by Tim Green
Ty understood, but knowing something and doing it, especially in football, were two very different things. Coach V put them into a white chalk circle he called "the pit." The wide receivers and defensive backs faced off, one on one, to see which one could smash the other outside of the circle.
When Ty got to the front of the receivers' line, Calvin West pushed his way to the front of the defensive backs' line and entered the circle. Ty got down into a three-point stance, the way he'd seen the other receivers do. Calvin West bent his knees and lowered his shoulder pads, holding his gloved hands out in front of him and flexing them. Coach V blew the whistle. Ty launched forward.
Calvin dipped his head and hit Ty up under the chin, knocking him back. At the same instant, he jammed his hands into Ty's chest, lifting him up and driving him back. Before Ty knew it, he'd been blown outside the circle, but Calvin kept driving him until Ty tripped over a teammate and landed flat on his back with a thud that cost him his breath. Calvin popped up and stood over him, howling with a war cry. Other players hooted and cheered and slapped Calvin on the back, and after his whistle sounded, even Coach V praised Ty's enemy.
"That's the way it's done!" Coach V shouted. "Next two, up!"
The drill kept going and no one paid attention to Ty as he slowly rose to his feet.
At the end of practice the starting offense squared off against the starting defense to scrimmage, the closest thing to a real game the players would get in practice. Ty wanted to impress Coach V, and when the first play called in the huddle was a long pass, he thought he'd get his chance. When he jogged out to the Z position, Calvin West moved directly opposite him, smirking and flexing his fingers.
"Here we go, Turd Man," Calvin said under his breath. "I'm tearing you up twenty-four seven."
Ty thought about the move he'd put on Calvin in the passing scrimmage at the beginning of the summer.
"Bring it," Ty said, lowering his hips and digging his cleats into the turf for good footing.
At the snap of the ball, Ty darted one way, then the other. He flew by Calvin, grinning to himself until he felt something clip the back of his heels. Down he went again. Calvin West stood above him, grinning and bouncing on the balls of his feet until he dashed away.
The whistle blew the play dead. When Ty got flattened, Michael Poyer had thrown a short swing pass to the running back on the other side of the field. Ty struggled to his feet, his head ringing.
"Where were you on the go route, Lewis?" Coach V shouted as he approached the huddle.
"He knocked me down, Coach," Ty said.
"Well, don't let him."
"Didn't you see what he did?" Ty asked.
"You think I've got eleven sets of eyes?" Coach V asked.
"He tripped me," Ty said.
Coach V shot a glance over at the defense. Calvin West held up his hands and shrugged. "Feet got tangled, Coach."
Ty said, "That's not--"
"Enough," Coach V shouted. "Next play. Let's go. We're wasting time. Get out into the pattern, Lewis. All the speed in the world doesn't do any good if you can't get downfield."
Every play Calvin West lined up in front of Ty, and every play he did something cheap: tripping, holding, kicking, even diving at the back of his legs from behind. Calvin knew just when to do his dirty tricks, how not to get caught, and how to make Ty look useless. By the end of practice, Ty had tears of rage in his eyes. He kept lining up, though, telling himself that Calvin would get tired of it sometime, but he never did.
By Friday, a handful of teammates who weren't buddies with Calvin let Ty into their online fantasy league. Charlotte told him he could use the outdated computer in her room. Now he could truthfully ask Thane for the information Lucy and Uncle Gus wanted. Uncle Gus cut the Jets injury report out of the morning paper at the breakfast table and gave it to Ty for a guide.
"You get the real story on these guys," Uncle Gus said. "Especially Jones, the running back. It says he's questionable with a bad knee. That's a fifty percent chance he'll play. We need to know for certain one way or the other."
As far as Ty's real team went, he was ready to quit. Bruises, welts, and swollen knots of flesh covered his legs, arms, and hands. While he caught an occasional pass, more times than not he found himself the subject of Coach V's ranting for not getting downfield into the pass pattern. Only once did Coach V ream out Calvin West for a blatant pass interference, and even then, Calvin didn't seem disturbed. He only nodded his head and put a sorry look on his face that evaporated the instant Coach V turned away.
