Two-Minute Drill - Mike Lupica [25]
Scott looked around. It was just the four of them in the parking lot. Everybody else was gone. He seemed to remember Bren saying one time that he lived practically across the street and could walk home.
“Get up when we’re talking to you,” Bren said.
Scott stood up, not wanting to make this any worse than it already was. “I’m not looking for any trouble,” Scott said.
“That’s ’cause you made enough already tonight,” Bren said.
“We were talking about it after,” Charlie said. “How if you weren’t a dirty player you wouldn’t be any kind of player at all.”
“It wasn’t a dirty play, and you know it,” Scott said.
“I saw the whole thing,” Quinn said, “and that’s exactly what it was.”
In a quiet voice, Bren said, “It should’ve been you that got hurt, not Jimmy.”
He was as close to Scott as he could get now without actually touching him. Charlie was to Scott’s right, just as close. He could feel Quinn behind him.
“We were all wondering,” Bren said, “just when you’re going to stop pretending you’re a football player?”
Charlie said, “You’ve got one friend on the whole team, and that’s probably just Conlan doing it out of pity.”
It was like they were taking turns pushing him around, even without laying a hand on him.
“And if Jimmy can’t play,” Quinn said, “even he’s not gonna want you around.”
They all heard the car horn then.
Scott looked between Bren and Charlie and saw his mom’s Volvo pulling into the back parking lot.
Still nobody moved.
“I gotta go,” Scott said. “My mom’s here.”
Bren moved back. So did Charlie. Scott started walking toward the car.
“That’s it, run to Mommy,” Bren said.
Scott kept walking.
“But since you are such a brain,” Bren said, “why don’t you go home tonight and think of a way to really help this team?”
FIFTEEN
They were all in the living room after dinner, television sets off, no calls to be answered on the house phone, his dad’s cell phone turned off. Those were the rules for family conferences, and Scott had asked for a family conference once his dad, who’d worked late, had finished his dinner.
Now his parents sat on the couch, waiting.
“I don’t want to be on the team anymore,” Scott said. “And I don’t want you guys to try to change my mind.”
His dad smiled. “Doesn’t sound like much of a family conference to me. Sounds like a brief opening statement from the president, then no questions.”
“Dad, I didn’t mean it that way.”
His mom said, “Do we at least get to hear why?”
“I was going to,” Scott said, and then described what had happened at practice. He tried not to rush through it, wanting to make sure he got it all in so they’d understand what it had been like after Jimmy got hurt, how Chris had tried to stick up for him, how Mr. Dolan had just walked away from him finally, after saying the only thing Scott had done all year was get somebody hurt.
He wasn’t going to tell them about what Bren and the other guys had said after practice, because he wasn’t going to tell anybody that. There was no way to do that without sounding like the biggest baby in the world.
When he was done telling the story he’d decided to tell, his dad stood up, his face red, saying, “Okay, the conference is over, I’m calling that guy.”
But Scott’s mom put a hand on his arm and said, “Let’s talk about this a little bit.”
Scott knew it was her polite, Mom way of telling him he wasn’t going anywhere.
Scott said, “We can talk all you want, Mom. I’m still quitting.”
“But you’ve worked so hard,” she said.
Scott was standing in the middle of the room, feeling a lot more nervous here than he did when he had to get up in front of the class and say something. “You didn’t see how the rest of the guys were looking at me,” he said. “Like they all believed Jimmy that the only way I could ever get him down was if I did something dirty. I’m not sure even Chris thought I had it in me to throw a decent block.”
“Chris said he believed you, in front of the team,” Hank Parry said. “Sounds like at least he told the truth, that you don’t lie.” He was leaning forward, squeezing both knees with his hands, face even