Tater gave no indication that he’d heard him, much less understood.
“I’m going to the concession stand on the other side of the field to get you some ice to suck on,” the doctor said. “You stay here and keep still. You want to be well enough to play next week, don’t you?”
The doctor walked over and said something to Coach Cadet. They both turned and looked at Tater. Curly Trussell, expelled from school the week before when he was caught with pot in his locker, was no longer available as a replacement, so Coach called over sophomore Jay Meche and told him Tater was done and the offense was now his to run.
“I ain’t done, Coach!” Tater yelled from the bench. “Coach, I ain’t done.”
But he was done.
The doctor returned and wrapped Tater’s head with another cold towel and gave him a cup of ice. And for the rest of the game Tater sucked on the ice and sat staring at the ground. He looked up only when the offense came off the field and he had words of encouragement for Jay or when he wanted to slap our hands after a score.
“Do you remember what Huey Long said before he died?” Tater asked me on the bus ride home.
The late Louisiana governor and US senator, assassinated in 1935, was the last person you’d expect anybody to bring up during a long drive across the prairie after a football game. But Tater seemed to want an answer, and I couldn’t provide one.
“Come on, Rodney. You should’ve learned this in Louisiana history class. That man had shot him in a hallway at the State Capitol, and Huey Long was in the hospital. He opened his eyes and said, ‘I can’t die yet. I got too much left to do.’ And then not long after, he was gone.”
“But all you’ve got is a bug, Tater. Nobody shot you.”
He laughed, the first time tonight. “But I understand where he was coming from. I can’t be getting sick now, Rodney. I got too much left to do.”
By Monday he felt better and was able to practice. On Thursday I had him over for film, and he was in such good spirits, and seemed so much like the old Tater again, that none of us thought to ask how he was feeling. I usually drove him home afterward, but as we were getting ready to leave, a charley horse gripped my right calf and dropped me to the floor.
“I’ll take him,” Angie said.
“No,” Pops said. He walked ahead of her into the kitchen and removed the truck keys from the table. “Let me.”
“I’ll be right back. I promise.”
“No, Angie.”
“It’ll take fifteen minutes, twenty tops.”
“Not tonight.”
Yelping for the pain, I staggered to the living room and fell on the couch. I glimpsed Tater’s face as he was going through the door to the carport. It twitched as if against tears, and he gave his head a shake. I considered running out after him, but I worried that it would only lead to the admission that went: “Pops won’t let Angie drive you by herself because as her father it is his duty to protect her virtue and her future.” Instead I shouted, “Remember to always carry out your fakes. Their Sam linebacker gets fooled easily.” But he was already outside.
Angie started kneading the spasm with her knuckles. “I could’ve taken him,” she said. “Nothing would’ve happened.”
“It’s late. They’d worry.”
“Late isn’t why and you know it.”
I stopped myself from mentioning Smooth. It would’ve been like calling her a liar.
I thought of a story Mama liked to tell about when we were little. Our baby cribs had stood next to each other, with the head of mine touching the foot of Angie’s. Mama had walked in one day and found Angie sticking her foot through the slats of her crib into mine. Upset at the sound of my crying, she had offered me her toes to suck. “And you were going to town,” Mama always said. “I worried that you would never let her have her foot back.”
Until now I never doubted that Angie would do practically anything for me, and that she’d put me above anyone else. But tonight I wasn’t so sure that still held true. Tonight I was just in her way.
She worked on my lower leg until Pops came back. He walked into the kitchen and dropped the keys on the table. At the sound of them hitting the boards, she whipped her head to the side, as if she’d been slapped. “I won’t always be seventeen,” she said. “Do you think he realizes that?”
“I think he would trade you for Angie at seven or Angie at twenty-seven, but Angie at seventeen makes him nervous.”
She went to the kitchen sink and washed her hands. Pops had to report to work in the next hour; he was drinking coffee at the table.
“What did you and Tater talk about?” she asked.
“He told me that was the best gumbo he ever ate in his life.”
“That’s it? He liked the gumbo?”
Pops brought his cup to his lips but stopped before taking a sip. “Oh.” And now he smiled at Angie. “He said he liked your peach pie, too.”
The Acadiana Wreckin’ Rams fought hard to keep it close. They ran a Veer offense that gave our defense fits, but they weren’t as strong on the other side of the ball, where they had a healthy Tater to deal with.
He threw two touchdown passes and ran for slightly more than a hundred yards—a great night for most quarterbacks but just an ordinary one for him. People were so spoiled by his performances that they thought he was slacking when he didn’t have five touchdown passes and two hundred rushing yards. The polls for Class AAAA had us ranked second behind Shreveport’s Byrd High, which had been treating schools in the state’s northern redneck parishes in the same fashion that we’d been treating the Cajun ones in the south.
After the game we took the bus back to school. I left the showers and found Coach Jeune waiting at my locker; his recruiting coordinator, Nolan Moore, was talking to Tater in a far corner of the room. As a rule Coach Cadet didn’t allow recruiters into our private area, but by now I knew what he wanted for Tater and me. The recruiting blitz had been as exhausting for him as it had been for us, and he’d been encouraging us to end it. More to the point, he wanted us to verbally commit to LSU and “put all the other schools out of their misery,” as he’d told us just a couple of days before.
