Muckers

by Sandra Neil Wallace

  “That was stupid,” a Swensen laughs. “Guess you guys are breathing too much dust from our smelter.”

  “Can’t play football inside a country club,” Tony says, giving the lineman a shove. “The ceiling’s too low.”

  Cruz is arguing with the referee. Alonzo and Quesada hold him back but it’s too late. The referee tacks on an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty. The taunts are deafening now, not just from the Cottonville fans but their players, too, with Runt Studdard yelling, “Get that wild man out of here!”

  We huddle up and Tommy, the water boy, runs onto the field, handing us cups to drink. “Coach Hansen says stop taking the bait,” he tells Cruz. “Or he’ll pull you out of the game.”

  I dig my finger into Cruz’s jersey. “You’ve got to settle down. That’s just what they want. For you to get kicked out. And us to lose this game.”

  “We can’t end it that way,” Tony says. “As losers.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like,” Cruz hollers at me.

  “And neither do you.” We glare at each other until Tony gets between us.

  “So who you gonna blame, Cruz, if we lose?” I shout. “The gringos? ’Cause I want this, same as you.”

  “We all do.” Diaz nods. Then Torres.

  “Hit ’em!” the angry mob screams.

  More pieces of coal rain down on us.

  Those penalties set us back almost to our chalk line—just a few yards away from the Cottonville supporters.

  “Make ’em pay!” a woman in a Sunday hat shouts, raising her fists at us.

  I find Torres twice but the passes go incomplete, so I scramble forward on third down, but only gain a couple of yards. Now we’re punting from the end zone, and they’ll be coming at us. Our lead is still only 10–6. I grab Quesada by the front of his jersey. “Boot it all the way to their country club,” I tell him. He’s got to send this punt farther than he’s ever kicked before.

  His punt spins toward the sideline, low and short. Their return man scoops it up and barrels all the way to the fifteen-yard line. A Cottonville receiver makes a diving catch in the end zone on the next play, colliding with our linebacker, Rico Verdugo, who’s on the ground, knocked out by the impact.

  The crowd gasps. For the first time in the game there’s silence. Verdugo should have been up by now, or at least moving. But he’s still lying on his back.

  “Get up!” I yell.

  “Fight it and get up!” Cruz says.

  I don’t think Verdugo can move his neck. Coach sprints over, kneels beside him, and starts talking. But I can’t see Verdugo talking back. Coach calls for the ambulance.

  “Is he moving?” Alonzo asks me.

  “Not yet.”

  “I don’t wanna be a Wolf next year,” he sniffs. “They’ll kill me, too. They already said so.”

  “You’ll never be a Wolf,” Cruz says. “And they’ll never close the mine. Muckers don’t die. They just find more ore.”

  Verdugo is being hauled away on a gurney. He lifts one arm slightly and we cheer. I don’t know why. It looks like this could be something bad.

  Cottonville kicks the extra point to make things worse. Now they’re up 13–10.

  “Time to shove that ball down their throats,” Cruz says in the huddle.

  “Just play smart,” I tell him, “like Coach said.” The blood’s dried up in my ear, plugging some of the sound, but I know we can’t lose. Even if it means getting torn up some more.

  We reach the Cottonville twenty. There can’t be more than a minute left.

  “Gotta get a touchdown,” I tell them. A field goal would tie the game, but that wouldn’t help us get the Northern Crown.

  “End-around,” I say. We haven’t called a bootleg yet this season.

  I drop back to pass and feel the pressure from the Cottonville linemen, the burly Swensens hungry to defeat me. But I deke and turn, flipping the ball to Cruz. He circles past me and is hit hard, taking a shot to the face. He pivots and yanks at the lineman’s helmet, throwing him to the ground. And then he’s gone, racing away like a lightning bolt.

  Cruz eludes another tackler and dives over the line, hitting pay dirt. We all rush on top of him. We’re back in the lead. He wipes his fist under the nose guard and it comes away covered with blood.

  “I’ll never be a Wolf.” Alonzo grins. “Rather move.”

  Three plays and they get nowhere. Tony and Alonzo make sure of it. The final gun goes off and the game is over. We won it, 17–13.

