Gone, Baby, Gone - Dennis Lehane [128]
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.