VMI was a D1AA program, and if we were generally imposing compared to them, Reshawn in the backfield showed you what it must have looked like when Apollo descended into human battle. The ball went to him on the first snap, a dive, and one moment he was on my right-hand side, behind the line of scrimmage, and the next he was on my left, having passed through the roil of bodies without losing a step. He spun away from a lunging linebacker, and now it was just him and a VMI safety. Reshawn lowered on the defender, ran through him.
—WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Our sideline shifted leftward to track him, leaping onto one another and screaming as my roommate scored a 63-yard touchdown on the very first touch of the first game of his college career.
You wouldn’t have known that by looking at him. Reshawn carelessly dropped the ball in the end zone and turned immediately for the sideline, once again avoiding the linemen and wide receivers sprinting over to hug him. He took a seat on the bench, snapping off his helmet and obliviously accepting a water bottle from a moony student trainer. I knew he wasn’t going to be one for celebrating after scores; yet that still hadn’t prepared me for how, like, misanthropic he acted.
Judging from the irritated looks on our teammates’ faces, nobody else knew what to do with him, either. So instead we sought inspiration from Coach Zeller—the energized, enlivening, exhilarating man pacing the sideline as he chattered into the headset clamped over his ears. When someone made a great play, Zeller would slide the headset down his neck to call out that player’s first name—which, in a game where family names are the rule, was a sign of great intimacy. If a player made a big mistake, Zeller made sure to catch him as he returned to the sideline—not to browbeat, but to reassure him he knew the player had gotten that error out of his system and would henceforth be on the straight and narrow. In the rare times he stopped moving, Zeller’s hand sought the back collar of the nearest player’s shoulder pads and hung from there, as if this was the best way to keep himself anchored.
Had I ever seen a more natural leader?
. . .
We beat VMI by twenty, Reshawn rushing for 226 yards, receiving for another 55, and scoring all four of our touchdowns. But the most important number by far was one—it was King’s first win in almost two years.
The locker room was all sweaty effervescence. Coach Zeller’s big face beamed as he wandered from cube to cube to relive his first victory, recounting his favorite plays so vividly I would remember his recountings much longer than the plays themselves. Veteran players who’d trudged through a desert of losses looked like they’d just bathed in a cool, clear oasis pool, the color restored to their faces, the worry lines erased from their foreheads. No one was eager to break the spell, and long after the players had showered and dressed, they were still sitting on their locker seats happily arguing over the best bits of the game.
Fade and Chase toweled themselves off in the cube and talked logistics for the party being thrown tonight at the Football House.
—Got plenty of cups, Fade said. Eli’s getting the Natty Light.
—Do we have balls?
Fade stopped to think and shook his head. He turned to me.
—Buy some Ping-Pong balls on your way over.
I wanted badly to go to that party, but I knew Coach Johannsen would have told me to keep myself at home, stay clear of the risks.
—I’ve got a lot of homework, I said.
—Homework?!
—Bullshit, Chase said. I saw that hundred you got on the PubPol quiz. You don’t need to fucking study. And we need at least three packs of balls. I swear to God these motherfuckers eat them when they get shit-faced.
My odd crush on Chase had lingered since the end of camp, and I thrilled to be ordered around by him. Coach Johannsen hadn’t specifically told me to avoid parties, had he? And wouldn’t I become a better player if I got to know my teammates, if they got to know me? I just wouldn’t get too drunk.
—Okay, I said. Three packs.
I returned to the dorm room, finishing what scant homework I had as a way to kill the rest of the afternoon. At sunset I dressed, bought the balls at the East Campus Union, and started across the lawns that gently undulated off the main quad, passing baroquely branched magnolia trees and an ancient gazebo rumored to be the spot where Jedediah King renounced God. I walked through a gap in the low stone wall that bordered East and entered a neighborhood of rundown bungalows with children’s toys scattered on lawns, a few rusty cars up on cinder blocks, more than a few windows covered by Confederate flags. The faded green bungalow Chase had described was at the end of a cul-de-sac, and when I mounted the porch and tried the front door, the handle turned but the door itself didn’t budge. Someone inside shouted, “Lower your shoulder!” and that’s when I noticed a concave, discolored patch in the door’s wood about two feet above the handle. The door swelled in the warm months, and the patch was from a decade’s worth of players butting the thing open.
Two violent rams and I stumbled into a front room that could most generously be described
