Two-Minute Drill - Mike Lupica [28]
“Fine!” Scott said.
“Fine!”
Scott figured that if they stayed at this for another minute they were going to start making faces at each other.
Or calling each other names.
Chris was the one who broke it off, whistling for Brett as he started walking back toward the woods.
“How are you going to get to practice?” Scott called after him. “My mom was supposed to take us.”
Without turning around, Chris said, “What do you mean, us?”
Before Scott could say anything else, he was already in the woods, Brett following behind him.
Right behind Brett was Casey.
Like somehow even Casey knew what was going on, and even he didn’t want to hang around with a quitter today.
Scott thought Casey would come back right away.
He didn’t.
He kept waiting for his mom to come walking on the field, wanting to know what had happened.
She didn’t.
He’d left his watch up in his room when he and Chris had been studying, so he didn’t know what time it was, just knew the sky was starting to look the way it usually did when it was time to leave for practice.
Except there was no practice today.
Scott decided to practice kicking anyway, do something fun, have football be fun the way it used to be out here, before he kidded himself into thinking he could be a real player.
He walked over to the middle of the field, extra-point distance, trying to pretend he was Doug Flutie. Ready to try the Flutie dropkick.
Then he couldn’t help it, he could hear his dad’s voice inside his brain, telling him for what felt like the thousandth time that no matter how many people tried to tell Flutie he was too small to be a great football player, even when he was in high school, he never gave up.
The way Rudy never gave up.
He kicked the ball now.
Wide right.
No Casey to get the ball. He went and got it himself. Then he walked toward the woods alone, wondering if Doug Flutie or Rudy ever felt as low as he did right now.
He was in his room, door closed, when he heard the car in the driveway, looked out the window and saw it was his dad, coming home early like he’d said he would.
Scott heard the front door close.
Heard his dad calling out in his singsong way, “Honey, I’m home,” the way he always did. He had explained that’s the way dads did it on TV when he was growing up.
Finally, Scott heard his dad coming up the stairs, then knocking on his door.
“You in there?”
“Yeah.”
“All right if I come in?”
“Yeah.”
His dad opened the door and as soon as he saw Scott, he broke out into the biggest smile he had, like it was two or three for the price of one.
Scott wasn’t only dressed in his uniform, he even had his helmet on.
“I’m ready for practice,” he said.
SIXTEEN
In the end, Scott had worked it out for himself, decided it wasn’t about Mr. Dolan, or Jimmy, or Chris, or even his parents.
He was playing for himself.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to get out on the field in a real game. Scott still wanted that in the worst way, even if he was the worst player on the team.
But if it didn’t happen this season, well, he could live with that more than he could live with being a quitter. It wasn’t just Chris who didn’t want to hang around with a quitter.
Neither do I, Scott thought.
When he got to practice, he thought Chris might at least act a little surprised to see him, but he didn’t.
“Hey,” was all he said.
“Hey,” Scott said back.
Then Chris nodded and put out his fist and Scott bumped him back, and they went out to stretch along with everybody else.
It turned out Jimmy had a “high ankle sprain.” Scott wasn’t sure how that was different from any other kind of ankle sprain, but Mr. Dolan said it was the worst kind and he wasn’t sure when Jimmy would play again. He was definitely out of Saturday’s game against the Lions.
Before they started scrimmaging, he said one other thing, making it sound as if he was addressing the whole team, even though Scott knew better.
“Let’s keep it clean tonight, okay?”
They spent most of tonight’s practice working on their “red zone” offense, which meant the