Fight, Scrub, Fight!

Chapter Three Touchdown Castouts

Back in the center of the room he said, “Nice going, guys. We got one. We might have had two. Sims is over there with them giving them hell. They’ll come out after blood. It’ll be tough holding them off. But I think we can do it. Play it smart and hard and fast. Do your jobs. Remember your assignment. Keep your heads up. They’ll be eager enough to bobble a few. Fall on the ball. This is the last game. With a win we’ve got a good season. A loss and we’re all dogs. A good season and we get the breaks next year. You know what I mean.”

He turned toward the door, found his way unexpectedly blocked by Frank Mercer. Mercer, uncertain and ill at ease, said, “Coach, I—”

“Speak up, boy.”

“I wondered if I was going to get in this game. You see I—”

Strega smiled. It wasn’t a very friendly smile. “I know, kid. The history books say this is your day to be a hero. You talk to Forsi. You ask him to punch another one or two across and I’ll shove you in for the closing moments.”

Mercer drifted away, his eyes hurt, his lips tight Tony Strega left and slammed the door after him.

The first ten minutes of the third quarter turned into a kicking duel, with the educated toe of Greely’s Jeffer providing a slight advantage.

Each team, hot after the ball, smothered the defensive efforts of the other team. Tony, trying to weigh the remaining strength of his men, glanced along the bench. Everybody had been in but Mercer, White and two tackles. Tony sent in the two tackles.

At last Jeffer hit the jackpot with a kick which took an odd bounce, went over the safety man’s head and rolled out inches from the goal line.

The kick by Adams was bad, barely reaching the mid-field stripe. Greely got down to the forty where it became fourth and three. Jeffer kicked magnificently, and the hankerchief was dropped on the two.

Loots went back as safety.

Stanisk got off a beautiful kick, his best of the day. It sailed, wide and handsome, way back over Loots’ head. Loots raced back, picked it up on his own twenty-five, spun away from a driving tackle, angled toward the sidelines. Two men closed in on him. He sidestepped the shot of one, broke through the other with a punishing straight arm. He toe-danced down the sideline until he was blocked. He cut back but he had picked up protection. He moved nicely in back of his interference, racing down the cluttered field. He spun out of another tackle, reversed his field, made it down to the thirty. Sharma and Maroney closed in on him. Sharma was blocked out. Loots feinted but he couldn’t fake Maroney off line. Loots put on a burst of speed and ran Maroney down. It caught Maroney by surprise. He managed to trip Loots. But Loots, after stumbling wildly, managed to stay on his feet.

In the end zone he slowed, stopped, and burlesqued the heaving of a huge sigh.

They tried hard to block the kick, but fingers failed to reach the ball and it sailed through, straight and true.

With the score tied, the quarter ended just as Adams ran the first play from the twenty for a three yard gain, second and seven.

After the first play in the fourth quarter, Maroney tried to hobble back to position. Time was called and he came off, limping badly. It was the first serious loss. Some men had been badly enough bruised to need a rest and several had had the wind knocked out of them, necessitating a time out, but this was the first man out of the game for keeps.

Mercer helped Maroney back to the locker room where his ankle could be tended.

Brankoff was almost as good as Maroney. Just a shade slower on his feet and quite a bit slower in the head. Forsi, with Brankoff in the right-half slot, would have to skim off and discard the top precision layer from the bag of tricks.

Tony wondered if Loren understood his predicament, and then he realized with a deep and heavy sense of loss that she wasn’t there.

Forsi had to slam ahead for the winning points. Jackson sent down a report that one of the Greely guards was too eager and might fall for the old mouse trap.

Tony sent a tackle in with the information. Forsi slammed Jabella through the hole where the too-eager guard had been. Jabella made eleven yards, running the last three with tacklers hanging all over him.

Brankoff fumbled and suddenly it was third down, eleven to go. Greely drew a roughing-the-kicker penalty. And so the kick wasn’t necessary.

It was that close. Almost inch by inch. A gamble all the way. Tired men snapped into position, lifting sodden legs for that last ounce of energy, that last bit of drive. This was the pay-off and Forsi was in there, throwing his dwindling forces in the best direction, subject only to occasional suggestion from the bench.

Down to the forty, to mid-field, to the Greely forty. Fourth and one on the Greely thirty-five. A desperate gamble that paid off a first down. Down to the thirty, the twenty, the fifteen. Down to the ten and Greely stands rocked with the chant of, “Hold that line!”

Jabella got up more slowly each time. Down to the eight, the five. The three.

And Greely got possession of the ball on downs on their own two yard line.

Tony glanced at the clock. Seven minutes to play.

A Greely team, revitalized by the way they had halted the Adams drive, snapped back and shook Loots loose for forty yards. The next play, a long pass, hauled down by a Greely end, made it a first down on the Adams twenty.

Tony Strega tasted the sourness of defeat. On the next play, Loots went wide, his chunky legs churning, knees high, his speed deceptive.

