Kick

  “So what did you think of Christy’s mother?” I asked.

  “She’s a little nervous,” Carolyn said. “I thought I saw her almost lose it once, but she hung in there. Somebody—I think it was Kevin’s mother was talking about how warm it was for this time of year, and Mrs. McNamara got a little teary. I think that sometimes women want that kind of light conversation. Sometimes we miss it.”

  We got home and turned on the late news. Same things on the news as the day before. Some teenaged pop singer was arrested for drunk driving, there was a stickup in the mall and the robber had shot himself trying to conceal the weapon from the closed-circuit cameras, and a professor in Australia was warning about the coming of a new Ice Age. And my stomach was beginning to hurt.

  “Woman, where did you put the antacid tablets?” I asked.

  “Your stomach bothering you?”

  “No, I want to put them in my ears!” I said. “Why do you want to ask me a foolish question like that?”

  “You shouldn’t have eaten so much,” Carolyn said. The Grand Inquisitor at work. “That was South American food and you have an African-American belly. All that rumbling I hear is your stomach trying to translate what it’s got in it.”

  I listened to her mouth for another fifteen minutes, trying to pretend I was asleep so she would shut up, but whenever she stopped yapping, my stomach started growling again. Then the phone rang.

  “Sergeant Brown?”

  “Yes?”

  “Yeah, this is Mike McNamara. Look, that place you were talking about down at the medical center? Is it open tomorrow?”

  “It’s open,” I said. “You want the number?”

  McNamara said yes, and my hands were shaking as I scrolled through my BlackBerry to find it. I gave it to him. He read it back carefully, told me he would give them a call, and mumbled a nearly inaudible “Thanks.”

  “You okay, man?”

  “The world is still spinning, I guess,” he said. “I don’t know, I’ll give them a call.”

  “Who was that?” Carolyn asked when I had hung up.

  “McNamara,” I said. “He said he was going to call the mental health clinic.”

  “Look at you, getting all emotional,” Carolyn said.

  My stomach was aching, but I felt great. I checked the time and saw that it was far too late to call Kevin. Anyway, Christy would probably tell him the good news when he saw her in school.

  “The world is still spinning.” I had heard the expression before. I was questioning a prisoner, a young man who had been sentenced to twenty-five years to life and had asked him how he was doing. He had said that the world was still spinning and that nobody was caring how he felt or what he was thinking.

  “It’s spinning and people were going on with their lives while I just sit here,” he said.

  McNamara had seen a part of the world spinning, had sat down with Kevin’s family and me and Carolyn and watched the world spin in a good and gentle way, and had decided it was time for him to join us. God, I felt good.

  Chapter 14

  The sound of my alarm clock made me shuffle across the room to turn it off. I couldn’t put my alarm clock right by my bed because I would just press the snooze button every morning and end up being an hour late to school.

  As I ate the breakfast that Abuela had made, I thought about the big game today. I’d gotten up early because it always takes me so long to get myself ready for major things. There are a whole bunch of minor things that need to get done to make the major things happen. You might have a major thing scheduled every day, or even once a week, but you can’t just walk into one unprepared. You gotta get yourself ready, and that’s what takes me so long—getting the minor things done.

  I tried to keep my mind off the dinner last night, but I thought it went pretty well. It was hard to tell.

  The phone rang on the kitchen counter and I reached over my plate of scrambled eggs and toast to get it.

  “Hey, this is Christy. May I speak to Kevin?” she said.

  “You’re talking to him,” I answered.

  “I was wondering if you wanted to go to the park for a little while before your big game,” she said, sounding happy.

  “Yeah, it’s at four, so I think I’ll have time. I have to leave for the game at one thirty.”

  “I have some good news. My dad talked to Sergeant Brown last night and said that he wasn’t going to press any charges.”

  I was so happy, I didn’t know what to say. “Really? That’s great.”

