Bleachers

  Rabbit survived too. His collarbone was broken and three lower veterbrae were cracked. His concussion was not severe, and those who knew him well claimed they noticed no additional brain damage. Needless to say, Rabbit became a local hero. At the annual football banquet thereafter Rake awarded a Rabbit Trophy for the Hit-of-the-Year.

  The lights grew brighter as dusk came to an end. Their eyes refocused in the semi-lit darkness of Rake Field. Another, smaller group of old Spartans had materialized at the far end of the bleachers. Their voices were barely audible.

  Silo opened another bottle and drained half of it.

  “When was the last time you saw Rake?” Blanchard Teague asked Neely.

  “A couple of days after my first surgery,” Neely said, and everyone was still. He was telling a story that had never been told before in Messina. “I was in the hospital. One surgery down, three to go.”

  “It was a cheap shot,” Couch mumbled, as if Neely needed to be reassured.

  “Damned sure was,” said Amos Kelso.

  Neely could see them, huddled in the coffee shops on Main Street, long sad faces, low grave voices as they replayed the late hit that instantly ruined the career of their all-American. A nurse told him she had never seen such an outpouring of compassion—cards, flowers, chocolates, balloons, artwork from entire classes of grade-schoolers. All from the small town of Messina, three hours away. Other than his parents and the Tech coaches, Neely refused all visitors. For eight long days he drowned himself in pity, aided mightily by as many painkillers as the doctors would allow.

  Rake slipped in one night, long after visiting hours were over. “He tried to cheer me up,” Neely said, sipping a beer. “Said knees could be rehabbed. I tried to believe him.”

  “Did he mention the ’87 championship game?” Silo asked.

  “We talked about it.”

  There was a long awkward pause as they contemplated that game, and all the mysteries around it. It was Messina’s last title, and that alone was a source rich enough for years of analysis. Down 31–0 at the half, roughed up and manhandled by a vastly superior team from East Pike, the Spartans returned to the field at A&M where thirty-five thousand fans were waiting. Rake was absent; he didn’t appear until late in the fourth quarter.

  The truth about what happened had remained buried for fifteen years, and, evidently, neither Neely, nor Silo, nor Paul, nor Hubcap Taylor were about to break the silence.

  In the hospital room Rake had finally apologized, but Neely had told no one.

  Teague and Couch said good-bye and jogged away in the darkness.

  “You never came back, did you?” Jaeger asked.

  “Not after I got hurt,” Neely said.

  “Why not?”

  “Didn’t want to.”

  Hubcap had been working quietly on a pint of something much stronger than beer. He’d said little, and when he spoke his tongue was thick. “People say you hated Rake.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “And he hated you.”

  “Rake had a problem with the stars,” Paul said. “We all knew that. If you won too many awards, set too many records, Rake got jealous. Plain and simple. He worked us like dogs and wanted every one of us to be great, but when guys like Neely got all the attention then Rake got envious.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Orley Short grunted.

  “It’s true. Plus he wanted to deliver the prizes to whatever college he happened to like at the moment. He wanted Neely at State.”

  “He wanted me in the Army,” Silo said.

  “Lucky you didn’t go to prison,” Paul said.

  “It ain’t over yet,” Silo said with a laugh.

  Another car rolled to a stop by the gate and its headlights went off. No door opened.

  “Prison’s underrated,” Hubcap said, and everyone laughed.

  “Rake had his favorites,” Neely said. “I wasn’t one of them.”

  “Then why are you here?” asked Orley Short.

  “I’m not sure. Same reason you’re here, I guess.”

  During Neely’s freshman year at Tech, he had returned for Messina’s homecoming game. In a halftime ceremony, they retired number 19. The standing ovation went on and on and eventually delayed the second half kickoff, which cost the Spartans five yards and prompted Coach Rake, leading 28–0, to start yelling.

  That was the only game Neely had watched since he left. One year later he was in the hospital.

  “When did they put up Rake’s bronze statue?” he asked.

  “Couple of years after they fired him,” Jaeger said. “The boosters raised ten thousand bucks and had it done. They wanted to present it to him before a game, but he refused.”

  “So he never came back?”

  “Well, sort of.” Jaeger pointed to a hill in the distance behind the clubhouse. “He’d drive up on Karr’s Hill before every game and park on one of those gravel roads. He and Miss Lila would sit there, looking down, listening to Buck Coffey on the radio, too far away to see much, but making sure the town knew he was still watching. At the end of every halftime the band would face the hill and play the fight song, and all ten thousand would wave at Rake.”

  “It was pretty cool,” said Amos Kelso.

  “Rake knew everything that was going on,” Paul said. “Rabbit called him twice a day with the gossip.”