  Cruz jumps in the air and points at Coach Studdard, who’s throwing a fit on the sideline. But I didn’t anticipate what comes next. The Swensens start attacking Cruz, knocking him flat, and we all come running, barreling over their burly bodies. Me, Tony, Alonzo, Managlia, and the rest of the team. Then the Hatley folk tumble onto the field, adding to the mound, and it’s hard to know who’s who. Someone’s on top of me punching my shoulder. I cover my face with my hands until Coach Hansen hauls me up. He’s yelling at us to get home before it’s too late and to stay out of it. That we’re already bloodied up enough.

  The referees try to break things up but Cruz keeps slugging at the Swensens. Then the siren goes on in the sheriff’s car. Sheriff Doddy drives onto the field, yelling, “Go home or face arrest!” into his bullhorn. Then he shoots his gun at the sky. Mrs. Hollingworth screams, covering her mouth with a bloodied lace glove, and the Cottonville people flee, clambering down the hill in a hail of pummeling stones. The Swensens are close behind, getting hauled away on the bed of their father’s pickup.

  Leroy Piggett refuses to leave until he’s collected all his rocks.

  “The ambulances are full, Cruz,” Hap, the driver, tells him, “but you’ll need to get that stitched.”

  Cruz’s face is scraped up pretty good. It’s so bloody he can barely keep his eyes open.

  “That’s okay. I’ll walk up.” Then he comes over, feeling one of the cuts above his eye. “Did you see the look on their coach’s face when I gave him the finger?” Cruz says, beaming, the blood dripping off his nose.

  “You’re an idiot,” I tell him. “You almost cost us the game.”

  Chapter 17

  CAUGHT

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23

  BEFORE DAWN

  I WOKE UP EARLY AND waited in bed for the sun like I usually do, so the day wouldn’t get ahead of me and I could savor the win. I know you can’t stop time, but when it’s this early in the dawn, it seems that I can. Sometimes I spin it backward and Maw isn’t sick anymore; she’s singing her warbly notes in church, holding my hand, and me covered in lilacs from her Sunday perfume.

  Or I’ll keep unraveling it until I’m not alone in this room. Bobby’s here, too, in the twin bed across from mine sleeping on his stomach, the pillow curled up in a ball under his throwing arm with him facing me, breathing life into the dark. I tell him about the games we’ve been winning, especially how we beat Cottonville and that we’re still undefeated, no thanks to Cruz.

  But today I decided to spin time forward since I was thinking about Angie.

  I closed my eyes and there she was, lying next to me real quiet and me telling her about the dawn—how I can make it my own—and her understanding.

  I didn’t want to do anything with time right then except let it float. But then Pop came home—it was well after four—and was he in a mood. He hasn’t stopped drinking since news of the raise. And time got hold of me again, throttling up to full speed, with Pop chopping away at the chilly air with his drunken snores until the dawn climbed out my window and Angie along with it.

  I slide down the banister bare-toed and sneak onto the back porch, trying not to wake up Pop. Whitey, the neighborhood burro, is on the hickory settee having breakfast. I can see his silhouette in the twilight, pale and hairy against the navy sky, his hooves curled up like a pile of bones bleached by the desert sun.

  “Brought me a banana, huh?” I whisper, grabbing one from the rotting bunch hanging out of his mouth. My pinky finger starts thr
obbing as he wrestles me for it with his brown teeth until the banana rips off and he sees he’ll have to move to get it back.

  “Shite!” Pop wails, slicing the day open with his angry spit of a cry. He’s hit his head on the iron bedpost again, rushing to work the early shift.

  Whitey stops chewing and I dash into the kitchen, knowing there’s just enough time to grab my shoes so I won’t have to make Pop something out of nothing and get accused of eating what’s not even there. But my shoes aren’t on the step stool where I’d left them. Pop hobbles down the stairs and I’m caught.

  “Make me an egg,” he grumbles, standing there buck naked and holding my shoes in his hands. He hurls the left one at me but I duck just in time. “Then you’ll get the other one,” he says, sitting on top of it—in Maw’s chair—with those bare-ass cheeks.

  There’s no use arguing. It won’t get me the other shoe. I need to come up with an egg. I take my helmet and head into the raw morning down the streets along the Hogback.

