War and Watermelon

by Rich Wallace

  What’s inside my head right now is nervousness and embarrassment. Good combination.

  Franklin School, here I come.

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 30:

  Unnecessary Roughness

  I look pretty good in the game jersey. I’m all suited up by four forty-five for the seven o’clock game. Tony finally comes by, and we walk down to the field. His lip doesn’t look any worse than mine did last week.

  “You scared?” he asks me.

  “What for?” I’m sure he can tell that I am.

  “Me, too,” he says. “But I can’t wait to make that first hit. Just nail somebody on the opening kickoff, you know? Knock all the nerves right out of my system.”

  “That would work.”

  But we win the coin toss and decide to receive the ball, so we won’t be kicking off after all. We stand on the sidelines and watch.

  East Rutherford is apparently better than they were a year ago. The game is scoreless at halftime. We spent the first half standing off to the side, yelling but not really feeling like part of the team.

  Tony grabs my sleeve as we walk out of the locker room for the second half. “Nice and clean,” he says.

  “Won’t be for long,” I say. Now we’ll be kicking off.

  East Rutherford has a fast running back who almost broke a couple in the second quarter. Number 33. He’s back deep for the kick, so we’re wary.

  Mitchell’s kick is high and relatively short, and it drifts toward my side of the field. One of the midfield players circles back and catches it, and he immediately swings toward the opposite sideline. I do my box-in around the thirty; otherwise the whole play would be past me. Everybody else from our team is heading toward the return man.

  But suddenly 33 is coming toward me with the ball.

  “Reverse!” somebody yells.

  The guy cuts sharply up the middle of the field as he draws even with me, but I’m ten yards from him. The field is wide open.

  I pivot and start angling toward him at full speed. There’s no way I’ll catch him without help, but I can see Mitchell heading toward him from the opposite side. So the guy gives a head fake and hesitates just slightly, veering into my path. I lunge and wrap both arms around his churning legs, and Mitchell hits him high.

  I saved a touchdown, but they’re at our forty-two. I get to my knees and hop up. My teammates are clapping as I run off the field. Magrini punches my arm.

  Coach Epstein smacks me lightly on the shoulder pad and says, “Nice job!”

  Ferrante holds out a palm and I meet it.

  My heart is beating ferociously, and my breathing is short and hard. That’s excitement, not fatigue. I stand closer to the coaches now, a foot back from the sideline.

  Unfortunately, all I did was postpone the touchdown, because they drive down the field with a solid running game. Number 33 takes it the last seven yards to the end zone.

  But they get greedy. They try the same play to the other side for the conversion, and Magrini reads it well. He drops the guy for a loss, so the score stays 6–0.

  “Get it right back!” Coach Epstein says. He grabs Ferrante’s arm and whispers intensely to him while East Rutherford kicks off.

  I take a deep breath and let it out, then glance at the scoreboard. Plenty of time. We’re not even midway through the third quarter.

  But the clock moves quickly. We keep the ball on the ground, getting four first downs but nothing substantial.

  The crowd’s been quiet. Even the cheerleaders have been standing and watching.

  Finally we’ve got a fourth-and-four at the East Rutherford twenty-one. Way too far for a field goal attempt. Ferrante hands off to Esposito, who’s hit in the backfield but manages to roll off, breaking toward the sideline. A linebacker hits him hard. Esposito twists and reaches for the first down. The officials call for a measurement.

  Esposito comes up holding his leg, limping around. The officials stretch out the chains, and I can see that we’re about three inches short. The crowd groans.

  Coach grabs Colaneri and sends him in at cornerback for Esposito, who hobbles off the field.

  We get the ball back with five minutes left in the game.

  “Kenny, you ready to go?” Coach calls to Esposito, who’s been sitting on the bench.

  “Yes.” He stands and puts on his helmet and runs onto the field. You can tell that he’s wincing, but he barrels through the line four times in a row, moving us past midfield.

