“Listen, Schuler, you can’t change jerseys in the middle of a game.”
“Course you can. Rule book just says you got to keep the same numbers.”
“Well, a couple of these don’t even meet that criteria.”
“C’mon, John. This is the last game for our boys. We ain’t gonna win. If Rock Hill pitches a fit, tell em we forfeited. This
is just for pride.”
It’s clear our fans are stunned at the new jerseys. And a bunch of em spot Elvis. I hear em chanting his name and I turn to
see Rachel running down from the stands and up to the fence. Elvis hollers, “Pray for me!”
She calls out, “Why are you doing this?”
“I’m a Crusader!”
I’m telling ya, if I had an orchestra …
Rachel waves at me and points back up to where she’d been sitting. Course I spot Bev first, sitting there with Kim, and I’ll
be dogged if there isn’t a little dark-haired girl. I want to quit right now and get up there to see what’s going on, but
that’s when I spot Coach’s wife. I shoot her a double take and grab Buster, turning him and pointing. He spies her and his
hand comes up to his mouth and he sucks in a breath like he can hardly stand it. She gives him a shy little wave, and I thought
I was gonna have to coach the second half.
Snoot and Brian have carried out the big green chalk-board from the field house and put it under the scoreboard. Brian draws
a line down the middle and puts the team names at the top. When he puts a big zero under each team, our fans erupt.
“Coach! Coach!” We turn to see Abel Gordon and his dad. “We’ll keep score!” Buster nods.
All right, I admit I had to check the paper to see if I was making this part up, but it happened. Rock Hill kicks off, and
guess who runs it all the way back for a touch-down, carrying it in his bad arm? Okay, so maybe he carried it in his good
arm, but anyway, it was almost too good to be true. Snoot kicks the point after, so now it’s 37-10. But the chalkboard reads
7-0, us. Our guys are jumping around, smacking each other on the back. Rock Hill just looks puzzled.
“Team is back,” Coach says.
A couple minutes later, Rock Hill puts up another seven. The scoreboard reads 44-10, the chalkboard 7-7. All of a sudden Buster
is really into this one, strategizing, telling me who to have run a slant, who to line up in the slot, saying who’ll be wide
open, and course being right every time. “Chess match on grass,” I say.
Elvis is wide open for a huge gain, and I see the Rock Hill coach and his assistant arguing, pointing at each other. Their
coach bellows so I can hear him all the way from the other side, “You see that, Raiders? We are in a
war!
”
Elvis scores to make it 44-17 for the game, 14-7 us for the half. Rock Hill strikes back quick to tie the half at 14 and lead
the game 51-17.
In the fourth quarter the Shermanater breaks through to lay a huge lick on their quarterback in their own end zone for a two-point
safety, so now they lead 51-19 for the game but we lead 16-14 for the second half.
Rock Hill starts picking on Elvis, probably seeing he’s hurt. But they try to pass his way once too often and he intercepts
one and runs it in for his third TD. The game’s out of reach, course, at 51-26, but now we’re up 23-14 on the chalkboard.
Then it was like the Raiders got tired of toying with us. They break back for two fast TDs, and now they lead 65-26 with just
minutes to go. It’s hardly possible to score that many points in forty-eight minutes. We’re deflated, cause after all our
work we even trail the half now, 28-23.
We need a touchdown, but their defense breaks through on a blitz, and Brian is chased to our sideline and crushed right in
front of us. Coach and I kneel over him. “Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere. My hair hurts.”
Coach says, “I’m proud of you, Brian. Let’s call it a night.”
“Coach, please. I don’t want to walk off this field till the gun sounds. I can’t throw, but maybe I can still run.”
Elvis says, “What’s Schuler’s commandment number one?”
“Let the bone roll,” Coach says.
With less than a minute to go, Brian keeps pitching out to Elvis, who keeps gaining yard after yard. Once I heard a Raider
defender grunt, “Stay down!”
Rock Hill’s coach is screaming, “We will
not
lose this half to a team of
fifteen players
!”
Our guys are racing to the line with no huddle, and Rock Hill, who should already be celebrating their third straight undefeated
season and state title, are sucking wind and trying to keep from losing this half. With less than twenty seconds on the clock
and us inside their 10-yard line, Rock Hill calls a time-out. Nobody’s ever heard of a team ahead by thirty-nine points calling
time-out. We hear Rock Hill’s coach ranting, “I will
not
give them the satisfaction.”
