T. Boyle - T. C. Boyle Stories

The third quarter was a delirium of blowing snow, shouts, curses and cries in the wilderness. Shadowy forms clashed and fell to the crunch of helmet and the clatter of shoulder pads. Ray Arthur Larry-Pete staggered around the field as if gutshot, so disoriented he was never quite certain which way his team was driving — or rather, being driven. But mercifully, the weather conditions slowed down the big blue barreling machine of State’s offense, and by the time the gun sounded, they’d only been able to score once more.

And so the fourth quarter began, and while the stands emptied and even the most fanatical supporters sank glumly into their parkas, Caledonia limped out onto the field with their heads down and their jaws set in grim determination. They were no longer playing for pride, for the memories, for team spirit or their alma mater or to impress their girlfriends: they were playing for one thing only: to avoid at all cost the humiliation of 56-0. And they held on, grudging State every inch of the field, Ray Arthur Larry-Pete coming to life in sporadic flashes during which he was nearly lucid and more often than not moving in the right direction, Moss, DuBoy and McCornish picking themselves up off the ground at regular intervals and the Coach hollering obscure instructions from the sidelines. With just under a minute left to play, they’d managed (with the help of what would turn out to be the worst blizzard to hit the area in twenty years) to hold State to only one touchdown more, making it 49-0 with the ball in their possession and the clock running down.

The snow blew in their teeth. State dug in. A feeble distant cheer went up from the invisible stands. And then, with Number 95 falling on him like an avalanche, Diderot fumbled, and State recovered. Two plays later, and with eight seconds left on the clock, they took the ball into the end zone to make it 55-0, and only the point-after attempt stood between Caledonia and the unforgivable, unutterable debasement of a second straight 56-0 drubbing. Ray Arthur Larry-Pete Fontinot extricated himself from the snowbank where Number 95 had left him and crept stiff-legged back to the line of scrimmage, where he would now assume the defensive role.

There was one hope, and one hope only, in that blasted naked dead cinder of a world that Ray Arthur Larry-Pete Fontinot and his hapless teammates unwillingly inhabited, and that was for one man among them to reach deep down inside himself and distill all his essence — all his wits, all his heart and the full power of his honed young musculature — into a single last-ditch attempt to block that kick. Ray Arthur Larry-Pete Fontinot looked into the frightened faces of his teammates as they heaved for breath in the defensive huddle and knew he was that man. “I’m going to block the kick,” he said, and his voice sounded strange in his own ears. “I’m coming in from the right side and I’m going to block the kick.” Moss’s eyes were glazed. DuBoy was on the sidelines, vomiting in his helmet. No one said a word.

State lined up. Ray Arthur Larry-Pete took a deep breath. The ball was snapped, the lines crashed with a grunt and moan, and Ray Arthur Larry-Pete Fontinot launched himself at the kicker like the space shuttle coming in for a landing, and suddenly — miracle of miracles! — he felt the hard cold pellet of the ball glancing off the bandaged nubs of his fingers. A shout went up, and as he fell, as he slammed rib-first into the frozen ground, he watched the ball squirt up in the air and fall back into the arms of the kicker as if it were attached to a string, and then, unbelieving, he watched the kicker tuck the ball and sprint unmolested across the goal line for the two-point conversion.

If it weren’t for Moss, they might never have found him. Ray Arthur Larry-Pete Fontinot just lay there where he’d fallen, the snow drifting silently round him, and he lay there long after the teams had left the field and the stands stood empty under a canopy of snow. There, in the dirt, the steady drift of snow gleaming against the exposed skin of his calves and slowly obliterating the number on the back of his jersey, he had a vision of the future. He saw himself working at some tedious, spirit-crushing job for which his Phys. Ed. training could never have prepared him, saw himself sunk in fat like his father, a pale plain wife and two grublike children at his side, no eighty-yard runs or blocked points to look back on through a false scrim of nostalgia, no glory and no defeat.

No defeat. It was a concept that seemed all at once to congeal in his tired brain, and as Moss called out his name and the snow beat down, he tried hard, with all his concentration, to hold it there.

(1992)

For K.

B. stands at the side of the highway, helpless, hands behind his back, the droopy greatcoat like a relic of ancient wars. There is wind and rain — or is it sleet? — and the deadly somnolent rush of tires along the pavement. His own vehicle rests on the shoulder, stricken somewhere in its slippery metallic heart. He does not know where, exactly, or why — for B. is no mechanic. Far from it. In fact, he’s never built or repaired a thing in his life, never felt the restive urge to tinker with machinery, never as a jittery adolescent dismantled watches, telephone receivers, pneumatic crushers. He is woefully unequal to the situation at hand. But wait, hold on now — shouldn’t he raise the hood, as a distress signal? Isn’t that the way it’s done?

Suddenly he’s in motion, glad to be doing something, confronting the catastrophe, meeting the challenge. He scuttles round to the front of the car, works his fingers under the lip of the hood and tugs, tugs to no effect, slips in the mud, stumbles, the knees of his trousers soaked through, and then rises to tug again, shades of Buster Keaton. After sixty or seventy seconds of this it occurs to him that the catch may be inside, under the dashboard, as it was in his late wife’s Volvo. There are wires — bundles of them — levers, buttons, handles, cranks and knobs in the cavern beneath the steering wheel. He had no idea. He takes a bundle of wire in his hand — each strand a different color — and thinks with a certain satisfaction of the planning and coordination that went into this machine, of the multiple factories, each dominating its own little Bavarian or American or Japanese town, of all the shifts and lunch breaks, the dies cast and what do you call them, lathes — yes, lathes — turned. All this — but more, much more. Iron ore dug from rock, hissing white hot vats of it, molten recipes, chromium, tall rubber trees, vinyl plants, crystals from the earth ground into glass. Staggering.

“Hey pal—”

B. jolted from his reverie by the harsh plosive, spasms of amber light expanding and contracting the interior of the car like the pulse of some predatory beast. Looking up into a lean face, slick hair, stoned eyes. “I was ah trying to ah get the ah latch here—”

“You’ll have to ride back in the truck with me.”

“Yeah, sure,” B. sitting up now, confused, gripping the handle and swinging the door out to a shriek of horns and a rush of air. He cracks something in his elbow heaving it shut.

“Better get out this side.”

B. slides across the seat and steps out into the mud. Behind him, the tow truck, huge, its broad bumper lowering over the hood of his neat little German-made car. He mounts the single step up into the cab and watches the impassive face of the towman as he backs round, attaches the grappling hook and hoists the rear of the car, spider and fly. A moment later the man drops into the driver’s seat, door slamming with a metallic thud, gears engaging. “That’ll be forty-five bucks,” he says.

A white fracture of sleet caught up in the headlights, the wipers clapping, light flashing, the night a mist and a darkness beyond the windows. They’ve turned off the highway, jerking right and left over a succession of secondary roads, strayed so far from B.’s compass that he’s long since given up any attempt at locating himself. Perhaps he’s dozed even. He turns to study the crease folded into the towman’s cheek. “Much farther?” he asks.