  The cobblestones are sharp and slippery cold against my bare soles, and I have to clamp down on my lower lip so I won’t react and get found out. There’s a skunk crossing the street after a night of scavenging, and it ducks under the Rakoviches’. I’m headed a few streets over, down to Second and a little brown house. Not a house, really (it’s not much bigger than the ovens). More like a lean-to sprouting up from the dust, and the color of a shaggy old juniper trunk in the waning darkness. I hurry over to it and huddle down.

  They’re clucking inside, those broody hens, while the sky changes. A band of orange skims the rim of the Black Mountains, swirling and churning under smoky clouds. Then the sun pushes through and rises red and the desert isn’t dark anymore. Its color reaches clear across the henhouse, where the door’s half open.

  Mrs. Palermo left the latch undone and my stomach tightens. I wonder if she’s been out collecting already and there won’t be any left, or if she’s about to and I’m bound to get caught. I’m not proud of what I’m going to do, or coming up with the idea in the first place. But I can’t see another way. She’s given me enough eggs already, and I just can’t bring myself to ask—no one needs to know about Pop and the things he does. I guess I’d rather steal.

  A rooster finds me and I teeter a bit, then kneel still. He juts his angry neck at me, then lifts his legs high and walks away. The wooden door creaks as I open it more, but then the rooster crows, covering up the sound. A few hens screech and flail their wings, losing some feathers as I slip in, scanning the rows lined with hay. I pick a hen that looks the quietest: a little russet one near the window with her eyes closed, bathed in the orange glow. Not sleeping, but looking serene, like she was praying. I reach under her and she blinks, scratching my wrist with her claws. I put the warm egg in my helmet and crawl behind the house until the chickens settle. Then I take the long way back so Mrs. Palermo won’t see me.

  The chicken got me pretty good, but I deserve it. I lick the scratches to try and stop the blood and walk up Main Street. Town Hall’s shiny as a copper pot—that whole side of the street is—and I can’t help but stare. It’s the only time the town looks pretty and not bandaged up; taking on the light of the orange sky with the moon higher up and Venus right near it, hopeful and brighter than any of it.

  The egg wobbles in my helmet as I dip down to First Street. I clutch it, thinking, Why didn’t I get two? Mrs. Hollingworth’s pie is long gone. That’s what my stomach’s making me think: Stealing is stealing; what’s one more? with the rest of me glad that I didn’t, whispering, You shouldn’t have taken it in the first place.

  Pop’s still sitting there in Maw’s chair, sleeping. He blinks when he hears me and comes into the kitchen, then leans over the sink and splashes the water jug over his head. “Not too runny,” he murmurs, scrubbing his ruddy face with his hands. I get out the frying pan and he climbs the stairs to get dressed.

  This day was supposed to be mine. I woke up early enough to stake a claim on it and left plenty of room for slaps on the back from the people in town. “Good goin’, Red,” they’d tell me. “I knew you’d win.” And all those smiles from the mothers mixed in, too. But Pop’s got a way of spoiling things you thought would matter a whole lot.

  I crack the egg on the iron rim and wait, taking the fork with me to the living room. It’s lying there on Maw’s chair—the right shoe—splayed out and flattened like a tire ran over it. I can get it and leave, but what would it matter? I can’t take the egg back to Mrs. Palermo’s henhouse and put it under that bird. And I don’t feel like going into town much anyway. I’m no hero. I’m a thief. A hungry thief who swipes eggs from his friend’s mother. What would Rabbit think about that? Me preaching to him about what’s right and not going to war, while I’m stealing eggs right from under his mother’s nose.

  “How’s that egg?” Pop hollers.

  I bet Rabbit’s probably shooting targets on a mountain somewhere in Japan, getting yelled at, too.

  “Done,” I say. I scrape the egg onto a plate, then go get the shoe. Whitey’s still on the settee. He doesn’t even look as I go by. Maybe I deserve getting yelled at. And I don’t even have a job anymore now that Ernie’s garage is gone, so how am I going to get that money for Bobby’s pew? If somebody tries to be nice to me today, I think I just might puke.

  * * *

  September 23, 1950

  Dear Rabbit,

  How are you doing? Are you overseas yet? I thought I’d write to you now since it can take a while for a letter to get over there. It took nearly a month for Bobby to receive ours. I suppose you could still be in boot camp. I guess if you didn’t happen to make it through, we would have heard about it by now.

