by David Wright
“What do you call it?” Free said in English. “A self-fulfilling prophecy?”
It had been a nine-hour bus ride down to Aix. We’d taken an overnighter, a car-couchette, but instead of sleeping, all the guys had goofed off the whole way, until around daybreak. Since then, everybody had been dragging and out of sync.
“It’s on us,” I told him, “on you and me. The season rides on it.”
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Free and our DB coach, Celestin, made an adjustment for the second half, shifting to five DBs—the strategy we used against the Anges Bleus—and their French QB didn’t know what to do against it. Their offense bogged down in the third quarter.
But ours didn’t pick up either with me behind center. The Argos middle linebacker—number 9, a big tough English-Canadian kid who played in the same league I did in Montreal—acted as if the fact that his team back home had eliminated mine from the playoffs last season gave him bragging rights now. He pointed at me before each play and screamed over the crowd noise, “O-ver. Ra-ted.” He mimicked my cadence: “Set-hut! Hut-hut! Hut!”
“Allez, Mathieu!” Moose chastised me in the huddle during our fourth drive of the third quarter, in what was shaping up to be another three-and-out. “Don’t let him get in your head.”
“He’s not in my head!” I shot back. And to the rest, huddled around me: “Come on! Pick it up, les gars!”
But the big bastard clearly was in my head.
Coach Thierry sent in a play-action pass. I called a fake audible at the line to try to confuse number 9, to get him out of his game. He didn’t buy the play-action to Mobylette and charged after me. As I scrambled away (I didn’t remember him being so fast!), he stripped the ball from my grasp and scooped it up, with nobody between him and the end zone.
Diables Rouges 10, Argonautes 14.
I didn’t even look at Moose as I headed back to our bench. Free knew me well enough to know to leave me alone.
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It came down to this: our ball with 2:41 left on the clock in the fourth quarter and seventy-three yards of turf between us and a rematch with the Jets for the Under-20s championship. I called one of our two remaining timeouts.
“Are you out of your mind?” Coach Thierry yelled as I jogged over to the bench.
Freeman joined the other coaches on the edge of the playing field. Coach Thierry was chiding me—“Keep your head in it; we can’t afford to waste timeouts!”—when Free said, “Think the guys can handle the no-huddle?”
We’d never done it before.
“If we limit the plays,” I said.
“To which ones, for example?” Coach Le Barbu asked.
“The floods. Middle- and out-cuts,” I said, faking a confidence I wasn’t really feeling.
“Add a go route,” Free said, “to keep the safeties honest.”
“It can work,” said Coach Le Barbu. “Sure. Why not?”
“Because we’ve never practiced it!” Coach Thierry said.
I looked at Freeman, who was smiling.
“Live and learn,” he said in English.
“Or crash and burn,” I said.
I turned to Coach Thierry, looked him in the eye and said, “Ça pourrait marcher.”—This could work.
He met my eyes, then dropped his own and paced away. But just as quickly he turned on his heels and strode back, clapping his hands. “Vas-y, boy! Go get ’em.”
Number 9 eyed me the length of my jog back to our huddle.
When I got there, Moose was in the middle of a pep talk. “They’re doing the same as the cops back home. They’re trying to test you. So whatever they say in these last few minutes, whatever they do”—he was looking straight at Sidi—“whether it’s an insult or a cheap shot, keep your cool.”
“All right, listen up.” I explained that we were going no-huddle, to line up in Ace and hustle back and reset after each play, whether we completed the pass or not. I gave the receivers the crude code I’d devised on the jog out. If I tapped the ear hole of my helmet, it was the deep outside flood; the top of my head, the middle flood; my thigh, the all-go route. I repeated it one more time. “No improvising. If you forget what to do, just run your man off.”
The ref stepped next to me, tapped his watch. “Twenty seconds,” he warned.
“It’s do or die,” I said, looking one by one through the face mask of each guy around me. “Play fast. Play hard. The snap is always on one. Vous êtes prêts!”
“Break!” they responded.
