Billy Bob looked at Tom. “I’m sorry about this,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” Tom said. “Go. But let me know as soon as you know.”
Billy Bob nodded and followed Dr. Mazzocca into the ambulance.
Tom looked around for Coach Johnson. He wanted to ask him how he had been so certain that he and Jason weren’t roommates. He finally found him, standing a few yards away, surrounded by the media, TV lights shining on him.
He had one odd but comforting thought: Maybe the coach would mispronounce Jason’s name on TV.
12
There were people everywhere on the field as the ambulance pulled away. David Teel appeared at Tom’s shoulder. Like the reporters now surrounding Coach Johnson, he had apparently come down from the press box as soon as the game ended.
“I saw you trying to talk to him,” he said. “Was he conscious?”
Tom nodded. “Yes. Talking. Asked if we won.”
Teel took a deep breath and put his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “That’s very good news. He’s probably got a concussion of some kind—almost impossible to avoid if you get hit that hard—but if he knew what was going on, that probably means it isn’t too serious.”
“Why’d they take him out in an ambulance, then?” Tom asked.
“Precaution,” Teel said. “Nowadays they’d always rather be too careful than not careful enough. You wouldn’t want to get him in the locker room and have him go into convulsion or something there. Better in the hospital.”
Tom understood. Or thought he did. He was tempted to tell Teel about Coach Johnson’s roommate crack but figured this wasn’t the time or place.
He was starting to ask another question when he heard Coach Cruikshank’s voice: “All players to the locker room—now! Come on, guys, let’s get inside.”
Most of the reporters were still surrounding Coach Johnson, but a few were trying to talk to players. Of course the players they wanted to talk to most—Billy Bob and Jason—were in the ambulance.
“Call me in the morning,” Teel said quietly, giving Tom a quick handshake. “If there’s any news on Jason tonight, text me.”
Tom nodded, remembering that he needed to call the Roddins as soon as he got his hands on his phone in the locker room. He had no idea how long it would be before the doctor would call. He followed his teammates in the direction of the locker room. En route, they rubbed shoulders with a number of the DeMatha players. They hadn’t left the field yet either. There were handshakes and hugs as the players from the two teams crossed paths.
“Keep moving, guys,” Tom heard one of the coaches say as he shook hands with Phil Dawson.
Dawson had been in the seven-on-seven camp the previous summer with Tom and Jason, and the three had become friends. He was a quarterback and had elected to stay close to home—he was from Washington, D.C.—and was listed as DeMatha’s number three quarterback, meaning he’d been the backup with Joey Wootten injured during the game that night. Tom and Jason hadn’t been able to find him pregame because the coaches were zealous about keeping the players on their side of the field.
“Hey, how’s Jason?” Phil said, running up to Tom, hand extended, dispensing with any greeting.
“Conscious. Talking. Think he’s okay.”
Phil blew air out of his mouth in relief. “That was scary. He made an amazing play, though.”
“Yeah, he did.”
“Hey, I saw the roster. You’re listed as a receiver, and he’s listed as a QB. What’s that about?”
“Long story,” Tom said. He was going to elaborate when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Come on, Jefferson,” Coach Reilly said. “Locker room.”
Tom shook hands with Phil again.
“Take care,” Phil said.
“Will do,” Tom replied.
He’d dropped behind his teammates, so he picked up the pace to a fast trot. He realized he was sweating profusely. The evening was warm, but he suspected the weather had little to do with it.
* * *
Once they were all inside the locker room, Coach Cruikshank told them that Coach Johnson would be in very soon and they could start getting out of uniform but should not hit the showers yet. As if on cue, Coach Johnson walked through the door and to the front of the room. There was a slightly raised platform in front of the blackboard where he had written CHAMPIONS ALWAYS START 1–0 during his pregame speech.
He held his hands up for quiet and got it quickly.
“Okay, first and foremost—that was a great win,” he said. “It took everyone in uniform to beat that team—including someone who didn’t get in until the last play of the game.”
They all clapped and cheered with enthusiasm, except perhaps for Tom, who couldn’t find it in him to cheer when—to him—the first and foremost thing should have been Jason’s condition.
“Second, speaking of the last play, I’m told Roddin is fine. He’s talking, he knows where he is and what happened. So that’s good news.”
More clapping and cheering.
“Way to go, Jason!” someone yelled.
Tom turned and saw it was Anthony.
Coach Johnson signaled for quiet again. This was his show.
“We beat a good team tonight—a very good team. But, fellas, if we want to have a chance to play for the state championship this year and if we’re going to win it, we’re going to have to improve a lot going forward. If their quarterback had played tonight, I’m not sure what would have happened—although I do have a lot of faith in our defense. You guys were great!”
Again, clapping and cheering.
He then handed out three game balls, all to players on the defense. Finally, he held up one last ball: “This one’s for Roddin. With luck, we’ll give it to him at practice on Monday.”
One last round of clapping and cheering. Tom couldn’t help but notice that there was no talk of a game ball for Billy Bob, who had come in at quarterback and turned the game around.
The postgame pep rally was over.
“Hey, have you called Jason’s parents yet?” It was Anthony.
