Bleechers

Neely: 'He got a flag.Half the distance.'

Silo: 'That guy was psycho, and the more we scored the louder he screamed.'

First and goal from the two and a half.Option left, here comes the pitch, Marcus Mabry is hit, drives, and falls into the end zone! Touchdown Spartans! Touchdown!

Buck's voice carried even farther through the still night. Rabbit, at some point, heard it and crept into the shadows down the track to investigate the noise. He saw a crowd sitting and half-lying haphazardly up in the bleachers. He saw bottles of beer, smelled the smoke from the cigars. In another era, he would have taken charge and ordered everyone away from the field. But those were Rake's boys up there, the chosen few. They were waiting for the lights to go off.

If he got closer he could call each one by name, and number, and he could remember the exact location of their lockers.

Rabbit slipped through the metal braces under the bleachers and hid below the players, listening.

Silo: 'Neely called for an onside kick, and it almost worked. The ball bounced around and got touched by every damned player on the field until some guy with the wrong jersey finally found a handle.'

Ronnie: 'They ran twice for two yards,then tried a long pass that Hindu broke up. Three and out, except that Hindu leveled the receiver out of bounds.Unnecessary roughness.First down.'

Donnie: 'It was a horrible call.'

Blanchard: 'We went crazy in the stands.'

Randy: 'My father almost threw his radio on the field.'

Silo: 'We didn't care. They weren't going to score.'

Ronnie: 'They went three and out again.'

Couch: 'Wasn't the punt return somewhere around here?'

Nat: 'First play of the fourth quarter.'

He turned up the volume.

East Pike back to punt on the Messina forty-one, the snap, a low, hard kick, taken on the bounce by Paul Curry at the five, wide to the right to the ten, cuts back—He's got a wall! A perfect wall! To the twenty, thirty, forty! Cuts back across midfield, picks up a block from Marcus Mabry, to the forty, the thirty, along the far sideline! He's got blockers everywhere! To the ten, five, four, two, touchdown!! Touchdown Spartans! A ninety- five-yardpunt return!

Nat turned the volume down so they could savor one of the greatest moments in Spartan football history. The punt return had been executed with textbook precision, every block and every move choreographed by Eddie Rake during endless hours of practice. When Paul Curry danced into the end zone he was escorted by six green jerseys, just the way they'd been drilled. 'We all meet in the end zone,' Rake had screamed, over and over.

Two East Pike players were down, victims of vicious, but legal, blindside blocks that Rake had taught them in the ninth grade. 'Punt returns are perfect for killing people,' he'd said, over and over.

Paul: 'Let's listen to it again.'

Silo: 'Once is enough.Same ending.'

After the field was cleared, East Pike took the following kickoff and began a drive that would consume six minutes. For one brief period in the second half, they used their superior talent to chew up sixty yards, though every inch was contested. Their seamless execution of the first half was long gone, replaced by stutter steps and uncertainty. The sky was falling. One massive choke was under way, and they were powerless to stop it.