Just A Game Read online

  On the flip side, it made for uncomfortable silence as a player’s errors were shown again and again for the room to see. Penalties, missed blocks, interceptions thrown.

  The mood in the room was somber as the team sat in silence, a direct result of the loss of both the game and the playoffs in one evening. Overall the team had played well and besides a few small points to be made, Coach Stanson played the film through once and turned it off.

  Afterwards he released the underclassmen and asked to speak to the six seniors in the room. He waited for the others to clear out, collecting their things from lockers and leaving quickly, before taking a seat on the benches in front of the projector screen.

  Coach Frank Stanson graduated from Huntsville High in 1972. A star running back and defensive back, he went on to play ball at Liberty College before returning to Huntsville to teach History and coach. Within three years of returning he was promoted to the head spot and had been at the helm ever since.

  Now in his late fifties, some in the community felt his style was getting a little outdated. Many more believed that his success spoke for itself and unless his players were causing trouble there was no need to replace him.

  In a town that respected tradition and routine as much as Huntsville, his job was as good as secure for life.

  “Fellas, I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am,” he began. “I know that seems a little out of place given all that’s going on in the world, me sitting here apologizing to a group of healthy young men about losing a football game, but I really am.

  “I thought we had that one, thought we were headed to the playoffs.”

  He paused for a moment and looked at the dry-erase board on the wall, halftime adjustments from the night before still diagrammed in red.

  “That being said, you guys know you have one more shot at this. One more time to wear your jerseys down the hall on Fridays. One more time to hear the gravel crunch beneath your feet as you walk out to the field."

  He paused, his gaze searching the back wall for the right words.

  “So I guess what I’m telling you is, enjoy it. Drink it all in. I know you guys have heard every bad cliché about how fast times passes, but let me tell you, every last one of them is true.

  “It wasn’t yesterday that I was walking out there on Friday nights and there isn’t anything I wouldn’t give to strap it up with you boys next week. It feels like last weekend I was coaching your fathers as they took the field, and now here all of you sit. You guys following me?”

  Every head nodded in silent unison.

  He sat with his hands on his knees and looked at each of them in turn once more smacking the tops of his thighs and standing.

  “Alright. I’ll see you guys all back here tomorrow night for the bonfire.”

  The group rose as one and trickled their way outside. The fall air was crisp and they could see their breath as they crunched along the gravel path to the stadium.

  On the field, the junior varsity squads from Huntsville and Culver were already into the third quarter, the score knotted at eight. A smattering of fans dotted the stands on either sideline and the sound of the junior varsity cheerleaders could be heard carrying through the early morning air.

  Goldie turned to make sure they weren’t being followed and said, “Was I the only one that thought Stanson was gonna call for a group hug in there?”

  “No kidding,” Matt said. “You ever saw him get all, deep, like that before?”

  Clay had seen Stanson get much more emotional than that the night Colt earned a scholarship to Indiana, but he kept it to himself. Stanson cared about his players, and for it he sometimes earned their ridicule.

  “What do you say, George?” Clay asked as they passed the old groundskeeper sitting atop his riding mower and watching the game.

  George touched the brim of his cap and tilted his head in greeting as they walked past him and along the fence on the sideline. They stopped together around the thirty yard line and watched for a few minutes, none of them saying much.

  As the game moved into the fourth quarter, a few spectators stopped by to offer their condolences on the loss the night before or their advice for the following week. Each time the boys thanked them and continued watching.

  The Little boys were the first to drift off, followed soon thereafter by Matt and Marksy. Goldie and Clay were the last to leave, staying until the final whistle to see Huntsville prevail 16-14, a failed two-point conversion by Culver being the difference.

  Together they walked back towards the parking lot, both of them with their hands shoved into the pockets of their Hornets Football sweatshirts.

  “What do you make of all this?” Goldie asked.

  “All this?”

  “You know...” Goldie said, waving his hands in front of him.

  “Last game of the season?” Clay asked, glancing over.

  “More than that. This being the end and all.”

  Clay gave a non-committal turn of his head and said, “I don’t know if I’d call it the end.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Last game together, end of an era, all that jazz?” Clay said. He pondered on it a moment before shrugging his shoulders. “Tell you the truth I hadn’t much thought about it before last night.”

  A look of pure disbelief crossed Goldie’s face.

  “You mean to tell me you hadn’t thought about our last game until twelve hours ago? About the last time we get to wear the jerseys and run through the tunnel and get laid because of it?”

  Clay coughed out a reactionary laugh and said, “Something tells me you’ve still got plenty of that left in your future Goldie.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Goldie said, laughing as he hopped into his car and drove away.

  Chapter Four

  The afternoon sun did little to warm the cool autumn air as Clay did chores in the barn. He started by mucking the stable stalls, then filled them with wheelbarrow loads of fresh sawdust. After that he threw down bales of hay from the loft and gave each of their four horses a few flakes each.

  He worked steadily through the afternoon, the sound of ESPN Radio on in the background. The big news of the day was Ohio State getting upset by Illinois and the Oklahoma-Missouri game later that night.

