'Of course.We're burying our most famous citizen.'
'You didn't like Rake, did you?'
'I was not a fan. Miss Lila is a strong woman, but she was no match for him. He was a dictator on the field, and he had trouble turning it off when he got home. No, I didn't care for Eddie Rake.'
'You hated football.'
'I hated you, and that made me hate football.'
'Atta girl.'
'It was silly.Grown men crying after a loss.The entire town living and dying with each game. Prayer breakfasts every Friday morning, as if God cares who wins a high school football game. More money spent on the football team than on all other student groups combined. Worshiping seventeen-year-old boys who quickly become convinced they are truly worthy of being worshiped. The double standard—a football player cheats on a test, everybody scrambles to cover it up. A nonathlete cheats, and he gets suspended.The stupid little girls who can't wait to give it up to a Spartan.All for the good of the team. Messina needs its young virgins to sacrifice everything. Oh, and I almost forgot. The Pep Girls! Each player gets his own little slave who bakes him cookies on Wednesday and puts a spirit sign in his front yard on Thursday and polishes his helmet on Friday and what do you get on Saturday, Neely, a quickie?'
'Only if you want it.'
'It's a sad scene. Thank you for shoving me out of it.'
Looking back with the clear hindsight of fifteen years, it did indeed seem silly.
'But you came to the games,' Neely said.
'A few of them. You have any idea what this town is like on Friday night away from the field? There's not a soul anywhere. Phoebe Cox and I would sneak over here, on the visitors' side and watch the games. We always wanted Messina to lose, but it never happened, not here. We ridiculed the band and the cheerleaders and the Pep Squad and everything else, and we did so because we were not a part of it. I couldn't wait to get to college.'
'I knew you were up here.'
'No you didn't.'
'I swear. I knew.'
Faint laughter drifted across the field as another Rake story found its mark among his boys. Neely could barely make out Silo and Paul in a group of ten others just under the press box. The beer was flowing.
'After you took the plunge in the backseat,' she said, 'and I was tossed aside, we still had two years left in this place. There were moments when I would see you in the hall, or the library, or even in the classroom, and our eyes would meet, just for a second. Gone was the cocky sneer, the arrogant look of everybody's hero. Just for a split-second you would look at me like a real person, and I would know that you still cared. I would've taken you back in a heartbeat.'
'And I wanted you.'
'That's hard to believe.'
'It's true.'
'But, of course, the joy of sex.'
'I couldn't help myself.'
'Congratulations, Neely. You and Screamer began your adventures at the age of sixteen. Look at her now. Fat and tired.'
'Did you ever hear the rumor that she was pregnant?'
'Are you kidding? Rumors are like mosquitoes in this town.'
'The summer before our senior year, she tells me she's pregnant.'
'What a surprise.Basic biology.'
