Last Man Out

by Mike Lupica

  “I’m going for a walk,” Tommy said.

  “Where to?”

  “Don’t know. Just need to get some fresh air.”

  His mom fixed him with her eyes, looking at him like she wished she could just make everything better with a wave of a wand, like that witch from Em’s favorite show. “She’s just hurting,” his mom said.

  “I get that, Mom. I do.”

  He went out the back door. He really didn’t want to go for a walk; he never went for walks, unless he had somewhere to go. He just couldn’t stand being in the house for another minute.

  Tommy Gallagher didn’t want to have to worry about somebody else hurting, because he was still hurting too much himself.

  SEVENTEEN

  HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY LIKE girls’ soccer and still love football?” Tommy asked his dad.

  They were on the back porch. His dad had told him he’d try to get home in time to take Tommy to Rogers Park before dark, but Em’s soccer scrimmage had run long, and then he’d taken her for ice cream.

  “I never liked any kind of soccer when I was growing up,” his dad said. “When I was your age, all of us tough guys thought soccer was for guys who weren’t tough enough for football. I found out later how wrong I was about that.” He grinned. “And about a lot of other things, too.

  “But it doesn’t matter whether I like it or not,” he continued. “Because I love my daughter and she loves soccer. That’s more than enough for me.”

  They sat now and listened to the night sounds behind the house, watched fireflies light up the small backyard, in what Tommy’s dad always said was his favorite kind of fireworks display. Mom was inside reading. She always had a book going. As soon as she’d finish one, she’d start another.

  Em was up in her room, probably watching TV. Tommy knew how much he loved his sister. He knew she loved him back. But that didn’t change the fact that they were brother and sister. So they got on each other’s nerves sometimes, maybe even a lot of the time. It went both ways, though. Em could always give as good as she got.

  “I can’t believe you watched a scrimmage tonight,” Tommy said. “Sometimes I have a hard time paying attention even when the games count. Probably because I lose interest if Em doesn’t have the ball.”

  “If it matters to her, it matters to me.”

  “But, come on, Dad. Not like football matters to you.”

  “Yes, exactly like that. It’s why I keep trying to learn as much about the game as I can. Hey, tonight I even spotted an offside before one of the coaches blew her whistle.”

  “A gold star for you!” Tommy said, grinning.

  They both reached over for their lemonades at the same time. Tommy thought there were more fireflies than usual tonight. Tommy leaned back in his chair, happy. He loved it when it was just the two of them out here.

  “So you’re telling me,” Tommy said, not giving it up, “that you like watching Em play soccer as much as you like watching me play football?”

  “You got it.”

  “And you think soccer is as important to Em as football is to me?”

  “I do.”

  It actually stopped him for a second. This wasn’t about how much his dad loved Em. Tommy knew how much he loved her, saw it in his face when his dad looked at Em. Tommy didn’t think his dad loved him more because he’d been a football player, too. But when they were out on the field together, working on Tommy’s game, Tommy could see how much football his dad had in him. No way he could feel the same way watching a bunch of girls run around kicking a ball.

  His dad looked straight at him. “You’ll understand when you’re a dad.”

  “Oh, one of those.”

  “One of those,” his dad said. “You want to know the truth? I wouldn’t have been smart enough to be a good soccer player. Or fast enough. I was good at one thing: getting to the guy with the ball, even if it took me a wee bit longer than some of the other guys.”

  “What about all the strategy you’ve taught me?” Tommy said to his dad.

  “I’ve learned that since I stopped playing,” he said. “I’ve probably taught myself as much about football as an adult as I have about soccer. I would’ve done the same if one of you had taken up piano. Or skateboarding, not that I’m so in love with those lunatic skateboarders flying through the air. I got over that after trying it a bit as a kid.”

  “Dad,” Tommy said, “you know more about football than the announcers.”

  “Nah,” he said. “You give me too much credit. In a lot of ways, I’m still the guy charging into the other team’s backfield. I just run into burning buildings now.” Then he tipped his chair back, as if he wanted to see all the stars in the night sky. “Don’t get me wrong. I love watching you play with all my heart. I’ve told you before, it’s like watching a better version of myself, making plays I never could.”

  Tommy looked over and saw his dad smiling at the night sky.

  “But, good Lord, I do love watching your sister play,” he said.

  His dad kept smiling, as if he could see Em running across that sky.

  “Keep an eye on that girl,” he said. “She’s like your mother.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means she’s as tough as either one of us, boyo.”

  EIGHTEEN

  HE JUST WANTED TO WATCH football, alone, on Sunday, starting with the one o’clock games even though the Pats weren’t playing until 4:15.

  But his mom told him after church that he needed to go do something with his friends, get out of the house today for longer than it took to walk around the block.

  “So you’re kicking me out of the house,” he said to her.

  She smiled. “Pretty much.”

  “What are you and Em going to do?”

  “Go shopping at the Shops.”