  Never was the Indiana-Northwestern score mentioned.

  The sun was starting to drop a little lower in the sky when Clay finished and headed back towards the house. He dropped his barn shoes outside the door and stepped inside, the smell of fresh bread filling the air and college football on the television.

  “They showed the score?” Clay asked.

  “Game just ended, Hoosiers won 28-17,” his mother said without looking up as she rolled out pie crust on the kitchen counter, her old apron protecting her from the cloud of flour hanging in the air.

  “You heard from Pop?”

  “He stopped in for coffee and a sandwich a little while ago, said he was hoping to be done with the back field by dark.”

  Clay rolled the words and said, “The back field? He’s already there?”

  “Mhmm,” his mom replied as she lifted the pressed dough from the countertop and lowered it into a tin pie plate.

  “That means he’s almost done then, huh?”

  “Yeah, with ours,” she said.

  Clay watched the scores continue to scroll across the bottom of the screen, the words of his mother finally registering with him. “With ours?”

  “The reason he’s going so hard at this is when he’s done, he’s going to take the Baker’s crop off for them too.”

  Clay made a face and asked, “Whyyyy?,” drawing the word out for emphasis.

  “I guess their combine broke down two rows into the front field. Mitch called a couple days ago and asked if your father could help him bring it in.”

  “What about our combine?” Clay asked, his eyes bulging a bit. “It can’t be far from the grave itself.”

  His mother sighed, lifted her head from the pie
and stared out the window in front of her. “You know how things are right now. Everybody needs help.”

  Clay knew the words went a lot further than just referring to bringing in a crop, but he let it go. He knew his mother hated for him or Colt to know how tight things were for the farm, though they both knew it anyway.

  The whole town knew how hard farming was these days. They also knew it was only a matter of time before the developers crept further out from Dayton and Cincinnati and tried to swallow them too.

  “Will you be joining us for dinner tonight?” his mother asked, jerking Clay back into the present.

  “No thanks, Mama. I’m actually meeting Chelsie here soon.”

  “That’s nice. What are you kids getting into?”

  “Nothing really, probably eat some pizza and end up at her place watching football with her brothers.”

  “Nothing wrong with that evening,” his mother said, shaking her as she trimmed away excess crust from the outside of the pie pan.

  “Agreed,” Clay said as he pulled his gaze from the television and went upstairs. He stepped in and out of the shower and was looking for something to wear when his cell-phone buzzed to life on the nightstand.

  Still wrapped in just a towel, Clay stepped around the bed and looked at the caller ID.

  COLT.

  An instant smile sprang to Clay’s face as he snapped the phone up from the table. “What’s up, Buddy?”

  “Whaddya say, Big Man?” responded the amiable voice of his older brother.

  “Oh, ya know, same old,” Clay said, shaking his head and turning to stare out the window at the sun slipping beneath the horizon. “What’s going on with you?”

  “Standing on the tarmac here in Chicago, getting ready to get on the plane back to Bloomington.”

  In the background Clay could hear wind whipping by, the sound of a plane engine just audible over it.

  “Damn, you guys got there in a hurry.”

  “Yeah, we don’t use O’Hare or Midway. There’s a little bitty airstrip just north of campus the university uses. Didn’t take long to get here.”

  Clay rocked his head back an inch in understanding. “Big win today huh?”

  “Yeah, yeah. They acted like they may make a run on us late, but that final field goal took the wind out of their sails.”

  “What kind of day did you have?” Clay asked.

  “Three catches, forty yards. Hurowitz went down early with a busted ankle,” Colt said before lowering his voice. “Backup can’t throw for dick, so we ran the ball the rest of the day.”

  “Still ain’t a bad game.”

  Colt moved on without acknowledging the comment. “You guys able to see any of it?”

  “Not a minute,” Clay said. “With the Buckeyes getting upset here, they were on every channel.”

  “Ha! That’s excellent. I’ll take getting blacked out every week if it means the Buckeyes get beat.”

  “That’s what you say, but it gets old having exactly one game to choose from every week. Worse than the damn President being on.”

  “Heard you had a heart breaker last night,” Colt said, switching gears.

  “Who told you that?” Clay said, glancing at himself in the mirror, seeing the same scowl as the night before appear.

  “Went on the KHVC website last night from the hotel. They didn’t broadcast you guys, but they were giving score updates. You were up until the last two minutes, what the hell happened?”

  Clay continued to look at his reflection in the mirror, shaking his head from side to side. “Hell if I know man.”

  Colt paused for a few seconds and said, “Those are the worst kind. Never even enters your mind you’re gonna get beat, then you do. Like a damn stomach punch.”

  Clay nodded, remaining silent.

  There was nothing to add. Colt had pretty much covered it.

  “What did the old man have to say about it?” Colt asked.

  “Haven’t seen him. He’s been killing himself trying to get the beans in. Guess he’s going over to help the Bakers as soon as he’s done with ours.”

  Colt let out a slow sigh. “It’s hitting the Bakers now too huh?”

