Muck City (17 page)

Hester had seen it coming. Nothing had gone right that day. Everything just felt off, out of sorts. In the shop classroom where they’d retreated after the prayer to watch film and change, his coaches had lost control. Orders were ignored. Instead of watching film as they were instructed, players had spiraled off into their own orbits, blasting music, watching porn on their smart phones, wandering around campus looking for girlfriends. And once the team was suited, the coach had gone ballistic when several players turned up with black socks instead of the uniform white. Little things. Trivial when looked upon individually, but crucial to the discipline of a winning squad.

Immaturity was certainly nothing novel for a high school football team.
But moments such as these brought to light the generational divide. They underscored a common perception by former players that their proud tradition was in danger of extinction, slowly withering in the soft hands of today’s spoiled youth.

It was a conversation you heard throughout the Glades, that the trouble with boys today—from crime downtown to the lack of discipline on the field—was because they no longer had to work, that because of better unemployment benefits and labor laws, kids today had never come to appreciate what they had from the perspective of a vegetable row. Since fewer people traveled for the harvests the way they once did, parents had lost that grip of control. And despite working two jobs and barely keeping the lights on, many parents still insisted on spoiling their children with flat-screen televisions, PlayStations, new phones, and designer sneakers. Lost in the process was a work ethic and a mental toughness that carried onto the gridiron, and with it an attention to the little things.

It was true that on the Raider squad there were only about five boys who’d joined their families on mule trains or in packinghouses during corn season. Aside from those few, no one had ever bent over a row of vegetables or lost a drop of sweat for a wage. In their defense, the players would tell you that summers were too busy with football practice and out-of-town seven-on-seven tournaments. The kids felt pressured to attend those tournaments in order to get playing time, which was the only way to get exposure and college scholarships, which is what everybody seemed to expect from them anyway.

That generational divide was a constant source of vitriol for old-timers such as Preston Vickers, a former Raider linebacker and U.S. Marine who often volunteered at practice. That week, as the team ran through two-minute drills in preparation for American Heritage, Vickers observed a group of second-string players goofing on the sideline and launched into a tirade.

“You guys don’t take it seriously,” he shouted at them. “Yall don’t realize where you playin. This here is bigger than you all. This here is
tradition. What yall need is discipline, ’stead of all this horseplayin and cussing. That’s when accountability will set in—”

He was suddenly interrupted when the boys, ignoring him, broke into freestyle rapping.

“See there! Aint got
nothin
to do with football. You boys aint
focused
, man. You all spoiled. Everything been handed to you, even the tradition itself.”

He told of the 1998 state championship game against the Madison County Cowboys, when the Raiders were playing like dirt. The quarterback, Jerry Campbell, had thrown two interceptions that had both led to Cowboy touchdowns. Come halftime, with the Raiders losing 14–7, Vickers happened to be in one of the bathroom stalls when some teammates shoved Campbell against a wall and threatened to beat him if he blew the game.

“Rest is history,” said Vickers. “Second half that boy threw for three touchdowns and over two hundred yards. He knew those boys was for real. Those boys came to work. They knew, they
knew
, what they had to do.”

He then looked out at the current crop, rapping, sitting on helmets, loafing at the water cooler while the rest of the team practiced.

“These cats, they nothing but
babies
. The wake-up call has to come from a player, not a coach. What this team is missing is a
leader
.”

However, among the die-hard fans in the community, some of the same criticism was being lobbed at Hester’s coaching staff. Fans already took issue with the fact that several assistant coaches had never played football for the Raiders—or played at all, for that matter. Around town, people were also starting to complain about the staff’s behavior and how they represented the team. Some hated the way Jet wore his hat backward like a teenager, hated Coach Q’s flashiness, how he “dressed like a pimp,” and how at practice “Jet’s boys” appeared just as disorganized and disengaged as the players themselves.

The criticism had stepped up the previous week after it was discovered that Coach Q had landed himself in trouble with the administration.
While in Dallas, Coach Q and another assistant had left the hotel after the team was in bed to go visit a local club. Afterward, Glades Central principal Anthony Anderson suspended them from participating in the home opener.

Although some of Hester’s assistants may have lacked hands-on experience when it came to teaching Xs and Os, their presence and reach on the team were undeniable. There wasn’t a kid on the Raiders who didn’t love Coach Q, or hesitated for a second to take the piss out of Sherm or Coach JD. A bond existed beyond the game. Aside from Vickers’s occasional rants, Jet and his coaches did not rule with fear.

•   •   •

BEFORE THE HOMETOWN
crowd against the Stallions, the Raiders remained a rudderless ship. Tackles were missed. Receivers refused to block and improvised routes, running ten yards instead of five, hopelessly tangling the offense. Standing on the sidelines with his son Jymetre, Hester identified the problem, and it wasn’t his coaching staff.

“You got all these people telling these kids what to do, how great they are, how the coaches don’t know nothin,” Hester said, gesturing to the crowd, which had started to groan. “Well, now they’re seeing what happens.”

Benjamin did manage a beautiful, one-handed catch for thirty yards to move the team into scoring position, but the momentum was quickly squashed as the Raiders lost it on downs.

The offensive line had yet to improve. Even if they’d held, it was no use. Play after play, Mario would dash out of the pocket, “running from ghosts,” as Hester would say, and immediately get hammered to the ground. In the second quarter, after driving to the Stallion ten, Mario was sacked in the backfield for a loss of twenty-five yards. Third down and thirty, sacked again. Fourth down and thirty, Hester threw up his hands and went for it. Mario was sacked again.

An interception by the Raider secondary moved Glades Central once
again into scoring position, but a wild snap sent Mario chasing the ball across midfield, only to be buried under a pile of enemy jerseys. The whistle blew for halftime, leaving him crumpled on the grass.