  “Was he a recluse?” Neely asked.

  “He kept to himself,” Amos said. “For the first three or four years anyway. There were rumors he was moving, but then rumors don’t mean much here. He went to Mass every morning, but that’s a small crowd in Messina.”

  “He got out more in the last few years,” Paul said. “Started playing golf.”

  “Was he bitter?”

  The question was pondered by the rest of them. “Yeah, he was bitter,” said Jaeger.

  “I don’t think so,” Paul said. “He blamed himself.”

  “Rumor has it that they’ll bury him next to Scotty,” Amos said.

  “I heard that too,” Silo said, very deep in thought.

  A car door slammed and a figure stepped onto the track. A stocky man in a uniform of some variety swaggered around the field and approached the bleachers.

  “Here’s trouble,” Amos mumbled.

  “It’s Mal Brown,” Silo said softly.

  “Our illustrious Sheriff,” Paul said to Neely.

  “Number 31?”

  “That’s him.”

  Neely’s number 19 was the last jersey retired. Number 31 was the first. Mal Brown had played in the mid-sixties, during The Streak. Eighty pounds and thirty-five years ago he had been a bruising tailback who had once carried the ball fifty-four times in a game, still a Messina record. A quick marriage ended the college career before it began, and a quick divorce sent him to Vietnam in time for the Tet Offensive in ’68. Neely had heard stories of the great Mal Brown throughout most of his childhood. Before a game Neely’s freshman year, Coach Rake stopped by for a quick pep talk. He recounted in great detail how Mal Brown had once rushed for two hundred yards in the second half of the conference championship, and he did so with a broken ankle!

  Rake loved stories of players who refused to leave the field with broken bones and bleeding flesh and all sorts of gruesome injuries.

  Years later, Neely would hear that Mal’s broken ankle had, more than likely, been a severe sprain, but as the years passed the legend grew, at least in Rake’s memory.

  The Sheriff walked along the front of the bleachers and spoke to the others passing the time, then he climbed thirty rows and arrived, almost gasping, at Neely’s group. He spoke to Paul, then Amos, Silo, Orley, Hubcap, Randy—he knew them all by their first names or nicknames. “Heard you were in town,” he said to Neely as they shook hands. “It’s been a long time.”

  “It has” was all Neely could say. To his recollection, he had never met Mal Brown. He wasn’t the Sheriff when Neely lived in Messina. Neely knew the legend, but not the man.

  Didn’t
matter. They were fraternity brothers.

  “It’s dark, Silo, how come you ain’t stealin’ cars?” Mal said.

  “Too early.”

  “I’m gonna bust your ass, you know that?”

  “I got lawyers.”

  “Gimme a beer. I’m off duty.” Silo handed over a beer and Mal slugged it down. “Just left Rake’s,” he said, smacking his lips as if he hadn’t had liquids in days. “Nothing’s changed. Just waitin’ for him to go.”

  The update was received without comment.

  “Where you been hidin’?” Mal asked Neely.

  “Nowhere.”

  “Don’t lie. Nobody’s seen you here in ten years, maybe longer.”

  “My parents retired to Florida. I had no reason to come back.”

  “This is where you grew up. It’s home. Ain’t that a reason?”

  “Maybe for you.”

  “Maybe my ass. You got a lot of friends around here. Ain’t right to run away.”

  “Drink another beer, Mal,” Paul said.

  Silo quickly passed another one down, and Mal grabbed it. After a minute, he said, “You got kids?”

  “No.”

  “How’s your knee?”

  “It’s ruined.”

  “Sorry.” A long drink. “What a cheap shot. You were clearly out of bounds.”

  “I should’ve stayed in the pocket,” Neely said, shifting his weight, wishing he could change the subject. How long would the town of Messina talk about the cheap shot that ruined his career?

  Another long drink, then Mal said softly, “Man, you were the greatest.”

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Neely said. He’d been there for almost three hours and was suddenly anxious to leave, though he had no idea where he might be going. Two hours earlier there had been talk of Mona Curry cooking dinner, but that offer had not been pursued.

  “Okay, what?”

  “Let’s talk about Rake,” Neely said. “What was his worst team?”

  All bottles rose at once as the group contemplated this.

  Mal spoke first. “He lost four games in ’76. Miss Lila swears he went into solitary confinement for the winter. Stopped goin’ to Mass. Refused to be seen in public. He put the team on a brutal conditionin’ program, ran ’em like dogs all summer, made ’em practice three times a day in August. But when they kicked off in ’77 it was a different team. Almost won state.”

  “How could Rake lose four games in one season?” Neely asked.