  “I guess,” Clay said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and laying back flat atop it. “Hey man, you got a couple minutes?”

  “No, not really,” Colt said. “Most of the team’s already boarded, we’re fitting to push off here any minute.”

  “Alright then, that’s cool,” Clay said, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Sorry, “ Colt said. “You know how they are about cell phones on planes. I’ll get at you tomorrow night. You going to be around?”

  “Yeah, we’ve got the bonfire at six. Should be home by eight or nine.”

  “Alright then, I’ll talk to you then,” Colt said, singing off without another word..

  Clay clasped the phone shut and tossed it on the bed beside him, staring up at the ceiling. After a moment he hopped up and went to get dressed, still unsure what he was going to wear.

  Something told him it wouldn’t really matter.

  Chapter Five

  Chelsie Swanson and her family moved to Huntsville four days before the start of freshman year. She and Clay began dating the first day of school, the kind of relationship only a pair of fourteen year olds would dive into, and had been together ever since.

  Her father was a corporate executive at Fifth-Third Bank in Cincinnati and had moved his family to Huntsville to get out of the city. He still made the drive down three days a week, but was able to work from home the other two.

  The Swanson family lived on the edge of town and had jumped two-footed into Huntsville culture, though it had taken a while for Huntsville to fully accept them. For nearly a full year people around town gawked at the family's Escalade or whispered about the enormity of their home, comments tinged with jealousy.

  Over time though, those feelings abated. Now four years later, the Swanson’s were very much a part of Huntsville.

  Clay wound his truck through the tree lined streets of town and parked in front of the Swanson house, leaves crunching beneath the tires of his truck. Chelsie was sitting on the front steps waiting for him and hopped down as he approached.

  She jogged across the front yard as he sat behind the wheel, her blonde ponytail bouncing behind her. When she reached the truck she turned and waved toward the house, Clay doing the same from the driver’s seat.

  “Hey,” she said as she jumped onto the front seat.

  Clay leaned over and kissed her lightly, put the truck in gear and eased away from the curb. “Were you afraid your parents and I might have to talk to each other?”

  Chelsie rolled her eyes and said, “No. They’ve been in a foul mood since Ohio State got beat, so I decided to go out on the porch.”

  “Awful chilly out,” Clay said, acknowledging she was only wearing jeans and a sweater.

  “Much better than in the house, I promise you.”

  “Ah yes, the weekly travails of Buckeye Nation,” Clay said, let his distaste for the words roll off his tongue.

  “Little ridiculous isn’t it?” Chelsie said, adding her own eye roll for effect.

  “More than a little,” Clay said as he pulled up in front of Formaggio’s Pizza. The late day sun was almost gone beneath the horizon and light from the restaurant spilled out onto the street in a wide arc.

  Clay and Chelsie climbed out of the truck and Clay slid his arm around her shoulders as they walked towards the front door. Together, they were one of the more recognizable sights in all of Huntsville. Not quite as well known as the statue of Coach Stanson that stood outside the school, but a close second.

  The two cut quite a pair by any standards, but certainly so for a town like Huntsville. Clay stood three inches over six feet and was built of corded muscle and sinew. His light brown hair fell straight forward to frame blue eyes and small dimples.

  Chelsie was a good half foot shorter than him, with blonde hair and matching blue eyes.
She had an easy laugh, a quick smile and had never met a stranger.

  Clay reached for the front door and held it open as Chelsie stepped inside. A plume of Italian aroma hit them as several people turned from the counter and said, “Heeeey!” in unison as way of greeting.

  “You get us a table while I go talk to the Killer B’s?” Clay asked.

  “Sure,” Chelsie said. “Should I go ahead and order too?”

  Clay smiled. “Yeah, why not? After all, you are the one paying tonight.”

  Chelsie crinkled her nose and said, “And here I thought I was going to have to get rough with you to make you let me pay.”

  “I’m too much a gentleman for anything of the sort,” Clay responded, moving towards the counter as she departed in the opposite direction.

  Three men sat waiting at the counter as Clay approached with his hand outstretched and greeted each of the men by name. “Benny...Barney...Bert,” he said, shaking hands as he went. “How are the biggest Hornets fans in Huntsville this evening?”

  Benny, Barney and Bert Winslow, or the Killer B’s as they were affectionately known around town, were brothers that attended Huntsville High and played football together in the late 50’s. After high school they worked the family farm together for over forty years, only recently retiring and leaving the business to their own sons.

  In all that time, nobody in town could remember the Killer B’s missing a single game. Home or away, they were always one of the first to show up and never left early regardless of the score.

  “Been a rough weekend,” Bert said. “First you boys drop a heartbreaker last night, then the Bucks lay an egg today.”

  “Bout the only thing to go right was Colt and the boys winning,” Barney added.

  Benny nodded vigorously as he chewed on a mammoth bite of pizza.

  “Yeah, talked to him a little bit ago, sounded like it went well. You’re right though, otherwise it’s been a rough weekend,” Clay acknowledged.