Sidi had been pretty quiet all day, not making mistakes but not making plays either. My dad says a leader makes his players see what they can be rather than what they are. I jogged over to Sidi, on the flank, even though seconds were ticking off the clock.
“You’ve been wanting to make up for the Anges Bleus game,” I told him. “Here’s your chance. I’m looking for you.”
I patted him on the butt and jogged back, looking over at number 9.
“You know where I’m going,” I told him in English.
I tapped the top of my head and caught the snap, fired back early. (My center, Jorge, was clearly wound up.) Number 9 didn’t even try to read the play; he sprinted right toward Sidi. But Sidi curled under him—I waited for him to clear—and made a nice catch in front of their safety. An eleven-yard gain.
“What you gonna do?” I screamed at number 9, doing my best Freeman. “You knew where I was going and still couldn’t do nothing about it!”
I hustled back into position, let the receivers get back into place, then tapped the top of my helmet again. Jorge was calmer; he waited for my cadence before snapping the ball. I dropped back two steps, reading the safety, but none of my receivers came clear and number 9 was blitzing, so I just let fly, overthrew everybody and killed the clock.
“That’s more like it,” number 9 said, standing over me.
I was on the ground, my left shoulder smarting, but I hollered back, “What you gonna do? I’m going to number 87 this next play. What you gonna do?”
The ref broke us up. He warned 9 to be careful of drawing a late-hit penalty, him and me still jawing at each other.
Sidi was suddenly by my side. “Be cool, mec,” hotheaded Sidi said to me. “Be cool.”
I got back into position behind Jorge. The scoreboard clock read 2:01. The Argos dragged, slow to line up. I patted my ear hole so that as soon as the ref whistled the ball live, we could get another play off while they were in disarray.
I wanted to hit Moose, our number 87, so that I stayed in number 9’s head. But both the corner and the safety keyed on Moose, number 9 camping in the lane, cutting off the possibility of even a miraculous throw and catch (which I realized I was about to try anyway, still too focused on showing up number 9).
I saw Manu, our backside slot receiver, making his break. It was a long throw, clear across the field and only good for a few yards, but he made the catch. The clock doesn’t stop in college rules for the two-minute warning, but Manu got out of bounds, killing it at 1:43. We were still only at our own 36-yard line. I called our guys back into the huddle.
“Catch your breath,” I told them. “All right, two plays.” I called our bread-and-butter play of the season: “Split left, flare left, tight-end delay right. For the second, shotgun draw 43.”
It was risky, as both plays would keep the ball in the middle of the field, keeping the clock alive, but hopefully the Argos wouldn’t expect it, and we’d get big gains. Regardless, we’d have to use our last timeout after.
“On one, on one. Vous êtes prêts!”
“Break!”
As we lined up, I told Mobylette, “After you get tackled on the draw”—the second play—“find the ref and call a timeout immediately, even before you give him the ball.”
“Moi pas plaqué”—Me not get tackled, the cocky bastard said, his smile bright against his dark face.
The first play worked like a charm. Number 9 charged on a blitz, I lobbed the ball right over his head to our tig
ht end, Jean-Marc, and we gained thirteen yards and a first down.
We hurried to line up, the Argos dragging—1:27, 1:26, 1:25—and I gave a false signal, tapping my ear hole. Number 9 clearly picked up on it. When he sprinted out toward Moose on the snap, I slipped the ball into Mobylette’s belly and he was off, backside.
Boy, could he run!
He juked the other linebacker and bounced outside. The safety pushed him out of bounds after a nice gain, all the way to their 35.
He hustled back to line up, and I saw his smile before I caught his words. “Me permit him get me,” he said, “but save last timeout.”
The clock was stopped at 1:02. I felt myself breathing hard, but the others looked spry. They were on! I didn’t huddle us up. I tapped my thigh, the all-go route, to keep their DBs honest. And who knew? Maybe one of my receivers would get open.
None did, but as I was reading number 9, I lost sight of my backside, and their blitzing corner tagged me. The ball came loose. I didn’t see this—all I saw was turf—but I heard their sideline and fans hurrah. Then I heard our guys hurrah, and I looked up, and Claude Benayoun was lying on the ball.
