TJ and the Sports Fanatic

by Hazel Hutchins

  Mom sighed.

  “That’s only because I’ve been giving her and some other customers a little personalized service,” she said. “These days I have all the time in the world.”

  I turned to Dad. “At Christmas things were good. You could wait until Christmas to see what happens.”

  “The lease is up at the end of the month,” said Dad. “We have to sign for three more years. The landlord is raising the rent.”

  I threw my hands in the air.

  “How can he charge more money when we’re making less?”

  “Other people will pay what he’s asking,” said Mom. “And interest rates are going up at the bank.”

  Was the whole world ganging up on one little hardware store?

  “TJ, there are things in life we can control, like how we run the store,” said Dad in his most reasonable voice. “There are things we can’t control, like how the landlord runs his end of the business or what interest rate the bank charges.”

  He said it so calmly that I understood. Beneath the surface he felt even worse than I did. He was doing the adult thing, but it was tearing him up inside.

  I didn’t want us to lose the store, but I didn’t want him to feel so awful either. I did the only thing I could think of doing. I agreed with him.

  “I guess you’re right,” I said. “I’m glad we talked about it. Maybe you and Mom can get jobs at the new store. You’ll still be around hardware stuff the way you like, and you won’t have to worry about money. It might even be a good thing.”

  Dad didn’t reply directly.

  “I’d appreciate it, TJ, if you’d keep this quiet for another week,” he said instead. “We have to sign off on the lease a month ahead of time—that’s next Thursday. It’s best if word doesn’t get around until then.”

  I don’t think any of us ate much supper that night. Mostly we just pushed our food around our plates. After that I gathered a cat under each arm and went to my bedroom. I barricaded the door with my football gear. Me and the cats on one side. The rotten world of big stores, interest rates and landlords on the other.

  When Seymour called, I only opened the door wide enough for Mom to pass me the phone. I wouldn’t have answered at all if I’d known he was going to be on a rant.

  “Their coach is an idiot.”

  Those were Seymour’s words of greeting.

  “You know the team we were supposed to practice against this Saturday?” he continued. “Their coach has changed his mind. He doesn’t want a practice scrimmage. He wants a real game. Our team isn’t ready for a real game. I can’t be the world’s greatest football player if the team isn’t even ready!”

  I didn’t have a whole lot of patience with Seymour.

  “Look, Seymour, why don’t you stop trying to impress or un-impress your mom’s boyfriend and just play the game?”

  There was dead silence at the other end. Then a voice I barely recognized as Seymour’s came across the line.

  “What boyfriend?” the voice asked.

  “I don’t know what boyfriend,” I told the voice. “I don’t know that there even is a boyfriend. But it’s the only reason I can think of for why you want to be the world’s greatest football player.”

  There was another long pause.

  “Okay,” I said. “No boyfriend. It was just a wild guess. I’m not trying to make you mad.”

  “I’m not mad,” said Seymour. His voice sounded normal… almost.

  “So,” I said. “Do you want to tell me what’s really going on with the football stuff?”

  I shouldn’t have pushed my luck. When Seymour wants to talk, he yammers on at a mile a minute. But when he isn’t ready to tell you something, he clams right up.

  There was a small click and the line went dead. Not dead as in Seymour was on his way over. Just plain dead.

  Chapter 11

  When lousy stuff is happening in your life and you can’t even talk to your best friend about it because he’s acting weird, it’s good to have something else to think about.

  Football practices were longer over the next two days. On the field, all I had to think about was pass protection and blocking. After practice, Seymour and I kept it casual by talking football and hanging out with Amanda, Meg and the other kids.

  The game was set for Saturday afternoon at two. Coach Billings added “game-day focus” and “football first” to his Friday lecture. I did what he told us to do. I went to bed at a decent time. I told myself to wake up ready for the game.

  Saturday morning, however, it all went out the window. I woke up thinking about the store instead. I wanted to go down to the store, just like most Saturdays. Mom and Dad had said they’d be fine without me, but that’s where I went.

  Mom was with the only two customers in the place. I wandered up and down the aisles. We’d had the store for three years and I hadn’t even liked it at first. Now, however, I couldn’t imagine life without it.

  I remembered the day I’d been put in charge of the pet supplies. I remembered the day Seymour had raced around waving fly swatters and talking about how they were invented. I remembered the day we’d caught the shoplifters.

  “TJ, could you call me if anyone comes to the till?” Mom had scraps of material, pieces of carpet and cards with paint colors in her hands. “I can spread things out better for the Armsteads in the back.”

  “Sure,” I said and hopped onto the counter. It wasn’t usually allowed, but what did it matter now?

  Dad had gotten tired of staring at the computer screen and watching the business go down the tube. He was out helping Amanda’s mom hang her new blinds. When he came back I was still sitting on the counter.

  “The Baker place is looking great,” he said. “Your mom has real flair for choosing what works in people’s houses.”

  “Some newbies are in the back picking her brain,” I said.

  Dad looked over his shoulder, thought a moment and then looked at me.

  “I’m surprised you’re so calm, TJ. Aren’t you nervous about your first game?”