  “Think we’ll ever pass?” Tony says softly to me.

  “We might not need to.”

  The next time Esposito goes down, he stays down. The ref calls time-out and our coaches walk onto the field. Coach Powell pulls Kenny up a minute later and helps him off the field.

  “Ankle,” Tony says.

  “Looks like it.”

  I guess we’ve softened up the East Rutherford line, because Colaneri picks up where Esposito left off, gaining four or five yards a carry and eating up the clock.

  Ferrante drops back with the ball. He’s thrown only one pass all game, so East Rutherford has its defenders packed in. Lorenzo is wide open, and he catches the pass and runs untouched into the end zone.

  We erupt. The cheerleaders start that “Rah rah Eddie Lorenzo” thing. Then they do one for Ferrante. After that they have to do one for Mitchell, too, because he just kicked the extra point to put us in the lead.

  I jump up with both fists in the air.

  “Let’s go!” Tony says, running onto the field.

  I’d pretty much forgotten that we have to kick off.

  We huddle up. “Don’t get fooled again!” Mitchell yells. “This is the game.”

  I look at the scoreboard: HOME 7, VISITOR 6. TIME REMAINING: 1:28.

  The kick goes to number 33 again. He runs straight, then starts to drift to my side. I get hit hard as I begin to box, but I roll off the block and keep my feet, stumbling backward. I dig in and find my balance just as 33 moves into my area. Two other guys hit him and stop his progress. I dive into the pile to make sure.

  The whistle blows as I stand up, and I see a yellow flag flying through the air.

  The referee points at me, then signals to the bench. “Unnecessary roughness, number 27, blue. Fifteen yards.”

  Coach Epstein has his arms folded as I jog to the sideline, and he’s shaking his head. “Winslow weighs fifty pounds,” he mutters. “Unnecessary roughness?”

  I’m fuming. I stand with my back to the crowd, helmet on. That could cost us the game.

  “Stupid move,” I say as Tony stops next to me.

  “That was nothing,” he replies. “You didn’t hurt nobody.”

  “Except the team,” I say. “I knew he was down. I just couldn’t stop myself.”

  “We’ll be fine. We’ll stop ’em.”

  But 33 dashes toward the sideline on a pitchout and races right past us. Colaneri knocks him out of bounds near the thirty.

  Still a minute left.

  They split two ends out to the right, and the quarterback drops back. We’ve got good coverage, so he throws a short one over the middle. It’s complete, but the play eats up a lot of time.

  They run one, then call time-out. It’s third down.

  A long pass falls incomplete. Fourth-and-two at the twenty-three. Thirty-four seconds left.

  “It’d be a forty-yard field goal,” Tony says.

  “No way. They didn’t even kick the extra point. They have to go for it.”

  Magrini and Lorenzo chase the quarterback around the backfield. He keeps scrambling, but nobody’s open. Magrini sacks him and the ball comes loose. Lorenzo falls on it. That’s the game.

  We shake hands at midfield, then run all the way to the locker room, shouting and jumping.

  Coach tells us we played great. That we’ll keep playing conservatively and won’t run anybody off the field. That a win is a win.

  “Where’s Winslow?” he says, looking around.

  I put up my hand.

  “Don’
t be so rough on those poor guys,” he says, laughing. “You don’t want to break anybody in half out there. . . . Seriously, good effort. Everybody played hard. Let’s keep at it. And don’t be shy about hitting people. Penalties are part of the game.”

  And I was part of the game, too. Two plays, but they both were meaningful.

  My first real game. I’ll take it.

  SUNDAY, AUGUST 31

  Before the Kickoff

  By Brody Winslow

  At game time you feel like puking

  Or diarrhea in your pants

  Because everybody’s watching

  And you might just blow your chance

  And be embarrassed by your screwup

  And the bonehead play you made

  It’s a lot like thinking forward

  To the start of seventh grade

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1:

  The Upper Hand

  Labor Day. Last day of the season at the swim club; last day of freedom before school starts. No practice, at least, so we wait until late afternoon to go to the pool. It’s packed.

