Muckers

by Sandra Neil Wallace

  “Fight, Coyotes, fight!” the Phoenix majorettes yell, kicking up their calfskin boots to the beat of a dozen drummers. “Break right through that line!”

  But we finally stop them.

  “I can beat who’s covering me every time,” Cruz says as soon as we get possession. “We need to pass more.”

  “Whenever I drop back I get sacked or stomped on,” I tell him. “Tony, Alonzo, you’ve got to hold them another second or two so I can throw a long pass.”

  I haven’t connected with anything but a few short passes, so maybe we can catch them off guard.

  I take the snap and hear the linemen stagger, the defenders groaning as they collide, then the butting of helmets as I drop straight back and search for Cruz. I catch a glimpse of his orange-and-black jersey a half step ahead of the defender. He’s pivoting left but I know Cruz. He’s heading the other way and I send the ball there, watching it sail before I’m hit hard, landing face-first in the slag. I roll, scrambling to my knees, and hear the bleachers roar. Our bleachers. Cruz has the ball and he’s past midfield. No way he’ll get caught.

  I should save my strength, but I can’t help it. I race all the way up the field and grab Cruz after the touchdown, rubbing the top of his helmet.

  “Told ya I’d get open. Think their Anglos know what that means?” he says, pointing to the scoreboard. “It’s how we spell ‘touchdown’ in Hatley.”

  This time Quesada’s extra-point kick is good and we take the lead. First time in the game. We’re up 13–10.

  I look across at the red-faced Phoenix coach. I guess that’s what the paper means by hopping mad. He’s got his defensive players huddled up around him on the sideline, chewing them out for getting burned like that.

  They keep grinding out gains on every play. Nothing fancy. No passing. They take their time doing it, too, intent on eating up the clock and leaving us spent. It’s grueling. I focus on that coyote, grunting my displeasure at him. But he shows us his teeth for eighteen plays, those ears pinned back like he might be rabid and could tear a decent chunk out of us. He does. They score, and Phoenix regains the lead, 17–13.

  We get nowhere on our next possession, then it’s like that for them, too. Nobody giving in.

  Cruz keeps urging me to throw another long pass, but the wind’s against us in the fourth quarter, and I call for an end-around instead, a lateral to Cruz as he circles behind me. P.U.’s big defensive end is right in his path and tackles him for a loss. Cruz comes back to the huddle rubbing his jaw. “Punched me as we were getting up,” he says. “The refs aren’t calling anything.”

  “Strangle the coach with that bloody scarf and win this thing!” somebody yells from the Muckers bench. It’s Pop. And he’s here. Cheering and slapping Manny on the back.

  There’s only three minutes left in the game when we get the ball back. We huddle up and a gust of wind comes through, breaking so strong it knocks Melvin unsteady. A lady’s hat goes tumbling onto the field. Then the sky turns dark, pelting us with rain. No gradual buildup first, but an intense downpour, soaking our jerseys before we can even speak and puddling up the field.

  Tony looks at the sky and smiles, rivers of raindrops splashing off his face like a hose.

  “Mud,” Cruz says, beaming.

  I look up at Nefertiti Hill. I can barely see her through the teeming rain, but I know she’s there. That she’s given us this field. Our very existence. And that she’s worth fighting for.

  I need to move quickly.

  Short handoffs, that’s what I do. Forget trying to throw any kind of pass in this, with Lupe bulling forward for a few yards and Melvin clinging to the ankles of any P.U. player he can get to, just like a pesky terrier. Then Torres gaining a few more. On third down I keep the ball myself, cradling it like a tear-soaked baby, charging through the line and finding some running room.

  The Phoenix players keep slipping, losing their grip on us, on the game, as we trudge forward heading for our target. Hell’s Corner.

  With every move there’s a scramble. I burst through for another big gain, nearly breaking free before being brought down.

  Twenty-seven seconds left and I call our final time-out, just inside the Phoenix fifteen-yard line.

  “You have to pass, Red,” Cruz tells me. “We can’t stop the clock anymore. Get it to Hell’s Corner,” he says. “I’ll be there.”

  “Hold that line,” I say in the huddle.

