David Morrell - Black Evening

Joey and I frowned at each other.

"But – " somebody said.

"No buts. Do what you're told," Coach Hayes said. "It's demoralizing for them if they don't get at least a few points. We want to let them feel they had a chance. Good sportsmanship."

Nobody dared to argue with him. Our defensive squad sure looked troubled, though.

"And be convincing," Coach Hayes said.

And that's why Covington scored when our guys failed to stop an end run.

The school had an after-game dance in the gym. Everybody kept coming up to me and Joey and the rest of the team, congratulating us, slapping us on the back. Rebecca Henderson even agreed to dance with me. But she'd come with some girlfriends and wouldn't let me take her home. "Maybe next time," she said.

Believe it or not, I didn't mind. In fact, I was so preoccupied I didn't remember to ask her out for Saturday night. What I wanted to do was talk to Joey. By ourselves.

A little after midnight, we started home. A vague smell of autumn in the air. Smoke from somebody's fireplace. Far off, a dog barked, the only sound except for the scrape of our shoes as we walked along. I shoved my hands in the pockets of my green-and-gold varsity jacket and finally said what was on my mind. "Our first play? When I threw you the ball and you scored?"

Joey didn't answer right away. I almost repeated what I'd said.

"Yeah, what about it?" His voice was soft.

I told him what I thought I'd seen.

"The coach says we think alike." Joey shrugged. "What he calls anticipation. You guessed that's where I was headed."

"Sure. It's just…" I turned to him. "We won so easily."

"Hey, I've got bruises on my – "

"I don't mean we didn't work. But we were so damned lucky. Everything clicked together."

"That's why Coach Hayes kept drilling us. To play as a team. All the guys did what they'd been taught to do."

"Like clockwork. Yeah. Everybody in the right place at the right time."

"So what's bugging you? You thought you saw me in one place while I was in another? You're not the only one who thought he was seeing things. When we started that play, I saw you snap the ball toward that empty slot in the field, so I faked out the guy covering me and ran like hell to get there ahead of the ball. Know what? As I started running, I suddenly realized you hadn't even thrown the ball yet. You were still looking for an opening. I saw what you were going to do, not what you'd already done."

I felt a chill.

"Anticipation. No big deal. Hell, luck had nothing to do with it. Coach Hayes had us psyched up. The old adrenaline started burning. I ran to where I guessed you'd throw."

I tried to look convinced. "It must be I'm not used to all the excitement."

"Yeah, the excitement."

Even in the dark, his eyes glowed.

"There's a lot of room for improvement," Coach Hayes said at Saturday's game analysis. "We missed a chance for at least two interceptions. Our blocking's got to be quicker, harder."

He surprised me. The score had been so misbalanced, our plays so nearly perfect, I figured we'd done as well as we could.

He made the team practice Sunday afternoon and every day after school. "Just because we won our first game doesn't mean we can afford to slack off. Overconfidence makes losers."

We still had to stay on that crazy diet of his. In my fantasies, I dreamed of mountains of cherry Cokes and fries with ketchup. For sure, we had to keep our grades up. The end of the week, he went around to all our teachers and asked how we'd done on our quizzes. "Let your studies slide," he warned us, "and you don't play."

Friday night, we packed our equipment in the school bus and drove across town to meet West High. We used the girls' locker room in the gym, and after we'd dressed, Coach Hayes insulted us again. He set down a small wooden case (it had a big lock on it) in the middle of the room, opened it, and took out Mumbo Jumbo. The thing looked twice as ugly as before, scowling with those big bulging lips and that upright slit for a navel.

But we knew the routine and walked around it twice and put a hand on the statue's head (I still felt stupid). Then we went out and won forty-two to seven. That seven wouldn't have happened except that again Coach Hayes made us let them score a touchdown. And again that spooky thing happened. Coach Hayes let me play in the second quarter. I got the ball and looked for an opening. There was Joey, far down the field, ready to catch it. And there was Joey, twenty yards in front of where I saw him, trying to get away from a West High player.

My mouth hung open. My hands felt numb. I couldn't breathe. At once something snapped inside me, and the next thing I knew I'd thrown the ball.

Joey raced from where he'd been trying to dodge the West High player. He ran toward the other Joey who was in the open. The two Joeys came together. And of course he caught the ball.

Our fans went nuts, screaming, cheering.

Joey crossed the goal line and jumped up and down. Even halfway down the field, despite the noise, I heard him whoop. Our guys were slapping me on the ass. I tried to look as excited as they were.

The next time I walked to our bench, Coach Hayes said, "Nice pass."

We studied each other for a second. I couldn't tell if he knew how startled I'd been out there, and why.

"Well, Joey's the one who caught it," I said.

"That's right. Team spirit, Danny. Everybody's in this together. All the same, nice pass."

Beside him, close, its lock shut, was the box.

We played eight games that season. Sometimes I had nightmares about them – double images of Joey or other players, the images coming together. I felt as if everything happened twice, as if I could see what was going to happen before it did.

Impossible.

But that's how it seemed. One night I scared my Mom and Dad when I woke up screaming. I didn't tell them what the nightmare was about. I didn't talk to Joey about it, either. After that first time I'd tried to, I sensed that he didn't want to listen.

"We're winners. Jesus, it feels good," he said.

And the scores were always lopsided. We always let the other team score a few points when we were way in front.

Except one time. The sixth game, the one against Central High. Coach Hayes didn't call us names that night before the game. In the locker room, he sat in a corner, watching us put on our uniforms, and the guys started glancing at each other, nervous, sensing something was wrong.

"It's tonight," a kid from last year said, his voice tense.

I didn't understand.

Coach Hayes stood up. "Get out there, and give it your best."

Joey looked surprised. "But what about – " He turned to the cabinet at the end of the locker room. "Mumbo – "

"Time to go." Coach Hayes sounded gruff. "Do what you're told. They're waiting."

"But – "

"What's the matter with you, Joey? Don't you want to play tonight?"

Joey's face turned an angry red. His jaw stood out. With a final look at the cabinet, he stalked from the locker room.

It could be you've already guessed. We didn't just lose that night. They trounced us. Hell, we never scored a point. Oh, we played hard. After all the training we'd been through, we knew what we were doing. But the other team played harder.

And it was the only game when I wasn't spooked, when I didn't see two images of Joey or what would happen before it actually did.

The after-game dance was a flop.

And Joey was mad as hell. Walking home with me, he kept slamming his fists together. "It's Coach Hayes's fault. He changed the routine. He got us used to him making us pissed at him before the game, calling us names and all that shit. We weren't prepared. We weren't worked up enough to go out there and win."