But the reason Ty thought seriously about quitting before Friday's practice wasn't the bumps and bruises. It was because Thane was going to pick him up from practice to take him to dinner, and Ty was afraid his older brother would see him taking a licking from Calvin West.
As practice progressed, Ty kept an eye on the street. When Thane's Escalade pulled up, Ty's stomach knotted up tight. Thane didn't get out, but the driver's side window rolled down and he smiled and gave Ty a thumbs-up. Ty gave him a quick wave and got back to business.
On passing plays, he used his most elusive moves. On run plays, he hit Calvin as hard as he possibly could, blocking with a ferocity that often kept Calvin away from the play, but never ended without Ty on the receiving end of some kind of cheap shot, often after the whistle had blown the play dead and the contact was supposed to have stopped. Finally, Coach V lined them up for conditioning. In the ten wind sprints across the width of the field, Ty outran everyone. Coach V praised him, but his voice lacked the luster it once had when he talked about Ty's speed.
Ty jogged inside and changed quickly. Thane had rolled up the window to talk on the phone, but when Ty opened the passenger door, he said a quick good-bye and snapped the phone shut.
Thane hugged him and kissed the top of Ty's head. "What do you say? Barelli's?"
"The best sauce I think I ever ate," Ty said, reaching for the stereo controls.
"This Friday night thing is going to work out great," Thane said. "When you're in the NFL, the weekend starts Monday, so it's not like I'm going out on the town or anything on a Friday. It's a good time to catch up. How's school?"
"Same as always," Ty said, turning the music up.
They listened to Everlast until the end of the song, then Thane reached over and turned the volume way down.
"Hey," he said, glancing over. "I want to talk about football."
"You guys are playing the Lions Sunday, right?" Ty asked.
Thane shook his head. "Your football."
Ty looked out the window. "Not much to talk about. I'm learning the plays."
"I'm sitting here, thinking I want to go punch your coach in the face," Thane said, his face tight and turning color.
"What do you mean?" Ty asked.
"Who's that kid?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
"WHAT KID?" TY ASKED.
"You know. The kid with the cheap shots every play."
"It's football. It's rough, right?" Ty said. "You say that."
"Don't worry," Thane said, glancing over at him.
"I'm not going to throttle some twelve-year-old, even though I'd like to, but I want to know what's up."
"Calvin West. We don't like each other," Ty said, biting into his lower lip and concentrating on the garbage truck ahead of them.
"That crap isn't right," Thane said, "and I'm going to fix it."
"You never had that?" Ty asked. "You told me they were mean to you. Kids. Dumping your books and stuff."
Thane clenched his teeth and nodded. "That's different. That was me."
"Who fixed it for you?" Ty asked.
"Myself."
"So?" Ty said.
Thane stamped on the gas. The big Escalade roared and shot out around the garbage truck, passing it before Thane slowed back down and looked over at Ty.
"Then you stalk him."
"What's that?"
"A bully is a bully," Thane said. "In middle school or the NFL. Sometimes a guy's go
t it in for you, or he wants to make a name. You stalk him. He'll stop."
"But what's stalking?"
A mean smile curled up the corners of Thane's lips and his eyes narrowed. "Everywhere he goes? You get him. You don't worry about the play. You hunt him down. You smash him. You chop block him. You leg whip him. If he goes down, you pound him. You never let up. From the snap of the ball to the whistle. It's brutal and it's relentless. That's stalking."
"What if I'm supposed to run a pattern?" Ty asked.
"I didn't see you getting into the pattern out there just now," Thane said. "You fix this first. If you don't, Ty, I will. I'm not going to let that happen to you."
"I'll fix it," Ty said.
"Good."
"Will you show me some things?" Ty asked.
"Sure," Thane said. "We'll go by the facility and I can show you on the blocking dummies. It's on the way to Barelli's anyway."