  Cruz fakes toward the sideline, then digs his foot along the chalk, into the only spot where the mud’s clotted up and there’s traction. He swerves, cutting across the center of the field. Make it to the corner, I’m thinking, but there’s no time to wait. I focus on his number, soaked and blurred and clinging to his skin, then send a bullet directly at it. Cruz reaches for it, higher than I’ve ever seen—soaring across Hell’s Corner. The P.U. players follow him, reaching as Cruz hauls the ball in. As soon as they set foot in the corner, their cleats give way and their bodies twist and roll before slipping into the muddy abyss. Another P.U. player climbs in, using his limp teammates as his very own carpet, trampling over them stuffed into that swampy pit. He catches Cruz’s foot, mowing him down a body length away from the goal line.

  “Line up!” I yell, splashing toward the pile of P.U. players, dazed and mud-soaked, forcing them apart with my clawing and screaming as the clock eats away at the time. I haul Cruz up, knowing it could end right here, as ghosts, swallowed up by time. Forgotten. Us. Bobby. Everything.

  I won’t let it. Got to get off another snap. I shove a Phoenix player to his side of the chalk as the referee places the ball at the two-yard line. No time to call a play. I can feel it: time slipping. “Hike!” I holler, both crowds cheering in echoing bursts through the downpour, each side aching for victory, a rush of Phoenix players packed tight, grabbing for me, furious and wild, their nostrils flaring like wild animals’.

  There’s a scramble of arms and legs and helmets, but nothing can stop me. I surge, my whole body working in unison, one angry muscle exploding as I lunge forward, clawing over players, like I can walk on water. Then I float, crying out into the desert a piercing, primal scream that says everything I ever wanted to but never could. It’s the same cry I made as a baby just out of the womb in the Gulch, only this time my eyes are wide open.

  She’s waiting for me on the other side, Nefertiti is, with her skin of slag and muddy loam. And Angie was right, the mountain still has plenty to give. The other players slip and fall but she’s much kinder to me, catching my hurtling body a foot beyond the goal line and letting me slide gently along her skin, bathing in her brownness, in her mud, screaming, stretching, clinging to the football—my fingers forcing it further into my abdomen so there’s no chance it’ll come loose. Then I lie there, breathing in the mud, smelling its earthy smell, not wanting to move. I hear myself blowing hard, feel my heart tumbling against her skin, and taste the sweat and the mud and then something completely unfamiliar: the salt from my tears as I finally let go.

  Chapter 27

  MUCKER SUNDAES

  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21

  6:48 P.M.

  CRUZ SAYS I KEPT LYING there, hollering, headfirst in the muck, clutching that football so tight until they told me the touchdown was good. And even then, the referee had to pry it out of my fingers. But I don’t remember that. Or the faces in the crowd who got muddy, losing their shoes rushing to shake my hand because we’d won it. Just Pete Zolnich dancing in the field with Mrs. Featherhoff on his shoulders. Just the release—giving absolutely everything, then letting go and still being there. The slick ground supporting me and how satisfying that felt. How time had given me every second I’d needed. Then Cruz saying, “You gonna lie in the mud all night?”, giving me his hand and knocking his helmet against mine and keeping it there.

  We looked at each other eye to eye for a while, not saying anything, until he could hardly smile, his lips had gone so trembly. “So this is what it feels like to matter,” he finally whispered. “We’re
champions. And no one will ever beat us again. Ever. Or tell me that I don’t count.”

  * * *

  They said it was a thunderstorm. The tail end of a blaster out of Phoenix that couldn’t be stopped. It cut such a narrow swath that Cottonville never even saw it, but we did. It tore up the melons in Kellerman’s field and left us nothing but mud. Victorious mud.

  The town’s covered in it and looks like it must’ve forty years ago, before they paved anything. There’s cars everywhere, some abandoned in the field, stuck in the muck, others parked in front of the bars for the night since the owners are too drunk to make the trek out of Hatley until tomorrow.

  The sidewalks are crowded, too, and everyone’s wanting to buy me and Cruz a drink.

  Benny wouldn’t let us pay for supper either. They gave us a standing ovation when we walked into the diner. Faye Miller’s boy, Samuel, stared at the trophy so long I had him sit beside me in the booth and hold it for a while. He kept hugging it like they were old friends. Then he up and stared at me, saying, “Can you show me how to throw?”