As the team trotted off the field toward the locker room, their path took them underneath the home bleachers, where a group of local men rained curses down like stones.

“Hey Jet, yall messin up our team, man!”

“Mario, you sorry piece of shit!”

“Hey Mario, you suck, bro!”

“Hey Jet, take yo’ ass back to West Palm!”

Frantic and demoralized, the squad gathered beneath an oak tree outside the locker room and Hester tried to calm them. He felt out of his body. A migraine twisted his brow, forcing him to squint in the dark. Perhaps he’d been wrong about this team after all.

“There’s something about this bunch that’s killing me. Flat-out killing me,” he said, then exhaled in resignation. “But I’ll be here till you kill me.”

The Raiders returned to the field with renewed vigor, which was quickly crushed when KB was hit on a reverse and flipped upside down, landing on his back and writhing in pain. The doctor would later diagnose a deep-thigh contusion. He limped toward the bench to the hushed silence of the crowd.

Mario rallied them back with a thirty-yard pass to receiver Robert Burgess in the end zone, only to have the Stallions answer with a ninety-yard return for a touchdown to make the score 10–7 in their favor. With seven minutes remaining, Mario punched through the line for another score, giving the Raiders a slim lead. On their next possession, on fourth and short, the Raiders looked likely to lose the ball when KB hobbled back under the lights.

It was a welcome show of initiative by the Raider captain. Benjamin had asked Hester to return, he’d even called the play. He caught a short slant between two defenders, then leaped toward the first-down marker
with his long arms outstretched. The effort was just enough to set up another score by Page to give the Raiders a ten-point lead.

The Stallions quickly answered with a touchdown and two-point conversion to make the score 20–18, but their rally was too late. Once again, the Raiders managed to survive.

Despite the win, reaction to the team’s lackluster home performance was immediate. Hester’s phone rang all weekend with fans calling to complain about everything from the fat quarterback to the jelly-wristed O-line. He did not answer, nor did he bother wading through the flak on Internet message boards, as he was certain his players were doing. At Monday practice, he reminded everyone that anger and insults were part of playing in the Glades, that it was nothing new. Players who shut down from a little criticism could not become better, could not lead their team. And the Raiders’ problem, he knew, was that a true leader had yet to emerge.

“Every one of yall is like that lonely ant, spinning around trying to find the others to lead him back to the mound,” he said.

•   •   •

THE PERSON HESTER
was waiting for was Mario, but the quarterback was too lost in his head. He’d gone home after the game in a funk. He could not find his rhythm. Was not playing like he knew he could. First of all, he was too manic. He was playing quarterback like a linebacker: full-on beast mode with the brakes ripped off. He was jittery, easily spooked, and just plain nervous. It was no wonder the fans were circling like buzzards over the cane rows. He had to learn to calm down, to internalize the criticism and use it as fuel.
That
was the stuff that legends were made of. But living it was another thing. Living it was hard.

Lying on his bed that night, he could still hear the town rising up against him.

“Pay them no mind,” his girlfriend said, rubbing his neck.

He’d been dating Les’Unique Hessing since last summer. She was a Raider cheerleader, older than her years, with long legs and a diamond tattoo on her stomach. After games, she would sit with Mario in front of the television and rub Tiger Balm into the muscles of his arms and back, which had seized up like a dry engine.

Around his boys, Mario was quick to dismiss the seriousness of their relationship, saying, “I don’t trust no females. Everybody fuckin everybody in Belle Glade.” But the truth was that he’d let Hessing inside where few people had been. It was Hessing whom Mario had once called in the middle of the night, half asleep and distraught, saying his parents had just visited him in a dream. Someone had said,
Who’s knocking at the door?
And when Mario opened it, there stood Mary and James as vivid as yesterday.

He’d even taken his girlfriend to visit their graves on Mary’s birthday, leading her to the mausoleum at Foreverglades Cemetery, where his parents lay buried side by side in the walls. Afterward, he’d paid her no mind as he sat there talking to their photos, telling them about his day.

Mario shared everything with her, even the secret he now harbored—one that threatened to destroy his whole pursuit.

The secret was that Mario was playing with a torn ligament in his throwing shoulder, the kind of injury that ended seasons for good. The injury had happened during the summer seven-on-seven in Tallahassee while he and Benjamin were connecting for touchdowns to the great thrill of the crowd.

An out-of-town doctor had taken the X-ray, then given him pills for the pain that now raced through his arm every time he passed, every time he went down in a smothering heap. He told no one, so horrified of being benched and watching it all slip away. For he was meant to play quarterback and lead the Raiders, and there was no turning back now.

Other fears crept in with the pain. He was scared that by pursuing his conviction, he was also gambling a potential college career as middle linebacker, a position for which he’d been recruited as a junior. The weight of
his decision grew heavier each afternoon he walked into the shop class to dress for practice. Colleges had once again begun their seasonal courting. In a basket by the door sat dozens of faxes from football programs far and wide, a fresh stack arriving each week before game day.

“Dear Kelvin,” a letter from University of Alabama’s head coach Nick Saban read. “People will be talking about someone’s great performance tomorrow … make them talk about you!”

“Dear Jaime,” the coach from Western Kentucky wrote. “The WKU football coaching staff wishes you
good luck
as you lead your team to victory …”

At the bottom were the inspiring words from Jim Rohn, the rags-to-riches motivational speaker cum locker-room swami:
Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average
.

The stacks of correspondence were mostly addressed to KB, Jaime, Jaja, and Boobie. But picking through the basket, there were no good words for the quarterback. He would have to make them notice, broken body and all.