John Grisham - Bleechers

"That's them. Great players, nice guys, and because Rake never changed anything they knew the system, the plays, most of the kids. Friday night rolled around, first game of the season. We were playing Porterville, and the boycott was on. Problem was, nobody wanted to miss the game. Rake's folks, who were probably in the majority, couldn't stay away because they wanted the team to get slaughtered. The real fans were there for the right reasons. The place was packed, as always, with complicated loyalties yelling in all directions. The players were pumped. They dedicated the game to Scotty, and won by four touchdowns.A wonderful night. Sad, because of Scotty, and sad because the Rake era was apparently over, but winning is everything."

"This bench is hard," Neely said, standing. "Let's walk."

"Meanwhile, Rake hired a lawyer. A suit was filed, things got ugly, Reardon held hisground, and the town, though deeply divided, still managed to come together every Friday night. The team played with more guts than I've ever seen. Years later, one kid I know said it was such a relief playing football for the sheer fun of it, and not playing out of fear."

"How beautiful is that?"

"We never knew."

"No, we didn't."

"They won the first eight games.Undefeated.Nothing but pride and guts. There was talk of a state title. There was talk of a new streak. There was talk of paying the Griffins a bunch of money to start a new dynasty. All that crap."

"Then they lost?"

"Of course.It's football. A bunch of kids start thinking they're good, and they get their butts kicked."

"Who did it?"

"Hermantown."

"No, not Hermantown!That's a basketball school."

"Did it right here, in front of ten thousand. Worst game I ever saw. No pride, no guts, just show them the next press clipping. Forget a streak. Forget a state title. Fire the Griffins. Bring back Eddie Rake. Things were sort of okay when we were winning, but that one loss ripped this town apart for years. And when we lost the next week we failed to qualify for the playoffs. The Griffins quit immediately."

"Smart boys."

"Those of us who played for Rake were caught in the middle. Everyone asked, 'Which side are you on?' No fence straddling, bud, you had to declare if you were for Rake or against him."

"And you?"

"I straddled the fence and got kicked on both sides. It turned into class warfare. There had always been a very small group of people who were opposed to spending more money on football than on science and math combined. We traveled by chartered bus while every academic club carpooled with their parents. For years the girls had no softball field, while we had not one but two practice fields. The Latin Club qualified for a trip to New York but couldn't afford it; the same year the football team took the train to watch the Super Bowl in New Orleans. The list is endless. Rake's firing made these complaints louder. The folks who wanted to deemphasize sports saw their opportunity. The football bubbas resisted; they just wanted Rake and another streak. Those of us who played, then went to college and were considered somewhat enlightened, got caught in the middle."

"What happened?"

"It smoldered and festered for months. John Reardon stood firm. He found some lost soul from Oklahoma who wanted to coach, and hired him as the successor to Eddie Rake. Unfortunately, '93 was reelection year for Reardon, so the whole mess turned into one huge political brawl. There was a strong rumor that Rake himself would run against Reardon. If he got elected, he would anoint himself Coach again and tell the whole world to go to hell. There was a rumor that Scotty's father would spend a million bucks to reelect John Reardon. And so on. The race was ugly before it started, so ugly that the Rake campalmost couldn't find a candidate."

"Who ran?"

"Dudley Bumpus."

"The name sounds promising."

"The name was the best part. He's a local real estate swinger who'd been a big mouth in the boosters. No political experience, no educational experience, barely finished college.Only one indictment, no conviction.A loser who almost won."

"Reardon held on?"

"By sixty votes.The turnout was the largest in the county's history, almost ninety percent. It was a war with no prisoners. When the winner was announced, Rake went home, locked the door, and hid for two years."

They stopped at a row of headstones. Paul walked along them, looking for someone. "Here," he said, pointing. "David Lee Goff.The first Spartan to die in Vietnam."

Neely looked at the headstone.There was an inlaid photograph of David Lee, looking all of sixteen years old, posing not in an Army uniform or a senior portrait, but in his green Spartan jersey, number 22.Born in 1950, killed in 1968. "I know hisyoungest brother," Paul was saying. "David Lee graduated in May, entered boot camp in June,arrived in Vietnam in October, died the day after Thanksgiving. Eighteen years and two months old."

"Two years before we were born."

"Somethinglike that. There was another one who hasn't been found yet.A black kid, Marvin Rudd, who went missing in action in 1970."

"I remember Rake talking about Rudd," Neely said. "Rake loved the kid. His parents still come to every game, and you wonder what they're thinking."

"I'm tired of death," Neely said. "Let's go."

* * *

Neely couldn't remember a bookshop in Messina, nor a place to get an espresso or buy coffee beans from Kenya. Nat's Place now provided all three, along with magazines, cigars, CDs, off-color greeting cards, herbal teas of dubious origin, vegetarian sandwiches and soups, and a meeting place for drifting poets and folksingers and the few wanna-be bohemians in the town. It was on the square, four doors down from Paul's bank, in a building that sold feed and fertilizer whenNeely was a kid. Paul had some loans to make, soNeely explored by himself.

Nat Sawyer was the worst punter in the history of Spartan football. His average yards per kick had set record lows, and he fumbled so many snaps that Rake would normally just go for it on fourth and eight, regardless of where the ball was. WithNeely at quarterback, a good punter was not a necessity.

Twice, during their senior year, Nat had somehow managed to miss the ball with his foot entirely, creating some of the most watched video footage in the program's history. The second miss, which was actually two misses on the same punt, resulted in a comical ninety-four-yard touchdown run, which lasted, according to an accurate timing of the video, 17.3 seconds. Standing in his own end zone, and quite nervous about it, Nat had taken the snap, released the ball, kicked nothing but air, then been slaughtered by two defenders from Grove City. As the bail was spinning benignly on the ground nearby, Nat collected himself, picked it up, and began to run. The two defenders, who appeared to be stunned, gave a confused chase, and Nat tried an awkward punt-on-the-fly. When he missed, he picked up the ball again, and the race was on. The sight of such an ungainly gazelle lumbering down the field, in sheer terror, froze many of the players from both teams. Silo Mooney later testifed that he was laughing so hard he couldn't block for his punter. He swore he heard laughter coming from under the helmets of the Grove City players.

From the video, the coaches counted ten missed tackles. When Nat finally reached the end zone, he spiked the ball, didn't care about the penalty, ripped off his helmet, and rushed to the home side so the fans could admire him at close range.

Rake gave him an award for the Ugliest Touchdown of the Year.

In the tenth grade, Nat had tried playing safety, but he couldn't run and hated to hit. In the eleventh, he had tried receiver, butNeely nailed him in the gut on a slant and Nat couldn't breathe for five minutes. Few of Rake's players had been cursed with so little talent. None of Rake's players looked worse in a uniform.