  “I thought you’d like to hear that. You want to meet around like one o clock?”

  “I’ll be there,” I said. “Wait a minute, Christy, you won’t be driving there, right?”

  “Nope.” She laughed.

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  My mom and grandma were unbelievably happy when I told them I wasn’t going back to juvie. I was, too. I had a clean slate, and I wasn’t going mess it up this time. Everything had happened so fast, but I sensed that my life was about to return to normal.

  When I got to the bench, it was empty and I took a seat. Everything felt like it had before I had gotten myself into trouble. A car like the one Christy had driven that evening passed by, making me jump for a moment, until I realized of course it wasn’t her.

  “Hey, Kevin.”

  I turned around to see Christy smiling.

  “You scared me,” I said.

  “Ha, I didn’t mean to.”

  “What’d you want to meet about?” I asked.

  “I wanted to tell you my dad agreed to let my mom get help at the hospital. I think that’s really going to make her better this time.”

  “That’s great!” I said. “Sergeant Brown is a good guy—I guess he knew how to make things right.” I looked up at Christy. “I think I’d still be in jail if I hadn’t met him.”

  Christy smiled again.

  “And I’m really happy your dad decided to drop the charges,” I added, smiling.

  “Me, too, especially since the whole thing was my fault.”

  I was glad she knew that.

  Everything was getting better. But there was one more important thing I still had to take care of. “If your mom’s gonna be getting help, is Dolores still gonna be working at your house?” I asked her.

  “Yeah, she just started working for a new agency. My dad has to pay more now, but she’s so good with my mom. We really need her.”

  Yes! Sergeant Brown must have come through—once again.

  “Oh that’s really good, I like Dolores. She reminds me a little of my mom.”

  “Yeah, she’s been with us for a long time. She’s like part of the family.”

  We sat and talked a little more, and then my mom pulled up in her car, with my grandma in the front seat.

  “Good luck at your game, Kevin.”

  I said good-bye to Christy and I got in. I was happy to hear Christy’s good news, but I had to get focused. I would have time to think about it after we won our game.

  I tried to sleep on the way to Fort Dix, but my nerves kept me awake. There’s no glory for the team that comes in second, I thought. I could name most of the World Cup champions and which year they won, and I knew most of the NBA champions and Super Bowl champions over the past decade. But no one knew the teams they played against, the teams that came in second. It would make me sick to have an amazing season but to end up second best. No one would remember you. I knew I shouldn’t be thinking our team was going to lose.

  I might get only one chance in my whole entire life to be here, I thought, so I don’t want to have any regrets, like I could have gotten to that ball and scored, and I could have made that penalty kick.

  Coach saw that our team was tired and gave us a look.

  “You guys get good sleep last night like I told you?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” The team yawned.

  It was the beginning of November, and it was cold and windy. The shots would probably be all over t
he place.

  I watched the Golden Eagles run perfectly executed drills in their gold-and-white uniforms.

  But I wasn’t going to be intimidated.

  Coach had us do some light jogging to warm up and wake us up.

  Sergeant Brown arrived before the game started. Mrs. Brown was with him, too. They were sitting next to my mom and Abuela.

  Mom and my grandma had made a big deal about me being in the finals. I had heard Mom talking on the phone with my cousin Carolina in Colombia. She was saying how proud she was that I was in it.

  After our warm-up, Coach called us in for the lineup and our team huddled together.

  “Today is going to be a day for fun, but also lots of hard work. You’ve accomplished so much to get here. I hope you guys will enjoy yourselves out there, because I know I certainly will. I know you guys are anxious, and probably nervous, too, but I want you to walk away from the field today and have no regrets. I don’t want us to say, well, we had a bad game, we just didn’t give it our all. I want you guys to leave it all out on the field. And if you do that, no matter what the score is, you’ll walk away feeling good about yourselves.”