“I’m ready for that commitment, Rodney,” Coach Jeune began. He shuffled up close to me, until he was inches from my face. “You have mine if I have yours.”
“You would do that, Coach?”
“I would and I will. How long did you say the field was?”
“A hundred yards, Coach.”
“Tater’s a quarterback and a great one. If people don’t like it . . . well, tough.” I could tell he wasn’t joking, even though he laughed and said, “They always say the most popular person in the state of Louisiana is the head football coach at LSU the week after he wins a big game. Well, we won big last week and that means I can do whatever the heck I want. I want Tater Henry to be my quarterback, and I want you blocking for him.”
I had a home visit scheduled with Alabama the next week, but who did I know in Tuscaloosa? Would Angie and the folks get to see me play if I went there? Where was Tuscaloosa, anyway?
“Okay, Coach. It’s a deal.”
“You’re committing?”
“I give you my word. Now comes the hard part—telling all those recruiters to stop coming around. I hate to let them down.”
He looked over at Tater, who was still hearing it from Nolan Moore. “Tell him you’ve committed, Rodney. Go on, son. Do it now.”
Still wearing only a bath towel, I walked over and waited until Nolan Moore understood that it was my turn. He walked outside with Coach Jeune.
“Who do we know in Michigan and Ohio and all those other places?” I asked Tater.
Tater shook his head. “Not a soul.”
“Where is Eugene, Oregon?”
“I have no idea.”
“Coach Jeune says you’re a quarterback
and he wants me protecting you, Tater.”
He seemed to have a hard time believing it, and for a moment I thought he was going to cry. “I should call my auntie,” he said.
“It’s history,” I said. “If a black man were elected governor and moved into the mansion, it’s as big as that. Maybe bigger.” I put my hands on his shoulders and gave him a shake. “LSU will have a black quarterback next year.”
“And his name is Tater Henry,” said Tater.
To celebrate we went to the Little Chef and hung out until closing time. Tater spent most of the night at a patio table, eating free food with Rubin, whose presence there made him the second black player to be invited to the postgame party. “Hallelujah,” I heard Rubin tell one of the guys. “The floodgates have opened now.”
The week before, Rubin had committed to the University of Southwestern Louisiana, and he already had a homemade Ragin’ Cajuns tattoo on his arm, the words still red and puffy where he’d carved himself with the needle. When it was time to leave, Tater came over to where I’d parked and asked if he could go home with Angie and me. I looked at my watch, even though I knew the time.
“We’ll need permission,” I said. “And shouldn’t you talk to Miss Nettie first?”
“I already did. Mr. and Mrs. Miller are out of town for the weekend, so she’s staying at their place.”
Angie opened her door and turned sideways in the seat to let him squeeze past her. “Get in,” she said. “If you’re good enough for Tigertown, I guess you’re good enough for Helen Street.”
Pops was at the plant, and Mama was already in bed. I didn’t see the point in waking her to tell her we had company. If I drove him home in an hour or two, they wouldn’t even have to know he’d been there. And if they did find out, I could tell them we’d invited him to the house for leftovers.
It was true that we were hungry, but it was also true that we were always hungry, even after we’d just eaten. Mama had prepared a crawfish casserole and left it in the refrigerator, and Angie warmed it in the oven and toasted some Evangeline Maid bread topped with tabs of butter. We ate in the living room with the stereo turned down low. For dessert Tater and I had ice cream—two bowls each—then we helped Angie with the dishes. Next we put on more records and wasted an hour discussing the merits of various album covers. Angie’s favorite was the one for Romeo and Juliet. “Do you mind if I put it on?” she said to Tater.
“Me?” He pointed to his chest. “It’s your house, Angie.”
The part of the album she chose to play meant nothing to me, but it was one from late in the story, with Juliet doing most of the talking.
Angie walked to the middle of the room and waited a moment before she started reciting lines. She’d performed for Tater and me nearly a year before at the Little Chef, but tonight she seemed to feel the words more deeply than she had then, and she delivered them as if they were her own. Shakespeare hadn’t scripted them centuries ago; she was making them up on the fly now. Even her accent was more believable, and she spoke less like an actress with a role to interpret than a teenage girl in love.
To his credit, Tater was able to keep it together. He didn’t laugh once, although every now and then he said, “Wow,” to compliment her.
The words just kept coming.
Something something.
Something else.
I gave up and moved from a chair to the couch. I’d played a football game tonight, and played hard, and I could feel my body telling me it had had enough.
“Here it comes,” I said to myself. And then she started to cry, as she always did when listening to the soundtrack. It was more a purge than a few tears, and frankly I was shocked to see it. She’d told me before that she cried because the language was so beautiful and full of meaning, but it seemed she was crying now for all the wrongs of the world, none less than the ones in her own life that were depriving her of happiness. Her vulnerability seemed authentic, and it had me wondering if I should get up and hug her.
But it was Tater who took her in his arms. He whispered to calm her down, but by now she was hysterical. He had one hand on the middle of her back, the other on her head, holding her against his chest.
