by Trent Reedy
“I don’t know if I can. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
Sweeney shook me. “Sure you can. It doesn’t matter anyway.” He put his arm over my shoulder and led me back toward the gym. “Since I’m the quarterback, I’m telling you right now, you better get open, because I’m gunning for you.”
“Don’t,” I said. “I’m really not up to it.”
“Then we’re gonna get our asses kicked tonight, because the ball is coming for you whether you like it or not. So be ready.”
* * *
Our team got off to a strong start, marching down the field with a bunch of seven- and eight-yard gains along with a couple quick passes to Randy. Then Cal broke open a crazy thirty-eight-yard touchdown run. I made it downfield to block one safety. I thought the other one had him, but Cal ran him right over.
Our defense slipped up, though, and the Sandpoint Pirates did much the same as we had, driving downfield a little at a time, until their tailback weaseled his way in past us for a forty-eight-yard touchdown.
Our kickoff return brought us to our thirty-five-yard line. We were huddling up waiting for TJ to run the play in from Coach Shiratori. Sweeney leaned over and tapped his face mask against mine. “Coach is probably going to call for a pass play. Run the first part of your route and then get deep. I’m bombing it to you.”
“Don’t do it,” I said.
“It’s coming to you. Get in the game or not. Your call.” Sweeney heard the play from TJ and then called it out. He was right. The play called for both receivers and our tight end to run pass routes.
The huddle was broken and I went to the line, split off from our offensive tackle. I looked over to the middle to see if I could get Sweeney’s attention, but he was all business. “Damn it, Sweeney,” I whispered. The ball was snapped and I shot out ahead, faking inside and then dodging outside of an outside linebacker. Then I cut a slant across the middle, feeling the Sandpoint cornerback right on my six.
TJ was wide open on the out he’d run. Sweeney could have connected with him for at least twenty yards. For a second I thought he would, but he pump-faked and looked back to the left. A defensive end tore through our line, but Cal knocked him out, giving Sweeney more time. Randy scrambled and escaped his coverage. Any sane quarterback would have thrown to him, but Sweeney moved to dodge another defender. That one hooked an arm around his middle, but Sweeney held on to the ball and twisted free.
“Damn it, Sweeney,” I whispered again, and then shot off downfield. The Sandpoint safety had screwed up, thinking our quarterback had a brain and was going to pass to Randy. He slowed down, and I sprinted back behind him into the open field.
Sweeney cranked back his arm. I kept running, checking back as I went. The ball was sailing toward the end zone. I sped up. Checked again. Reached out and caught the ball on the tip of my fingers. It bobbled for a second and I was sure I’d drop it, but in the next instant I snapped it in close to my chest.
The other safety crashed into my side out of nowhere. I spun to my left, but kept my feet pumping toward the goal line, high-stepping backward with the safety hanging off of me. When the strong safety nailed us both, I fell back and hit the ground.
I groaned against the dull ache in my ribs and looked down to make sure I wasn’t imagining that I still had the football. Then I saw the ref throw both hands straight up in the air. Touchdown. I stood and tossed the football to the other ref right before Cal smashed into me.
“Hell yeah!” He hit his face mask against mine. “That’s the way we doooooo it, Wright!”
Cal and I ran back to the huddle to get ready for our extra point attempt. Sweeney just held his hands out down low and flashed me that stupid sly smile of his. I slapped him in the side of the helmet. “Thank you, Sweeney.”
Then I tipped my head back and screamed like a maniac up at the lights. Maybe this touchdown and this game didn’t fix everything that was screwed up in my life. It didn’t erase what had happened last Friday night. But I was back in the game! It felt great.
* * *
We ended up winning the game twenty-one to thirteen. Afterward, a bunch of us drove out to the old steel truss Party Bridge. Years before I was born, Highway 41 looped around the north side of Silver Mountain and came down to Freedom Lake farther to the west. It turned east, crossed Freedom River north of the lake, and continued through some low woodlands before coming out into open fields and heading south through town. Eventually the bridge over the Freedom River became unsafe for cars, and someone decided to reroute the highway to avoid it altogether. Some people adopted it as Party Bridge, and the crumbling section of forgotten road between the ROAD CLOSED sign and the river was called the Abandoned Highway of Love. Me and JoBell had made some good memories on this road.
