-rays show he’s got a broken clavicle vertebra. You can get well from that if you’re careful, she says. After a long while.”
Someone whistled, low, ominously.
“Of course it might not be, they aren’t sure yet, but it’s worse than just a broken collarbone; that’s what they thought at first. Doctor Greene is there from town, and they’re having a consultation now. What’s that? Oh, a consultation is where the docs all get together and decide what they’d better do. His father’s come up, so has his mother.”
That settled things. Goldman’s hurt. Goldman’s really hurt. We did it, Keith and I did it; on purpose. If he’s injured for life, I’ll never play football again, never.
Now Keith was on his feet, talking.
Ronald hardly heard what he said, couldn’t make out the words at first. He was seeing the Infirmary where he’d been laid up with flu the winter before, and the operating room where they took out Dave’s appendix. He also saw Goldman’s twisted face and his ugly mouth as they tore into him on that play.
“...So I guess there’s not much left now, you fellows...” Keith always called them “you fellows.”... “There’s nothing left ’cept the election of captain for next year. You all know this team is mostly juniors, only Dave Bradley and Stan... any nominations?”
Ordinarily there would have been some cracks and someone would have told him to reappoint himself and forget it. And Keith would have said solemnly, “Now look here, you fellows, we want a team that will do credit to the Academy and a man who’ll lead them,” and so on and so on. Not tonight. Everyone was serious enough without any urging. Tony stood up.
“There’s one man I think we ought to nominate. He pulled us through against University School, he beat Country Day with three field goals, he was pretty near the whole team against Quaker Heights, and today, well, you all realize what he was out there this afternoon.” He paused a moment. Then quickly, “I nominate Ronald Perry.” And quickly sat down.
The first spontaneous expression of the evening swept the room. There was a chorus of approval all around the table. “Yeah, Ronny. Ronald Perry.” Keith rose again.
“You just heard, you fellows. Ronald Perry’s been nominated for captain. Anyone care to second it?”
“I do.”
“Me.”
“I do.”
“Ok. Any other nominations?” Silence for just a few seconds. Then someone shouted from the end of the table.
“Move the nominations be closed.”
“It’s been moved and seconded that Ronald Perry be elected captain of next season’s team.”
; “Wait a minute, please.” Their faces were all sort of blurred below him in the candlelight, but he noticed them sit up suddenly. “Wait a minute. Guess you’ll have to count me out. I can’t take the captaincy of next year. I’m through.”
“Through?”
“Through? You leaving school?”
“Nope. I’m just not playing football anymore.”
2
I
BONG. BONG. BONG went the bell as the boys swarmed into chapel. At the Academy you had to wear a necktie to chapel and a necktie to dinner in the evening; otherwise you dressed as you pleased. They poured across the Quad from Main and Belding and Hargreaves. Lower Formers and Second Formers, Third Formers, Fourth Formers, and Upper Formers. A few of them wore black sweaters with the letter in orange on it, inside out as customary. Anyone who wore a varsity sweater right side out or front side to was looked on with disapproval at the Academy. He was said to be “chucking himself around.”
It was a beautiful November morning, clear, crisp, and sunny. A few boys had turned the collars of their jackets up, others had put on fawn-colored polo coats, and everyone wore saddle shoes. Spike, the Duke’s airedale, pranced along as he always did when he heard the chapel bell. Bong. Bong. Bong-bong. He paused beside one group, frisked across the grass of the Quad, bounced back and followed them gravely to the steps of the chapel, seating himself on the topmost step. His usual procedure.
The Academy had many customs. One custom was the foot-stamping after a football victory. Whenever the stars of the game entered chapel on the Monday morning, there would be a low stamping of feet. That day they stamped for Tony, they stamped for Rog, they stamped loudly for Keith. But news spread rapidly over the small world which was the Academy, and the news of Ronny’s decision to give up football was news no more. When he came in there was a moment of hesitation. The stamp became a shuffle and then died away. The silent treatment. They were giving him the silent treatment.
Hey, Ronny’s quit football! The boys whispered to one another. D’ja hear? He wouldn’t take the captaincy for next season. Yeah, I know. That mean he isn’t gonna play anymore? Guess so. He’s upset. He says he’s through.
The noise subsided as Ronny came down the aisle and took his seat in the second pew up front.
Usually the Duke made a kind of talk the morning after the High School game. He always found something to comment upon, and words of praise for the team, winning or losing. They waited, the whole school waited, wondering whether he’d mention the game or Goldman’s injury. Goldman was hurt. So what? Football’s tough. They thought we’d be a bunch of pushovers this year. They thought we were softies because we didn’t play Madison High or Franklin High or teams from towns upstate. Because we preferred to play University School and Quaker Heights. Ok, now they found out. They got fooled. Served them right. As for Goldman, he happened to go down under a good block. Well, football’s a tough game.
That’s what the Academy thought while the opening hymn was being sung, and the Lesson for the day read and at last the Duke got up and stepped forward. As usual he had three or four slips of white paper in his hand. They were notices given him to read by different boys connected with school organizations. He adjusted his glasses.
“Candidates for the Monthly are requested to report to Gerald Staines in his room, 45 Hargreaves, this afternoon at five.”
“Mr. Morrison wants the whole glee club to report at three sharp at Main. He says that means the whole club.” Titters from the youngsters of the Lower Form in the balcony.
“The swimming team will begin practice at three this afternoon in the pool.” Everyone sat up. The Academy had the best swimming team in the State, in fact anywhere in the region. Why, our men even made the Yale team, lots of them. No one could beat us at swimming.