The Jets' New Jersey training facility was so new that Ty could smell the paint on the walls as they walked down the hallway toward the locker room. Dark green carpet covered the floors. Each wide locker held dozens of pairs of shoes and the player's assemblage of pads as well as his helmet. In front of each one rested a wooden stool. Thane wanted to change into some workout clothes to show Ty his tricks, so they stopped at his locker. Quiet filled the vast room, but on the far wall Ty could see through the glass partition into a room full of equipment where a handful of players rested on tables.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Training room," Thane said, pulling on a pair of shorts and sitting down to lace up a pair of cleats he'd removed from the bottom of his locker.
"What are they training for?" Ty asked.
"No," Thane said with a small laugh. "They're hurt. Injured guys getting treatment from the team trainers. Trying to get better."
The image of Lucy flashed into Ty's mind, and he asked, "Is Jones in there?"
"I doubt it," Thane said, craning his neck and peering into the room.
"I read he was hurt," Ty said.
Thane snorted and waved his hand in the air. "He's fine."
"So, he'll play?"
"For sure," Thane said. "He's a little bruised up, that's all. He'll take some aspirin."
"Otherwise, he'd be in here now?" Ty asked.
"You got it. When you're hurt, your only job is to get well," Thane said, glancing into the room. "A couple of those guys are on Injured Reserve, out for the season. They got hurt in training camp. The others are trying to get ready for the Lions."
"And they have to stay here?" Ty asked.
"The trainers will work with these guys almost twenty-four hours a day to get them back on the field," Thane said. "There's all kinds of things you can do. Ice. Ultrasound. Electronic stimulation. Stuff that helps speed up the healing process. It works, too. You want to see?"
"Sure," Ty said.
Thane tied his shoes tight and led Ty across the locker room and into the training room. A dozen padded tables lined each wall. At one end, stainless steel tubs rested alongside a bubbling tile hot tub big enough for twenty people. At the other end, the trainers' offices stood beside a doctor's examination room that had its own X-ray machine. Some players sat on their tables loaded down with ice bags on their necks, shoulders, knees, or ankles, their bare feet sticking out from under white towels. Others lay on their stomachs with rubber pads stuck to their limbs and wires running between the pads and small machines that looked like mini-microwaves on wheels.
Most of the players wore headsets and bobbed their heads to music. One had a book, and Ty asked Thane his name.
"Conrad Rommel," Thane said. "Meanest offensive lineman in the game. He likes Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities and stuff."
"The guys don't give him crap?" Ty asked, staring across the locker room at the enormous player.
Rommel had a nose like a small lightbulb and a soft round face with a little smile. His tufted brown hair was nearly gone, and except for the barrel chest and arms that looked like gallon jugs of milk, he might have been an English teacher or an accountant.
"He's pretty mean," Thane said.
"He looks nice."
"Oh, he's nice off the field," Thane said, and as if to prove it he waved. "Hey, Conrad."
Conrad looked up from a frayed paperback book, adjusted his towel, and grinned at Thane, waving back before he returned to his book.
"The best players are," Thane said. "But when they play, they flip the switch."
"Flip the switch?"
"Mad-dog mean," Thane said. "That's how you've got to play. Everyone gets mad--it's just what you do with it. The meanest players store it up. Someone cuts them off in traffic, they smile. Neighbor's dog craps on his lawn? No big deal. Hubcaps get stolen? You get some more.
"Yeah, but then they get out onto the field and it all comes out. They flip the switch and, man, are they mean."
"Are you?" Ty asked.
Thane smiled at him and angled his head toward the door. "Some people say that. Come on, I'll show you some tricks and then you can flip the switch on that goofball Calvin Weasel."
"It's Calvin West."
"Calvin the Weasel to me."
"You really have tricks?" Ty asked.
"And they never fail. Come on. You'll see."
CHAPTER THIRTY
A BAND OF ORANGE glowed beneath the dark clouds over the far end of the practice fields. The scent of grass floated on a small breeze. The blue blocking dummies stood rigid and waiting like a row of perfect soldiers beneath one of the goalposts. Thane ambled up to the middle one and crouched down into his stance.