“Oh God, I forgot, thanks,” Tom said.
He walked to his locker and pulled out his phone. He needed to walk outside to get cell service, but he knew it would be a madhouse out there.
“Back door,” Anthony said, reading his mind. “Just stick a towel in the door so it doesn’t lock on you.”
Good thought. The back door led to a small garden area where players relaxed when the weather was good. It was surrounded by a wall, so the only way to get to it was through the locker room’s back door.
He grabbed a towel and walked through the lounge where they had met with Teel and Robinson a few hours earlier. He pushed outside and stuck the towel in the door behind him. Fortunately, he was alone in the garden.
Mr. Roddin answered on the first ring. “Tom, how badly was he hurt?” he asked instantly. “We’ve been trying to call and text his number and yours for twenty minutes.”
Tom hadn’t even looked for voicemails or texts when he turned his phone on.
“Sorry, it’s been crazy here,” he said. “Jason is fine.” He knew that was the headline. He could explain the rest once he had relieved Mr. Roddin’s concerns as best he could.
He walked Jason’s dad through everything that had happened. He had to repeat his brief conversation with Jason three times, no doubt because Mr. Roddin wanted to be sure about his son’s condition.
“I asked the doctor to call you as soon as he knew more,” Tom said. “I gave him your numbers—home and cell.”
“Do you think we need to come down there?” Mr. Roddin asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” Tom answered. “He could be back in his dorm room later tonight. I think you should wait and talk to the doctor and then—”
Tom heard the door being pushed open.
Coach Reilly walked outside. “Jefferson, what the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“One second,” Tom said to Mr.
Roddin. Then, to Coach Reilly he said, “I’m talking to Jason’s dad. Updating him—”
“Let the doctor do that,” Coach Reilly said sharply. “That’s not your job. Get back inside—now.”
Tom was truly puzzled. Why in the world would Coach Reilly have trouble with him talking to Mr. Roddin?
“Coach, Jason’s my best friend—”
Coach Reilly walked over and before Tom knew what was happening, grabbed the phone from his hands. “Mr. Roddin, this is Coach Reilly at TGP. We think your son is going to be just fine. He made a great play at the end of the game. Our team doctor, Gus Mazzocca, is with him. I’m sure he’ll be in touch with you very soon. Tom needs to go now—we have a team meeting.” He listened for a second and nodded. “Like I said, Dr. Mazzocca will answer all those questions for you. Good to talk to you.” He then hit the hang-up button and flipped the phone back to Tom. “When I tell you to hang up a call, you hang up, Jefferson,” he said. “I don’t know how you were raised, but when an authority figure gives you an order, you follow it. If you ever want to see the field around here, you better learn that.”
With that, he turned, walked inside, and pulled the towel out of the door. Tom had to dive for the handle to keep from being locked out. He truly hated Coach Reilly.
Even more than he hated Thomas Gatch Prep School.
* * *
An hour later, Tom and Anthony were walking back to the dorm when a call from an unidentified number lit up Tom’s phone.
“Hello?” he said after hitting the button to answer.
It was Billy Bob.
“What’s the word?” Tom asked.
“Looks like he’s fine,” Billy Bob said. “They’re calling it a mild concussion—whatever that means. They’re going to keep him overnight, which I guess is standard procedure with any concussion. If he’s okay in the morning, they’ll release him.”
“Then what?” Tom asked—as if Billy Bob were a doctor.
“Apparently there’s a state-mandated concussion protocol he has to go through before he can get back on the field. Doctors have to check him out again twenty-four hours after he leaves the hospital and then again on Monday. If he’s got no symptoms—zero—he can go back to practice. If he has any symptoms, they keep checking him every day until they’re all gone. He’s got to pass a bunch of tests relating to how he reacts to light and to movement and to whether he has any pain at all.”
“Where are you?” Tom asked. It sounded like Billy Bob was in a car.
“I’m with Dr. Mazzocca. His wife brought their car, and they’re giving me a ride back to campus. He let me use his phone. He already spoke with Mr. Roddin to explain things, and then they let Jason talk to both his parents.”
“Okay,” Tom said. “How’d he seem?”
“Really pretty much like himself. He’s got a headache, but nothing more. He was hungry, which they said was a good sign.” He paused. “Hey, I’m sorry they didn’t let you go with him. They should have.”
“Yeah, I know. We can talk about that more later.”
“Right. I should be back in twenty minutes. Gotta hit the locker room real quick.”
“Come to our room when you can,” Tom said.
“Will do.” Billy Bob clicked off.
Tom filled Anthony in, and the two of them walked back to the room. The dorm was quiet. A lot of the older students had left for the weekend. Others had gone out after the game. They walked slowly up the stairs.
Back in the room, they stretched out on their beds and tried to rest for a bit. But after a while they both agreed they were too worked up to nap.
Tom told Anthony about the scene with Coach Reilly.
Anthony said he wasn’t surprised, although he hadn’t dealt with Reilly much. He actually liked his position coach, Bill Ogden—a former NFL lineman who, unlike a lot of the coaches, didn’t seem to have anything to prove. He had played at Virginia before spending eight years in the NFL and then settling in Charlottesville. Anthony said it was pretty clear he didn’t have to work, because he’d made a good deal of money in the NFL, but coached just for the fun of it.
