What Silas was asking was, did I mind the assumption that King’s first downs and scores would be so paltry that Ichiro wouldn’t have to be taken to the student clinic for symptoms of alcohol poisoning the second time in a week.
—Sure.
The broadcast returned. Notre Dame’s cheerleaders were shown in profile, shaking pom-poms and wearing glazed smiles as they pretended not to notice the camera. Then a close-up of Notre Dame’s leprechaun mascot, a boy in an Irish country hat and green cutaway suit, a gold vest, gold shirt and tie, and white tube socks meant to put you in the mind of tights. He didn’t ignore the camera, he screamed into it, face blistering red as he held up an index finger. Next we were shown a long pan of cheering fans, including King’s tiny section behind our bench. I sighed at the sight of my parents, proudly wearing the King Football gear I’d given them for Christmas. Mom sat next to Ali McCoy, talking the woman’s ear off, while Dad leaned forward in his seat to talk across the wives to Senior.
We lost the coin toss and would be receiving. Notre Dame’s kickoff team fanned into position, the kicker raising his hand. The whistle was blown, and the crowd sound crested to a mighty “Ooohhhhh!” as the ball was blasted off the tee—a beautiful, soaring kick that Devonté caught on the goal line.
He was off, a tiny burst of person. Two Notre Dame players evaded their blockers and closed in on him, pincerlike—but Devonté exploded through their outstretched arms, then stepped left of Slo-Mo and the player he was blocking. He sped toward the sideline with only the Notre Dame kicker, the player of last resort, squeezing down, the kicker seemingly about to force him out of bounds at the 50. But here Devonté did a lovely lateral leap back inside, tangling the kicker’s feet, and he was gone: 40, 30, 20, head swiveling to look over his shoulders, 10, seeing no one close, 5. When he reached the goal line he did a front flip into the end zone, landing on his back, throwing the ball into the air while ecstatically kicking out his hands and feet. Flags flew for Excessive Celebration as the teammates who’d been trailing Devonté ran into the end zone to pile onto him, slap his face mask, scream.
Silas’s room was a madhouse, the Notre Dame stadium a mass grave. I obligingly lifted my beer and, with the others, chugged for one, two, three.
At least Farrell, my replacement on kickoff, didn’t make the tackle when we kicked. Notre Dame’s own return was your standard down-at-the-29 affair, and the game settled into a lull for the remainder of the first quarter. Notre Dame field goal, 7–3. King drives but has to punt. So on. Although we were noticeably smaller than Notre Dame, we were dominating, and the first round of beers, then the second, were quickly downed.
The ribbing of Ichiro was constant. He spoke far better English than anyone in here spoke Japanese, but there was still a slight delay between a joke being made at his expense and his response to it, a gap all the boys exploited, and none more so than an alpha geek named Raymond. Raymond cut off Ichiro, contradicted him, taunted him with idioms he didn’t know. At first I was baffled why Raymond was acting so cruelly, but over the course of the first half I gleaned that he and Ichiro were roommates and understood Ichiro was disliked for tagging along to whatever social gatherings Raymond couldn’t sneak off to—including the drinking session last Saturday that led to the emergency room visit and spoiled the other boys’ fun.
Raymond was growing more blatantly mean-spirited as he drank, and by the middle of the second quarter Ichiro dragged his beanbag as far from him as he could, next to my chairs.
—Is this your first football game? I asked, looking down at him.
—No no, he said quickly, as if to reassure me. We have the X League in Japan. My team is Kanagawa.
—There’s American football in Japan?
Ichiro explained the history of the sport in his country, how missionaries introduced it in the 1930s, the concept of power hara. I did my best to feign interest, but my real attention was on the broadcast, in particular the irritating inanities of the color commentator. A former backup quarterback from the University of Michigan, he had once been one of my favorite television personalities, but his aggressively knowing tone grated on me tonight. Before kickoff, Color Man had gruffed, “They better have ambulances waiting outside the stadium for these King kids, Jim.” But by the third-quarter kickoff, when King was leading 17–10, Color Man acted like he wasn’t recorded for a living and said, “I’m telling you, Jim, King’s a team that’s going to surprise a lot of people this year.” George Zeller was “a player’s coach, Jim. I don’t think I’ve ever met a head coach so adored by his guys.” There was the obligatory adulation of Reshawn, the talk of a son’s love for his mother. But the player Color Man truly adored was our new starting quarterback. After Errol made a laser-precision twenty-five-yard throw to a receiver on the sideline, the camera lingered on him for a moment and Color Man gushed, “I had a chance to talk with this young man yesterday, Jim. He represents everything George Zeller’s doing right with King Football. Fantastic student. Natural leader. He knows he’s been given a second chance, and by golly he doesn’t want to waste it. I asked what he wanted this season, and you know, a lot of players will say ‘All-American’ or ‘National Championship.’ But Errol? He told me, ‘I just want to make my teammates proud.’ How about that?”
That’s when I set down my beer and started playing the drinking game with my screwdriver.