A man arrowed out of the back and a blocker missed. Brankoff, moving faster than he had moved at any time during the afternoon, hit Loots head on. The ball bounded away. Forsi was there to fall on it.

Loots got up slowly. Brankoff didn’t get up at all.

During the time out they got him on his feet. But he didn’t know what day it was and he didn’t have any idea who they were playing. He came off the field meekly.

“White for Brankoff!” Tony said, his voice cracking like a whip.

Julius White gave Tony a startled look and sped out. There was no other solution. Julius White was the only right half left. It was just hard luck that his injuries had to be both in the right-half slot. And harder luck that he had such a small squad that he couldn’t afford any all-purpose backs who could fill any slot in an emergency.

Halfway to the referee, Julius White, running far too fast, fell over his own feet, fell heavily.

Tony stifled a groan. Julius got up, ran out more slowly and reported.

Five minutes to play.

Five minutes for Forsi to try to exact the impossible from a weary squad. They lined up and Forsi, in the huddle, had called a play from the sixty series.

Once again the fade-back, the jump pass, only this time with Stanisk and White cutting outside the end, White taking the pass, Stanisk blocking. Stanisk nailed his man. White avoided a tackier, ran wide, cut back too sharply. His cleats cut the turf and he went down without a man near him. The play had netted six, but it could have been sixteen.

The rising yell of the Adams stands dwindled off into a moan.

They lined up again and Julius White was prancing in position like a skittish colt. Stanisk took the flip from Forsi, faded back to pass with White and a guard who had pulled out of the line to cover him.

White, not content to drift back and wait for the shot, ran down to the line of scrimmage to block a man who looked like he was coming through. A line-backer and an end stormed back toward Stanisk. The guard got the end, but the line-backer went high and tipped the pass almost straight up. A Greely man made a dive for it and recovered it after it had hit the ground, but it was ruled incomplete.

Third and four.

Tony looked along the bench. Frank Mercer was shifting uneasily, his head sunk between his shoulders. He caught Tony’s glance and his eyes widened as he pointed a finger at his own chest Tony saw the boy’s lips form a word.

“Me?”

He pursed his lips and shook his head from side to side.

On the next play the pass from center was bad. Forsi had to reach high for it. He didn’t have time to pull it down, spin and feed it to Stanisk, but was forced to hang on, continue his spin all the way around, and try his own shot at the line. He was bounced back for a yard loss.

Fourth and five.

The kick went deep and the ends were down to smother Loots on the fifteen.

Three minutes.

Some of the crowd began to chant for Mercer and White. Tony turned in his seat and gave the crowd an angry glare. Often, when looking at a vast crowd of people, the eye will catch a certain individual. His heart gave a surprising and totally unexpected lurch as he saw Loren, her red hat perched at a jaunty angle, her lips unsmiling.

He looked at her for several seconds. He was certain that she looked at him and looked away. When he turned back he gasped. Then he shouted angrily. Mercer ignored him.

Mercer was racing in to report. And without authority.

His angry shout had focused the eyes of the other men on the bench who, up until that moment, had believed that Strega had given Frank Mercer some sort of signal to go in.

His fists clenched, Tony stood up, saw Mercer report, saw Jabella jog tiredly off the field.

Tony turned to Laddis. “Get ready to go in after one play.”

On a hunch he turned, found Loren again. She was looking at him and she was smiling. She touched her fingertips to her lips. Tony Strega sat down heavily.

Laddis warmed up along the sidelines.

The game was gone, and the backfield was shot, and his two clowns were in there. He spat onto the dirt at his feet and hunched over, elbows on his knees. He wanted to strike out at the fate which had robbed him of this win. And he had a hunch that Greely would shake Loots loose again.

Jeffer found a hole on the first play that Greely ran. He loomed up in the backfield. Stanisk missed a shot. Little White bounced off Jeffer’s meaty thighs. Forsi was too far to one side. Frank Mercer had a half-hearted shot at Jeffer. By pure luck his forearm clipped Jeffers across the ankle. Jeffer went down hard.

But it was an eight yard gain right through the middle.

Tony turned to send Laddis in and then he thought. The hell with it. I’ll leave Mercer in for a few more plays. Let Loren see what it does to him. Let it teach her something.

On the next play Loots, on the receiving end of a shovel pass, scooted out into the clear. Julius White angled toward him, dived, got him by one angle and dumped him. But it was a first down for Greely.

Two minutes left in the game.

Mercer and White walked side by side back toward the backfield. Forsi was calling the defensive shifts. White was saying something to Mercer.

On the next play, Jeffer drove hard at the center of the line. Before he got there, the Greely line opened a hole big enough to take a launch through.

Mercer came toward the hole just as fast from one direction as Jeffer came from the other. Tony’s jaw sagged open as the thud of their sudden meeting echoed all the way back to the bench.

As far as he had been able to see, Frank Mercer had tried hard to break Jeffer into several small pieces.