The Duke continued. “Keith Davidson hopes...” there was a sudden insistent stamping of feet, and the Duke looked up quickly with a kind of frown on his face. “Keith Davidson, the captain, hopes for a good turnout. He wants new men to report, especially from the Second and Third Forms.” His face turned down toward the last slip of paper in his hand.
“Found at the game, Saturday. Two fountain pens, one green, one black. Six notebooks... without any names in them.” He lifted his eyebrows and looked at the school over his glasses. There were titters. Putting your name in your books was a fetish of the Duke’s. Every year he mentioned it at the start of the term, insisted on everyone doing it, and every year a dozen boys forgot to do so. He waited a minute and then continued. “A silver cigarette case marked M. B.” The entire school laughed openly. Smoking was strictly forbidden at the Academy. “If the boy whose father owns this case will call at Mr. Sullivan’s office in the gym, he can have it.” Now the school roared. That was the Duke’s way of saying the boy wouldn’t be punished. A grand guy, the Duke.
After a joke of this kind he usually became serious and gave them the works. They sat waiting for him to turn it on as only the Duke could. Today he stopped. Twisting his head, he made a sign to Mr. Morrison at the organ, and the school hymn began. There was a shuffle of feet while the boys stood and sang.
It was over. They swarmed into the aisles and poured out the door. On the top step Spike was waiting, his tail going thump-thump against the wooden stairs. He stood up as Ronald appeared and greeted him by rubbing his face against his leg.
“’Lo, Spike, Spike old boy.” But all he saw was the row of smoking chimneys on the horizon and the distant roofs of the town where he would have to go in a few days.
He walked alone slowly across the Quad to Mr. Wendell’s class in English. Just ahead was Keith’s familiar figure, a regular halfback’s physique, a short, thickset torso with his head built close to his body. You’d pick him out for a halfback anytime, anyplace. Keith went up the steps two at a time, jumping happily along. Things didn’t seem to bother Keith. He never worried much. As he entered the room to the right on the first floor there was the stamping customary on the Monday following a big game when one of the stars entered the room. Ronny followed Keith and took his usual seat. No one made a sound. He understood; the silent treatment. Rex Heywood came in and sat down next to him. Then, seeing Ronald, he rose quietly and moved across the room.
Ordinarily this would have cut him. But he saw how they felt; to them he was a quitter. He was letting the school down. No one could appreciate it except maybe Keith and one or two members of the team. They could appreciate how he felt. Nope, even they couldn’t. They just didn’t feel the same way about it. Their attitude was different.
Because for the first time, he, Ronald Perry, had deliberately injured an opponent, put him in a plaster cast for life, or worse. In a few days he’d know definitely. After that, after what he’d been through since the game, he had no feelings left to be hurt by the school’s disapproval. Now he was in another world, a world of bigger things than games and schools, a world of surgeons and casts and broken vertebrae, of life and even perhaps of death. He felt old, a million years older than his classmates around, familiar names and familiar faces he knew and liked. But occupied with winning or losing the High School game. To them Goldman was a clunk and his father kept a clothing store on the corner of Main and State, and what did it matter whether he was hurt or not?
That was their point of view. Ronald understood it, in fact he admitted to himself if he hadn’t been the one to go in high on Goldman, it might very well have been his. When you had the responsibility of hitting a man high enough and hard enough to break his neck, or worse, you didn’t care much about victory. You were in a different world. You suddenly became a man.
II
Keith would have gone, too, actually Keith offered to go. But Ronald wanted to go alone. He said he guessed he could represent the team all right. Keith didn’t insist.
All the way down in the bus it came back to him; Goldman stretched out in pain on the concrete floor of the visitor’s quarters in the basement of the gym. Suppose he was hurt for life. Once Ronald had seen
a young man in a wheelchair who’d hurt his spine or something wrestling in college. Suppose Goldman was dead! Did they, could they arrest you for manslaughter in an accident of this kind? Manslaughter! An ugly word. His imagination pictured all sorts of things which could happen to Goldman.
At South Main he changed for a crosstown bus. As he came nearer and nearer the hospital he dreaded it more and more. He got out to walk the three blocks east, seeing the big hospital building ahead. For a second he wished he had Keith or someone of the team beside him. This going alone was not much fun.
It was like an office inside the dark interior. There was a window marked INFORMATION and behind it a girl at a switchboard, dressed all in white. She was busy pushing plugs into the switchboard, and it was some time before she yanked open a small wicket in the window.
“Whodjawannasee?”
“I’d like to see a boy named Meyer Goldman, please.”
She paid no attention and continued putting plugs in and talking. “Orthopaedic. Doctor Thomas? Doctor Penny? His day off. Call Main, four one eight two. That’s right. Orthopaedic. Orthopaedic Hospital. I’ll ring him. I’m still ringing Doctor Thomas. I’ll see if you can go up.” This last to Ronald. “What’s your name?”
“Perry. Ronald Perry.” Maybe he wasn’t allowed to see visitors at all. Must be pretty bad if he couldn’t see any visitors. There was a conversation at the switchboard and she turned to him.
“Elevator at the right. Fourth floor. Room sixteen in the Dennison Ward.”
He took the elevator and went up. This was the way you felt before the kickoff at a big game, before you actually got into it and lost your tenseness, before you got knocked around a little, and others got knocked around, too. The thought came back vividly of the man in the wheelchair, of Goldman stretched on the concrete floor, of Goldman in a wheelchair, a cripple for life.
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