Authors: Kyell Gold
“He’s out six weeks is what I hear,” Fisher says. I don’t respond, but in my head I’m thinking
is that enough? Can I clinch the job?
He goes on after a minute. “I talked to you and you didn’t slug me. So I guess that’s a good sign.”
I stop at the weight room. “If you want me to, we can go in here.” I peer in the window. “Though it looks like Jaws is working out. Whose side you think he’d be on?”
He’s got that look he gets when he thinks I’m being stupid. “Mind if I ask you something?”
“Shoot.” I fold my arms.
He shakes his head, and then rubs his muzzle. “What the hell was that all about?”
I laugh, and start to walk down the hall. He doesn’t move. I turn back toward him. “Seriously?”
He inclines his head. From inside the weight room, we can hear the wolverine straining at the weights. “I say a couple nice things and you fly off the handle.”
“Nice things?” The workout sounds cut off as the door clicks shut. “You acted so fucking superior, so smug…” His eyes widen. “It’s like, it’s like, what if you got demoted to backup, and I came in and patted you on the back and said how great it was that you took the backup role because that’s what was best for the
team.”
I spit the last word out.
“I’d be fine with that,” he says. “I mean, if I couldn’t perform, and there was a guy who could play better…”
“It’d kill you inside, wouldn’t it?” I say. “Not to be able to go out there again, to play the game the way you can still play it in here.” I smack my chest, staring into his eyes. “To watch from the sidelines as other guys get to take the field, to pace back and forth and not be able to join in, just because your body doesn’t let you… or what if you knew you could still play the game—what if we switched to a 3–4 defense and suddenly they don’t need another tackle? What if you’re on the sidelines because of the way your life has gone, not because you can’t play any more, but because you can’t play in the way the team wants? And someone comes over and pats you on the back and tells you in that smug fucking tone of voice that you’re a great guy for giving up your chance to play because it’s best for the team?”
Now he furrows his brow. “But you got the starting job,” he says. “You’re starting next week.”
“Jesus fucking Lion Christ,” I say. “Forget it. Thanks for not reporting me.”
“I don’t want you suspended,” he says, “if that’s what you’re thinkin’.”
I push open the door to the weight room again, and he grabs my arm. “Listen, Dev,” he says. “I ain’t so quick any more, on the field or up here.” He taps his head. “But I ain’t a bigot. I just want to make sure you got that clear.”
“Crystal,” I snap. He looks to follow me out, like the conversation is over, but I’ve got something else simmering, and I don’t feel like holding it back. “Just one thing, though.”
His relaxed expression gets more guarded; his ears go back and his eyes narrow. “What?”
“That Tony Calhoun you told me about. That’s the name, right?”
He doesn’t take a step back, but his weight shifts in that direction, away from me. Like a defensive set. “Yeah.”
“There’s all kinds of stuff on the Internet now, you know.” Actually, I had Lee look him up for me. It was much quicker that way. Fisher narrows his eyes and keeps quiet as I talk. “The thing is, I remember you telling me he was gone when you got into the league. Funny thing, though. The rosters show he played on your team your rookie year. Started, even.”
“Did he?”
“Why’d you lie to me, Fish?”
He shifts forward again, like he does just before the snap, ready to push his weight into the oncoming player. “Hell,” he says, “it was over a decade ago. I played on plenty of teams since then. Guys come and go.”
“You remembered everything else pretty clear.” I lean forward too, just to see him flinch back. “I just can’t figure that. You ashamed of something?”
He doesn’t say anything to that. I shrug and go outside to the track, to cool down with a run, because I feel all amped up.
It’s not just from Fisher, though. Starting Tuesday, I practice with the first team, where everything feels a half-step faster. Fortunately, all my work with Gerrard and Carson makes it easy for me to step into that role. Tuesday and Wednesday, Steez peppers our practices with jibes at me, about how Corey would’ve made that play, or Corey would’ve been in the right spot there. Those comments tail off as the week goes on. By Saturday, I feel pretty well prepared for whatever Hilltown’s going to throw at us.
Fall’s come early to Hilltown. The open-air stadium is one of the Dragons’ great advantages, or used to be back when they were good. In the frigid cold of December, visiting teams from domes or hot-weather areas like Chevali are at a significant disadvantage. Early in the season, it’s not as much of a problem—usually. This Sunday we’ve got thirty-mile-an-hour winds and driving rain, making it hard to see more than ten feet in front of you.