  Mal leaned back and rested on the row behind him. Took a swig. He was by far the oldest Spartan present, and since he hadn’t missed a game in thirty years he had the floor. “Well, first of all, the team had absolutely no talent. The price of timber shot up in the summer of ’76, and all the loggers quit. You know how they are. Then the quarterback broke his arm, and there was no backup. We played Harrisburg that year and never threw a pass. Makes it tough when they’re sendin’ all eleven on every play. It was a disaster.”

  “Harrisburg beat us?” Neely asked in disbelief.

  “Yep, the only time in the past forty-one years. And lemme tell you what those dumb sumbitches did. They’re leadin’ late in the game, big score, somethin’ like thirty-six to nothin’. The worst night in the history of Messina football. So they figure they’ve turned the corner in their sad little rivalry with us, and they decide to run up the score. With a coupla minutes to go, they throw a reverse pass on third and short. Another touchdown. They’re real excited, you know, they’re stickin’ it to the Messina Spartans. Rake kept his cool, wrote it down somewhere in blood, and went lookin’ for loggers. Next year, we’re playin’ Harrisburg here, huge crowd, angry crowd, we score seven touchdowns in the first half.”

  “I remember that game,” Paul said. “I was in the first grade. Forty-eight to nothing.”

  “Forty-seven,” Mal said proudly. “We scored four times in the third quarter, and Rake kept passin’. He couldn’t sub because he had no bench, but he kept the ball in the air.”

  “The final?” Neely asked.

  “Ninety-four to nothin’. Still a Messina record. The only time I’ve ever known Eddie Rake to run up a score.”

  The other group on the north end erupted in laughter as someone finished a story, no doubt about Rake or some long-ago game. Silo had become very quiet in the presence of the law, and when the moment was right he said, “Well, I need to be going. Call me, Curry, if you hear something about Rake.”

  “I will.”

  “See y’all tomorrow,” Silo said, standing, stretching, reaching for one last bottle.

  “I need a ride,” Hubcap said.

  “It’s that time of the night, huh, Silo?” Mal said. “Time for all good thieves to ease out of the gutter.”

  “I’m laying off for a few days,” Silo said. “In honor of Coach Rake.”

  “How touchin’. I’ll just send the night shift boys home then, since you’re closin’ shop.”

  “You do that, Mal.”

  Silo, Hubcap, and Amos Kelso lumbered down the bleachers, the metal steps rattling as they descended.

  “He’ll be in prison within twelve months,” Mal said as they watched them walk along the track behind the end zone. “Make sure your bank is clean, Curry.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  Neely had heard enough. He stood and said, “I’ll be running along too.”

  “I thought you were coming to dinner,” Paul said.

  “I’m not hungry now. How about tomorrow night?”

  “Mona will be disappointed.”

  “Tell her to save the leftovers. Good night, Mal, Randy. I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”

  The knee was stiff, and as Neely crept down the steps he tried mightily to do so without a limp, without a hint that he was anything less than what they remembered. On the track, behind the Spartan bench, he turned too quickly and the knee almost collapsed. It buckled, then wavered as tiny sharp pains hit in a dozen different spots. Because it happened so often, he knew how to lift it just so and quickly shift all weight to his right leg, and to keep walking as if everything was normal.

  Wednesday

  In the window of every shop and store around the Messina square there was a large green football schedule, as if the customers and the townsfolk needed help in remembering that the Spartans played every Friday night. And on every lamppost in front of the shops and stores there were green-and-white banners that went up in late August and came down when the season was over. Neely remembered the banners from the days when he rode his bike along the walkways. Nothing had changed. The large green schedules were the same every year—the games in bold print, outlined by the smiling faces of the seniors; along the bottom, small ads of all the local sponsors, which included every single business in Messina. No one was left off the schedule.

  As he entered Renfrow’s Café, one step behind Paul, Neely took a deep breath and told himself to smile, to be polite—these folks, after all, once adored him. The thick smell of things frying hit him at the door, then the sound of pots rattling in the distance. The smells and sounds had not changed from the time his father brought him to Renfrow’s for hot chocolate on Saturday mornings, where the locals relived and replayed the latest Spartan victory.

  During the season, each football player could eat once a week at Renfrow’s at no charge, a simple and generous gesture that had been sorely tested shortly after the school was integrated. Would Renfrow’s allow black players the same privilege? Damned right came the word from Eddie Rake, and the café became one of the first in the state to voluntarily integrate itself.

  Paul spoke to most of the men huddled over their coffee, but he kept moving toward a booth by the window. Neely nodded and tried to avoid eye contact. By the time they slid into their seats, the secret was out. Neely Crenshaw was indeed back in town.