  My father almost never goes to the swim club, since he’s in Manhattan every weekday and usually messes around the house with projects all weekend. But he finished retiling and caulking around the tub yesterday, so Mom convinced him to take today off.

  He sits under the umbrella with yesterday’s New York Times and today’s Herald-News, slowly eating roasted peanuts from a jar. His body is pale and hairy. The hair cuts off in a straight line at the middle of his calves, though, rubbed away from wearing tight, black nylon socks all day at work. So it’s like he’s wearing flesh-tone socks instead.

  They have adult swims for fifteen minutes every hour all day, so he does some laps then. Me and Tony sit on the edge of the pool with our legs hanging in.

  “Tomorrow’s gonna be bad,” Tony says.

  “Why you think that?”

  “They say seventh is a hundred times harder than sixth. You get huge amounts of homework, and the teachers expect you to act like adults.”

  “Yeah.” I’ve heard that, too. You stay in one classroom for a lot of the time, but you switch out for science and art and shop. Some other things, too, I think. Maybe health. Music.

  “They put the meanest teachers at Franklin,” Tony says. “You have to be sort of nice to teach elementary, and the best teachers go to the high school. So that leaves the worst ones for junior high.”

  “Makes sense.”

  My father swims over and grabs my legs. “Hey, Nimrod,” he says.

  “How’s the water?” I ask. We haven’t been in yet. Of course, I’ve got my legs in there. It’s just something you say.

  “Delicious,” he replies. He swims away on his back.

  “How many different names does he have for you?” Tony asks.

  “Unlimited.”

  I look across the pool and see Patty and Janet staring at us. They look at each other and laugh.

  I can feel my face getting hot. I elbow Tony and point my chin over there.

  He smiles. “They see us yet?” he asks.

  “They were looking right at us.”

  “That’s good. This ain’t over yet.”

  I kick at the water. I’ve been hoping that it was.

  “We’ll just ignore ’em for now,” he says. “But believe me, we’ll get another chance. She was liking that as much as I was.”

  “Yeah, especially the punch.”

  He tests his jaw again. “That was just for show, so I wouldn’t get too confident. She wanted to keep the upper hand for now. But it’s shifting.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do. I got a good instinct for this sort of thing. She’ll let me know when she’s ready.”

  “And where does that leave me? I’m supposed to run interference for you again?”

  “Maybe to start. Depends on the situation. You’ll be all right. Patty’s just a little shyer than Janet is. Next time around you’ll do better.”

  I look across the pool again. They’re sitting on a bench. Patty doesn’t look shy anymore. She looks mean.

  The adult swim ends. Dad swims over and says, “You hungry, Idjit?”

  “Yeah. What we got?”

  “Your mother packed chicken and some other stuff. Tony, you’re welcome to join us.”

  We head for the picnic area. Dad pops open a Rheingold, and we eat cold chicken legs and homemade coleslaw.

  “Last day of being little kids,” Dad says with his mouth full. “Eat up.”

  I can tell he’s joking, but there’s a lot of truth in that, too. I have no idea what this school year will be like.

  “You guys stay little as long as you want to,” Mom says. “You’ll be teenagers before you know it. Enjoy your innocence while you have it.”

  I glance at Tony. He’s got a sly look on his face. He picks up a napkin and wipes his mouth, then reaches for another chicken leg. “These are great, Mrs. Winslow,” he says.

  “Have all you want. There’s plenty.”

  When we leave the picnic area, Janet and Patty are on the swings, so we have to walk right past them. I move to the outside of Mom and Dad, so they’ll be between me and the girls. Tony comes over to my side, too.

  We hear them laughing after we’re past. Tony looks back.

  “Just a little shy,” he whispers. “Believe me, they’ll let us know when they’re ready.”

