her, squatting beside her so as we’d all fit in front of the webcam.
Pops’ face filled up the screen, the collar of his camo fatigues framing the bottom border. He was in Iraq, his third deployment, this time at Joint Base Balad, outside Baghdad; he worked on jet engines. It had to have been, like, three thirty in the morning over there, but a couple of soldiers were playing Ping-Pong over his shoulder.
Pops looked like he knew what was coming. His mouth moved before the words could catch up. “So how’d it go?”
“Just great,” Mama said, and she started to explain about the full ride and about the engineering program being nationally ranked, but Pops cut her off. “Let the boy tell it, Verna!” Even all grainy in the webcam, and in the weak lighting of the Quonset hut, his face was lit up. The corners of his mustache seemed pushed up onto his temples, so broad was his smile.
“Coach Horton, the recruiter, said they’re graduating three corners and a safety,” I told him. “Ain’t nothing but two sophomore corners and a redshirt freshman on the whole squad.”
“There aren’t but two sophomores,” Mama corrected me.
I knew how to say it proper, but saying it like that for Pops seemed right. See, football was always me and Pops’s thing. I’d been balling since I was “knee-high to a pup,” as he’d say, and before the war Pops would come to every game. He’d grade my play. Good stick on third down , or, all stern-like, You’re slacking on kick coverage . That kind of thing. Pops would be scrutinizing every detail.
He hadn’t really seen me play since I’d grown into my chest and college recruiters had started coming around, so I wanted to catch him up as best I could.
He said, “So you’ve got a good chance to play your first year?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. Tookie had gone back to his room, to play Game Boy or some such, but Tina’s tiny hand was steady holding mine, and she was smiling Mama’s smile. “Especially if I enroll in January and go through spring ball.”
“You got the credits?”
“Sure enough. And a three-point-six GPA .”
Mama said, “My Freeman’s going to get to go to university!” Then she added, “What a week. First the award to take the trip to France, now this.”
I pulled the brim of the Cyclones cap even lower over my face, told Pops about the scholarship, not bragging, just saying.
He moved in closer to the camera, his face blocking out the Ping-Pong game, like he could reach on through, put his hand on my shoulder. “Son,” he said, “you’ll make the Cyclones a better team and get to go to college, something your mama and me, your aunts and uncles, never got a chance to do. Boy, you are going places.”
» » » »
My school group had the day free, what with us having just two days left, and I decided to walk to the places around the city I had liked best. The loud-honking and lively Champs-Élysées first. Then over by Montparnasse: gray stone walk-ups and lots of bookshops and cafés everywhere. After that I took the metro to Montmartre, to the Sacré-Cœur, the white stone church that looks like those pictures of the Taj Mahal.
It was cool out but not cold; I was fine in just my Huskies letter jacket. I sat on a green wooden bench in the park at the base of the long staircases that led up to the church. The parks here aren’t parks the way I know them. They’re mostly gravel-covered paths, and the grass is off-limits. Guards in two-toned blue unis with blue box-hats blow whistles at you if you step out onto the green. Still and all, these ladies—young moms and African nannies and Swedish au pairs—brought their kids. The kids were overdressed—in coats and scarves and knit hats—for a winter that seemed like it wouldn’t ever come. They freed themselves and ran and made a ruckus like Tookie and Tina would if they were here. The ladies, pushing the empty strollers, followed behind, picking up the cast-off clothes.
I flipped open
Pops’ face filled up the screen, the collar of his camo fatigues framing the bottom border. He was in Iraq, his third deployment, this time at Joint Base Balad, outside Baghdad; he worked on jet engines. It had to have been, like, three thirty in the morning over there, but a couple of soldiers were playing Ping-Pong over his shoulder.
Pops looked like he knew what was coming. His mouth moved before the words could catch up. “So how’d it go?”
“Just great,” Mama said, and she started to explain about the full ride and about the engineering program being nationally ranked, but Pops cut her off. “Let the boy tell it, Verna!” Even all grainy in the webcam, and in the weak lighting of the Quonset hut, his face was lit up. The corners of his mustache seemed pushed up onto his temples, so broad was his smile.
“Coach Horton, the recruiter, said they’re graduating three corners and a safety,” I told him. “Ain’t nothing but two sophomore corners and a redshirt freshman on the whole squad.”
“There aren’t but two sophomores,” Mama corrected me.
I knew how to say it proper, but saying it like that for Pops seemed right. See, football was always me and Pops’s thing. I’d been balling since I was “knee-high to a pup,” as he’d say, and before the war Pops would come to every game. He’d grade my play. Good stick on third down , or, all stern-like, You’re slacking on kick coverage . That kind of thing. Pops would be scrutinizing every detail.
He hadn’t really seen me play since I’d grown into my chest and college recruiters had started coming around, so I wanted to catch him up as best I could.
He said, “So you’ve got a good chance to play your first year?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. Tookie had gone back to his room, to play Game Boy or some such, but Tina’s tiny hand was steady holding mine, and she was smiling Mama’s smile. “Especially if I enroll in January and go through spring ball.”
“You got the credits?”
“Sure enough. And a three-point-six GPA .”
Mama said, “My Freeman’s going to get to go to university!” Then she added, “What a week. First the award to take the trip to France, now this.”
I pulled the brim of the Cyclones cap even lower over my face, told Pops about the scholarship, not bragging, just saying.
He moved in closer to the camera, his face blocking out the Ping-Pong game, like he could reach on through, put his hand on my shoulder. “Son,” he said, “you’ll make the Cyclones a better team and get to go to college, something your mama and me, your aunts and uncles, never got a chance to do. Boy, you are going places.”
» » » »
My school group had the day free, what with us having just two days left, and I decided to walk to the places around the city I had liked best. The loud-honking and lively Champs-Élysées first. Then over by Montparnasse: gray stone walk-ups and lots of bookshops and cafés everywhere. After that I took the metro to Montmartre, to the Sacré-Cœur, the white stone church that looks like those pictures of the Taj Mahal.
It was cool out but not cold; I was fine in just my Huskies letter jacket. I sat on a green wooden bench in the park at the base of the long staircases that led up to the church. The parks here aren’t parks the way I know them. They’re mostly gravel-covered paths, and the grass is off-limits. Guards in two-toned blue unis with blue box-hats blow whistles at you if you step out onto the green. Still and all, these ladies—young moms and African nannies and Swedish au pairs—brought their kids. The kids were overdressed—in coats and scarves and knit hats—for a winter that seemed like it wouldn’t ever come. They freed themselves and ran and made a ruckus like Tookie and Tina would if they were here. The ladies, pushing the empty strollers, followed behind, picking up the cast-off clothes.
I flipped open
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