  I hadn’t been. I’d set football aside for the morning. Now that I realized it was almost time to leave for the field, however, my hands had gone cold and sweaty all at once. I felt like I was going to barf.

  “Does your body make you feel weird when you’re nervous?” I asked.

  “Yup,” said Dad.

  “I’m nervous,” I said.

  Why was I nervous? I didn’t need to be the world’s greatest football player. All I needed to do was hold up my end of things.

  And that’s why I was nervous. I wanted to hold up my end of things. I hadn’t expected to feel this way but I did.

  Mom came out of the back with the Armsteads. She waved at us. Dad and I headed out the door.

  “I’ll be back with Gran to watch the first half,” said Dad as he dropped me off. “Your mom will be here for the second half. Hey—a positive side to things. When the business gets sorted out, all three of us should be able to come to your games together.”

  I knew he wasn’t feeling as cheerful as he sounded, but at least he cared enough to try to put a good spin on the football part. He drove away. I turned toward the field.

  Players in green and gold uniforms were gathering around the far benches. The only people not wearing football numbers were either coaches, who were moving about with clipboards in hand, or Sandy and Amanda, who were taping ankles for some players to help prevent injuries. I took a deep breath and headed for the green and gold.

  The buzz before a first practice is nothing compared to the buzz before a game. Kids were way more excited and way more nervous. The coaches weren’t a whole lot better.

  Coach Mac kept up a running pep talk of “Great day for football” and “Are you ready there, sport?”

  Coach Winguard was wearing one blue sock and one red sock and he growled at anyone who mentioned it.

  Coach G. started quoting Shakespeare. “Once more unto the breach…” We only knew it was Shakespeare bec
ause he told us it was. Why on earth would a football coach quote Shakespeare?

  Coach Billings got very, very quiet. Like an incoming storm. I didn’t want to think about it.

  It was a relief when we started to do warm-ups and stretches. Just like a practice, I told myself. Just like a practice.

  And that’s the mode I fell into. I settled my nerves by pretending this wasn’t a real game after all.

  We had our lecture on the sidelines—just like practice. We knew what our starting plays would be—just like practice. All sorts of other things were going on, like referees striding here and there, people on the sidelines, a whole other team making noise on the other side of the field, a coin toss, special teams on the field for kickoff… but I kind of ignored all that.

  “Offense! On the field!”

  I snapped up my chin strap and trotted onto the field. We went into a huddle and Gabe called the play. We lined up. I even looked across at big Number 55—hey! just like in practice. The ball was snapped and…

  Whoosh—Number 55 went flying by me. This wasn’t anything like practice!

  He didn’t even try to hit me; he just headed for Gabe. Gabe handed off to Leroy, but in about half a second it was all over. Leroy was tackled. Whistle blown. Loss of yards. Huddle.

  I couldn’t believe how quickly it had all happened. Things were moving about twenty times faster than at practice! I needed something else and I needed it fast.

  I decided to concentrate on the physics. Force equals mass times acceleration. A second is five yards. Offense has a twotenths of a second jump on defense.

  Down. Set. Hut.

  Whoosh—big Number 55 went flying by again. This wasn’t supposed to happen!

  The whistle blew again. I forgot about pretending this was a practice. I forgot about physics. I decided to do what I’d told Seymour to do—just play the game. Play my position. Only this time I was determined that I was going to play it right.

  Down.

  Behind his face mask, Number 55 was grinning at me.

  Set.

  I made myself grin back at him.

  Hut. Hut.

  Wham.

  I made the block. I made it and I held it and no matter what else was going on, I held it until the whistle blew. All of a sudden I was in the game.

  In the game. Seconds passed in flurries as I pushed ahead to open a hole for a runner, or they stretched long and dangerously elastic as I waited in eager anticipation for the snap. Even distances seemed to shift as I rotated on and off the field with the defense, the game as small and close as the space separating me from Number 55, and as broad as the grass from one end of the field to the other. Everywhere and all around, things were happening and I was part of it.

  It was exhilarating and—Coach G. was right!—it was just plain fun.

  Except we got creamed.

  Of course there were a few things that went right. Meg made a terrific catch. Leroy made a great long-yardage run. Shimu broke through the other team’s line and sacked their quarterback. We didn’t make any points, but at least we had some plays that worked.

  And then, with our defensive unit on the field again, something unusual happened.

  Thirty seconds left in the game and the other team had the ball. They were way ahead of us and were just kind of using us for practice—a cat toying with a mouse—which meant that the quarterback was calling a lot of pass plays. He called one too many.

  Gibson saw the quarterback dropping back. He read the play. He raised his hands to block the pass. The ball was tipped to Shimu, who tried so hard to hold on to it that it went shooting out of his hands and—without touching the ground—into a third player’s stomach. Seymour’s stomach.

  Seymour wasn’t even supposed to be in that part of the field! He’d gotten confused and was way out of position. He’d been running forward and back, trying to figure out where he should be, but now he had an interception! He hung on. He started to run.

  He was at the forty, he was at the thirty.

  “Nooooooo!” shouted Gabe from beside me on the sidelines.