  Now Benny’s got the Yavapai Cup on top of the soda fountain and is making Mucker sundaes for the whole place without charging.

  When they first handed me that Cup, I caught sight of Sims standing in front of the bleachers, smiling and clapping, and I didn’t want to hurt him anymore. Him and that Commie box. Half the names in there must be in Ajo and Bisbee by now anyway, and Mr. Mackenzie’s better off in Flag.

  We’ve taken that trophy all around town. First to the Barrio, and we slid pretty good down Gulch Lane, where Francisco gave it a good dousing with his wand full of holy water. Tony’s father built a bonfire out of the Phoenix bleachers, then we all ate tamales. There was so much singing and dancing going on you’d think it was Mexican Independence Day all over again, and I hardly thought of Angie.

  Cruz can’t stop smiling. He’s stuffing his face with the crunchy brown bits of fries he found under the lettuce that was on his burger.

  I wonder if she heard we won and how I’d been a part of it.

  The rain’s stopped, so we take the trophy up Main one more time, until we reach the edge of the field.

  “How many you think are out there?” Cruz asks, aiming his toothpick at the cars.

  “About fifty,” I say, eyeballing the hoods and the cabs slick with rain, some buried halfway up to their hubs in the slop.

  “He should be here,” Cruz says. “Rabbit’s part of this, too.”

  “I know it.” I keep looking at the cars and picturing Rabbit stuck in the mud like they are, but still alive. Not missing in action like Buddy Ritz, but ready to come home.

  Cruz holds the Cup above his head. “You should tell him about it,” he says, resting the trophy on his shoulder. “In a letter.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Cruz looks at me like I’m loco at first, then his expression changes, as if a thundercloud has lifted. “Maybe I will.… First thing in the morning.” He tells me I’ve still got mud in my hair and that the cot’s by the fireplace, same as it’s always been, if I need a place to stay.

  A light flickers above a tiered plateau in the open pit where a group of men in hard hats are trying to push a bulldozer knee-deep in mud onto a flatbed truck.

  “May as well leave it there,” Cruz says. “The way things change. Bet I won’t even have to go to Ajo next year. Did you see those crowds? They’ll find something. My father says there’s more gold than copper down there anyway. Then he’ll come back with my mother. Angie, too.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “You know,” Cruz says. “My sister?”

  “I know who she is.”

  “Don’t give up on her,” he whispers. “It broke her heart to leave you.”

  We’re both quiet for a while, then Cruz hands me the Cup, tosses the toothpick in the mud, and rolls up his jeans.

  “Where you going?” I ask.

  “Tunnel number nine.” He turns around and gives me a stupid-ass grin. “To meet Beebe.”

  I watch Cruz trot into the mud and wonder if he’ll get bogged down by it, too. Those cars are staying put because they’re stuck. And there’s no way this town can come back now that the mine’s closed. That’s one thing the E.C. doesn’t change their thinking on. The flatbed trucks have been hauling out houses and equipment all week. And if things really are changing, then why is Cruz still having to meet Beebe in the dark?

  * * *

  “Hey, Red!” Cussie’s dad yells over to me, raising an invisible glass when I walk back into town. “You should see your pop. No one’s happier than he is that you won. He’s celebrating behind the theater.”

  The Cribs are back there, where Hatley folk go to gamble and drink and find company that you pay for. I’ve never been there when all those things go on, but tonight it doesn’t feel so illegal. I won, and for the first time Pop’s happy about it.

  They’ve put up a tent because of the rain, and the burly man guarding the opening smiles at me. I think he’s Managlia’s uncle. When he sees the Cup, he takes off his oilskin hat, rubs the trophy’s belly with his nose, and raises the door flap to let me in. I have to blink a few times before I can see what’s around me: men gathered in throngs, the lucky ones sitting on benches while the others lean over their shoulders, all eyes focused downward on a makeshift ring. Dozens of kegs form a circular wall separating the ring from the crowd, and I wonder if those kegs are full or empty. I scan the rows of sweaty faces until I find Pop. He’s near the front, wiggling that squatty pink nose and laughing—I’d recognize that cackle blindfolded.