Coach tells our guys, “This is it. Maybe two more plays in Crusader history. Use what you’ve got and do it any way you can.”
Our crowd’s chanting, “El-vis! El-vis!”
Raider fans are shouting, “De-fense! De-fense!”
Brian pitches to Elvis, who gets blasted out of bounds and over the Rock Hill bench. Five seconds show on the clock. Even
the Rock Hill coach is urging him to stay down. But he gets up. Rock Hill players are shaking their heads.
Brian pitches back to Elvis and he starts one more run, barely eluding defenders as the gun sounds. The world goes into slow
motion. The roar of the crowd deafens me and I feel like I’m alone before the biggest high school crowd ever. The lights,
the color, the action all swim together and somehow I’ve got the time to realize how ludicrous this is. Elvis can’t get back
to the line of scrimmage, and I’m yelling I don’t know what, pumping my fists and hopping down the sidelines, trying to will
him to get somewhere, do something. We’ve been slaughtered, but a touchdown will give us this half, and there’s nothing in
the world that matters more.
Out of gas and stumbling, Elvis is swarmed by Raiders. They look as whipped as he does. Somehow, some way he twists and keeps
his arm free as they climb his back, drive into his knees, and grab him around his neck.
I’m dying, screaming, hopping. And as the best high school football player I’ve ever seen finally buckles under the bulk of
all that weight and starts to crumble to the turf, he launches a desperate pass. At first I don’t even follow the ball. I
don’t believe he’s unleashed it. He disappears under hundreds of pounds of Raiders, and I’m guessing they think it’s over
too. But there’s no whistle. The ball’s still in play.
I search the sky and pick it up, a pitiful dying quail of an end-over-end toss that doesn’t look to have a prayer of getting
past the wide-eyed Rock Hill defenders. They quickly crouch and leap, trying to tip the wobbly ball away. But it somehow eludes
em.
Brian Schuler is running like a madman, snaking through the secondary, eyes wild, mouth wide open, desperately looking over
his shoulder. Inside the 5-yard line the ball drops just behind him. He slows and stretches and reaches and it hits his shoulder
pad and bounces just above his helmet. Now he’s fair game and a corner back drives his helmet into Brian’s back and wraps
his arms around him, just above the waist.
So now they’re both flying across the goal line, the force of the blow pushing Brian’s hands out in front of him. The ball
drops into his arms as he’s slammed to the ground. The whistle blows, the ref signals touchdown, and I drop to my knees overcome
at the best loss I’ve ever suffered as a player or coach.
The Crusaders are all over the field, high-fiving, piling atop one another, and I run out to meet em in the end zone where
they’re hugging Brian and Elvis. Rock Hill has won 65-32, but Andy Gordon has scribbled on the chalk-board Crusaders 29, Raiders
28.
Rock Hill looks beat. State champs and they’re dragging. Their fans are silent. A Raider pulls Elvis out of the scrum. “Don’t
you guys get it? You lost!”
“Not this half, we didn’t,” Elvis says.
The Raiders trudge off the field while our fans gather around the goal posts and start to climb. Soon the goals come toppling.
Rachel shoots past me into Elvis’s arms. “I am so proud of you,” she says. “Look who’s here.” Jenny Lucas jumps on Elvis and
brings him to his knees.
That was about all I could take.
Coach was off looking to see where Kim had taken his wife. Bev grabbed me from behind and I had to remind myself she was still
recuperating. “Guess you know I got a million questions,” I said over my shoulder.
“All in good time, cowboy.”
T
urns out I’m marrying a lot more woman than I ever dreamed. Kim says it’s cause I’m still basically oblivious. I tell her
I’m not oblivious, I’m Protestant, and she says, “That was mildly funny the first time.” My vote against her being in the
wedding will likely go unheeded.
Anyway, if you could believe the rest of Bev’s bevy, this was all her idea. Soon as she learned about Jenny and made her the
point of all their meetings, they started conniving to do something about her. It took all kinds a legal rigmarole just to
get permission to take her out of Indiana to visit strangers who cared about her. I guess all of us were checked out by the
authorities, and one of the rules was that the girl couldn’t be under the sole care of a lady still in treatment for alcoholism.
