'He comes and goes.'
'The other one is Amos Kelso,' Jaeger said. 'He played with me.'
Amos was hauling the other case of beer, and as the three stomped up the bleachers Silo invited Orley Short and his pal to join them for a drink. They did not hesitate. He yelled at Teague and Couch, and they too followed them up to row thirty, whereNeely and Paul and Randy Jaeger were sitting.
Once the introductions were made and the bottles were opened, Orley asked the group, 'What's the latest on Rake?'
'Just waiting,' Paul said.
'I stopped by this afternoon,' Couch said gravely. 'It's just a matter of time.' Couch had an air of lawyerly importance thatNeely immediately disliked. Teague the optometrist then provided a lengthy narrative about the latest advances of Rake's cancer.
It was almost dark. The joggers were gone from the track. In the shadows a tall gawky man emerged from the clubhouse and slowly made his way to the metal poles supporting the score-board.
'That's not Rabbit, is it?'Neely asked.
'Of course it is,' Paul said. 'He'll never leave.'
'What's his title now?'
'He doesn't need one.'
'He taught me history,' Teague said.
'And he taught me math,' Couch said.
Rabbit had taught for eleven years before someone discovered he'd never finished the ninth grade. He was fired in the ensuing scandal, but Rake intervened and got Rabbit reassigned as an assistant athletic director. Such a title at Messina High School meant he did nothing but take orders from Rake. He drove the team bus, cleaned uniforms, maintained equipment, and, most important, supplied Rake with all the gossip.
The field lights were mounted on four poles, two on each side. Rabbit flipped a switch. The lights on the south end of the visitors' side came on, ten rows of ten lights each. Long shadows fell across the field.
'Been doing that for a week now,' Paul said. 'Rabbit leaves them on all night.His version of a vigil. When Rake dies, the lights go out.'
Rabbit lurched and wobbled back to the clubhouse, gone for the night. 'Does he still live there?'Neely asked.
'Yep.He has a cot in the attic, above the weight room.Calls himself a night watchman. He's crazy as hell.'
'He was a damned good math teacher,' Couch said.
'He's lucky he can still walk,' Paul said, and everyone laughed. Rabbit had become partially crippled during a game in 1981 when, for reasons neither he nor anyone else would ever grasp, he had sprinted from the sideline onto the field, into the path of one Lightning Loyd, a fast and rugged running back, who later played at Auburn, but who, on that night, was playing for Greene County, and playing quite brilliantly. With the score tied late in the third quarter, Loyd broke free for what appeared to be a long touchdown run. Both teams were undefeated. The game was tense, and evidently Rabbit snapped under the pressure. To the horror (and delight) of ten thousand Messina faithful, Rabbit flung his bony and brittle body into the arena, and somewhere around the thirty-five-yard line, he collided with Lightning. The collision, while near fatal for Rabbit, who at the time was at least forty years old, had little impact on Loyd.A bug on the windshield.
Rabbit was wearing khakis, a green Messina sweatshirt, a green cap that shot skyward and came to rest ten yards away, and a pair of pointed-toe cowboy boots, the left one of which was jolted free and spun loose while Rabbit was airborne. People sitting thirty rows up swore they heard Rabbit's bones break.
If Lightning had continued his sprint, the controversy would have been lessened considerably. But the poor kid was so shocked that he glanced over his shoulder to see who and what he had just run over, and in doing so lost his balance. It took fifteen yards for him to complete his fall, and when he came to rest somewhere around the twenty-yard line the field was covered with yellow flags.
While the trainers huddled over Rabbit and debated whether to call for an ambulance or a minister, the officials quickly awarded the touchdown to Greene County, a decision that Rake argued with for a moment then conceded. Rake was as shocked as anyone, and he was also concerned about Rabbit, who hadn't moved a muscle since hitting the ground.
It took twenty minutes to gather Rabbit up and place him gently on the stretcher and shove him into an