  I looked at Gabe. I looked back at Seymour. I figured it out. Seymour was running the wrong way!

  One of our own players began running after him, shouting like crazy.

  “Stop! Stop!”

  Either Seymour didn’t hear or he thought it was encouragement.

  He was at the twenty, he was at the ten.

  At the three-yard line our player tackled him, but Seymour was determined and dragged our player with him into the end zone. Our end zone. The referee’s arms flew into the air to signal a touchdown.

  A touchdown in our own end zone?

  Now even the officials were confused. They had to go into a huddle of their own. When they emerged they gave what Mr. G. agreed was the correct call. Our side would be “conceding” a two-point safety.

  Seymour had made the first points of his career by scoring against his very own team.

  Chapter 12

  The way you feel when you lose a game forty-two to zero is awful. Horrible, rotten, worthless, low-level, miserable and depressingly awful.

  You don’t let it show on the field—you shake hands with the other team and say good game.

  You try not to let it show when Coach gathers the players together for his little post-game talk.

  You probably show it more than you mean to when your gran and mom smile and say good try, but they’re your family so they pretend they don’t notice.

  And then you go home and barricade yourself in the bedroom. At least that’s what I did—me and the cats on one side, the rotten world of not enough experience and teams that are better on the other.

  When Mom knocked on the door to say I had a call, I only opened it wide enough to let her hand me the phone. I didn’t feel like talking, but I figured Seymour was even more depressed than I was.

  It wasn’t Seymour. It was Gibson.

  “I hate losing,” he said.

  “Ditto,” I agreed with him. “Losing stinks.”

  “Coach Billings probably hates us,” said Gibson.

  I thought about it. What I came up with surprised me.

  “Nah, I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m pretty sure Coach doesn’t like losing, but I think he knows how to live with it.”

  When a coach hates losing to the point that he hates the kids too, he punishes them. He calls it something else—a learning experience—but it’s not. I know because that’s what my old T-ball coach had done when we lost a game. He’d yelled at us and then made us run laps as punishment, even when parents were still watching on the sidelines. No kid should ever be punished for losing a game.

  All Coach Billings had done was give his same boring talk—he hadn’t even yelled at us. The way he’d gotten all quiet before the game had been some sort of “coach intensity,” but it hadn’t been storm clouds. Coach Billings went up about three grades on my coach scale—Don the Dictator, Arnie Organizer, The Doc, Longwinded Larry and—surprise, surprise—a smattering of Mr. Cool. Who would have guessed?

  Gibson and I talked for a bit and then I went back to staring at the ceiling. The cats fell asleep on top of me. When the phone rang again they made themselves heavier and gave me dirty looks. I had to slide sideways on the bed to reach the phone under penalty of death if I disturbed them. This time it was Gabe.

  “I’m phoning to tell the O-line guys I appreciated the effort out there today.”

  Gabe was a way better athlete than I was, and he was a natural leader. But that didn’t mean he could fool me.

  “I thought Coach Mac was in charge of the rah-rah stuff,” I said.

  Gabe laughed.

  “Yeah, you’re right. We were all pretty lousy. But we’ll get better. Tell your friend Seymour that for me. And next time we’ll actually give Coach Mac something to rah-rah about,” he said.

  The next person who phoned was Meg.

  “Amanda said to call and find out if you’re as miserable about losing as I
am,” said Meg. “She thinks it might make me feel better.”

  “I’m miserable,” I told Meg. “Gibson’s miserable. Gabe is so miserable he’s giving pep talks.”

  “Hey,” said Meg, “I feel better already.”

  Apparently I was the team “cheer-up” person.

  I went back to staring at the ceiling. And then I phoned Seymour. He didn’t answer until the thirty-fourth ring.

  “I can’t believe I ran the wrong way,” he said.

  “Even if you’d run the right way we wouldn’t have won,” I told him. “They were a zillion points ahead.”

  “It would have been a big deal,” said Seymour. “Our first touchdown would have been a really big deal for the whole team.”

  “The fact that you made an interception was a big deal,” I told him.

  “I quit,” said Seymour.

  I tried to change his mind. I tried then and I tried again later that night over the phone. I tried by going over to his house on Sunday, but either he was out or he wouldn’t answer the door.

  Monday I went to football practice. There was an interesting optimism in the air. We wanted to get better. We’d lost miserably but here we all were, back at practice. All but Seymour.

  “You’ve got to make him come back,” I told Coach G.

  Coach G. shook his head.

  “No one should play football because someone makes them,” he said. “Or because they think they should play. Or because they think they’ll get rich. Or to impress someone by playing. He should come back because he wants to. The only reason to play football is to have fun.”

  I worked hard at football practice that day. I liked being part of a team, even if we weren’t very good yet. I liked working with Gabe, Shimu, Meg and Gibson. I could even put up with Leroy. But it would have been better if Seymour had been there.

  I missed him at home too. When you don’t have brothers and sisters, it’s great to have a friend who rings once and then walks in the door. Even the cats seemed to be moping around. I read them interesting sports facts. Maybe I’d discover something that would help Seymour.

  A running back reaches maximum acceleration in two seconds.