Course it turns out Jenny hit it off with Miz Schuler as well as anybody, maybe cause Helena was older and seemed like a grandma.
Jenny just knocked us over. The fact that she was scared and shy and tired didn’t keep her from stealing our hearts. She had
those huge, curious eyes, and she was so glad to be with Elvis again, you could tell she was fighting to stay awake. She eventually
lost the battle and Rachel put her in her bed.
Elvis wasn’t much more comfortable with all us oldsters around, but he mustered enough courage to thank the ladies. Best of
all, and he said this in front of us though he was talking to Rachel, “I don’t want to get all dramatic and I don’t want a
big fuss, but Jenny wants me to take her to church Sunday.”
Bev and me and the rest of us traded glances but tried to pretend we hadn’t heard that. Naw, there shouldn’t be much of a
commotion when the best football player in Athens City history and its resident atheist shows up in church. “I don’t want
people expecting me to come running down the aisle or something,” he said.
“At least not without a football.”
That was Coach and he looked mighty proud of himself to have got a laugh. I heard Rachel whisper to Elvis, “People will let
you move at your own pace. You’re on your way, but God won’t push you.”
• • •
Course Jenny had to be back to Indiana by the middle of the following week, and that was hard. You sure had to feel for the
little thing, especially when she had to say her good-byes. I’d hardly had much time with her, but I couldn’t keep from crying.
What must it be like to have all these new friends and then hear promises you’ve heard before and be expected to believe em?
We told her we’d call. We told her we’d write. We told her we’d come visit sometime and even bring her back down to Athens
City. She hugged our necks so tight we wondered if we could peel her off, and I can still feel her hot tears running down
my neck.
• • •
Bev hadn’t been back from Indiana twenty-four hours before she told me we had to talk. “I don’t wanna catch you when you’re
vulnerable or make you think this is the only way to make me happy,” she said. “But you know I did my homework. You’ve just
about raised your daughter, Cal, and this may be the last thing you even wanna consider, so stop me now if it’s out of the
question.”
I knew what she was talking about. Course I did. But when I didn’t say anything, she had to wonder. Maybe she was hoping I’d
grin from ear to ear and tell her I was hoping she’d suggest this. “I mean it, Cal,” she said, studying me. “This is no light
decision, no easy thing. This is a long-term commitment.”
“I made one of those recently,” I said. “And that may be plenty for now.”
“No, I’m listening.”
“Don’t let me waste my breath,” she said. “Because if I’m to let this go—which I’m willing to do, and I mean that— I don’t
want to invest any more emotion in it. I love you, Cal, and I’d be thrilled if it was just you and me and Rachel for the rest
of the time we’ve got together. If that’s what you want, I leave this right where it is.”
I gathered her in and she lay her head on my shoulder. Her heart was racing. “What’d you find out, sweetheart? What’d they
tell you?”
“Cal, I’m not asking for a decision right now, but I’m serious—I don’t want to get into talking about this if there’s not
even a chance.”
“And you wouldn’t see me as the guy who stood in the way of your dream?”
“You are my dream, Calvin. And I know I’m naive. I know this couldn’t be easy. There may be days when we regret it. We don’t
know what this girl brings with her, what she’s suffered, how that’ll play out. And sometimes I think I get enough mothering
satisfaction just interacting with Rachel. The Lord knows that girl has accepted me already, and that can’t be easy. But if
this thing is not going to be, I need to know now so I can start shifting gears.”
“I don’t understand the maternal thing,” I said. “I don’t know how that feels. All I can do is try to imagine not having Rachel.
Being her dad is who I am. I think back about what life would’ve been like with Estelle and no baby, and my mind won’t even
conjure it. And then when Estelle died, well, I couldn’t’ve gone on without Rachel. I wouldn’t be quick to deny you the raising
of a child.”
She shifted her weight. “I’ve gone forty-two years single and childless,” she said. “I imagine I could keep going.”
“Not single you couldn’t,” I said. “I’d have to sue you for breach of promise.”
She put a finger to my lips. “Legal stuff comes later.”
I had no idea what that meant, but I told her I was willing to hear her out about Jennifer Lucas. She pulled a folder from
her bag and began running down the prerequisites for an out-of-state individual to adopt a child. “Parents have to be no more
than forty years older than the child,” she began.