  The Golden Eagles started with the ball and kept it. They looked like they were in no rush by passing back and forth, being patient. Our defense was good because we weren’t letting them get any good looks at the goal, but it was also too tentative, so we weren’t able to get possession of the ball.

  We were trying to double-team Kwame, their star forward. To be honest, I was sort of starstruck by him and in awe of his skills. Kwame looked at ease, like he was born to play soccer.

  He used his speed to cut through ahead of our defenders as they played him a long ball over everyone’s heads. Once he caught up to the ball, he cut the ball with the outside of his foot, causing our defenders to lose momentum and their balance. Kwame then ran full speed at the next defender, put his body between the ball and the defender, and spun it. I heard some oohs and aahs from the crowd, and just as Cal finally made the tackle, Kwame released the ball when he had already fallen halfway down. It went into the upper left-hand corner of the goal, and Nick didn’t have a prayer.

  Kwame pointed to the number 35 on his jersey and pounded his chest.

  A few moments later Kwame crossed another ball to their number 13, who headed into the goal, uncontested.

  I started to go into a trance on the field; I was just watching the ball, not moving. I wasn’t fatigued; it was more like this whole experience was mentally wearing me out. I made a couple of good passes and started to gain momentum, but the halftime whistle blew and stopped me. The score was Golden Eagles 2, Highland Raiders 0.

  Coach Hill’s tone was sharp. “I’m going to be frank with you guys now. I’m not happy with you—not happy at all. At the beginning I told you that I would be pleased regardless of the outcome as long as you were trying hard. Well, you’re not. Be honest—how many of you guys expected to lose coming into this game?”

  I looked around. Not one kid raised his hand. I slowly lifted my hand, until it was barely above my head. After that a few other hands came up, until slowly, one by one, almost every hand was up in the air.

  “Well, there you go. How can you win a game that you expect to lose? It’s that simple. I know most of you were probably thinking, Oh, we’ll try and keep the score respectable, but if we let up one goal, we’re finished. You’re not trying hard. I don’t care if this team is more talented than you as long as you show more heart. It’s all about what’s in here,” he said, pointing to his own heart. “That’s how it is in life. Someone can be better than you at something, but if you work hard, that’s all that matters.

  “Let me tell you something, I would rather have someone who works extremely hard, who is an all right player, than the best player in the world who is lazy. You guys need to fight for every ball and knock the opposing players down. Show them you’re not afraid, and instead of trying to beat them at their game, beat them with yours.”

  I remembered one of my old coaches telling me that 2–0 was the most dangerous score in the game for the team that was up. If the team down scored once, then they would gain momentum, and the other team would, in a state of shock, give up another goal. Then the score would be tied. Maybe there was hope for us.

  The game resumed and we were still trailing five minutes through, as expected. Number 4 on their team was becoming physical with me. We were nudging each other until it finally grew into a full-blown shove. On the corner kick, he turned his head to make sure the ref wasn’t looking and blatantly pushed me. I raised my hand, about to give him what he deserved, but stopped. It just wasn’t worth it.

  I stood outside, about eighteen yards from the goal, ready to receive the corner kick that Cal was about to take. Learning how to receive a corner kick took a lot of skill; there needed to be a perfect balance of timing and jumping. I jumped and the ball coincidentally hit my head. I felt a body go up against the back of mine and the force sent me tumbling to the ground. I heard the sharp tone of the ref’s whistle, and his hand shot out and pointed to the penalty box.

  “Way to draw the penalty, Kevin!” Ricky exclaimed as he gave me a high five.

  Coach told Cal to take it. I wasn’t upset. I knew that for the sake of the team, and this game, Cal would be better off taking it than me.

  Cal looked nervous—he was twirling a strand of his long light blond hair. He had done this with his hair a bunch of times before, in situations when he was either in trouble at school or under pressure.

  Defending penalties is hard, and the goalies are always under extreme pressure. I expected the penalty to happen in slow motion, but as soon as the ref blew his whistle, Cal took it. It soared into the bottom right-hand corner.

