Muck City (29 page)

“He’s the most teachable,” said the coach. “And guys like that succeed. Davonte gets it.”

A sore hip flexor had slowed him during the summer, and afterward he’d spent much of the season as a decoy for Benjamin and Jaime. There were three catches in Texas for fifty-six yards in the Raiders’ rout against Denison. But the first time the game was on the line, such as it was against American Heritage—at home with a chance to score—he was wound too tight and choked.

Mario’s first pass had sailed right through his fingers while he was running for the end zone. The second time, he simply ran the wrong route and missed the ball completely. “The pressure was on me, and I cracked,” he said.

Hester gave the mistakes a pass. “Look, it happens to everybody,” he said. Nothing was even mentioned during film the following Monday. But privately, Davonte’s performance hounded him, so much that he folded inside himself. He spent the next week in deep prayer, seeking focus. He went into the Word, taking solace in a verse from Jeremiah assuring that those who trusted in the Lord would be like a tree planted by the river,
whose leaves would flourish during drought and whose branches would remain full with fruit.

Two weeks later, in Clewiston, Davonte scored two touchdowns, and then another against Dillard—one of two catches for almost a hundred yards that kept the Raiders in the game until the end. His coming-out had encouraged his coaches. With KB’s imminent departure, and Jaime’s tendency to quit when he couldn’t shine, they now began to see Davonte as the budding X factor in their quest to meet Cocoa.

“The rough edges are wearing away,” said Hester, watching him one afternoon at practice. “The edge is appearing.”

“But he aint
mean
yet,” said Q.

“Yeah, but it’ll come.”

•   •   •

IN THE FIRST
game after losing to Dillard, Davonte took the backseat to let KB go out in style. The farewell tribute to the Raider captain began on Thursday. To commemorate his last day of practice, the coaches treated the boys to a game of Bull in the Ring. Benjamin stood inside a circle of his teammates while the strongest of the squad charged him like a procession of rams. After a dozen tried their luck, the receiver was still on his feet.

On game day, the team wore eye blacks that read
KB#3
, and chanted his name like a war cry in the huddle. Then, beneath the primal light of a full, pregnant moon, the Raiders commenced their cathartic slaughtering of the Boynton Beach Tigers.

Every mistake of the previous week was purged as the Raiders racked up fifty-three easy points while holding the Tigers to just twenty-six total yards of offense. Benjamin had five catches for eighty yards. His final touchdown as a Glades Central Raider was a near-cinematic twenty-five-yard floater into the corner of the end zone that he brought down under double coverage.

Coach Z stood several feet away on the sideline. He applauded, shook his head, and hoped to God the next time the Big Ticket roped in another six, it would be with a green gator on his helmet.

“Dominance from beginning to end. That’s what you wanna see,” Hester told his boys after the beating. “Hat’s off. That’s a hell of a way to play.”

But the win did not come without some pain. Just before halftime, running back Neville Brown and Mario were injured on the same play. First Neville went down screaming with a dislocated shoulder, which the Tiger trainer reset on the field with a sickening pop.

Mario went down as well, but before he could get to his feet, a Tiger linebacker speared him in the helmet just above the face mask, rattling his brain. Dazed and disoriented, the quarterback said nothing and remained in the game for six plays, even managing three completions. Finally he broke from the huddle and stumbled toward the sideline, weaving across the field like the town drunk. He braced himself against Hester, then staggered to the fenceline and stared into the crowd with blank, childish wonder. By the time the trainer reached him, Mario was slack-jawed and gazing up at the moon.

O
n Monday after the game, a doctor took scans of Mario’s brain and diagnosed him with a concussion. The quarterback was ordered to sit out for at least a week to recover. The second half of the game still remained blurry in his mind; he didn’t remember wandering off after it was over and having to be guided back to the bus, or how he’d swayed like a bowling pin through an entire interview with a clearly alarmed
Post
reporter. For days after the hit, the sun burned his eyes and gave him headaches.

Monday’s practice also found Neville Brown with a busted shoulder; Boobie’s shoulder was sore and wrapped with a sling; Page had a quad contusion; and Kelvin Benjamin was gone. Luckily for Mario and the Raiders, the next Friday was off, allowing two full weeks to heal and come together as a team minus the figurehead star.

The game in two weeks against Suncoast would be the last of the regular season at Effie C. Grear Field. It was also Senior Night, when
seniors from the entire maroon-and-gold machine—football, band, and cheerleading—got to honor their families before the fans and announce their future plans.

Jonteria Williams imagined the evening with both giddiness and trepidation. She felt excited to be recognized as head cheerleader, to be front and center under the lights instead of second fiddle to the football boys. Plus, she had good news to share: Florida Atlantic University had accepted her for admission in the fall. It was the only school to respond so far, and just in time. Jonteria was getting worried that Senior Night would come and find her empty-handed, with nothing to share but empty hopes: “Jonteria Williams … hopes to attend the college of her choice.”

That’s how Coach Dennis Knabb would say it on the PA system. It was the stock line they used for graduating cheerleaders who were too preoccupied with boys and looking pretty to bother with college. Out of the entire squad, only three ever made the honor roll. That included her best friend, Walkeria Carter, who was also in Ms. Canty’s medical science academy and had been accepted to FAU. Walkeria was president of Twenty Pearls, while Jonteria was vice-president. Walkeria had also won Miss Glades Central.

“Walkeria’s very outspoken,” Jonteria said. “And everything she competes in, she wins. She’s been winning ever since we’ve been in elementary school.”

Theresa had been ecstatic when Jonteria got the news about FAU. It was the school she privately hoped Jonteria would choose in the end, just because it was so close to home. But there was still the University of Miami.