  The place used to be called the Chestnut Hill Mall, over on Route 9. But last year people had started calling it the Shops.

  “Em’s up for going shopping?” Tommy said.

  “Not even a little bit.”

  “So you’re kicking her out of the house, too,” he said. “You’re just going with her.”

  “Pretty much,” his mom said.

  Tommy thought about giving Greck or Nick a call. But then he remembered Mike Fallon had asked for his phone number the other day after practice, even though they’d never hung out outside of school or football. For some reason, Tommy decided to call him instead. Maybe he just wanted to be around someone who didn’t know him so well, considering how weird Greck and Nick had been acting around him lately.

  “Hey,” Mike said.

  “Hey.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Just hangin’.”

  There was brief silence until Mike said, “That was a tough one yesterday.”

  “Tell me about it,” Tommy said. “You know how they talk about guys willing to run through a wall in sports? I wanted to punch one when I got home.”

  “I could tell.”

  Another pause.

  “My dad just told me I can’t watch football all day,” Mike said. “Apparently there’s a world outside with plenty to do besides watch football.”

  “My mom told me the same. You got any ideas, at least until the Pats play?”

  “Actually,” Mike said, “I do.”

  • • •

  It didn’t take long for Mike to get to Tommy’s house on his bike. It turned out he didn’t live that far away. Tommy hadn’t known, but then, he didn’t know a whole lot about Mike in general. Tommy knew he’d grown up in Los Angeles. Mike said he rooted for the San Diego Chargers, because they were the closest team to L.A. Tommy did know one thing for sure, though—Mike got after it in football as much as anybody on the Bears. They weren’t boys yet, but that was enough for him to earn Tommy’s respect.

 
“Am I allowed to ask where we’re going?” Tommy said when he got his own bike out of the garage.

  “Yeah,” Mike said. “We’re going to Wirth Park.”

  Tommy actually knew about Wirth Park, even though he’d never been there, because his dad had told him a little about it. It had been the first skateboard destination in Boston, and his dad used to go there when he was a kid with his buddies and their old boards with their clunky wheels. The city had built a basic bowl, with ramps and jumps and even some stairs. But even by the time his dad was Tommy’s age, skateboarding hadn’t been very popular in their town. Still wasn’t.

  “It felt like a fad around here,” his dad had told him one time, “like hula hoops.”

  Before long hardly anybody was going to Wirth Park for skateboarding, the bowl tucked back into a far corner of the property. Most people just went to Wirth Park to hike the hills and trails of what had been a fort during the Revolutionary War days.

  When they stopped their bikes at the top of the hill overlooking the empty skateboard bowl, Mike reached into the basket behind him and pulled out a fancy-looking board that had “Warrior” written on top.

  Tommy looked at it and said, “No way.”

  “Way,” Mike said. “My way.”

  “Never had any interest, even though my dad did it a little when he was a kid,” Tommy said. “My dad said it was like snowboarding in the winter, just with much harder landings.”

  “That’s only if you don’t know how,” Mike said.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “And you’re telling me you never wanted to learn?”

  “I’ve never really known anyone who skateboards,” Tommy said. “So I never had much interest.”

  “Well,” Mike said, “now you’ve got a friend who does. Give it a shot?”

  Tommy looked at the red board, then down at the bowl, and then back at Mike.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “C’mon, it’ll be fun,” Mike said. “I’ll teach you.”

  “How about this?” Tommy said. “I’ll watch you.”

  Mike ignored him, and just started walking down the hill.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  Tommy didn’t see as how he had any choice. So he did as he was told and followed Mike down the hill and into the old bowl. They were down in its lowest point, the walls looking even steeper down here than they had from up at the top of the hill. Like they were closing in on Tommy Gallagher.

  All he’d wanted to do this afternoon was the same thing he always did on Sundays during the season: watch football. But before long he was watching Mike do crazy things on his board, launching himself in the air, twisting his body around the way daredevils did on their snowboards in the Winter Olympics, sometimes yelling his head off as he did. Tommy kept expecting Mike to go one way and his board to go another. It never happened. Every time he’d land, Tommy found himself holding his breath. But Mike nailed every single one, like it was as easy as breathing.

  Mike was showing off for an audience of one, they both knew it, but he was having mad fun, too. Tommy couldn’t believe the way he was able to control his board and his body.

  “So,” Mike said when he finished, not even sweating, “what’d you think?”

  “That you’re insane?”

  Mike grinned, and then handed the board to Tommy. “Now it’s your turn,” he said.

  Tommy shook his head. But Mike was nodding his at the same time.

  “You’re gonna love it.”

  “Watching is enough for me.”

  Mike tilted his head to the side and raised his eyebrows. “You’re not afraid, are you?” he said. He was still grinning as he said it, but to Tommy it came out sounding like a challenge.

  That was all it took. Mike knew exactly what he was doing.

  “I’m not afraid of anything,” Patrick Gallagher’s son said.