  We lifted up our heads. Maybe Coach was right about us needing to believe in ourselves.

  The Golden Eagles didn’t look worried, and that scared me. There was a confidence to them, a winning attitude.

  Despite Cal’s goal, I was running out of stamina. I started to slow down, but then I had a couple of nice crosses and passes. I was in the zone. A few plays later I received the ball from midfield, and there was no turning back. I ran past one defender, putting my body between the ball and him. Then I pushed off his body and used it as leverage to whip past him. Without thinking, I released the ball from outside the eighteen-yard line. It was a fast power shot that landed straight in the top right corner of the net. The goalie didn’t have a chance.

  The crowd erupted into cheers. I had even surprised myself. It was a once-in-every-hundred goals sort of shot.

  We were tied with the second-best team in the nation. I was still in awe when my teammates ran over and high-fived me and put their arms around my shoulder.

  The ref blew his whistle five minutes later, signifying the end of regulation time. I was surprised at how quickly the game had gone and how clutch my kick had been.

  Coach Hill gave me a high five when I walked over to the sideline. “Now it’s overtime. Let’s get down to business.”

  Two gut-wrenching periods of overtime passed by, with the Eagles hitting the crossbar of our goal and with Ricky blowing a breakaway chance for us.

  We were down to penalty kicks to break the tie.

  “Guys, I’m going to give you the lineup for taking penalty kicks. First is Ricky, second Cal, third Matt, fourth Shawn, and kicking fifth Kevin.”

  Kicking fifth was the most pressured spot in the lineup, if the penalty kicks went that far. I remembered in the 2006 World Cup, it came down to the last kicker.

  Both teams gathered at the halfway line. We put our arms around our teammates.

  I stood with the four other kickers. It was all coming to an end, right here. Whichever team had made more shots at the end of their five kicks would be the winner.

  Their first player, Kwame, easily made it. Ricky made it, too. Nick caught the next kick from the Golden Eagles, except the ball slipped through his hands. Every time a player went up to kick, both tea
ms sucked in a big gulp of air and held their breath. Every time the ball went into the back of the net, you could hear a million sighs, and everyone’s shoulders slumped down.

  It was a shock when Calvin’s ball went low and wide right, missing the goalpost by mere centimeters. He put his hands on his head in disbelief. It was all up to Nick now. He had to save one of the next three shots. The Eagles and our next two kickers made their penalties, leaving them up 4–3. If Nick didn’t save this, I didn’t even need to kick.

  The Eagles’ number 7 placed the ball on the penalty spot. He looked sort of nonchalant and cool as he put it on the line. I closed my eyes and flinched as I heard his foot hit the ball, but jumped up when I heard the ball bang against something. It was Nick’s body! He had dived and saved it.

  My feeling of happiness turned to anxiety as I realized the game rested on my shoulders. If I made it, we would need to go to a sudden-death round, where one kid from each team would kick until one kid missed and the other made it. If I missed, well, I didn’t even want to think about that.

  Their goalie was tall compared to Nick. It looked like he was trying to intimidate me by giving me a death stare.

  Low left-hand corner, son, I heard my dad’s voice in my head.

  I took a deep breath and tried not to telegraph my pass. I put my whole body, mind, and everything I had into the shot.

  Cling! The ball struck the outside of the post and bounced off.

  We had lost. It was over.

  It took a moment for me to take it all in. My teammates had their hands on their heads. But then a couple of them came over and put their arms around me. Eventually the field filled with family members and players.

  “Hey, Thirteen,” a deep voice called. I turned. It was Kwame.

  “You played well, man. That was a tough break with the post. Maybe we’ll meet again next year,” he said, smiling.

  That meant a lot to me.

  “Thanks, man” was all I could manage to say.

  I felt an arm around me and turned to see Sergeant Brown with my mom and Abuela. I was going to be okay.