The clock was winding down—00:50, 00:49, 00:48…
We’d lost seven yards. I patted my ear hole as our guys lined up, took the snap. The Argos thought this meant Moose, so I went the opposite way again, to Manu. An eleven-yard gain, back to the 31-yard line, and the clock was stopped with thirty-three seconds left.
I patted the top of my head, took the snap. Sidi cleared number 9, but the safety closed hard, so I dropped the ball over his head to Moose. He made a good catch of my wobbly throw. His man tackled him right away, in the middle of the field.
I called our last timeout.
We had a first down, but that didn’t matter. With only nineteen seconds left, we’d have time for two plays, max, to get the ball the last seventeen yards into the end zone.
Coach Thierry, Coach Le Barbu, Freeman and the other coaches waited for me in a group on the sideline. The rest of the team stood not far behind, wound tight but quiet. The stands were still too.
“Well, what do you think?” Coach Thierry asked.
I was hoping he’d tell me. I turned toward Free.
“Take him on,” he said in English. “For real. The Canadian backer is itching to make a play.” Then, in French (though the coaches had surely understood his English), he said, “Try the play-action he blew up earlier.” The play he scored on. “He’ll bite on the fake to Mobylette this time.”
I looked at Coach Thierry, at Coach Le Barbu. Neither said anything.
“Let’s do it,” I said.
The huddle was silent when I returned. Moose, Mobylette, Jorge, Sidi.
“Who wants it?” I said.
Nobody responded. Nobody moved.
“Who wants it!”
“Moi!”
“À moi le ballon!”
They were all talking at once now.
“Settle down,” I told them, and they did. “Number 9 thinks he’s hot shit, but he’s the weak link. His cockiness is his weakness. We’re going right at him. Double T, motion, inside loops. I need protection, and I need you guys”—I looked to my receivers—“to get open in the end zone.”
I paused, took a deep breath.
“We’re out of timeouts, so if we don’t get in, everybody hustle back and line up fast. We’ll run the same play again, only flip the formation.”
I took another breath.
“Okay,” I said. “On one. Vous êtes prêts!”
“Break!”
Number 9 aimed his gaze at me as we lined up. He wasn’t saying anything, just staring. He cheated up, showing blitz, and their strong safety cheated over onto Moose. That should open up the seam on the left of the goalpost, where Sidi was supposed to end up. If I had time.
I didn’t really know what was happening as it was happening, just that it happened. Mobylette sold the fake so well that number 9 tagged him, grunting, “Damn!” when he realized he’d been had. The line must have been blocking well because it was like a 7-on-7 passing drill. I had all the time in the world, no pressure. I watched the corner and safety double up on Moose. I watched Sidi break behind them. I saw the pass—a really nice, tight spiral—sail right at him. Sidi raised his hands and cradled it into his body, then fell backward into the end zone.
The final seconds ticked by—00:03, 00:02, 00:01…The referee whistled the end of the game.
The roaring faded in then. All the screaming and cheering. Even from some of their fans, so spectacular was the ending.
Our guys rushed the field, singing and dancing. “Olé! Olé-Olé-Olé!”
Moose grabbed me up in his arms. Claude, Jorge, Paco and some others lifted Sidi onto their shoulders. On the sideline, Free and Coach Thierry were jumping up and down.
The Argonautes. A few stood about, shell-shocked. Most left the pitch, heads hanging, without shaking our hands. The linebacker, number 9, just sat on the field, his shoulders jerking, visibly sobbing.
Sidi was suddenly beside me. He was crying too.
“Merci, Matt,” he said, one arm around my neck. “Merci!”
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The showers in the stadium’s locker room were enormous compared to the ones at the Beach, ten or twelve jets along facing walls. Free and I pulled trainers’ tables under the two at the far end, took off our clothes, opened the valves full blast and lay down. We stayed under the hot stream a long time, neither him or me speaking, guys coming and going, still dancing and singing. “Olé! Olé-Olé-Olé!”