  “There he is!” Pop says when he sees me. “The man of the hour. Here, come meet your namesake.” His smile is wide and follows me as I press closer, fighting my way through the crowd. It’s warm in here and my face flushes, but that’s not it. Pop noticed me first off, and I don’t think that’s happened before. His grin gets bigger and I can tell he’s proud.

  “That’s you,” Pop says when I reach him, “in there.” He aims his cigar at the sandy pit below and my knees buckle. Two roosters are in the ring and I know there’s gonna be a cockfight. I’ve seen the plucked feathers left alongside the curb the day after from the one that goes into the soup.

  “You’re the red one,” Pop says. I can only see part of its chubby neck, the tail feathers, russet and black, as the rooster struggles to break free of its handler. “All big and puffed up and proud.”

  He’s weaving his hooded head back and forth, pecking blindly at the wind. The cover finally comes off and he shakes his neck, but the wattle’s been cut off. The comb, too.

  “You and he are gonna win again tonight.” Pop winks, breathing his liquor on me. A bald head bobs up between us and lets out a loud hork. It’s Wynn, the bookie. He snatches the money Pop’s giving him and stuffs the bills in his belt.

  “Five hundred says you will.” Pop smiles. “He’s desperate, too, that scrappy bird. ’Cause if you don’t, that’ll be the end of it. The last fight the town will ever see. And I know that won’t suit ya, losin’ that way.”

  “Is that all you care about?”

  “Eh?” Pop mumbles. His attention’s in the ring. I lean to grab his shoulder but somebody waves a Mexican flag and it gets in the way.

  If Pop thinks I’m the one that gets stuffed in the soup pot he’s dead wrong.

  “Come closer,” he calls. “Let me get at them lucky locks so the charm’ll rub off.”

  I push his hand away. I want to leave, to run, even. But the crowds won’t let me. They’re lunging forward, three-deep, arms twisted, placing bets in Spanish, Croatian, and Chinese, yelling and pulling me in. A pint of beer gets tossed. The foam soaks my shoulder and I have to hoist the Cup above my head just to get a few inches to breathe and pry myself free.

  “Would you look at him,” Pop says, sniggering at me. “So chuffed up—all hundred twenty pounds of him, includin’ that piece o’ junk. Haulin’ it high to put on a show and thinkin’ he’s bigger than us.”
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  “No!” I shout. “That’s not it.” The men from his crew gawk as I hold the Cup closer.

  Pop swerves to look at me, raising his bushy brows. “Well, I’m glad you brought it,” he says. “I’ll rub it, too. I knew you’d win. Didn’t matter how small and beat up you all were. Desperate lads always make out better than even. That’s why I bet on ya. ’Twas a good bet, that’s for sure.”

  “So that’s why you’re here? To double the money you won on me?”

  “It’s just numbers,” he scoffs, puffing at his cigar.

  “No it’s not.” I jab my fist into his chest. “I’m your son. Family shouldn’t bet on family.”

  “Do me a favor an’ make your pop proud,” he says, dumping the cigar in the Cup. “Hock it for a lunch.”

  I drag him down, catching a cheek with my fist.

  “I got twenty on Junior!” somebody hollers.

  The trophy nicks Pop’s mouth, splitting open his lip. He goes to wipe off the blood but he misses. And I see that he’s too drunk to counter with his fists, so I stop.

  “Alastar’s all liquored up,” Wynn shouts. “All bets off.”

  My father takes a few snorts through his purple nose and wipes off the blood with his sleeve.

  “Hah!” he spews. “The big hero, eh? You really think this means something?” He paws at the trophy, but I pull it out of reach. “Just gets you killed,” he says, “on an island fulla Japs. A bloody waste o’ time. But I know you’ll keep it. You’re the soppy one. Suppose you can piss in it when you get to Bisbee.”

  “I won’t be going to Bisbee.”

  “Sure you won’t.”

  The crowd groans, focused on what’s happening in the ring. The cocks are dueling in midair, three feet above the sand, a flurry of feathers and knives. When the handlers finally separate them, the red one’s lost an eye.

  “He’s down a blinker,” Wynn says to my father.

  “See?” he whines, still lying on the floor. “You lost your focus, Red. Do that for one minute and you get an eye gouged out. You got one more round. What’s the score?” he yells.