Dennis Lehane - Gone, Baby, Gone

“Hundred bucks to the first guy knocks one of them out of the game,” Corkery said, and clapped his hands together. “Kill the motherfuckers.”

That must have been it for the Rockne-like inspiration, because the team came off its haunches and banged fists and clapped hands.

“Where are the helmets?” I said to Broussard.

One of the Johns was passing as I said it, and he clapped Broussard’s back and said, “Fucking guy’s hilarious, Broussard. Where’d you find him?”

“No helmets,” I said.

Broussard nodded. “It’s a touch game,” he said. “No hard contact.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Sure.”

Homicide-Robbery, or the HurtYous as they called themselves, won the coin toss and elected to receive. Our kicker drove them back to their eleven, and as we lined up, Broussard pointed to a slim black guy on the HurtYous and said, “Jimmy Paxton. He’s your guy. Stick to him like a tumor.”

The HurtYous’ center snapped the ball and the quarterback dropped back three steps, fired the ball over my head, and hit Jimmy Paxton on the twenty-five. I had no idea how Paxton got past me, never mind to the twenty-five, but I made an awkward lunge that tapped his ankles at the twenty-nine, and the teams moved upfield to the line of scrimmage.

“I said like a tumor,” Broussard said. “Did you get that part?”

I looked across at him and saw a hard fury in his eyes. Then he smiled, and I realized how far he’d probably gotten on that smile his whole life. It was that good, that boyish and American and pure.

“I’ll see if I can adjust,” I said.

The HurtYous broke their huddle, and I saw Devin on the sideline exchange a nod with Jimmy Paxton.

“They’re going to come right back at me again,” I said to Broussard.

John Pasquale, the cornerback, said, “Might want to improve then, huh?”

The HurtYous snapped the ball and Jimmy Paxton streaked down the sideline and I streaked with him. His eyes flickered and he extended his back and said, “’Bye, white boy,” and I went up with him, spun my body around and extended my right arm, whacked at the air, hit pigskin instead, and swatted the ball out of bounds.

Jimmy Paxton and I came down together in a heap, banged off the ground, and I knew it was the first of many impacts that would probably keep me in bed all through tomorrow.

I got up first and reached down for Paxton. “I thought you were going somewhere.”

He smiled and took the hand. “Keep talking, white boy. You’re getting winded already.”

We walked back down the sidelines toward the line of scrimmage and I said, “Just so you don’t have to keep calling me white boy, and I don’t have to start calling you black boy, start a race riot at Harvard, I’m Patrick.”

He slapped my hand. “Jimmy Paxton.”

“Nice to meet you, Jimmy.”

Devin ran the next play at me again, and once again I swatted the ball out of Jimmy Paxton’s waiting hands.

“Fucking mean bunch you’re with, Patrick,” Jimmy Paxton said, as we started the long walk back to scrimmage.

I nodded. “They think you guys are pussies.”

Jimmy nodded. “We might not be pussies, but we ain’t cowboys like those crazy fuckers. Narco, Vice, and CAC.” He whistled. “First ones through the door because they love the jizz.”

“The jizz?”

“The action, the orgasm. Forget the foreplay with those boys. They go right to the fucking. Know what I mean?”

The next play, Oscar lined up at fullback and leveled three guys at the snap, and the running back ran through a hole the size of my backyard. But one of the Johns-Pasquale or Vreeman, I had lost track-grabbed the ball carrier’s arm on the thirty-six, and the HurtYous decided to punt.

The rain came five minutes later and the rest of the first half was a sloppy grind-it-out Marty Schottenheimer-Bill Parcells kind of game. Slogging and slipping and tripping through the mud, neither team made much progress. As running back, I gained about twelve yards on four carries, and as a safety I got burned twice by Jimmy Paxton, but I broke up another potential bomb and otherwise stuck to him so tight the quarterback chose other receivers.

Near the end of the half, the score was tied at zero but we were threatening. Down in the HurtYous’ red zone, on a second and two with twenty seconds left, the DoRights ran an option and John Lawn tossed the ball to me and I saw a gaping hole and nothing but green beyond, did a little spin around a linebacker, stepped into the hole, tucked the ball under my arm, put my head down, and then Oscar loomed out of nowhere, his breath steaming through the cold rain, and hit me so hard I felt like I’d stepped into the path of a 747.

By the time I got off my back, the clock had run out and the hard rain splattered mud up off the field into my cheek. Oscar reached down with one of those porterhouses he calls hands and lifted me to my feet, chuckling softly under his breath.

“You gonna puke?”

“Thinking about it,” I said.

He whacked me on the back in what I guess was a friendly show of camaraderie that almost sent me into a face plant in the mud.

“Nice bid,” he said, and walked off toward his bench.

“What happened to touch football?” I said to Remy on the sidelines, as the DoRights opened a cooler full of beer and soda.

“Soon as someone does what Sergeant Lee just did, the gloves come off.”

“So we get helmets for the second half?”

He shook his head, pulled a beer from the cooler. “No helmets. We just get meaner.”

“Anyone ever died at one of these games?”

He smiled. “Not yet. Could happen, though. Beer?”

I shook my head, waiting for the ringing to stop in there. “Take a water.”

He passed me a bottle of Poland Spring, put a hand on my shoulder, and led me up the sideline a few yards, away from the rest. In the stands, a small group of people had gathered-runners, mostly, who’d stumbled on the game as they prepared to jog the steps, one tall guy sitting off to himself, long legs propped up on the rail, baseball hat pulled low over his eyes.

“Last night,” Broussard said, and let the two words hang in the rain.

I sipped some water.

“I said a thing or two I shouldn’t have. Too much rum, my head gets a little fucked up.”

I looked out at the collection of wide Greek columns that rose beyond the stands. “Such as?”

He stepped in front of me, his eyes dancing and bright. “Don’t try and play with me here, Kenzie.”

“Patrick,” I said, and took a step to my right.

He followed, his nose an inch from mine, that weird, dancing brightness filling his eyes. “We both know I let slip something I shouldn’t have. Let’s leave it at that and forget about it.”

I gave him a friendly, confused smile. “I don’t know where this is coming from, Remy.”

He shook his head slowly. “You don’t want to play it this way, Kenzie. You understand?”

“No, I-”

I never saw his hand move, but I felt a sharp sting on my knuckles and suddenly my water bottle was lying at my feet, chugging its contents into the mud.

“Forget last night, and we’ll be friends.” The lights in his eyes had stopped dancing but burned hard, as if embers were locked in the pupils.

I looked down at the water bottle, the mud encasing the sides of the clear plastic. “And if I don’t?”

“That’s not an ‘if’ you want to bring into your life.” He tilted his head, peered into my eyes as if he saw something there that might require extraction, might not; he wasn’t sure yet. “Are we clear on this?”

“Yeah, Remy,” I said. “We’re clear. Sure.”

He held my eyes for a long minute, breathing steadily through his nostrils. Eventually, he raised his beer to his lips, took a long pull on the can, lowered it.