"The most important thing? Stay low," he said, then fired out, smacking the dummy with both hands, driving it so far back that the metal arm holding it disappeared into its piston and clanged like a bell.
"Wow," Ty said.
"You always have to have your pads lower than his," Thane said, softly karate-chopping the dummy to show Ty where to hit. "Low man wins. Your helmet, under his. Your shoulder pads, under his. The aim point for your hands is right here, in his chest. Try it."
"I don't have cleats or anything," Ty said.
"Don't worry. Just get a feel for it. Keep your head up and try to have your forehead hit him in the neck at the same time you strike with your hands."
"I thought you block with your shoulder," Ty said.
"That's the trick," Thane said. "Most receivers, they block with their shoulders. But if you watch the good linemen in the NFL, at a big college program? It's hat and hands."
"Hat?"
"Your helmet. The old-school coaches, they call it a hat."
"You hit with your helmet?" Ty asked.
"And keep your head up. Bull your neck."
Ty got into a stance and fired out, striking the bag with his hands and bumping his forehead on the pad. He saw stars, and the dummy rattled but barely moved.
"Not bad. Now, the other trick," Thane said, standing beside the next dummy in line and jabbing his finger into its chest. "You don't aim for here with your hands. You aim for here."
Thane waved his hand behind the dummy and patted the connection bar in the middle of its back.
"You don't explode into the man," he said. "You explode through him. Like he's made of Jell-O and you want your hands to make contact with his spine."
"Kind of gross."
"Mad-dog mean," Thane said, "that's what you've got to be."
Ty worked at it until the orange in the sky faded to deep purple, banging away at the dummy, staying low, firing through, hat and hands. Thane coached him on little details like taking a shorter first step, popping his hips, and grabbing his opponent's jersey after the initial hit.
"They'll never call holding if you keep your hands inside," Thane said, gripping Ty's T-shirt at the seam just in front of his armpits. "All this stuff is legal. You explode into the Weasel, get a grip on his jersey, and drive him all over the field. If he goes down, you get up quick and go at him again."
; "When he's down?" Ty asked.
"If the whistle hasn't blown?" Thane said with a crooked grin. "Bam. Right down on him. Full force. You drive him into the dirt."
Ty took a deep breath and nodded.
"It's all legal," Thane said. "The real tough guys? They don't have to cheat. They get it done before the whistle."
"I've blocked him, you know."
"I saw. Listen, you might not get him the first time," Thane said. "You might not get him the second time. But football's about--"
"Getting up," Ty said. "Keep going."
"He'll stop his crap," Thane said.
"What about after the whistle? What if he cheap shots me then?" Ty asked.
Thane shrugged and said, "Then you fight him. You hit him openhanded, right in the ear hole. That'll send a shock wave through him. Don't use a closed fist or you'll break your hand. But that's only if he starts it. If he does, then finish it. It's part of practice, not like punching someone in a game. You never do that."
Ty frowned but nodded his head that he understood.
Thane smiled at him and messed up his hair. "Don't worry. You'll be fine. Let's go get some veal chops."
"And apple crisp," Ty said, following his big brother, bouncing on his toes from excitement over his new football tricks and the thought of the delicious meal to come.
"With ice cream," Thane said.
"Two scoops," Ty said.
"Three."
They both laughed and went inside to the locker room so Thane could change back into his clothes. While he did that, Ty eyed the players in the training room, searching without success for even a hint of meanness in Conrad Rommel's face.
When their apple crisps were reduced to a sprinkling of crumbs in shallow puddles of melted ice cream, Ty took Uncle Gus's injury list from his pocket and smoothed it out on the tablecloth.
"What you got?" Thane asked, wiping his mouth on a napkin and leaning back in his chair.
"I'm in this fantasy league," Ty said, concentrating on the paper, afraid that if he looked his brother in the eye that Thane would see right through the scam.
"With the guys on my team. What I wanted to ask was if you'd give me the deal on these guys. My whole team is mostly Jets players, and those are the guys I want to put on my roster."
