like a goon.
fourteen
“And the whole school totally clapped,” Young recounted for everyone at dinner. “I had no idea Chan was going to make the
varsity
team.”
“It’s no small accomplishment, that’s for sure,” Mrs. Knutson agreed as she poured ketchup on her hamburger. “You should be very proud, young man.”
The only one who didn’t say anything was … guess who. He just muttered darkly to O-Ma about her need to economize, meat like this was expensive. I felt like telling him to quit picking on her.
Is it too much to ask that he be happy for me once in a while? I worked hard for this. On weekends I helped him fix up the store—no small task—and I’d even repaired the leaky sink in the kitchen and fixed up Mrs. Knutson’s lawn, which had been well on its way to reverting back to wilderness. But if it doesn’t come on a piece of paper, with the grades A through A, he just doesn’t give a damn. Abogee didn’t say anything through dinner. Noteven “Pass the rice”—he just reached across O-Ma and grabbed the bowl. Mrs. Knutson politely looked away, just like the first day we sat down to eat together and Abogee belched at the table.
Obviously he was mad. It was a silence you could hear, like when you put a blank tape in the stereo and crank up the volume. The silence just blasts you.
But this time I wasn’t going to give in. I wasn’t going to panic and say “Okay, Abogee, I’ll quit football and work in the store” just because I was afraid he’d sulk.
I knew Abogee was testing me, like in those fairy tales where if I chose the right answer, I’d be rewarded with riches and kingdoms (that is, Abogee not being mad for a while). If not, I’d fall through a trapdoor into a pit of alligators.
The events of the last weeks churned like laundry inside my head. The leaving. My last soccer practice. Saying good-bye to Sujin. The endless ride to get here. Eating lunch alone.
If he didn’t have the balls to ask me to quit football
out loud,
I wasn’t going to answer, either.
I think he was afraid I would say no, out loud.
“Go out on the slant, long,” Mikko said to me, waving his arm toward somewhere out on the field. “Don’t turn around until I tell you.”
I ran out. The rain-sopped field squished like a sponge beneath my feet.
“Now!” he yelled. I turned. A bomb crunched me right between the numbers.
“Hug it to ya, or you’re gonna lose it,” Kearny shouted in disgust. “Whatsdamatter, your fingers all greasy from that Chinese food?”
Kearny really yanked my chain sometimes. I think he knew it and enjoyed doing it, too. He was always chewing out people in public, questioning their manhood, trying to get the larger guys to absolutely flatten the smaller ones. It was all part of what he called the “necessary roughness” of becoming a football player. I thought that was bull.
But I wasn’t so stupid as to mouth off to him. I knew who controlled the roster for the games.
I had the kicking down pretty well. I could kick at different angles, I could adjust for the wind. I was getting to the point where I could figure out if we needed a straight-ahead boot or a puffy little floater to get through the uprights.
But we all had to play more than one position. Coach thought I should be a running back or a safety, since I was fast. Mikko was trying me out at wide receiver. It was a little frustrating learning the ropes for so many positions, but Coach made it clear that there wasn’t room on the team for a guy whojust sat on the bench and came out when it was extra-point time. That fancy stuff was for the NFL, he said.
To end practice, after the gauntlet, we had to do a mile run in under nine minutes, which we did. Then we had to do hundred-yard sprints in pads and helmets in under eighteen seconds, which Rom and some of the other bulky linemen
didn’t
do, so Coach made us start over from zero. Run. Run. Run till your gut explodes.
The third time, Rom came huffing in at
fourteen
“And the whole school totally clapped,” Young recounted for everyone at dinner. “I had no idea Chan was going to make the
varsity
team.”
“It’s no small accomplishment, that’s for sure,” Mrs. Knutson agreed as she poured ketchup on her hamburger. “You should be very proud, young man.”
The only one who didn’t say anything was … guess who. He just muttered darkly to O-Ma about her need to economize, meat like this was expensive. I felt like telling him to quit picking on her.
Is it too much to ask that he be happy for me once in a while? I worked hard for this. On weekends I helped him fix up the store—no small task—and I’d even repaired the leaky sink in the kitchen and fixed up Mrs. Knutson’s lawn, which had been well on its way to reverting back to wilderness. But if it doesn’t come on a piece of paper, with the grades A through A, he just doesn’t give a damn. Abogee didn’t say anything through dinner. Noteven “Pass the rice”—he just reached across O-Ma and grabbed the bowl. Mrs. Knutson politely looked away, just like the first day we sat down to eat together and Abogee belched at the table.
Obviously he was mad. It was a silence you could hear, like when you put a blank tape in the stereo and crank up the volume. The silence just blasts you.
But this time I wasn’t going to give in. I wasn’t going to panic and say “Okay, Abogee, I’ll quit football and work in the store” just because I was afraid he’d sulk.
I knew Abogee was testing me, like in those fairy tales where if I chose the right answer, I’d be rewarded with riches and kingdoms (that is, Abogee not being mad for a while). If not, I’d fall through a trapdoor into a pit of alligators.
The events of the last weeks churned like laundry inside my head. The leaving. My last soccer practice. Saying good-bye to Sujin. The endless ride to get here. Eating lunch alone.
If he didn’t have the balls to ask me to quit football
out loud,
I wasn’t going to answer, either.
I think he was afraid I would say no, out loud.
“Go out on the slant, long,” Mikko said to me, waving his arm toward somewhere out on the field. “Don’t turn around until I tell you.”
I ran out. The rain-sopped field squished like a sponge beneath my feet.
“Now!” he yelled. I turned. A bomb crunched me right between the numbers.
“Hug it to ya, or you’re gonna lose it,” Kearny shouted in disgust. “Whatsdamatter, your fingers all greasy from that Chinese food?”
Kearny really yanked my chain sometimes. I think he knew it and enjoyed doing it, too. He was always chewing out people in public, questioning their manhood, trying to get the larger guys to absolutely flatten the smaller ones. It was all part of what he called the “necessary roughness” of becoming a football player. I thought that was bull.
But I wasn’t so stupid as to mouth off to him. I knew who controlled the roster for the games.
I had the kicking down pretty well. I could kick at different angles, I could adjust for the wind. I was getting to the point where I could figure out if we needed a straight-ahead boot or a puffy little floater to get through the uprights.
But we all had to play more than one position. Coach thought I should be a running back or a safety, since I was fast. Mikko was trying me out at wide receiver. It was a little frustrating learning the ropes for so many positions, but Coach made it clear that there wasn’t room on the team for a guy whojust sat on the bench and came out when it was extra-point time. That fancy stuff was for the NFL, he said.
To end practice, after the gauntlet, we had to do a mile run in under nine minutes, which we did. Then we had to do hundred-yard sprints in pads and helmets in under eighteen seconds, which Rom and some of the other bulky linemen
didn’t
do, so Coach made us start over from zero. Run. Run. Run till your gut explodes.
The third time, Rom came huffing in at
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