  NINETEEN

  HE WAS SCARED, NOT THAT he was going to admit that to Mike. But Mike had been right about one thing.

  It was fun.

  Maybe because it was scary.

  “It’s a competition, just like football,” Mike said. “But it’s the kind of competition where it’s you against yourself.”

  “And gravity!” Tommy said.

  “Well, there is that,” Mike said. “You get to be a wild man here, just without hitting anybody or anybody hitting you.”

  “I’m just trying not to hit cement.”

  Mike had told him to think of riding a skateboard like riding a bike.

  “Uh, you can check me on this,” Tommy said, “but bikes have handles.”

  “You still need strong legs and balance, and I’ve already played enough football with you to know that you’ve got both,” Mike said. “Just set yourself on the board the way you set yourself to make a tackle.”

  Mike showed him how to use his toes and heels to guide the board, and control it so he could make simple changes of direction. He showed Tommy how to get a good running start, dragging the back end of the board beside him, then jumping on.

  “Baby steps,” Mike said. “You don’t have to go fast at the start, just straight. And make sure you stay on.”

  After Tommy lost his balance and ended up landing—hard—on his butt, he looked up at Mike and said, “You said I was competing against myself. But I feel like it’s me against the board right now.”

  “You’re just starting to learn,” Mike said. “But you’re getting the hang of it.”

  “I’m getting skinned knees, is what I’m getting.”

  But he was getting it. When he would get knocked down, he’d get right back up, the way he did in football. He lost track of time, not even checking his phone to see how close they were to the kickoff of the Pats game. He was just focused on one thing: getting better. Apparently it didn’t matter which sport he was playing for that to be the case.

  As Tommy kept picking up the basics, Mike started showing him a few harder moves, all while talking about famous skateboarders like Tony Hawk, who Mike said was like the Tom Brady of vertical skateboarders.

  Tommy wasn’t really picking up on all the technical expressions Mike was using about half-pipes and quarter-pipes and roll-ins. The main thing was, he felt himself improving as Mike started to dial things up for him, showing him how to use the walls on the lower part of the bowl, sending him down a small flight of steps for the first time, finally telling him it was time to head down the smallest ramp and at least “sky” a little bit.

  “I’m not ready,” Tommy said.

  “An hour ago you weren’t ready. Now you are.”

  Tommy took a deep breath, felt himself picking up speed even on what he could see was the smallest ramp out there, took off, arms stretched out to the sides.

  But he blew the landing, the board tilted to one side, and this time he skinned both an elbow and a knee. He got right back up, though, same as he would’ve on the football field.

  The next time Tommy landed solidly. He let out a big ol’ whoop.

  Mike pointed at him, extending both of his index fingers, and said, “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”

  Tommy didn’t try anything too fancy, but the more he practiced, the more confident he became. Soon he was able to control his speed and direction, doing his best to avoid falling off the board, not just because he was tired of skinning his elbows and knees, but because he was competing against himself now. Challenging himself the way Mike had challenged him to get on the board in the first place.

  And the more he did it, the less afraid he got. There was still fear, especially when he was in the air. But he was coming to understand that fear was a part of the thrill.

  “I think I could get to like this,” Tommy said when they both took a break. “But I can see how you need to be careful.”

  “Who said anything abou
t being careful?” Mike said, flashing a smile. “You got potential, man. Can’t worry about being too careful.”

  Tommy knew he wasn’t going to learn everything he wanted to learn in one day, not even close. But he was determined to learn as much as he could in one session.

  Mike took him halfway up the hill, and showed him a basic twist, Mike jumping down off a little mound and landing in the grass. One time Mike lost his balance and fell, before quickly rolling back up to his feet.

  Tommy said, “That would definitely not have ended well in the bowl.”

  “It’s why you practice,” Mike said. “They’re not risks if you know what you’re doing.”

  “You’ve been doing this your whole life,” Tommy said. “I’ve been doing it for an hour.”

  “Only one thing to do, then: Keep at it so you can keep up!”

  Tommy practiced in the grass for a few minutes, then went back down into the bowl, got back on the board, and came off the small ramp this time and managed to get himself turned around in the air so he was facing where Mike was standing when he came down. And totally nailed the landing this time. Now he was the one pointing at Mike and yelling, “Oh yeah!”

  “Don’t want to burst your bubble,” Mike said. “But these ramps and roll-ins here don’t even compare with the street parks you get in other places.”

  “Street parks? Like in a real street?”

  “No, but they want you to feel that way,” Mike said. “More stairs, railings, even benches you fly over, with real half-pipes and quarter-pipes. This place here is like a baby pool. Like something out of the skateboarding dark ages.”

  “Okay,” Tommy said. “What’s next, the X Games?”

  “Follow me,” Mike said.

  They walked back up the hill and along the stream that ran through Wirth Park and spilled into the Charles River. Then they were winding around, and walking up another small hill, until Mike said, “Okay, we’re here.”