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2:

  Yap-Yaps

  Mrs. Wilkey spends the first hour of school deciding where people should sit. Mostly she bases it on height (I’m not the shortest boy, but it’s close, so I get the second seat in the second row), but she also says she wants the “wise guys” near the front. She doesn’t know any of us, but I guess after a hundred years of teaching seventh graders she can quickly identify the troublemakers.

  They apparently include Magrini and Finken, who she places in the first and second seats in the row in front of her desk.

  We have to take our seats as soon as they’re assigned to us so she can mull over the people who are still standing. I turn to the girl in the seat next to me. She appears to be amused about the seating ritual.

  “I’m Diane,” she says.

  I’ve never seen her before, but that’s true of a lot of the kids who went to Lincoln.

  “You?” she asks.

  “Brody. Winslow. I went to Euclid.”

  “I figured that.” She has longish dark hair. She smiles as if she’s sure of who she is, not like some of these other good-looking girls who just stare right past me, looking for a guy with status to help prop up their egos. She’s cute.

  Very cute.

  “Good class,” she says. “Should be fun.”

  Mrs. Wilkey stops what she’s doing and points at her. “Miss?”

  “Diane.”

  “Diane, in this classroom, you only speak when called upon.”

  “So are you calling on me now?”

  “No, I am not. I’m telling you to be quiet.”

  Mrs. Wilkey goes back to the seating assignments. Diane crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. When Mrs. Wilkey has her back turned, she sticks her tongue out at her. Then she smiles again, right at me.

  I point my finger at her and carefully and deliberately mouth those same words. “I’m telling you to be quiet.”

  This time she sticks her tongue out at me.

  Seventh grade seems to be off to a good start.

  We get hauled up to the auditorium after a while so the principal can hit us with the rules. The auditorium is on the third floor, and only two classes at a time are allowed up there. Technically, the auditorium isn’t quite condemned, but the roof leaks and there’s some question about how solid the floor is. So a room built for a couple of hundred people isn’t supposed to hold more than fifty now.

  The principal seems cross and sort of confused. He repeats things. At first I thought it was for emphasis, but the third time he tells us about not running in the halls, somebo
dy from the other class raises his hand.

  The kid’s from Lincoln, so I don’t know him. He stands and says, “Are we allowed to run in the halls?”

  Everybody laughs. The principal says, “No, you are not.”

  That class’s teacher—Mr. Enright—walks to the end of the aisle and motions to the kid with his finger. The kid gets up and shuffles over. The teacher makes him sit way in the back by himself.

  I’m sitting next to Finken. He leans toward me and says, “That’s Danny Pellegrini. That whole class is a bunch of yap-yaps. They barely got out of Lincoln.”

  “Yeah. Same with the Euclid kids. That was funny, though.”

  “Oh, he’s hilarious, just not very bright.”

  When we get back to the classroom, Finken calls me over to his desk. He opens the lid and points to one of the many names carved into the underside.

  “You know this guy?” he asks.

  It says Ryan Winslow.

  “That’s my brother.”

  “Cool. When was that?”

  “Six years ago.”

  Mrs. Wilkey is the last one into the room. She fires me a look and says, “Take your seat, young man.”

  I walk over. Diane is looking at me. When she’s sure Mrs. Wilkey isn’t watching, she mouths “young man” at me with a stern look. Then she laughs.

  We have to hustle home after school so we can suit up and get to practice by four.

  “How’d it go?” Tony asks me.

  “Pretty good. Good class.”

  “Mine stinks,” he says. “How did I wind up in the smart class?”

  “Beats me,” I say. “Somebody made a mistake.”

  “Ha-ha. You know what I mean. We got all the straight-A students. What fun is that?”

  “You must have been left over or something. You know, all the classes were even except the smart one, so they just threw the last guy in there.”

  “I come way before you in the alphabet,” he says. “You should be in Mr. Blaine’s class.”

  “Because I’m smart?”