But the stands are still full. This is McLauden Stadium, and even if the Dragons fans have to come out in thermal parkas and oilskins, damned if they’re going to miss a game for something as trivial as weather. Right near the tunnel where we come out, there’s a group of shirtless wolves, fur around their huge white bellies dyed green. The colors are running through their soaked grey fur, but their passionate screaming and fist-pumping almost keeps me from laughing.
And we run out onto the field, and the PA says, “Number Fifty-seven, Devlin Miski,” and for a moment I don’t feel the wind or the rain. There’s been mostly silence from the crowd as the Firebirds are introduced, but my name gets a smattering of cheers. I hadn’t even thought that people might remember me from my Forester days. For a moment, I’m back there, standing on the crappy grass at Birch Stadium, hearing the cheers for my name. I’m in the starting lineup again and we’re good, and I don’t have any doubt about my ability to hang with anyone on the other team. I look toward the section of the stadium where I always saw a vixen looking back at me, up behind our bench halfway up, but of course, halfway up the stands here is halfway to the clouds, and there are a hundred vixens behind the curtain of the rain. I pretend mine is one of them as I raise a paw to the stands, spinning in a circle before I jog out to join my teammates.
The weather comes back to me fast, standing around waiting for the game to start. The field is slippery, the ball is worse, and visibility never gets any better. That puts all the burden on the offense. Even when the cold and rain set in, I don’t lose my hyped-up energy. Gerrard, Carson, and I mesh well as a unit, though it probably helps that Hilltown’s offense is even more uninspired than it looked on the film. I make a few good tackles, Carson pressures the quarterback into several bad throws, and the only thing that we allow is a field goal that just barely clears the crossbar and would’ve been ten yards short without the wind pushing it.
Still, we go into halftime down 3-0. The locker room is cold and wet, leading Jaws to say that they broke the heat specifically in the visitors’ locker room. Rumor is that kind of thing happens a lot, but I’ve never heard it actually proven. Charm stomps around and promises us he’ll tie it up if we just get him into range. The smell of wet fur and musk is thick in the air, but it’s a good smell, a team smell, and we joke about whose fur smells the worst when wet. The foxes are voted the winners.
Usually Coach puts in the second team for a few series late in the third quarter, but with the game this close, I guess he doesn’t want to risk anything. So Gerrard, Carson, and I are out there every defensive series in the wind and rain. We keep each other psyched, feeding off each other’s energy. I don’t tell them that I keep looking at the stands behind our bench and drawing inspiration from a vixen who isn’t there and isn’t even a vixen. It doesn’t matter where you get your inspiration from as long as you’ve got it and make good use of it.
With us anchoring the defense, we hold pretty well. On the first series of the fourth quarter, they’re driving again, and I sniff out a bootleg play, where the quarterback keeps the ball and runs to the weak side, to my side. I dive at him, swipe at the ball, and feel it come loose.
The wind, the rain, the wolf in the green and white uniform, everything else disappears. There’s only the ball, skidding along the wet surface a few feet in front of me. My muscles tense, my breathing quickens. I feel a surge of heat in my blood. My feet scrabble and slip on the muddy ground. Somehow, I leap forward. My paws close around the ball.
That second hangs frozen in time. I can taste the mud in my mouth. The ball shines with its own light. Then bodies slam into me from all angles. Paws grab at the ball, dig into my nose, punch me in the back. I curl protectively around the precious ball and close my eyes tightly until I hear the whistle blow. Slowly, the pile is peeled away from me. When I can stand up, I lift the ball in one paw and hold it like a trophy all the way back to our cheering, whooping bench.
“Keep it, Miski,” Coach Samuelson says with his wolf’s grin.
I’ve sunk my claws into it, so the refs need to get a new one anyway. “Yes, sir!” I say. I know my muzzle’s shorter than his, but in that minute I feel like my grin is every inch as long and wide.