The application deadline for UM was January 1, still over a month away, and Jonteria refused to rush. When she hit Send, the formal request of Jonteria Williams to attend the school of her dreams would be nothing short of perfect.

So, in terms of Senior Night coming and not looking like a fool: check. But there was something else about the evening that left a queasiness in her stomach. Jonteria had asked her father, John Williams, to walk the field
with her and Theresa. It would be the first time in her memory the three of them had stood together in Belle Glade in public since his release from prison—a five-minute game of pretend unhindered by the pangs of betrayal and bitterness.

“I’m just so happy he said yes,” she said, sitting in her dark living room one Saturday after an eight-hour shift at Winn-Dixie. “Football has never been his thing. I think he’s nervous.”

Since Jonteria was only five when her father decided to involve himself in a robbery, the details of his going to prison were foggy in her mind. She just remembered him being gone. And her memory of him before that moment was merely a stark composite, constructed from her own limited recollections and the stories her mother told.

“I remember the gifts he would bring because he was always up in Georgia working,” she said. “A gift you could remember. A balloon and a bike on my birthday, even though he just left the money for my mom. But we would take family trips. Once we went to Disney World in Orlando. And Boomers in Boca. That’s an arcade.

“How did I see him? He was this person who could give me anything in the world. But after a while you start to notice it’s not all about gifts and stuff. After a while he just wasn’t there.”

Jonteria had seen her father once in prison, right around the time her mother broke the news. John’s old girlfriend Shirley, who also had a daughter with him, had taken the kids to the facility near Atlanta. The guards took them to a large empty room, as big as a gymnasium, where her father sat wearing a white jumpsuit. They formed a circle around his chair and John informed them that he’d been saved and wanted to become a preacher. He talked about Jesus the entire time, she remembered, then insisted they all pray. It was disorienting and confusing, and it wasn’t until they were driving home to Florida that Jonteria realized she’d forgotten to ask her father what he’d even done and when he was coming home.

Seven years later, at a Christmas party at her house in Belle Glade, John
walked through the door a free man. He’d recently been released from a halfway house in Georgia and had settled in with a new wife, whom he’d married while in prison. The seven years had turned Jonteria into a young woman; her father hardly recognized her.

“When I saw him, I thought, ‘I look just like this man,’ ” she said. “We had this blank moment where we didn’t know what to say to each other. Finally I just hugged him.”

After being gone a decade, the reacquaintance period with his two daughters had been slow and awkward. As the oldest child, Jawantae still harbored unresolved feelings and remained reluctant. Theresa had simply been there and done that.

But Jonteria hoped for a relationship and worked tirelessly to make it work. It wasn’t that her father didn’t want one, she said, it was that he couldn’t remember how. He was a man who’d been gone too long. When he and Jonteria spoke by phone, he mostly wanted to talk about church and Jesus, as if using her to practice a sermon. But it was a start.

“He’s getting better at conversations,” she said. “It’s just different from what I
thought
a father would be like. I wish he were more like my mom. She’s more
enjoyable
. You can enjoy her. You can hang out.”

They’d had a series of breakthroughs. The first came on Jonteria’s seventeenth birthday, when John had taken her to Red Lobster in West Palm. Theresa had driven Jonteria, then joined them for dinner, which was awkward, but something Theresa needed to do.

“It was a chapter in my life that I never closed, and I finally closed it when I saw him,” she said. “It gave me a sense of release to know it was really over.”

Their relationship never came up. The two just talked about their daughter and all she’d accomplished, one of Theresa’s favorite subjects anyway.

Then one night John came over to the house. He brought steamed crabs, and he and Jonteria spread out a blanket in front of the television and had a picnic.

“It was just like I remembered as a little girl,” she said.

She knew that her father probably felt ashamed about the past and worried that people in town still judged him for what he’d done. So when Jonteria called and asked if he’d escort her and Theresa down the field on Senior Night, before the eyes of Belle Glade, she was nervous he’d say no. And even though he’d agreed, seemed flattered even, she still wouldn’t feel totally at ease until she saw him at school, in the flesh. “That’s when I’ll relax,” she said.

•   •   •

FOR THE RAIDERS
, the game against Suncoast held far more importance than just the Senior Night ceremony. A win over the Chargers would give Glades Central the 7-2A district crown and home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs, just three weeks away. Suncoast was a magnet school and, in terms of academics, was ranked one of the ten best high schools in America. The Chargers were a perennial “A” performer and certainly a powerhouse at statewide Brain Bowl competitions. But when it came to football:

“They garbage,” said Coach Randy, watching film of the team.

But what about Davison Colimon, the six-foot-two free safety and wide receiver?

“Garbage.”

And the Granger brothers, Abiade and Timotheus, a power duo on both ends of the defensive line, who’d combined for a dozen tackles a game and also played offense?

“Garbage, too.”

After the week off, the players also seemed little worried about Suncoast. But instead of their usual cocky ambivalence preceding such a “stat game,” the Raiders entered the week like a team starting to find its groove.

On Monday the two-minute drills, while usually high tempo, grew tense and violent. The Raider defenders, led by Boobie, Jaja, and Don’Kevious,
were feeling well rested and took the field snapping on the leash, ready to hit. They quickly grew agitated by the usual sluggishness of the offensive line, the inability of Brandon, Corey, Salt, and the rest to block and remember play calls, and began punishing them with force. Hester approved and began ordering blitz after blitz. Each one was carried out with maximum strength, leaving linemen flat on their backs. The usual soft touch of practice was temporarily forgotten.