Out on the bridge, music played from Sweeney’s comm over by the cooler, where Dylan, Chase, and Cal hung out. Cal was tracing out lines on his hand, no doubt reviewing some play from the game. JoBell was talking with Becca, Caitlyn, and Samantha in folding chairs by the fire, though I think Sam, who hadn’t even changed out of her cheerleading uniform, was vid-chatting with someone else on her comm. Rumor said she was making it with some guy from Sandpoint, but rumor said a lot of things, and I didn’t care what the word was. Sam was cool.
I leaned against the railing off to the side, happy to watch my people having fun. Happy to be with them. To belong. My whole body was stiff and sore with new bruises from the game, but the pain felt like a reminder that I was alive, that we’d won an awesome game, that I had the best friends in the world, and that maybe things would get back to normal after what went down in Boise.
TJ stepped out of the shadows into the faint glow from the firelight. “Hey, Wright,” he said stiffly. “Nice catch.”
I’d only made the one, but at least I’d scored, which was more than TJ could say. I could afford to compliment him back. “Yeah, you had a couple good grabs yourself.”
“Three,” he said as he walked by me, heading for the cooler. “I had three receptions.”
“I know that, jackass,” I said under my breath. By “a couple” I didn’t mean exactly two. I took a deep breath. No way would TJ ruin my night.
“Hey, Wright, you should come down here! The water’s great,” Brad called up to me. Him and Randy and that weirdo Skylar Grenke were down in the river. Brad’s head and shoulders were the only part of him above water.
“Thanks, man,” I said. “I’m good here.”
“At least chuck me a beer?” Randy said.
“Me too,” said Brad, holding his hands up.
“Yeah, hold on,” I said.
Sweeney stepped to the railing, carrying two cans in each hand. “Way ahead of you.” He tossed two cans down to the guys before handing me one and cracking open his own. I popped the top on mine, and me and Sweeney clinked our beers together. He held his up in salute and then drank.
I chugged down half of my beer right away. “Nice pass.” I spoke through a belch.
Sweeney flashed his million-dollar smile. “What did you expect, given my superior Asian coordination and athletic prowess?”
“You’ve lived in Idaho since you were two weeks old. I doubt you mastered too many skills in Asia.”
“Yeah, then explain how else I got the ball to you.”
“I don’t know.” I laughed. “But you need new material besides the stupid jokes about your race.”
Sweeney shrugged. “It was actually a stupid pass too. Coach was kind of pissed about it. If you hadn’t scored on that play, he’d have killed me.”
I looked upriver at the moonlight sparkling on the water. One of my favorite Hank McGrew songs came on Sweeney’s comm. “Hey, crank that up,” I shouted. Dylan did, and the chorus came around:
It’s the roar of the crowd
You and the boys standing proud
You score a touchdown
To win the game for your town
Forget the bruises and cuts
You’ll never give
it up
’Cause nothing feels so right
As those Friday night lights
I took another drink. The beer was perfect, ice cold. “You were right.”
“It’s fun, isn’t it?” Sweeney said. “Football.”
“Yeah. But also … I needed … I’ve been dreaming about that night. Nightmares about the redhead in that photo with me. I needed a break from all that, you know?” I swept my beer around to take in our friends down in the river and over around the fire and the cooler. “Needed all this too.”
“Don’t sweat it with that Boise stuff. In a week or so, some politician will screw up, or some dizzy nineteen-year-old singer-actress will do something or somebody stupid, and people will have other stuff to post about on FriendStar.” He took a drink. “It’ll blow over.”
Becca came up to us. “What are you two moping about over here?” She touched her butterfly hair clip, and her big silver “Cowgirl Up” belt buckle sparkled in the firelight.