We get Charm into position, a thirty-yarder. Not a chip shot, especially into the wind, but he’s got the leg to do it. The whole team links arms, bouncing on our heels to watch the attempt. In a game like this, every point is precious. Charm backs up. They snap the ball. Feliz, the Mexican wolf who backs up Aston at quarterback, catches the ball out of the air and sets it down as Charm charges forward.
The massive stallion is two feet from the ball when he slips. Just slightly, but enough. He connects solidly with the ball, which hurtles end-over-end through the air—
—and sails wide left by a foot.
The crowd screams in delight. We collapse, deflated. Charm stalks back to the bench. A couple of the guys say nice things like “it’s muddy out there” and “not your fault,” but he swats angrily at their words and drops himself on the end of the bench, glaring at nothing. After a moment, he takes his helmet off and wings it at the ground.
I have to go back out on defense, but we stop them quickly. When our series is over, I plunk myself down next to Charm, still sitting alone, still staring at his muddy helmet. “Fuckin’ weather,” I say. “Look, the cheerleaders are all covered up. Damn shame, huh?”
He grunts. I elbow him. “Look, all we gotta do is get you out there again. Then you’re gonna be sorry you let all that mud in your helmet. It’ll be all in your ears, running down that big honker of a snout…”
“Chee, Gramps, I’m sure glad I have you around.” He says it sarcastically because he means it.
“I’m glad we have you around, too. Hey, it could be worse.” He glares at me. I point to the opposite bench, where a short rabbit sits nervously flexing his paws. “You could be their kicker.”
His lips pull back in a small equine grin. He punches me on the shoulder. “Ain’t it about time for you to go back out?”
We watch a pass from Aston slip through the paws of Ty Nakamura. “Just ’bout,” I say. “Looks like we won’t be getting you out there on this series.” I leave him like that. He isn’t staring at the cheerleaders, but at least he isn’t staring at his helmet.
He never gets a chance to put it on again. We lose the game 3-0.
The locker room is dispirited afterwards, but Coach picks us up. “This is one of those games,” he says. “I don’t mind losing a game like this.” He pauses, while ears around the locker room perk up. “Okay, that’s a lie.” He grins a fierce, nasty grin. “I hate losing. I hate losing any game. But a loss like this, when you guys played your hearts out and you were not only playing the guys on the other side of the field, but the wind and rain? I’ll take it. Because I know if we play this game again ten times, we win eight of ’em. If we play it ten times in perfect weather, we win all ten. So clean up, get to the plane by nine, and we’ll practice at home tomorrow.”
There’s no griping about the Monday practice; we lost, after all. I toss the ball I recovered into my locker. Should I keep it? I mean, we lost. What kind of souvenir is that? But it is my first fumble recovery in the bigs.
Coach solves the issue for me, coming over as I’m getting out of my pads. “Nice recovery, Miski,” he says. “First one, right?”
He’s still soaked, too, his pants and shoes muddy. Around us, other guys are heading for the showers to clean up. Hopefully there’s hot water. “Yeah,” I say, and the warmth in my chest makes the cold in the locker room more bearable.
“Hang onto that one. There’ll never be another first.”
“Thanks.” I grin again. “It felt good.”
“I bet. Come on, I want to talk to you in the office here. Won’t take long.”
I follow him to a small office off the locker room. It looks like it doubles as a medical room. I sit down in a chair next to a stack of boxes marked “SteriliFur.” Coach sits across the wide desk.
“Nice work today,” he says. “You went to Forester, I know. Got family around here?”
“They had tickets, but I don’t know if they made it to the game.” Mom might have looked at the weather and decided that TV would be fine. I know Lee made it, but he was probably sitting in the Dragons’ team box or something.
He nods. “All I wanted to tell you is that the GM is going to sign another linebacker this week. We want to bring in someone who can back you up while Mitchell rehabs. You’ve got the starting job until he comes back, but then you go back to backing him up. Understood? Nobody loses a starting job because of an injury.”
“What if I play better than him?”
His expression doesn’t change. “You’ll get a chance to prove that the first few weeks he’s back. He doesn’t get to keep his starting job just because he’s coming back from injury, and I’ll make that clear to him as well. All I wanted you to know is that the guy we’re signing this week isn’t coming in to replace you.”
“Who is it?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t know. There are a few out there. I’ll just take whoever they send me. I don’t make that decision.”
“I’m going to keep starting,” I tell him.