Second and twelve.

Forsi went high and slapped down a pass.

On the next play Loots tried a hard slant off tackle, but Mercer, his sleeve ripped from wrist to elbow, rose up out of nowhere, gathered Loots up and hurled him back into his own backfield.

Forsi put White and Stanisk back in the safety slot. A minute and thirty seconds. The kick came high, giving the ends time to come down. Stanisk took it, ran dead ahead, flipped it over to White. White tucked it under his left arm, reversed his field brilliantly, angled toward the sidelines, cut back upfield, brought it all the way up to the forty.

Forsi called the play fast.

He fed it to Mercer. Mercer went through the middle on a hard plunge that gained four yards. Stanisk, with Mercer running interference, went around end for three more. Forsi tried a long pass. No dice.

Fourth and three.

Forsi dropped back, rifled one into White’s arms. Mercer was trying to keep ahead of White. But White passed him as Tony Strega groaned. White, apparently blind, ran directly into the arms of two tacklers.

But as he hit the tacklers he twisted and with a totally unexpected toss, he hung the ball dead in front of Mercer.

Mercer took it on the Greely forty. Stanisk managed to knife ahead of him in a desperate block that cut down an immediate threat.

Mercer ran like a bull. He ran with his feet wide, his knees high, all thrusting power. The fleet Loots caught him at the ten. Mercer rocked under the impact, staggered to one side, tore one leg free and with Loots hanging on the other leg he took three more hitching steps. Another man hit him from the side and Mercer fell, but he fell with his face on the goal line, the ball extended ahead of him at arm’s length.

Anthony Strega sat in his small darkened living room, slouched in the chair, his legs straight out, his heels against the carpet. Loren sat on the floor, her cheek against his thigh, his fingers wound in her raven hair.

He said softly, “After the gun, after the mob headed for the goal posts, I saw White drop as though he’d been shot. They bad to carry him into the dressing room. I couldn’t figure it. My two weak sisters had pulled my game out of the fire.

“By the time I fought clear of the mob and got in there, he’d come to. Andy called me over and told me to look at the kid’s hand. It looked more like a foot. As near as we can tell there were three bones broken in that hand.

“The boys were shocked at the way we’d stolen the game. They were just beginning to fill the place with yells. Al Forsi came up to me, grinning and shaking his head. He said, ‘Coach, that big crazy Mercer was charging all over the place blubbering every minute and the tears were running down his face. It beats the hell out of me.’

“Mercer was over in the corner, too weary to unlace his shoes. He grinned up at me and the tears had made dirty marks on his face. He said, ‘Coach, we had to keep those history books accurate.’

“Loren, right then something hit me — something about those crazy, wonderful kids got me by the throat. In another minute I’d have been blubbering like Mercer had been.

“White was getting over his green look and a doc was on the way. He came over. I asked him what the hell happened in there and he grinned at me a little weakly, and said that he saw Frank flinch off a tackle, so when he got a chance he showed Frank his hand and said that if Mercer missed another shot like that, he was going to walk up to him and pop him right in the face with the busted hand, and did Mercer expect him to play all by himself and what good was a lot of meat and muscle if you were afraid to use it.

“I guess Mercer thought White was going to ruin the hand for keeps. Forsi didn’t know a thing about it or he’d have sent White out. White started to kid Mercer about one for the records and how this was his chance to make Ripley’s column.

“That explained some things. It explained why White toted the ball in his left arm and why that heave to Mercer, which wasn’t in the books, had to be done with the left hand.

“But here was the pay-off, baby. I asked White which play busted his hand. He turned bright red and allowed as how he’d fallen on it on the way out to report.”

She said, “I changed my mind and came to see the game. A hunch or something. I spent a lot of the afternoon just walking, and thinking about us.”

“What about us?”

“I don’t think I have to say it now.”

He was silent for a time and then he muttered, “Those crazy, wonderful kids.”

“You had them all taped, darling. All figured down to the T. No pun intended.”

“Maybe some things can’t be figured.”

“Darling?”

“What is it, Loren?”

“Darling, how much is two and two?”

The question shocked him, and suddenly he realized how far he had gone in one day. He knew that never again would things be exactly the same in his mind, and that he was being forced to sacrifice a portion of that drive which had given him his courage and his strength, but in sacrificing it he was gaining something else, which, in its own way was precious and necessary. He felt the collapse of certain values and yet he knew that the void they left would become filled with a warmth he had never known.

“Two and two is usually four, Loren,” he said softly. “Or five, or six or seven.”

She sighed, a small and sleepy sound. “You know, Mr. Strega, this may turn out to be a pretty satisfactory marriage if I give it enough time.”

“Even if we don’t edge into the big dough?”

“Even if we stay right here and get all stupefied with tradition and stuff and never leave.”

Anthony Strega smiled in the darkness. “I don’t know why that should sound good. But in some funny way it does.”