Hometown Favorite: A Novel Read Free Page A

way on the field."
    "Your way on the field is the only way," Jesse said.
    "I am the way," Sly said, and he and Jesse pounded fists in
front of Dewayne.
    "Be careful now;' Dewayne said. "Save it for the field'
    They had faced nothing like this before, a threshold into a
new phase of life. It required a form of courage they could not
understand, a courage that would provide the resolve to move
beyond tonight into manhood regardless of the outcome, and
the bus sped them toward that end.
    Jake Hopper ambled down the center aisle to the rear of the bus and sat down on an armrest. He had refrained from drinking before this game, although he had yielded to a swallow of
mouthwash before leaving home. He scanned the faces of the
three boys sprawled out on the extended seat in the back.

    "You guys have fun tonight," he said, and the boys nodded.
"Dewayne, you and Sly play like always ... pitch and catch
... nothing's different, nothing's special ... Dewayne, just let
the ball come to you. Sly knows how to place it. This is your
moment, and I'm..."
    The eyes of Jake's audience diverted above his head. He
turned around to see the head coach standing behind him,
and he yielded to his superior.
    "Jesse, you and Dewayne got to remember what this team
always does in a bind. They pull out their quick pitch. You got to
be ready for that. The running back will line up behind the tight
end instead of the gap between the guard and tackle. That's the
sign for the play. Heads-up for you, Dewayne ... you've got the
read. When you see that lineup, shout, `Judas!' three times, and
then widen out a little more and rush up the field to force the
running back inside. Jesse, you come in and clean his clock. Put a
chokehold on this team ... force them to use the Judas play, then
finish them off with some smashmouth tackling. No overtimes.
Just a clean game and we're out of there with a championship."
    He slapped Jake's back as a signal that the speech was over
and that Jake should return to the front with him. Jake rose
and took one last look at the trio. Words failed him, and he
had to trust they understood his pride in them as he lumbered
back to his seat.

    In the stadium, no one was left sitting in his seat. All were
on their feet. Dewayne had scored two touchdowns: the first, a down-and-out pattern where he outran his coverage; the
second, a leaping catch in the end zone. Sly had scored one
with a quick dash into the end zone from the five-yard line.
Jesse recovered a fumble and ran it back sixty-five yards for
his touchdown. He had never run so far and so fast in his life.
In spite of these scores, the Tigers were still up by only four
points.

    The Red Devils from southern Mississippi, a team with
equally impressive players and an undefeated season coming
into this game, had come back to score every time the Tigers
had made it into the end zone. The last time, however, the
Tigers had held the Devils in the red zone and forced them to
kick a field goal from fifteen yards. With less than two minutes
remaining on the clock and a score of 28 to 24, the Devils kept
the Tigers from getting a first down, forcing them to punt. The
return was a twenty-two-yard gain, leaving a mere forty-four
yards from the Devils' line of scrimmage to the goal line. The
first play Dewayne had blocked the expected pass. On a blitz in
the second play, Jesse had sacked the quarterback for a threeyard loss, his third sack for the game.
    From the Tigers' side of the stadium, there was chaos, enough
noise to travel through the cold and damp night air like a howling army. From the Devils' side, there was an overwrought
silence except for mumbled prayers for divine intervention
and jinxes against the Tigers. For every soul on their feet, life
outside the confines of this stadium had ceased to exist.
    Dewayne spotted the play as soon as the Devils came to the
line on third down. The running back had taken his position
out behind the