Last Man Out

by Mike Lupica

  “That’s something,” Greck said.

  “The main thing is to watch out for Blake.” Tommy looked at Greck and Mike. “He’ll want to be the hero if he gets the chance. Wait and see.” Then he said to all of them, “Win the game. Or else.”

  Greck grinned and looked at Mike. “He gives me that ‘or else’ all the time, but he never says what that means.”

  “Let’s just win the game so we don’t have to find out,” Mike said.

  As Tommy made his way back up the stands to his spot, he went past Mom and Em.

  “How we looking?” his mom said.

  “Gorgeous,” Tommy said, even though he didn’t feel that way. He was too nervous. He’d given the guys all the help he could, just not the kind of help he wanted.

  He’d prepared himself all week for how hard it was going to be watching instead of playing. But it was even harder than he’d imagined. He felt powerless way up in the stands.

  Wanting to make one more play.

  It was Bears 21, Wildcats 19 with five minutes left in the game, the season on the line. A tiny cushion for the Bears, but the Wildcats were driving.

  The whole game Tommy had studied Blake as if he were still lined up against him. When the Wildcats were on offense, Tommy would try to guess the play they were going to run based on their formation or by watching Blake’s body language.

  Tommy was right more often than he was wrong.

  Blake hadn’t been showing off his arm as much today. Most of the passes he’d thrown had been short ones. There had been one deep ball the whole game, in the third quarter. Blake had recognized that an all-out blitz was coming, getting the ball off just in time, barely overthrowing Kenny Bailey, a wideout who’d missed the first Bears-Wildcats game with a sprained ankle.

  Now, on what was probably going to be his team’s final possession, Blake was using short passes, keeping the Bears off balance, slowly moving down the field, working the clock, seeming perfectly comfortable to make a bet on himself to win the game.

  Four minutes to go.

  First down at the Bears’ forty.

  Three minutes to go.

  First down at the Bears’ twenty-five.

  Tommy felt more helpless than ever watching the game play out this way.

  Short pass right.

  Short pass left.

  Running play up the middle.

  There were no big gains. It was like Blake was trying to take the Bears’ season from them yard by yard.

  Blake kept the ball himself, a quarterback draw, right up the middle for seven yards. Clock still running.

  Coach must’ve smelled a pass play coming because Greck blitzed, jostling past his blocker on the right side, reaching out his hand to grab Blake as Blake threw to his right, managing to get the ball off to Kenny Bailey for four more and a first down. Mike tackled Kenny before he could get out of bounds.

  Ball on the Bears’ nine-yard line. First and goal. Four chances to grab those last nine yards standing between Wellesley and the championship.

  Fifty seconds left.

  Coach Fisher called his last time-out.

  And as soon as he did, Tommy was running down the stands, not worrying about his shoulder, taking the steps two at a time.

  Running for the Bears’ sideline like he was about to go in the game.

  • • •

  Greck and Mike were standing in front of Coach Fisher, their backs to the field. It was Greck who spotted Tommy tearing straight for them.

  Greck poked Coach and pointed.

  Tommy didn’t waste any time, even though he was out of breath.

  “All . . . the way . . . down . . . the field . . .” he began.

  “Relax, son,” Coach said. “Take a breath.”

  “No . . . time!”

  “What are you trying to tell us?” Greck said.

  Tommy took a deep breath. “All the way down the field, Blake’s thrown the ball left after he threw it right. Every single time.”

  Mike nodded. “He’s right.”

  Tommy took another deep breath. “They’ll go left and try to win the game. I know Blake. He’ll want to end it here and now.”

  “So I’ll spy on the tight end,” Mike said. “Blake’s thrown to him the last two times.”

  Tommy knew he didn’t have much time before the game would resume. So he talked even faster than he had been.

  “No,” he said. “He’ll go back to his left this time. But he’s going to pull it down and run. He wants to win this all by himself.”

  Greck looked at Tommy. “He wants to be the hero.”

  “Exactly.” Tommy gave Coach a quick look, as if asking permission to keep talking.

  Coach grinned, and winked.

  “You guys have got to fake out the quarterback,” Tommy said. “Greck, you drop back. And Mike? You sell out on Blake. Make him think you’re expecting a pass until the last second.”

  Greck said, “I trust you.”

  Mike nodded in agreement.

  The two of them ran back out onto the field. Tommy watched them go, hoping he was worth their trust. Thinking about how he used to trust his dad from high up in the stands, trying to follow in his footsteps.

  There was no time to go back up there now. Whatever was going to happen, he was going to watch from the sideline. He wondered if Coach Fisher could hear the sound of his heart pounding.

  Blake took the snap and rolled to his left.

  Greck dropped back into coverage, moving in the direction of the tight end, but then got picked by Kenny Bailey, like Kenny was playing basketball, cutting toward the middle of the field. The tight end wasn’t open by a lot, but he was open.

  If Blake chose to throw to him now, the loss would be all Tommy’s fault.

  Tommy watched Blake’s left arm come up, and the ball with it, as if he was going to throw. Now Tommy felt as if his heart wasn’t beating at all.

  But Blake pump-faked and pulled the ball down. He ran toward the left sideline, the field wide open in front of him.

  Smiling now as he looked up the field and into the end zone.

  With his eyes on the prize, he never saw Mike coming from behind him, swinging his left arm as Blake made his cut.

