David Morrell - Black Evening

"How's tricks, Scoop?"

"I just got the word on the nominations for homecoming queen."

"Nobody's supposed to know that till next week's assembly."

"No kidding." He grinned. "Maybe you'll be interested. Rebecca Henderson's one of them."

"My, my." I grinned right back. "Somebody's got good taste. So listen, have you got any old editions of the paper?"

"All the ones I edited. Plus a bunch from a couple editors before me."

"How far back do they go?"

He was proud. "Fifteen years."

"Hey, swell. So where do you keep them?"

"In the morgue."

"Huh?"

"That's what newspapers call where they store old issues. Over there." He pointed past some boxes to a rickety bookshelf in one corner.

"You mind?"

He spread his arms. "Hey, be my guest. What do you want to look at them for?"

I'd figured he'd ask. "A couple of us on the football team have been thinking about a reunion game with former players. An exhibition thing. You know. The old guys against the new."

"Yeah?" Scoop's eyes brightened. He reached for his pencil.

"Now wait a minute. We're still just talking, Scoop. If you put this in the paper and it doesn't happen, you'll look dumb. You might even screw up our chances of convincing those guys."

"Right." He nodded. "I'll make you a deal. You look at the former issues, but if the plans for the game look definite, let me know so I can break the story."

"Anything you say."

So I went to the corner and started sorting through the papers. They smelled like a mouldy cellar. I almost sneezed.

Fifteen years of them. How many weeks in a school year? Forty? A lot of issues. But looking through them wasn't as hard as you'd think. See, the only issues I wanted were the ones in the football season. And I only wanted the issues since Coach Hayes had come to the school eleven years ago. It took me less than half an hour. And this is what I learned.

The first two seasons when Hayes had coached were awful. Worse than that. Disastrous. The team never won a game. A total zip.

But after that? Winning season after winning season.

With these facts in common. The games we won had lopsided scores in our favor, but the opposing team always managed to get on the board. And every season, we lost one game, the first or the seventh or the third, no consistent pattern there. And the teams that beat us varied. But the score was always zero for us.

Because he didn't bring out Mumbo Jumbo?

I know that's crazy. Next thing you'll figure I believe in horoscopes and fortune telling and all that crap. But I swear it made me wonder, and remember, you weren't on the field to see those creepy double images. In my place, you'd have started to wonder too.

By then, Scoop was leaning over my shoulder, squinting at the paper in front of me.

"Something the matter, Scoop?"

"Just nosey."

"Yeah."

"I see you're reading about the game the team lost three years ago."

"I wasn't playing then."

"I know. But I was a cub reporter for the paper then. I was there that night. I remember thinking how weird that game was."

"Oh?"

"All those perfect games, and then a real dog."

"Well, nobody plays good every game. Hey, thanks, Scoop. Anything I can do for you, just – "

"Let me know about the reunion game."

"Believe me, you'll be the first."

And that's what started things. With some bad moves from a new kid on the team whose name was Price. See, he wouldn't keep his grades up. Maybe he was just stupid. He soon started acting that way.

Coach Hayes followed through on his threat. No grades, no play. So Price got kicked off the team.

But Price had a father with a beer gut who'd been a jock when he was in high school, and when Price started whining, the father went whacko over what he said was an insult to his kid. "I don't care about his grades. You think I want him to grow up with ulcers, trying to be a brain. Football's been good for me. It gave me character, and I know it's good for my boy's."

No major problem. Just your basic asshole father sticking up for his kid. But Coach Hayes wouldn't budge, and that's when Price broke the rule.

You might remember reading about it back then, and I'm not talking about the high school paper. The local Courier . Then the major paper in the state. Then… FATHER OF HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL PLAYER ACCUSES TEAM OF DEVIL WORSHIP.

Well, you can imagine, there wasn't any stopping it after that. The city council wanted to know what the hell was going on. The school board demanded an explanation. The principal got angry phone calls.

My father put down the Courier and frowned at me. "Is this story about the statue true? Mumbo Jumbo?"

"It's not like Price says. It's just a mascot."

"But you touch it before you go out to play?"

"Hey, it's nothing. It's only sort of for good luck."

My father frowned harder.

The other guys on the team got the same bit from their parents. Joey told me his father was so upset he wanted Joey to quit.

"Are you going to?" I asked.

"Are you kidding? Christ, no. The team means too much to me."

Or winning does, I thought.

By then, the week was over. Friday night had come around. Another game. One of the first-aid guys came down to the locker room, excited. "The bleachers are packed! A record crowd!" Sure, all the publicity. Everybody wanted to see the team with the voodoo statue.

At first, I thought Coach Hayes would leave it in the cabinet. Because of the controversy. But as soon as he started insulting us, I knew he didn't intend to break the routine. Looking back to that night, I wonder if he guessed that he wouldn't have many more chances to bring it out. He meant to take advantage of every one of them.

So he went to the cabinet. I held my breath as he unlocked it. The publicity made me self-conscious. Certainly all the talk about devil worship made me nervous about the double images I'd seen.

I watched as he opened the door.

His throat made a funny sound, and when he stepped to the side, I understood why.

"Where is it?" Joey blurted.

Several players gasped.

"Where's Mumbo Jumbo?" Joey's cleats scraped on the concrete floor as he stalked to the empty cabinet. "What happened to -?"

Coach Hayes looked stunned. All at once his neck bulged. "Harcourt." His lips curled. He made the principal's name sound like a curse. "The school board must have told him – "

"But the cabinet was locked," someone said.

"The janitor could have opened it for him." Coach Hayes stomped across the room toward the door.

And suddenly stopped as if he'd realized something. "We've got a game to play. I can't chase after him while – " Turning, he stared at us. "Get out there and show them. I'll find the statue. You can bet on that."

So we went out, and maybe because we'd been spooked, the other team killed us. We couldn't do anything right. Fumbles, interceptions, major penalties. It must have been the worst game any team from City High ever played. The fans started hissing, booing. A man shouted, "Devil worship, my ass! These guys don't need a voodoo statue! They need a miracle!" The more we screwed up, the more we lost confidence and screwed up worse. I saw Rebecca wiping tears from her eyes and felt so humiliated I couldn't wait for the game to end so I could hide in the locker room.

Coach Hayes kept scurrying around, talking to the principal and anybody else he suspected, gesturing angrily. They shook their heads no. By the end of the game, he still hadn't found the statue.

We sat in the locker room, bitter, silent, when somebody knocked on the door.

I was closest.

"Open it," Coach Hayes said.

So I did.

And stared at Mumbo Jumbo on the floor. There wasn't anyone in the hall.