The Big Time

CHAPTER SIX

FROM THE MIDDLE OF the woods, Troy thought of something and went back to his house-not to return, but to retrieve the football he used to throw at the tire that hung from a tree on the edge of the dirt patch in front of the house. Troy had collected the signatures of the entire Falcons offense; if he was going to really go somewhere, he didn't plan to go without it.

He found the ball just inside the shed, closing its door quietly, with one eye on his house, before heading back through the pines and out toward the tracks. Up the stony bank Troy climbed. After the total darkness of the woods, he could almost see the shiny metal tracks and their straight path due north to Chicago or south to Atlanta, depending on your direction. Troy headed south-not to Atlanta, but to the Pine Grove Apartments where both Nathan and Tate lived. It was Tate's apartment he went to, scooping up a handful of pebbles from the landscaping and tossing them up at the second-floor window he knew was hers.

It took a dozen stones before her light went on and the window slid open.

"Who's there?" Tate said, hissing into the night, just the edge of her face appearing between the curtains and the window frame.

"Tate," Troy said, "it's me."

Tate stuck her head right out the window then and, looking down, still whispering, asked, "What in the world are you doing?"

"Can you come down?" he asked.

Tate swept her long brown hair behind her ears and said, "You really need me to? It's, like, almost midnight."

"I do," he said.

"Okay," she said with a forceful nod, "let me get out of these pajamas."

Troy circled the apartment building and waited in the shadows until Tate's form slipped free from her front door and down the steps. She held a finger to her lips, and they stayed quiet until they reached the railroad tracks in back.

"Are you crazy?" Tate asked, still whispering.

"You don't have to whisper," Troy said.

"Who doesn't whisper?" Tate asked. "It's the middle of the night. The last time we did something like this, you almost got gunned down by a security guard inside Cotton Wood."

"I didn't almost get gunned down," Troy said.

"He had a gun."

"You sound like Nathan," Troy said.

"Where is Nathan?" she asked.

Troy shrugged. "I needed to talk to you. A woman's perspective, I guess."

Tate went silent for a minute, and they began walking down the tracks before she asked, "About your mom and your dad?"

"I ran away," Troy said.

"From home?"

"I guess."

"You can't do that," Tate said, upset.

"Now you sound like her," Troy said, smacking the ball he held with his free hand, then firing it at the trees beside the tracks so that it took off like a rocket, nearly straight up into the air, "telling me what to do, treating me like a little kid when I'm not. I'm making ten thousand dollars a week. And now with me being cleared by the NFL to help the Falcons, agents are coming out of the woodwork wanting to negotiate a deal for me with the Falcons or even another team for millions. Think about that, Tate. Millions."

"Well," she said, staring up at the tree toward which Troy had thrown his ball, "at least you can afford to buy yourself another ball."

"What?" Troy said, following her gaze.

"That thing never came down," she said.

"It had to," Troy said, starting for the big pine tree.

"I didn't hear it," she said, following him.

"Me neither," he said, mumbling and searching the ground beneath the tree.

Tate stared up and said, "It's stuck."

"I got that signed by the entire Falcons offense," he said. "I need to get it."

Tate sighed and spit on her hands, heading for the trunk of the enormous pine tree.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'll get it," she said, annoyed.

Troy watched her shinny up the trunk and scramble into the tree's branches. She shook one branch wildly, and the ball came tumbling down. It landed with a thump before bouncing crazily around and rolling down into the ditch beside the tracks. The branches shook as Tate moved into sight, then hung from the lowest branch and dropped down beside him as easy as if she were a cat.

"How'd you do that?" he asked.

Tate just shrugged and said, "A woman of many talents."

"You're like a lemur, Tate," Troy said, retrieving the ball from the ditch before climbing up onto the tracks, "but thanks. I wouldn't want to run away without this."

Troy turned to go, but Tate stopped him, and he could see her dark eyes glinting, even in the faintest light. "You just said you 'ran away.' That's what little kids do, not grown men."

"My father was a grown man," Troy said, swatting her hand away. "She says he ran away. I guess I'm like him. Anyway, I want to find him. If she doesn't want me, I can go live with him."