  You sure seemed glad to get out of Hatley and be a soldier, but to tell you the truth, I’d rather have you here. I know Cruz feels the same way, though he’d never admit it. And you have every right to be sore at him. He told me to tell you how we beat Cottonville, but he nearly screwed the whole thing up by acting ornery. He got his nose smashed in fighting those Swensen brothers and his forehead’s stitched up, too. Me? I suppose I just went along for the ride. I didn’t do anything flashy to win.

  And I do, too, know what it’s like not to count. Remember how you were saying that up on the hill? How’s this for not counting? Maw still looks straight at me and doesn’t see me. It’s because of Bobby. I’m not saying I could ever make the hurt go away, but I’m a part of her, too. And Pop. I know every time they look at me it reminds them of what they’ve lost, but I lost him, too. I know if I wasn’t here Pop would be at a bigger mine already, getting more pay.

  Pop can go to Mexico for all I care, except he won’t, because there’s football. The stakes are too high. We’re undefeated. Can you beat it? If we take Kingman, the game against Flag will be for the Northern Crown. Pop says it’s 50 to 1 that we don’t. Flag’s averaging a foot taller than us, and Verdugo’s got a broken collarbone courtesy of those Wolves. But the last time we checked we were so gunned on winning I don’t think a foot would stop us.

  We’re gonna win. First the Northern Crown, then the state championship. Even if it kills us. Funny, me saying that and you being the soldier, when all we get over here are explosions from the mine. But we really believe it. Cruz says if his face gets smashed again and he’s left for dead he’d be okay with it, if it meant winning the Yavapai Cup once and for all.

  Any chance you’ll be home to see it? Benny’s selling the Phoenix newspaper again at the diner, now that we’ve got Korea. It says things are going good since Inchon. We’ll go to Benny’s after we win and you’ll be the only one in uniform. Won’t that be something? That’ll shut up Cruz for once.

  Your friend,

  O’Sullivan

  P.S. I stole an egg from your mother’s henhouse.

  WEEKEND EDITION

  Muckers Swamp Kingman, Will Play for Northern Title

  Quarterback Red O’Sullivan was the man of the hour, passing for three touchdowns and rushing for another, as the
undefeated Hatley Muckers mauled Kingman, 33–6, Friday night.

  In the scrappy game that saw plenty of smash-up plays and cut-up players, O’Sullivan completed lightning-precision scoring passes in the second quarter to Peter Torres and Cruz Villanueva. In the third, O’Sullivan connected with a battle-scarred Villanueva again on a 77-yard scoring play, then ran for a razzle-dazzle 13-yard tally of his own.

  Defensive tackle Tony Casillas closed out the scoring when he scooped up a Kingman fumble and rambled 26 yards for a touchdown.

  “Our whole team got in on the scoring,” said O’Sullivan as he boarded the bus for the long ride back to Hatley. “This win proves that we’re ready for anybody.”

  The win raises the stakes on Hatley’s final regular-season game—a visit to Flagstaff in two weeks. Flagstaff, the big, bruising team in the North, gave notice last night by trouncing Winslow that they’ll be gunning for the Northern title and continuing their undefeated record. Whoever wins in this much-anticipated tilt will draw home field to play against the Southern champs—whoever they may be—for the state title and the Yavapai Cup.

  MacArthur to North Korea: “SURRENDER OR DIE,” p.2.

  Chapter 18

  NO WAY OUT

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

  4:58 P.M.

  THEY’RE PLAYING No Way Out at the matinee, and I’d sure like to be sitting next to Angie. But Bigsby said if he gave me a private showing—even if it was in the middle of the night and I promised to fix his flats forever—he’d still get fired if Mr. Ritz caught wind of it. That he couldn’t take that chance. So I have to be content sitting in the last row, looking at those two injured crooks on the screen and at the back of Angie’s head four seats in front of me. She’s with her sister, the one who’s in eighth grade.

  “Just hold your head like this,” the doctor tells Johnny Biddle.

  “Don’t do it, Johnny. Don’t do what he says,” Ray Biddle hollers, punching the doctor in the arm.