The father was enjoying himself immensely.
—Maybe I shouldn’t wait! he continued. Maybe we should figure out a race this week! What do you say, Reshawn?
—Maybe we should wait until your son’s out of the hospital.
The father went quiet, and before things could get worse, our nurse Rhonda said we’d already taken up enough of their time.
We continued down the hall. Coach Zeller made Reshawn walk slowly with him at the back of the group, and though our coach kept his voice low, you only had to see his meaty finger poke Reshawn in the arm to understand what was being said. Once the scold ended, Zeller and Reshawn rejoined us and we all entered the next room.
I wanted to turn right back around. The patient was a preteen white girl, and standing next to her bed were her mother and the girl’s identical twin. The sisters made for a kind of living, breathing before-and-after photograph: Before was plump with baby fat, her skin a rich brown from the summer sun, her heavy auburn hair pulled into a ponytail, and her mouth full of braces with rainbow-colored rubber bands. After, meanwhile, was so emaciated her neck seemed unequal to the task of holding up her head, and her pale skin was lined with layers of surprisingly long, downy brown hair. She was wearing both IV and breathing tube.
Thanks to Zeller’s warning, Reshawn stood right next to the bed. He started out stone-faced, but his features loosened as the sick girl’s mother told us how her daughter was Reshawn’s biggest fan. The girl had gone to every home game last season before she’d fallen ill, and in her bedroom back home she had a whole wall decorated with nothing but magazine and newspaper cutouts of Reshawn.
The girl shyly asked if Reshawn would sign the baseball cap we’d come here to give her. The nurse loaned Reshawn her pen, and as he signed the underside of the hat’s bill, I saw his chin begin to tremble. He handed the hat to the girl, and when she wished him luck at Notre Dame he finally lost it, sobbing so hard he had to bend down and hold on to the bed’s plastic side rail with both hands.
The photographer had been snapping photos, but now he lowered the camera to his side. The sick girl didn’t know what to do and just stared at the gold crown in the middle of the baseball cap she was clutching. Zeller and the rest of us were at a loss, too. It was left to the girl’s mother to pat Reshawn on the back.
—Bless your heart, she said. We’re gonna pull through. You’ll see. She’s gonna be just fine.
Saturday afternoon was graced with my favorite kind of football weather, late August weather, when the day is clear and hot and yet, if you know how to pay attention, you can sense that some of the summer’s intensity has been scooped out of the light. There’s an empty, secret space behind the glare waiting to be filled in by autumn, and if you’re careful, if you attune yourself just right, you can momentarily slip into that space, let the emptiness envelop you. A week from today, we would be in South Bend. I would be in South Bend.
Following the team dinner we were instructed to return to the football building for what was being called a special meeting, though what was special about it no player knew. Back at the Hay, I joined the crowd of milling teammates in the second-floor hallway. Entry to the Team Room was barred by Coach Hightower, who stood before the door with his arms crossed and only smirked when players asked what the hell was going on.
Finally a knock came from inside the door and Hightower allowed us in. The graduate assistants had been busy draping a T-shirt on the back of every chair, and what I noticed first about the shirts was their strange shade of purple, somehow both lighter and deeper than the color I was accustomed to. But the odd color was nothing compared to the astonishment on the shirts’ right breasts: a new logo for King Football. The gold of the King crown glittered, while the once-rounded points had been sharpened into spikes so that it looked less like a piece of regalia than a wearable weapon.
Manly squeals. Claps, daps, hugs. Many of us stripped off the shirts we were wearing on the spot and slid our new ones on, delighting in the feel of the virgin shirt cloth against our skin, running our thumbs over the new logo. The assistant coaches entered the room, with Coach Zeller sauntering in last, looking jolly as Father Christmas in a white polo shirt also emblazoned with our new crown.
—See y’all got y’all’s surprise.
—YES SIR!
We sat. Zeller assumed a ship captain’s stance up front, feet spread, chest thrust.
—Time was, you didn’t have countries. The world was smaller and nastier’n that. Life was lived closer to the ground. Who could you depend on? Your family. Your kin. People called you son-of. And there was pride in that, men. Pride in what family you belonged to. Pride so great you created special symbols for it. You needed help in battle? You raised your eyes—
He did, scanning the air above our heads.
—and found what you trusted.
He thumbed the crown on his chest.
—This is your crest. This represents your real family. This place is our castle, and everyone out there is our sworn fuckin’ enemy.
Players’ legs pumped in place, hands clutching armrests.
—Forget the bullshit. The naysayers. Your professor made a crack about the team? Fuck her. A royal said, “King Football?” Get ready to spit in his fuckin’ face. ‘Cause this—
He slammed his closed fist against the crown.
—this is your shield! When you stand behind this—
He lowered his