  Knocking the ball loose.

  Tommy Gallagher couldn’t help himself.

  “Ball!” he screamed.

  The ball seemed to be lying on the ground for a long time before Mike spotted it first, and fell on it, recovering the fumble.

  The fumble that won the championship for the Brighton Bears.

  He wasn’t sure why, but in that moment Tommy felt as if his dad were standing there with him.

  It was why he jumped the way he did when he felt the hand on his right shoulder, almost expecting Patrick Gallagher to be standing there when he turned around.

  It was Coach Fisher. Showing off one of his rare smiles.

  “You did good, son,” he said.

  “I wanted to make one more play,” Tommy said.

  Tommy still felt like his father was with him in that moment, like he could almost hear him whispering in Tommy’s ear:

  You did, boyo.

  • • •

  Tommy’s teammates insisted that he get in with them and pose for pictures with the championship trophy, standing between Greck and Mike.

  “I’m already thinking about next season,” Greck said. “Does that make me crazy?”

  “Do you even need to ask?” Tommy said. “I’m just glad we made it through this season.”

  “We couldn’t have done it without those eyes of yours!” Mike said.

  When the pictures had all been taken, and what seemed like half the Bears’ players had produced their cell phones so they could take selfies with the trophy, Coach Fisher said to Tommy, “Let’s take a walk.�
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  They walked away from the trophy, in the direction of the Wildcats’ sideline, which was already empty.

  “I just want you to know I’m proud of you,” Coach said.

  “Thank you,” Tommy said.

  “Now, you know I’m not big on making speeches,” Coach said.

  “Me neither.”

  “But I want you to know why I’m proud of you, and it’s not just because you used those eagle eyes to help us win.” He put his hand on Tommy’s good shoulder. “There’s never going to be a harder season for you as long as you live. And I’m not saying you’re going to look back on this one someday and smile. But I’m proud of the way you handled yourself on and off the field. And you’re allowed to be proud, too. I know your dad would have been proud.”

  “I still shouldn’t have been behind that bus,” Tommy said.

  “No, you shouldn’t have. But you were living your life, son, even if you were doing it recklessly in that moment. And in the process of living our lives, we all make mistakes.”

  “And take chances we shouldn’t take.”

  “You found out something today,” Coach said, “even from up in those stands behind us. You found out there’s more than one way to be a great teammate. And to be a leader.”

  Tommy grinned, and then turned around something that he had always heard about his dad, when he’d led his team at Engine 41, Ladder 14.

  “I was the last man out,” Tommy said.

  FORTY-TWO

  BY NEXT SATURDAY, ON THE morning of Em’s big game against the Wellesley Thunder, Tommy was out of his sling.

  There was still some pain, and moves he had to remind himself not to make. He wasn’t looking to do any push-ups, or even start brushing his teeth with his left hand.

  He was definitely feeling better, though, and already bugging Dr. Marshall about when he could start getting ready for the basketball season.

  But the only season he cared about today was Em’s soccer season. He was almost as excited about watching her championship game as he had been watching his team play Wellesley.

  When it was time to leave for the game, Em came into his room wearing her blue Bolts uniform, and the new soccer cleats Mom had bought for her when she went back to the team.

  “Hey,” he said, closing his laptop. “Looking good, girl.”

  “You ready?”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “You nervous, sis?”

  “I guess.” She shrugged. “But Daddy used to say that no matter how big the game is, at the end of the day, it’s still just that. A game.”

  “He used to tell me the same thing.”

  The room was quiet. Em hadn’t moved. Tommy could see there was something she wanted to tell him, something else she wanted to say. But she was Em. She did things in her own time.

  Finally she looked at him and said, “You know when I started to think about going back to the Bolts?”

  “I do not.”

  “That first day when you took me to Rogers Park,” she said, “even though it took me a long time to go back there again with you.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Maybe it didn’t seem like it,” she said, “but you did. Just by being there.”

  Tommy found himself staring at his sister then, thinking she looked different to him now. More grown-up. Probably because she was.

  They both were.

  “Thanks for taking me to the park that day, Tommy.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He got up off his bed and walked across the room and put out his hand. She took it, the way she always had. Then the two of them went out his door and down the steps to the big game, together.

  • • •

  Tommy watched the warm-ups with his mom, in the middle of the parents’ section. He watched Em get ready for the game with purpose, no wasted motion, practicing with a ball on the side, doing passing drills with her teammates, then getting in the line with them and practicing shots against the Bolts’ goalie, Missy Capra.

  “She’s exactly where she’s supposed to be,” Tommy said.

  “We all are,” his mom said.

  The sun was high in the sky. It felt more like they were closer to the beginning of fall than being a month from the end of it.

  When it was time for the game to start, Tommy made his way back up to his corner of the stands, even knowing he wasn’t going to see as much from up there—or understand as much—as he did when he was watching a football game. This was Em’s sport, not his. This was Em’s day, and her game, Tommy rooting as hard as he ever had for this to be the game of her life.

  Then the ref blew her whistle and waved both teams out onto the field. Em started, and then stopped, and then turned around to Tommy and waved, smiling brilliantly. Then she was running to join her teammates, running on those long legs, running like the wind.

  And he knew in that moment how happy his dad would have been, the dad who had spent his life rescuing people, that in the end Tommy and his sister had found a way to rescue each other.

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