Inexcusable Read Free Page A

one thing for me to do.
    I could have closed my eyes and hit him. I mean, right from near the start of the play, I could have shut my eyes tight and still run full steam, and still arrived at just the right spot at just the right time, me, him, and the ball, because they were doing it so textbook, so simply, so thoughtlessly. It had been too easy. We had made it too easy. They were getting too comfortable. Too lazy, spoiled, entitled. You need to never do that. Never, ever, ever. It is inexcusable. It is so dangerous out there, you can never ever get spoiled, just because it is coming too easy to you. If you do that, you create a situation of your own danger, of your own making, which otherwise would not have existed, and you put me in a position to do the only thing there is to do.
    When you hit a guy with all your being, hit him the waya car hits a moose, you would expect it to hurt both of you. But it doesn’t hurt the hitter, if the hitter has hit perfectly. It is a strange sensation, almost a magical sensation. The car takes a crumpling, and the moose takes a mangling.
    But not the hitter. Not if you do it right, do it the way you have been taught to do it by guys who have smashed into a hundred thousand other guys before and who were taught by guys who had smashed into a hundred thousand other guys.
    It’s like you smash right through him. Like he’s not even there. You go in, you go down, and you just find yourself there, lying as if you are just getting up out of bed. You feel nothing bad. You feel relaxed, in fact, refreshed. You even hear a short soundtrack come out of him, a kind of a grunt- cry voice forced up through fluid, through his nose, that would be scary if you heard it anywhere else. It isn’t scary when you hit a guy so perfectly, though, it is something entirely else. It almost sounds like ecstasy when you play it over in your head as you get up and trot off, just a little, little bit horny.
    My timing was perfect. The defensive back hit the receiver at the instant the ball arrived. A beautiful pop and explosion, like fireworks.
    And that was that.
    I was already on the sidelines before I knew anything. I was already back, picking up my practice ball,grabbing somebody by the jersey to come hold for me so I could kick a few and make up for lost time and get a yard closer to an offer, a college program, a Saturday game and a nice restaurant with my nice people.
    I never received so many hard slaps on the back.
    It wasn’t a fumble, because he never had a chance to get possession of the ball. It just popped up in the air, straight up, just like the guy’s helmet did, and somebody, some straggler from my team who was just standing around waiting to get lucky, got lucky, and caught the ball. Then he fell down, and a lot of other guys fell on top of him.
    Great. We were on offense now, and I was off to the sidelines.
    Where I became a small-time short-term hero.
    â€œWay to bang him, Keir,” somebody said, and banged me on the back.
    â€œWay to stick.”
    â€œMowed him, Keir. Absolutely killed him.”
    Until it stopped. All of it. Nobody touched me then, nobody said anything more. Some goddamn monster vacuum came and sucked all the sound, all the air and life out of the whole field, as every eye turned to the spot. The spot where I was a few seconds earlier, where I did my job as well as it can be done, where all the coaches were now and all the referees, and several people from up in thestands, and where people were looking back toward the school buildings and waving, waving for even more people to come.
    I stood there, all vacuumed out myself, feeling like a head in a helmet floating above where my body should have been.
    My holder walked away.
    *  *  *
    It was news. There were inquiries and investigations and editorials. I was home from school for a week, for my own good, for my peace of mind, because I couldn’t possibly concentrate, couldn’t