The older players had explained to the younger ones that Coach Ogden had been on Mike London’s staff at Virginia and, when London had been fired, Ogden was one of the coaches Bronco Mendenhall, the new coach, had invited to stay on staff. He’d turned it down.
“He hated recruiting,” Anthony told Tom. “He just likes to coach.”
Anthony thought that made Coach Ogden stand apart from most of the other coaches, all of whom appeared to aspire to coaching in college—or the NFL—someday. He was one of the four African American coaches among the twelve assistants.
“It’s interesting,” Anthony said. “The guys who are ex-players take a totally different approach than the ones who didn’t play past high school.”
“What do you mean?” Tom said.
“Well, I don’t think Coach Ogden would ever remind anyone that he’s an authority figure. He wouldn’t need to.”
“Being, like, six foot six and three hundred fifty pounds might have something to do with that,” Tom said, laughing.
“Yeah, but it’s more than that.”
Tom nodded. “Reilly’s small and was probably slow.”
“Yeah, because all white guys are slow, right?” Anthony said, grinning.
“Except Jason—”
The door burst open and Billy Bob, his hair wet from the showers, walked in brandishing his phone as if it held a secret.
“Just got a text from Teel,” he said, a little out of breath since he’d apparently run up the stairs. “He says Robinson’s going to request an interview tomorrow with the three of us since we’re Jason’s best friends and Robinson’s going to do a story on the game’s two unlikely heroes.”
“You and Jason,” Tom said.
Billy Bob nodded.
“Why Robinson and not Teel?” Anthony asked—the same question Tom was about to ask.
“Apparently the coaches here don’t like Teel very much. He wrote a story last year saying TGP shouldn’t be allowed to play for the state championship.”
Tom knew what that was about: The state high school association had voted last winter to let TGP join the statewide prep school conference. That would make the Patriots eligible to play for Virginia state championships. Other high schools had fought the move on the grounds that TGP was a national school with only a handful of students from Virginia. The high school board had apparently gone along with the proposal to let TGP play because its members knew the school would sell a lot of tickets during the playoffs—and all that revenue went to the state.
“So Robinson will make the request?”
“Yes. Then he’ll pick us up and take us somewhere off campus, which is allowable on a Saturday.”
“Good,” Tom said. “This is too important to let go.”
Billy Bob smiled. “You angling for my job, Jefferson?”
“That a problem?” Tom said.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
They high-fived and Anthony said, “Wonder if we can order a pizza at this hour.”
That sounded to Tom like a great idea.
13
If anyone at the school was suspicious about Tom Robinson’s motives when he requested an interview with Tom Jefferson, Anthony Ames, and Billy Bob Anderson, they didn’t show it.
All three received a text midmorning from Ed Seaman, head of the school’s communications office.
Mr. Seaman had spoken to the football players on the second day of practice, explaining to them that all requests for interviews had to be cleared by him. “If someone from your hometown paper calls, that’s fine—but send him to me first,” Mr. Seaman had said. “I will check with your position coach to make sure your academic standing is such that you can do an interview and then we’ll set it up.”
It was too soon for any of the players to have any serious academic issues, and apparently Robinson’s explanation that he wanted to t
alk to Billy Bob (as not only Jason’s roommate but also the quarterback who had led both of TGP’s touchdown drives), Tom (as Jason’s best friend from New York), and Anthony (as Tom’s roommate and thus Jason’s friend) had worked with Mr. Seaman.
“Mr. Robinson will pick the three of you up in front of the locker room at noon,” Mr. Seaman had written. “He has requested taking you off campus for lunch. He is to have you back here by two o’clock latest. Any problems, contact me.”
Noon was the exact time that Jason was to be discharged from the hospital. Tom knew this because he’d gotten a phone call early that morning from Mr. Roddin, telling him that he and Mrs. Roddin were flying to Richmond. There, they would rent a car and make the drive to the hospital. If all went well, they’d be there well before noon and would be able to spend some time with Jason before he was discharged.
Tom reported this news to Billy Bob and Anthony as they walked from the dorm to the locker room. It was a spectacular morning, the first one since they’d arrived that wasn’t so humid that the air felt too heavy to be moved aside by the simple act of walking.
“This place is kind of pretty when you ain’t weighed down by ninety-degree heat and humidity,” Billy Bob said. “Reminds me of Gadsden—in March.”
Tom Robinson was sitting on one of the benches outside the locker room waiting for them when they arrived. They were five minutes early.
“Reporter’s credo,” he said, answering the question before they asked it. “Never make a source wait.”
“Yeah, we’re pretty tough when it comes to punctuality,” Tom said, laughing.
They walked to the coaches’ parking lot in the back of the building. The only car there was parked in the spot closest to the door, reserved for Bill Stiller, TGP’s athletic director.
“Why in the world would Mr. Stiller be in this morning?” Anthony wondered.
“He’s not in,” Billy Bob said. “Someone just parked in his spot.”
“That would be me,” Robinson said, chirping open the doors with his key.
Backfield Boys Page 10
