Wednesday night, they put you up in a swanky hotel, you do the show Thursday, bada bing. What could be easier?”
“ Not doing it could be easier.” I’d wanted to stay home longer, but two days is better than nothing. And if Lee could come with me to Port City, it might be a nice vacation. Celebrate him meeting my parents, unwind from the trip. I have a creeping feeling that we will need some unwinding.
“ You’re crazy! Listen, you’re doing it, or, or, you find a new agent.” I don’t say anything. “No, I didn’t mean that, but please, you gotta do it.”
“ All right. Jeez, shut up.” I press my fingers to my eyes. I’d forgotten about the headache I get whenever I talk to him.
“ You’re gonna be great.” He’s back to his normal register again. “You’re gonna be at the Port City ‘D’ Hotel, it’s right on the water, it’s beautiful.”
“ You already booked my room?”
“ Hey, I know you, I knew you’d do the right thing. That’s what you did Monday, right? The right thing. There’s all kinds of contracts waiting here for you, commercials to do, there’s a Chevali nightclub and a Yerba Sporting Goods store and...get this...a national chain of sportswear! Ultimate Fit!”
“ Great.” I look around and notice that there’s nobody in the locker room. Shit. I’m late for film. “I gotta go.”
“ Sure, kid, no problem, just tell me if you’re good with the Ultimate Fit guys, because they want to send a crew out on Thursday.”
“ Jesus, Ogleby, I can’t do it Thursday, I have practice.”
“ They just want to film you practicing. So is that okay?”
“ No!” My tail lashes back and forth. I take a breath. “Good-bye.”
“ Okay, but wait—”
Sometimes the only way to end a conversation with Ogleby is to hang up on him. I still have like forty voicemails on it, but I don’t have any more time. So I toss the phone in my locker and run down to film. Of course, everyone else is already there, and when I open the door, Coach Samuelson says, “Thanks for joining us, Miski. Twenty-five hundred if you’re late to a film session again.”
There’s muttering from a few of the players, but I don’t see who. I slink into my chair and avoid meeting anyone’s eye, focusing on watching the plays from the previous week’s game. As we go through them, though, I get into it. I want to watch my interception again, but we only look at it once. I can see through the helmet the intensity in my eyes and I remember the feeling of knowing, being perfectly in tune with the game as I step in front of the coyote and pluck the ball out of the air. My fingers flex as we watch, gripping the memory of the football. It felt great. I’m hungry for more.
Coach Samuelson says, in his lupine growl, “Good anticipation, Miski.” Then we move on to the three completions they made to that same coyote, and though I tackled him two out of three times, Steez points out where I could’ve swatted the ball away.
It’s not just me, though. On every play the coaches run through who hit their assignment, who was slow to the play, who showed good reflexes. There’s at least three of us mentioned on every play. By four-thirty, we’re mentally exhausted, ready to do some lifting and let it soak in for more drills tomorrow.
Fisher and I spot each other in the weight room. We don’t talk much, except when he skips the shoulder presses, flexing his left shoulder. “Musta slept on it wrong,” he says.
I try to remember whether he took a hit to the shoulder on Sunday. “Did you see the trainer?”
He glares at me. “I just slept on it wrong. Do your presses.”
We only have to be here ’til seven, and after that we can leave if we want. They bring in protein bars (approved by the league) in case we want to stay, and I always do. Sometimes I just run for an hour on the treadmill. Tonight, Gerrard and Carson want to do an extra hour of practice, so we grab some guys from the practice squad and
“ Not doing it could be easier.” I’d wanted to stay home longer, but two days is better than nothing. And if Lee could come with me to Port City, it might be a nice vacation. Celebrate him meeting my parents, unwind from the trip. I have a creeping feeling that we will need some unwinding.
“ You’re crazy! Listen, you’re doing it, or, or, you find a new agent.” I don’t say anything. “No, I didn’t mean that, but please, you gotta do it.”
“ All right. Jeez, shut up.” I press my fingers to my eyes. I’d forgotten about the headache I get whenever I talk to him.
“ You’re gonna be great.” He’s back to his normal register again. “You’re gonna be at the Port City ‘D’ Hotel, it’s right on the water, it’s beautiful.”
“ You already booked my room?”
“ Hey, I know you, I knew you’d do the right thing. That’s what you did Monday, right? The right thing. There’s all kinds of contracts waiting here for you, commercials to do, there’s a Chevali nightclub and a Yerba Sporting Goods store and...get this...a national chain of sportswear! Ultimate Fit!”
“ Great.” I look around and notice that there’s nobody in the locker room. Shit. I’m late for film. “I gotta go.”
“ Sure, kid, no problem, just tell me if you’re good with the Ultimate Fit guys, because they want to send a crew out on Thursday.”
“ Jesus, Ogleby, I can’t do it Thursday, I have practice.”
“ They just want to film you practicing. So is that okay?”
“ No!” My tail lashes back and forth. I take a breath. “Good-bye.”
“ Okay, but wait—”
Sometimes the only way to end a conversation with Ogleby is to hang up on him. I still have like forty voicemails on it, but I don’t have any more time. So I toss the phone in my locker and run down to film. Of course, everyone else is already there, and when I open the door, Coach Samuelson says, “Thanks for joining us, Miski. Twenty-five hundred if you’re late to a film session again.”
There’s muttering from a few of the players, but I don’t see who. I slink into my chair and avoid meeting anyone’s eye, focusing on watching the plays from the previous week’s game. As we go through them, though, I get into it. I want to watch my interception again, but we only look at it once. I can see through the helmet the intensity in my eyes and I remember the feeling of knowing, being perfectly in tune with the game as I step in front of the coyote and pluck the ball out of the air. My fingers flex as we watch, gripping the memory of the football. It felt great. I’m hungry for more.
Coach Samuelson says, in his lupine growl, “Good anticipation, Miski.” Then we move on to the three completions they made to that same coyote, and though I tackled him two out of three times, Steez points out where I could’ve swatted the ball away.
It’s not just me, though. On every play the coaches run through who hit their assignment, who was slow to the play, who showed good reflexes. There’s at least three of us mentioned on every play. By four-thirty, we’re mentally exhausted, ready to do some lifting and let it soak in for more drills tomorrow.
Fisher and I spot each other in the weight room. We don’t talk much, except when he skips the shoulder presses, flexing his left shoulder. “Musta slept on it wrong,” he says.
I try to remember whether he took a hit to the shoulder on Sunday. “Did you see the trainer?”
He glares at me. “I just slept on it wrong. Do your presses.”
We only have to be here ’til seven, and after that we can leave if we want. They bring in protein bars (approved by the league) in case we want to stay, and I always do. Sometimes I just run for an hour on the treadmill. Tonight, Gerrard and Carson want to do an extra hour of practice, so we grab some guys from the practice squad and
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