“Oh, nothing,” Sweeney said too quickly.
“Yeah, sounds like nothing.” Becca rolled her eyes and sipped from whatever fruity wine drink she’d brought. “Whatever it is, let me hang out with you?” She leaned in so close that I could smell her perfume. “Caitlyn is on the warpath, ripping on whoever’s not here like she always does. She was complaining that Cassie Macer doesn’t set her up right, but Cait couldn’t nail a spike if the net was half as high.”
“Hey, where is Cassie?” Sweeney downed the rest of his beer and crushed the empty can in his hand.
“That’s my point,” Becca said. “She’s not here, so Caitlyn thinks she can —”
“Timmy Macer!” Sweeney shouted. “Damn it, Timmy, you had one job to do tonight! One damn job!”
“What?” Timmy asked from where he sat on a log on the other side of the fire.
Sweeney headed in his direction. “Where’s your sister?”
Me and Becca laughed. “Want a drink of this?” she asked.
I tipped back the bottle. “Ugh. It’s too sweet. Like Kool-Aid.”
“Anything’s better than beer,” she said.
We watched Randy down in the river spread his arms and flop face-first into the dark water. He came up sputtering and shouting.
“You okay?” Becca asked, turning to me.
“I’m great. Why?”
She looked at me. “Danny, we’ve been friends for as long as I can remember. I think I can tell that you’ve been pissed off or whatever. Don’t tell JoBell I told you this, but she’s been worried about you too.”
“I’m fine.” She raised one eyebrow. “Well, I’m going to be fine now,” I said. “I promise.”
She squeezed my shoulder. “Cool. Just remember. I’m your friend. If you want to talk about whatever it was, about anything. You know where to find me.”
“Thanks,” I said. She went back to the girls. I hadn’t been fooling anyone. They all knew something was up with me. I put my hands over my face and shook my head, wondering what I was going to do about all this.
Then I stopped. That kind of crap was exactly why everyone knew something was wrong. I had to act normal, so I went to get another beer and talk football with the guys.
The game and this party had shown me that it might be possible to get back to my normal life. The only other part of it I still needed to fix was JoBell. I missed out on that bikini last Friday, and I wanted to make up for lost time. After a while, I found her by the fire and gently pulled her out of her chair, slipping my arms around her and hooking my fingers through the belt loops of her jeans. “Hey, let’s go back to the Beast,” I said. “I want to talk to you about something.”
JoBell pressed herself against me and kissed me quick. “You want to talk?”
“Um … Not really,” I said.
“Then what are we gonna do?”
“I’ll show you.” I started to unbutton the top button of her shirt, but she laughed and pushed my hands away.
“Dan-neee,” she said in that cute way where she held my name for a long time. Then she took my hand and led me through the darkness down the Abandoned Highway of Love.
—• Governor Montaine has called a second special session of the state legislature today in hopes of passing what he is billing as another round of emergency legislation, this time creating a new employment initiative known as the Idaho Civilian Corps. The governor describes it as an unarmed supplement to the Idaho National Guard, where the Corps could be called out to work in emergencies such as flood or wildfires. Keep it tuned to Idaho’s news station, AM 1430 KGLR. •—
—• statement from the White House today was the first indication of Washington’s growing impatience with the Idaho situation. When asked if he would issue Idaho an ultimatum for compliance with federal demands, President Rodriguez said only that state officials did not have unlimited time.
Protests have intensified on several campuses around the nation. Almost all of these have been peaceful demonstrations calling for the arrests of the Idaho Guardsmen involved in the shooting in Boise last week. Police and campus security were on heightened alert at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, when a growing group calling itself “Citizens Supporting Soldiers” showed up with a counterprotest in support of the Idaho Guardsmen. Hostile words were exchanged between the groups, but no violence or injuries were reported.