“Are you ready to go home?” she asked.
“If you tell me you’re going to be all right.”
“I’m just emotional. It’s hormones, I’m sure.”
She walked to the kitchen for the keys. I started for the door, but she stopped me. “Can’t I take him home by myself for once?”
It was an impossible spot to be in. If I told her no, it would be like making a confession about how I felt about black people. And I didn’t want to make Tater doubt me again. But if I said yes, I was inviting other problems. Pops, to start.
“Angie, don’t forget who you are,” I said.
“I won’t, Mama.”
Any other time and I wouldn’t have let her get away with it.
“Tater, don’t forget she’s my sister.”
“Right,” he said. “And you don’t forget it either. See you later, Rodney.”
There was no sleeping now. I went to the kitchen and ate more of the casserole. As a matter of fact, I finished it off.
She was gone for nearly three hours. She made sure to come home before Mama got up and Pops returned from the plant. Hearing the Cameo in the carport, I turned off the lamp in the living room and slipped into my room. I didn’t want her to think I’d been waiting up, and I didn’t want to talk.
I expected her to put the record back on. I lay in bed waiting for the actors’ voices to reach me through the wall behind my head. And then Angie’s voice to join them, the way it always did. But instead I felt the floor vibrate as she walked down the hall to her bedroom.
I heard her door close. And finally I heard her lock it.
Next up were Comeaux, New Iberia, and Lafayette, then the playoffs—Terrebonne, Sulphur, and Brother Martin. The hometown crowds grew more animated with each win, the headlines in the local paper bolder. Workers at the stadium added portable bleachers along the sidelines and end zones, but even those filled up well before kickoff, and spectators had to stand wherever there was room.
Fourteen school buses followed us to Houma for the game with Terrebonne. They were loaded with the band, the Tigerettes baton-twirling troupe, and the pep squad, which counted about a hundred girls. Cars packed with fans trailed the buses in a long procession that choked the bayou roads to the south and east.
Tater turned seventeen that day, and the windows of more than a few cars were decorated with birthday wishes and pictures of orange-and-black cakes burning candles. All through the game Angie led our fans in the singing of “Happy Birthday to You.” Tater waited until late in the fourth quarter to stand on the bench and acknowledge them with a bow. Had the game been closer, Coach Cadet would’ve squawked, but by then Tater had put us ahead by thirty-seven points. Rather than upbraid him for showboating, Coach stood on the bench next to him and joined in the singing, his voice loudest of all.
The next week at school Tater and Angie tirelessly exchanged notes with each other during classes, passing them back and forth while our teachers stuck to their lectures and pretended not to notice. On a whim I passed a note of my own to Regina Perrault, and she promptly answered with a smiley face. That was the day I collected my books and moved again. I gave a death stare to the kid who occupied the desk behind her, and he promptly found a new place in the back row. Angie and Tater could have each other. I didn’t need anyone as long as Regina was within reach or at least within view.
Before the pep rally for the Sulphur game, I sat cross-legged on the gym floor and offered a shoulder to a tearful Patrice Jolivette, who’d skipped classes at Southern and returned home for the day. She’d hoped to surprise Tater and Angie, but instead it was they who surprised her. After her wails died down, I had a hard time finding the right words to console h
er.
“I can’t believe she would do me like that,” she said.
“You’re not the only one in shock.”
“What happened?” she blurted out, as if she’d just witnessed an accident. Then she wept with her face pressed against my arm.
It was winter now, and they met in the park after practice, some days when it was already dark outside. Angie rode her bike; Tater walked.
They wore matching purple pullovers and sweatpants stamped with LSU logos that showed animated tigers wearing crowns. Few people used the picnic grounds because of the weather, so they usually had that section of the park to themselves. They sat in the open pavilion down by the bayou and pressed their bodies against each other to keep warm. On especially cold days they gathered kindling and made fires in the big brick pit. You could smell smoke on Angie’s clothes when she came home later and gave me all the details about their meetings. If there was enough light, she brought a sketchbook and her paint box and made pictures. I went into her room once when she wasn’t home and sneaked a look at her finished books, thinking they would be filled with portraits of Tater, but they mostly showed trees and birds and the bayou. She did draw his hands, though, and included the tape on his fingers, the nails torn up from where he’d banged them against helmets. She used a lot of different colors to get his skin right. I saw browns and yellows and the rich undertone she’d once talked about that went into getting the color right.
“You never asked me where I plan to go to college,” she told me one night.
“I didn’t think I needed to.”
“It’s LSU.”
“I’m glad, Angie. I’m sure Tater is too.”
“Yeah,” she said, stretching out the word. I thought that was the end of it, but then she said, “I wonder if LSU is ready for us.”
I looked at her. “For you and me? Or for you and Tater?”
When she didn’t answer, I knew the answer.
“I don’t know, Angie,” I said. “Baton Rouge is a city, but it’s not the most sophisticated place in the world. It’s still the South. It’s also the Deep South. You won’t be able to go out together without people gawking. Some will make comments.”
Call Me by My Name Page 18
