David Morrell - Black Evening

Joey kept glancing from Coach Hayes to me, his face in pain.

At once the insults stopped. Coach Hayes glared and nodded. "All right." He walked to a wooden cabinet at the far end of the room.

It was always locked. I'd often wondered what was in there. Now he put a key in the lock and turned it, and behind me I heard a kid who'd been on last year's team whisper, "Mumbo Jumbo."

Next to me, Joey straightened. Those who'd been on last year's team started fidgeting, and somebody else whispered, "Mumbo Jumbo."

Coach Hayes opened the cabinet's door. I couldn't see what was in there because he stood in front of it, his back to us.

Then he slowly stepped away.

Several guys breathed in.

I was looking at a statue. It wasn't big, a foot tall if that. Maybe four inches thick. Pale brown, like the color of a cardboard box. It was made from some kind of stone, not shiny and smooth but dull and gritty-looking, like the stone was sand squeezed together. It had tiny holes here and there.

The statue was a man, distorted, creepy. He had a round bald head and huge bulging lips. His stomach was so swollen he looked pregnant. He sat with his legs crossed, his hands in his lap so they hid his dong. His navel was an upright slit. He reminded me of pictures I'd seen of Chinese idols. But he also reminded me of those weird statues on Easter Island (we'd studied some of this in history class) and those ugly ones in ruins in Mexico. You know, the Aztecs, the Mayans and all that.

The guys who'd been on last year's team didn't act surprised, but they sure looked spellbound. The rest of us didn't know what the hell was going on.

"Boys, I'd better explain. For our new members anyhow. This is… I don't know what you'd call him. Our mascot, I suppose. Or maybe better, our team's good luck charm."

"Mumbo Jumbo," a kid from last year murmured.

"For quite a few years now, we've gone through a little ritual before each game." Coach Hayes slid a table into the middle of the room. Its legs scraped on the concrete floor. "Just as we're going out to play, I set the statue on this table. We walk around it twice. We each put our right hand on the statue's head. Then we go out there, kick the other team's butt, and win."

What kind of shit is this? I thought.

Coach Hayes seemed to read my mind. "Oh, sure, I know it's silly. Childish." He grinned in embarrassment. "But I've been having the team do it so often now, and we've had so many winning seasons, I'm almost afraid to stop. Mind you, I don't think for a second that touching old Mumbo Jumbo's head does us any good. But well, when you've got a good thing going, why change the pattern? It's not as if I'm superstitious. But maybe some of you guys are. Maybe stopping the ritual would throw off your timing. Why not leave well enough alone?"

He studied us, letting what he'd said sink in. Boy, I thought, he doesn't miss a trick. Anything to psych us up. For Christ's sake, a lucky statue.

"There's just one other thing. A few outsiders might not understand the odd things we sometimes have to do to gear ourselves up for a game. They might object to what they thought was… who knows what?… voodoo or something. So we've always had this rule. No one talks about Mumbo Jumbo outside this room. We don't give away our little secrets."

I understood now why I hadn't heard about the statue before, even from the guys who'd been on last year's team. In a way, Joey and I hadn't been officially on the team until tonight when we went out to play.

"I mean it," Coach Hayes said. "If any of you guys blab about this, I'll boot you off the team." He glared. "Do I have your word?"

A few guys mumbled, "Sure."

"I didn't hear you. Say it! Promise!"

We did what he said.

"Louder!"

We shouted it.

"All right." Coach Hayes took the statue from the cabinet and set it on the table. Up close, the thing looked even uglier.

We walked around it twice, put our right hand on its head (I felt stupid as hell), then ran out onto the football field and -

This is what happened. I didn't believe it then. Now, through the haze of all these years, I try to convince myself that my memory's playing tricks. But it happened. That's the terrible part, deep down knowing the truth, but too late.

Five minutes into the game, no score, Coach Hayes sent me out as quarterback. In the huddle, I called a passing play, nothing fancy, just something basic to get the feel of being in the game. So we got set. I grabbed the ball, and all of a sudden it wasn't like in practice. This was the real thing, what all the pain and throwing up and weeks of work had been about, and Covington High's players looked like they wanted to kick in my teeth and make me swallow them. Our receivers ran out. Covington 's interceptors stayed with them. My heart thundered. Frantic, I skipped back to get some room and gain some time, straining to see if anybody was in the open. Covington 's blockers charged at me. It couldn't have taken five seconds, but it seemed even shorter, like a flash. A swirl of bodies lunged at me. My hands felt sweaty on the ball. Slick. I had the terrible fear I was going to drop it.

Then I saw Joey. He'd managed to get in the open. He was sprinting toward Covington 's goal line, on the left, glancing back across his shoulder, hands up, wanting the ball. I snapped back my arm and shot the ball forward, perfect, exactly the way Coach Hayes had taught me, one smooth powerful motion.

And pivoted sideways so I wouldn't get crushed by Covington 's blockers, staring at the ball spinning through the air like a bullet, my heart in my throat, shouting to Joey.

And that's when I froze. I don't think I've ever felt that cold. My blood was like ice, my spine packed with snow. Because that end of the field, to the left, near Covington 's goal line, was empty. Joey wasn't there. Nobody was.

But I'd seen him. I'd aimed the ball to him. I swear to God he'd been there. How the -

Joey was over to the right, streaking away from Covington 's men, suddenly in the open. To this day, I still don't know how he gained so much yardage so fast. In a rush, he was charging toward the left, toward the goal line.

And that ball fell in his hands so easily, so neatly…

The fans assumed we'd planned it, a fakeout tactic, a brilliant play. Coach Hayes later said the same, or claimed he believed it. When Joey sprinted across the goal line, holding the ball up in triumph, the kids from our school broke out in a cheer so loud I didn't hear it as much as feel it, like a wall of sound shoving against me, pressing me.

I threw up my hands, yelling to get rid of my excitement. But I knew. It wasn't any fakeout play. It wasn't brilliant. It had almost been a massive screwup. But it had worked. Almost as if…

(I saw Joey there. I know it. On the left, near the goal line. Except he hadn't been there.)

… as if we'd intended it to happen. Or it had been meant to happen.

Or we'd been unbelievably lucky.

I started shaking then. I couldn't stop. I wasn't steady enough to play for the next ten minutes. Sitting on the bench, I kept seeing the play again in my mind, Joey in two spots at once.

Maybe I hoped so hard that I saw what I'd pray I see.

But it felt spooky.

Coach Hayes came over to where I hunched on the bench. "Something the matter?"

I clutched my helmet. "I guess I'm just not used to…" What? "… a real game instead of practice. I've never helped score a touchdown before."

"You'll help score plenty more."

I felt a tingle in my gut.

The game was full of miracles like that. Plays that shouldn't have worked but they did. Incredible timing. With five minutes to go in the game and the score 35 to nothing in our favor, Coach Hayes walked along our bench and murmured to the defensive squad, "The next time they're close to our goal line, let them score. Hold back, but don't make it obvious."