Sometime later, Coach Thierry poked his head in. “Eh-oh, grouilles-toi,” he said—Hustle now. “We’re loading the bus.”
I must have fallen asleep. Freeman had already left.
Leaving Aix, it was like I only then noticed the landscape, fields and fields that were purple with lavender. The car-couchette wasn’t any more comfortable than it had been the night before, on the way down. The metallic seat frame pressed into my back, and the AC was fussy, either too cold or too hot.
Free, who was in the sleeper above mine, leaned over the bunk’s edge. “Dang, Matt,” he said. “We’re number two in the country. We’re playing in the final.”
“Dang,” I replied.
Moose, in the next sleeper down, leaned into the aisle. “What else did you expect!” he said, dismissive. He was all bravado now. Everybody was. We were dead tired, but all the sleepers buzzed with chatter and shrieks and laughter.
“Et les gars,” he called to the rest. “These ’Ricains have no faith. They think we’re just racaille and voyous”—scum and thugs—he teased.
Freeman shot back. “Thugs? You guys are soft.” He used the wrong word for soft—doux instead of mou—but everybody understood. “Non, it’s me. I am voyou.” And he popped out of his bunk and into the aisle, throwing gang signs with his hands and starting into this old rap by the French group Assassin:
Le futur que nous réserve-t-il?
De moins en moins de nature, de plus en plus de villes!
He couldn’t rap to save his life, especially in French, but the guys were hooting. Moose too. Free and Moose seemed to have gotten closer, despite the rough start.
I leaned back in my bunk. The championship game was one week away. And after that we’d be leaving, Free and me. Me, back to Montreal—to Orford for summer school. Business classes.
I pulled out my cell and texted my dad. DR 17–Aix 10. I added that I’d thrown the winning TD as time ran out.
No response. Maybe he was out at the cabin or his phone was off.
MATT
The Monday afternoon after the Argonautes win, Aïda texted me from the Louvre. She’d texted me the week before too, and she and I had met at the Fontaine des Innocents at Les Halles and sat and talked. It turned out that she came down to the city on her own sometimes when there wasn’t school, without Sidi or anyone else knowing. (She said Sidi would throw a fit and tell their father.) She went to museums or to public g
ardens to stroll and read or to the Centre Pompidou, like Freeman and I did.
I texted an excuse to Free, who I was supposed to get together with, and met up with Aïda instead. She had on the red-and-white headscarf—the one she had taken off under the Étoile to show me her hair. But instead of going into the Louvre, we crossed the street to the Pont des Arts, the steel-and-wood pedestrian bridge that stretches from the museum over to the Institut de France. Free and I would come to the Pont sometimes. Young people would be lounging around, smoking and talking; someone might be playing a guitar. This afternoon, it was quiet.
Aïda and I didn’t say much either, just casual chat, then we were quiet too. We sat on the wooden planks in the middle of the bridge, our backs against the metal railing, the Seine coursing underneath. In front of us was the Île Saint-Louis, hints of the spires of Notre Dame between the rooftops.
“I saw a movie earlier,” she said finally.
“Oh yeah. Which one?”
She said the name, but I didn’t recognize it. “It was about a girl,” she said. “Or a young woman, really. Eighteen. She comes from a good family—very bourgeois, you know—and she does well in school and has good friends.”
“And she’s unhappy, of course.”
“No,” Aïda said. “Actually, she’s not. But she prostitutes herself all the same. She makes an online ad and meets these random men in a hotel near Montmartre.”
“Wow.”
“I know.”
I couldn’t tell if she was saying all this for the shock value or what.
“The girl isn’t outraged or rebellious or making a point,” Aïda said. “It’s just what she does. And watching, I felt like I wasn’t supposed to feel sad either.”
“Did you?” I asked. “Feel sad, I mean.”
“Just kind of empty.” She looked over at me, then away again, uncharacteristically reserved. “And I guess a little sad too.”
One of the tourist boats, a Bateau Mouche, glided by beneath the bridge, every row full of tilted-up red faces, looking at the old architecture. A few seemed to catch sight of us.