General Mills reports another round of layoffs. A little over one thousand employees will be let go, mostly line workers in Ohio, West Virginia, and Tennessee plants. The company is citing lower than expected third-quarter returns and improved production methods as the reason for the cutbacks. You’re listening to ABC News. •—
As many problems as Mom had, me and her talked a lot, about everything. Well, not everything. We didn’t discuss things me and JoBell did together. That would be gross. So far she hadn’t brought up Boise, but I worried all the time that she would, and I dreaded all the ways that conversation could go bad.
“Tea?” I said that Saturday morning.
“Mmm.” She nodded and I poured her some. “Forgot to tell you.” She took a sip of her tea and closed her eyes, rubbing her temple with her free hand. She had headaches a lot. “I have to go to this nursing conference in Spokane for recertification. It starts the last Monday of the month and goes all week. You’ll be on your own. I’m going shopping sometime soon. Leave me a list of the stuff you want me to get for you to eat. Canned soup. Frozen stuff.”
“Okay,” I said, but the idea worried me. Mom didn’t always do so well with stress or new situations. How would she handle a whole week away from home? “Mom?” I said. She opened her eyes and looked at me with a frown. “Mom, are you sure you’ll —”
“I’ll be fine.” She shrugged. “Work.”
I wasn’t convinced, but I went back to my breakfast. “Speaking of work,” I said after I’d finished my toast, downing the last of my tea and rising from the table.
“Love you.” She reached out, and I leaned down for a quick hug, but she held on and squeezed me tight for a long time. When she let me go, she kept hold of my hand and looked me in the eye. “Be careful, Danny.”
She said that a lot, but somehow today, there was something in her words — more weight, more feeling. Instead of rolling my eyes and mumbling “Yeah, yeah,” I nodded.
* * *
I was in the Beast on the way to the shop when Digi-Hank said, “You got a video call coming in. He ain’t in your contacts list. Don’t reckon I know who it is.”
Who would be vid-calling me that would come up unknown? “Put it up,” I said.
“You got it.”
It wasn’t really safe to be vid-chatting while driving, but I risked a look at my comm sitting on the passenger seat.
“Oh, shit!” It was Governor Montaine. I’d just sworn at the governor. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t realize it was you. Kind of surprised. Can you give me a second to pull over?”
“No problem,” said the governor kindly.
I
parked the Beast and then, making sure I was off-camera, knocked my head back against the headrest again and again. I was beyond tired of dealing with this stuff. I just wanted my life back.
I picked up my comm and held it in front of me. The image of the governor was at a weird angle, looking up from below. “Then they’ll have to move the luncheon,” he said to someone offscreen. Someone answered, but I couldn’t make out the words. “Then get Darlene to help them schedule someplace else. The banquet hall is a barracks now. I’ll not have those men sleeping in tents out on the grounds.” He looked down at me. “Sorry, Private Wright.” He frowned and waved someone away. “Things are busy here. This situation is moving fast. In one week, it’s become a lot worse. I hope you’re holding up okay.”
“I’m fine, sir. I had a little trouble focusing on football last night, but I figured it out.”
“Ah, play a little high school football, do you?”
“Yes, sir. We won twenty-one to thirteen.” I stretched my sore arms.
He threw his head back in a big, loud politician’s laugh. “Good man!” Then he leaned forward and looked into the camera so that his whole face filled my screen. “Listen, I’m sorry to mess up your morning, but I’m sending a helicopter to your armory. I’m calling everyone in the rest of your squad next. I want you all down here in Boise for a meeting this morning. We need to discuss strategy and some other issues. No uniforms or anything. Come as you are.”
“I was on my way to work,” I said before thinking. Annoying as all of this was, he was still the governor. “I’m sorry, sir. I mean —”
“Not at all. I understand this is difficult for you. Believe me, I’m on your side. I’ll see that you’re all put on state duty pay for this meeting starting right now, and I’ll make this as quick as I can. You should be back home shortly after noon.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Good man,” he said again. “See you then.”
The connection ended. I fired up the Beast and then turned around to head out of town toward the armory.
