Джон Гришэм - Sooley

When the call ended, Samuel sat on his bed and had another good cry. And he thanked God for people like Ecko Lam.

The unquestioned leader in the clubhouse was Devon Dayton, a burly middle linebacker from Charlotte. He was loud, funny, cocky, and always carrying on some nonsense with his teammates. He was also intimidating, as were most of the large young men. Samuel had never seen so much bulk in one place.

As the locker room bustled with early morning preparations, Samuel walked through with a stack of clean towels and Devon called out, “Hey you.” He was sitting on a bench with two other heavy linemen and seemed irritated. Almost a thousand pounds of muscle and beef.

Samuel set down the towels and walked over.

“What’s your name?” Devon demanded.

“Samuel Sooleymon.”

“That’s a mouthful. Too many syllables. Where you from? You talk funny.”

“South Sudan,” Samuel said timidly. Others had gathered around to enjoy the moment.

“Where’s that?”

“I think it’s in Georgia,” said another.

“Africa,” Samuel said, waiting.

Devon said, “Well, my gym shorts were still a bit damp when I put them on this morning. You know what it’s like running around out there in wet gym shorts?”

Samuel had watched practice for two days and knew that all gym shorts would be soaked with sweat within the hour. “Sorry,” he said.

“Samuel Sooleymon,” Devon repeated loudly. “Can you spell it?”

“I can.”

“Okay. Walk over to that chalkboard and write your name.”

Samuel did as he was told. Devon and the others studied the name with disapproval. One of them said, “That’s pretty weird.”

Weird? The roster was loaded with some first names that Samuel had never seen before and wasn’t sure how to pronounce.

Devon said, “We need to shorten it. How about Sam? Just plain ol’ Sam?”

Samuel shook his head and said, “My father didn’t like Sam.”

“I got it,” another one said. “Let’s go with Sooley.”

“I like that,” Devon said. “Sooley it is, and Sooley, from now on, I prefer dry gym shorts in the morning.”

A coach barreled through the door, screaming, and the team suddenly lost interest in changing names. They scrambled out of the locker room and when they were gone, Samuel erased his name from the board, picked up the towels, and put them on a rack. T. Ray told him to hustle up and get the bottles of cold water to the field.

Football was a strange game. Its practices were organized mayhem as a hundred players covered the practice field and did drills while half a dozen coaches yelled and blew whistles. The morning sessions were noncontact and primarily conditioning, brutal calisthenics as the sun grew hotter, and enough wind sprints to cause the heavier guys to collapse. After two hours, the players returned to the locker room, stripped, showered, and left their dirty clothes in a pile for Samuel and the other equipment managers to wash, dry, fold, and place neatly in the lockers. After a long break for lunch and rest, the players were back for an hour with their coaches — offensive linemen in one room, wide receivers in another, and so on. At three, they suited up in full gear and walked back into the sun.

Samuel and two other equipment managers tidied up the locker room, then hurried to the field to resupply the water and sports drinks.

At first, the full-contact drills were frightening, as three-hundred-pound brutes tried their best to kill one another as their coaches yelled at them to hit even harder. Indeed, the hardest hits, the bone-jarring collisions and vicious tackles, excited the coaches the most and drew the wildest cheers from the other players. Samuel was thrilled that he played basketball.

After three hours of violence, and as the players melted in the heat and humidity, the head coach finally relented and blew the last whistle. Samuel hurried to the locker room to clean up. The mood was much quieter as the players dragged themselves in, stripped, and headed for the showers. They took their time getting dressed. They would break for dinner and return for more meetings that night. Samuel was working ten-hour days and counting his money.

As he scooped up a pile of filthy practice jerseys, Devon yelled, “Hey, Sooley, over here.”

Samuel stepped over, anticipating a gag of some variety. The team quickly bunched around Devon, who said, “Say, look, Sooley, we know it’s been a rough summer for you, and we know today is special. Since you can’t be home to celebrate, we figured we’d do it here.”

A wall of bodies opened and Coach Lonnie Britt stepped forward with a large birthday cake, complete with candles and the words “Happy Birthday Sooley” scrawled in maroon and gray, the team colors. Like an amateur choir director, Devon waved his hands and the team sang a boisterous rendition of “Happy Birthday,” most of them deliberately bellowing off-key.

Samuel was stunned and speechless. Devon said, “We’re glad you’re here, Sooley. We know you’re playing the wrong sport, but we love our basketball players. Most of them anyway.”

Coach Britt handed the cake to Devon and hugged Samuel, the kid with the big smile and very sad eyes.

Beatrice and her little gang spent the third night on the ground but under a large military-style tent with a hundred others. After two meals that day, the hunger pangs were subsiding and the children were coming to life. The future was bleak and the past too painful to dwell on, but maybe the worst was behind them.

As she huddled with James and Chol and waited for them to drift away, she knew it was the middle of August. Samuel was turning eighteen, somewhere, and she prayed for his safety.

The following Saturday, the team had a light practice in the morning and was released for the rest of the day. Samuel and the three other equipment managers finished the laundry and cleaned the locker room. He left the field house and returned to his dorm to find someone else moving in. It was Murray Walker, his new best friend. They said hello and shook hands and sat on their beds.

Coach Britt had given Samuel the name of his roommate and said he would call. Samuel, living online when he wasn’t working, had checked out the kid and knew he was a rising sophomore who had averaged only five minutes a game during his freshman season. Five minutes, two points, one rebound — the slimmest production of all thirteen players. He was six feet tall, had walked on, survived the cuts, and made the team.

“What’s all this?” Murray asked, nodding at the wall covered with maps and notes.

“It’s a mess, isn’t it? I’ll be happy to take it down.”

“No, that’s okay. Coach told me that you’re from South Sudan, in Africa.”

“What else did Coach tell you about me?”

Murray smiled and shrugged. “Well, he said you’ve been through a lot lately, I guess. I’m real sorry.”

Samuel rose and stepped to the wall. “I’m from a village near the city of Rumbek, in central South Sudan. The village is gone now, and my mother is somewhere there.” He pointed at the wall as if he had no idea where she was. “I’m hoping my brothers and sister are with her.”

“Refugees?”

“Something like that. My father was murdered by rebel troops last month.”

“Oh man, I’m real sorry.”

“Thanks. It’s been pretty bad.”

“I can’t even imagine.”

“The website says you’re from here, Durham.”

“That’s right. Born here.”

“Why’d you pick Central?”

“Because nobody else wanted me. I wasn’t exactly heavily recruited. Coach Britt invited me to walk on and I made the cut. My parents went to school here so I’ve always pulled for Central.”