Instead he said, “Supposed to get my son. I must’ve got it wrong. When’s pickup for soccer?”
“It hasn’t even started yet, sir. You probably read the drop-off time.”
“I probably did.”
“Pickup time is two o’clock.”
“Oh, hell. Two. Sure.”
Will pulled out, waving his thanks, and took the school exit at a leisurely ten miles an hour.
Two o’clock. Time to oil his gun and make plans about the boy.
No more indecision.
Erainya Manos would cooperate. Hell, yes, she would.
6
I was sure Jem’s soccer coach would cause a general uprising by the end of the summer season.
The guy was an unpaid volunteer who knew next to nothing about soccer. He came in late every day of practice, looking like he’d been up all night doing things a role model for little kids shouldn’t do.
On the other hand, the school was too cheap to hire a real coach. None of the parents could or would volunteer. So when the kids were close to tears, thinking their summer season might be canceled, this guy had been the only knucklehead dumb enough to commit every Tuesday and Thursday morning, plus Saturday games, for the rest of the summer.
“Tres!” Jem yelled as I walked in the boys’ bathroom. Then he corrected himself. “Coach!”
The Garcia twins were hitting each other with their shin guards.
Paul had dumped somebody’s clothes in the urinal.
Jack was climbing over the door of the stall while another kid whose name I couldn’t remember tried to climb underneath.
The other boys were in various states of lunacy-pulling shirts over their heads, skating on backpacks, calling each other poop-butts.
I did the only thing a coach can do. I blew my whistle.
“Ow!” they all said, pulling on their ears.
I jumped into the half second of focus I’d created. “On the field, five minutes!”
They probably heard the first two words. Getting directions across to a group of eight-year-olds is akin to Luke Skywalker hitting the meter-wide vent on the Death Star.
I ruffled Jem’s hair, told him to hurry out of the bathroom, since I was personally responsible for his safety, then went to check on the girls. From their bathroom doorway, I heard shrill sounds like parakeets being tortured. I yelled, “Five minutes, ladies!” crossed myself, and headed outside.
The practice field sat on a ridge overlooking Salado Creek. From any vantage point, the entire city seemed to spread out below one’s feet. Given the school’s wealthy clientele, I was pretty sure the visual message was intentional.
Unfortunately for frustrated coaches, the edge of the cliff was fenced, so bad children couldn’t go rolling off into oblivion. It also wasn’t rainy enough to cancel practice, though the sky was heavy gray and the field was spongy.
I set out cones for a relay race, put all the soccer balls in a neat line, then watched my plans disintegrate as the troops came charging over the hill.
Kathleen and Carmen ran screaming straight into the nearest mud puddle and started jumping on top of each other. Paul kicked all the soccer balls as hard as he could. One of them bounced off Maria, who luckily was the size of a totem pole and didn’t seem to notice.
Laura hung on my arm. “I’m going to marry Jack!”
Jack, the object of her affections, lolled his tongue out of his mouth and barked like a dog.
“I’m very happy for you,” I said. “Now everybody on the line!”
No results.
Even Jem, my faithful sidekick, was right there in the mix, tangling himself in the goalie’s net while the Garcia twins kicked puddle water at him.
I blew my whistle. “On the line!”
Nothing.
“Last one is a rotten egg!” I yelled.
A few of them ran to the line.
“Oh, look,” I announced. “Kathleen’s not the rotten egg! She’s here!”
“Yay!” Kathleen said, and proceeded to run away, but the others had gotten the idea.
“I’m not rotten!” said Jack the dog.
“Me! I’m here!” Laura told me. “I’m going to marry Jack.”
Pretty soon I had the whole team of sixteen on the line.
We practiced kicking around the cones, plowing straight through the cones, picking up the cones, putting them on our heads and singing “Happy Birthday.”
We did throw-ins, passes and dribbling, stopping approximately every three minutes for a water break. Jack kept barking. Maria kept getting whacked in the head with the ball and not noticing.
Some of the mothers had gathered on the bleachers to watch and gossip. I wondered: If they have off at this time of day, why didn’t they volunteer?
I answered myself: Because they are intelligent.
One hour into practice, it started sprinkling. I considered calling an early stop, sending the kids to the extended care building for snacks and board games, but Jem said, “Can we scrimmage now,
Tres? PLEEEASE?”
“Yeah!” Paul said. Then the Garcia twins started in: “Please, Coach! Please?”
Suddenly I had sixteen little rain-freckled faces crowding around me. Jem and Paul pulled on my arms.
I thought: This is how it happens. This is how people can have a second or third kid, even though one is enough to kill you. They’re occasionally cute enough to make you suicidal.
“All right,” I said. “Eight on eight.”
“Yay!” Jack shouted. “Best coach ever!”
We kicked off and all strategy was forgotten. Kids crowded the ball, moving back and forth down the field in a multi-legged clump. Paul was our best kicker, except he tended to boot it the wrong direction. Maria was a natural halfback, since the ball bounced off her anytime it came her direction whether she meant it to or not.
Jem played keeper. After only five minutes, the other team had scored three goals off him.
All that hand-eye coordination from playing video games didn’t seem to translate to sports. He moved slowly, grabbing for the ball right after it went past him. He dove in the wrong direction. I yelled, “Hands!” and he tried to block with his foot. The whole time, he kept a huge grin on his face, as if the other team was cheering for him whenever the ball sailed into the net.
My heart sank. I’d been working with him one-on-one all the previous week, ever since he announced he wanted to play goalie in our first game against Saint Mark’s. I didn’t want to see the poor kid get blamed for what promised to be an absolute slaughter.
Somebody’s dad-a pale Anglo in an Oxford and khakis-joined the mothers at the bleachers. I checked my watch. Only twenty minutes left of practice, and now the rain was really starting to come down. Typical.
Jack the dog boy kicked from the edge of the penalty box-a slow, weak shot. Jem lunged for it, just the way he and I had practiced. He fell on his side, a foot short, and the ball wobbled into the net.
“Yes!” Jack yelled. “Woof!”
Laura clapped for him. His team yelled hooray. Jem got up, grinning happily, his left side caked in mud.
We were still a few minutes early, but I decided it was time to stop.
I told the kids to line up. We would walk together to the extended care building, where they could play until their parents came.
They heard the “extended care” part, cheered for joy, and scattered.
