Fantasy League (17 page)

“Same,” Charlie said.

Anna hit him with a high five that was so hard Charlie thought his right hand might have gone numb on him.

“I'm never calling you Brain again,” she said.

“Finally.”

“Only because your new nickname is Sack.”

“I'll take it,” he said. Then jerked his head at the bleachers and said, “Your gramps didn't make it?”

Anna smiled. “No, he made it, all right. About one minute before Sack Gaines did all kinds of bad things to the other team's quarterback.”

Then she pointed toward a clump of trees beyond the bleachers, right before you got to the parking lot. Joe Warren was sitting in what looked to be some kind of fancy lawn chair, Carlos standing next to him, across from the end zone where Charlie had scored his touchdown.

Charlie ran over to Coach, asked him how long before the trophy presentation. Coach told him he still had about five minutes, they were waiting for the photographer to get here.

“Go say hi to the owner,” Coach said.

“You know he's here?”

“We always know when he's here, Charlie.”

Mr. Warren made no move to get out of the chair when Charlie got to him. Charlie could see why; the old man looked as tired as he had ever seen him.

But still smiling through it.

“You saw?” Charlie said. “Anna said you got here in time to see.”

“I saw, Charlie boy,” the old man said. “Saw as good a defensive play as I've seen all season, is what I saw. Even better than the one our friend Sack Sutton made the other game.”

“We both saw,” Carlos said.

“Well,” the owner of the L.A. Bulldogs said, “now you've got one more football title than I do.”

“For now,” Charlie said. “Who's the one always telling me how much football there is left to be played? Help me out here.”

“Some old fart,” the old man said. “A real tired one.”

Even his voice sounding weak today.

Joe Warren put his arm out now, pointing out at the field, the league championship trophy on a table at midfield, Coach Dayley and Coach Fallon already out there, along with most of the players, Charlie knowing he had to get out there himself.

“I'm also the one always telling you to enjoy all our Sundays, Charlie,” Mr. Warren said. “But I forget to tell you the same goes for these Saturdays of yours, too. Because someday you're going to look back on them and think you'd give everything you own to just get one of them back.” He took a deep breath, as if he were the one who'd just run for the winning score. “Now go get your trophy.”

Charlie leaned down next to him and said, “Today wouldn't have been nearly as great if you hadn't seen that play.”

“Great for both of us,” Mr. Warren said. Then gave him a little shove and said, “Now
git
.”

Carlos helped him out of his chair. When he was standing he said to Carlos, “I believe I can take it from here.”

Carlos smiled at Charlie. “
Yes
, sir,” he said.

Carlos walked a few yards toward the field with Charlie, saying, “We were late because we had to stop at the hospital.”

Charlie looked up at him. “Is he okay?”

“Now he is,” Carlos said.

Charlie ran the rest of the way toward the field. Before he got to where his teammates were standing, he took one last look over his shoulder, saw Joe Warren smiling at him, waving.

And for that one moment he didn't look old or sick or tired, just as happy as Charlie felt.

Maybe that wasn't better than a championship, or a championship trophy, or even being called Sack Gaines on this day.

But it was close enough.

CHARLIE WASN'T EVEN SURE IF he understood it—he just assumed there were things you never understood about yourself, no matter how old you were—but he felt less alone now, even when he was by himself. More a part of something than he'd ever been before.

Like a large family.

It was like football had taken him in as much as Mr. Warren and his team had.

Charlie Gaines had never thought of himself as some sad, lonely kid because he didn't have a dad in his life, even if he'd always been a little jealous of kids who did have dads. And he'd always known how lucky he was to have a mom like his, one who didn't try too hard to be both mom
and
dad, just wanted to be the best mom she could be for Charlie: cool and smart and loving and somehow always there for him when he needed her, even though she had a full-time job.

She didn't try to bluff her way through on sports stuff she didn't know. She was just herself. Maybe that was the coolest thing about her. She was totally comfortable being herself.

Then Mr. Warren came along.

Somehow Joe Warren, without acting as if he wanted to be Charlie's dad or even his granddad, had done about as much as anybody could have done to fill up that hole in his life. What he had always thought of as an empty room. The old man was there for Charlie because he
wanted
to be there. When Anna had asked Charlie that time how he liked being a member of the Warren family, she had just been trying to be funny, or snarky, or both.

But Charlie knew the answer now, knew that he liked it just fine. He liked being an honorary Warren, knowing that if he wasn't related to Joe Warren he was connected to him in a way he'd never been connected to a grown-up man in his life.

Honorary Warren, honorary Bulldog. All one family now inside Charlie's head. His team really becoming
his
in a way he never thought possible.

• • •

It was the Wednesday after Christmas. Bulldogs' practice before the second-to-last game of the regular season. Both of their final games were at home, first against the Cowboys, and then against the Seahawks.

Fresh off of five straight victories, the Bulldogs were now 8-6, tied for first in the NFC West with the Seahawks.

If the Seahawks beat the Eagles on Saturday night and the Bulldogs beat the Cowboys on Sunday, the Bulldogs would be playing for their first division title, at home, eleven days from now.

The way the rest of the conference looked, neither the Bulldogs nor the Seahawks would get a wildcard at 9–7, so the winner of the game, if this weekend's games played out right, would go to the playoffs and the loser would go home. If Seattle won on Saturday night, the Bulldogs would be playing knockout-tournament-like ball for two straight Sundays, like the playoffs were starting for them right then.

Considering where the team was when it was losing four in a row, when it looked to be going nowhere, a chance like this was the real dream.

He and Mr. Warren had watched practice from the field today, Jack Sutton coming over at one point and saying, “Hey, I heard somewhere that now you've turned into a bit of a sack artist yourself.”

Charlie looked at Mr. Warren, who said, “I can't imagine where he would have heard something like that.”

“I don't think one career sack makes you a sack
artist
exactly,” Charlie said.

“Whatever,” Jack said. “I just wanted to come over and say I owed you one. A big one.”

“Get me two more wins and we'll call it even.”

When practice was over Mr. Warren said he wanted to talk to Coach Fiore in his office for a few minutes, but if Charlie was ready to go, he could have somebody find Carlos. Charlie said no, he was good, he'd just hang around until Mr. Warren finished his meeting.

“I like it down here,” Charlie said.

“I picked up on that,” the old man said, and then began his slow walk toward the tunnel.

Charlie went and sat on the bench. After all this time, he still couldn't believe he
was
here, even with all the players and coaches now in the locker room . Like Charlie had the place to himself.

He was still on the bench when he heard a voice behind him say, “About time we had a talk.”

Turned around and saw that it was Matt Warren.

• • •

Even this far into the season, after everything that had happened—and as much as Charlie was around Bulldogs Stadium—he hardly had any kind of relationship with Matt Warren.

Oh, Matt would say hello and ask how he was doing when Charlie was on the field, or in his dad's office, or when Matt would stop by his dad's suite during a home game, even though the Bulldogs had mostly been on the road lately. He would also be polite and try to act friendly. And, as Charlie would tell himself, there was absolutely no reason for him to do anything more than that, whether Charlie had gotten as close as he had to Joe Warren or not.

And maybe there would always be some weirdness between them, Matt being the general manager and the owner's son and the future big boss of everything, and Charlie being this kid who'd stolen the headlines when he'd found the team a quarterback and a middle linebacker they so desperately needed.

Matt and Charlie both knowing, without ever having had a conversation about it, that the Bulldogs would probably have had no shot at making the playoffs without those guys.

Charlie hoping that Matt didn't want to have that conversation now, the one he'd had plenty of times with Anna about her uncle.

Anna saying one time, “You know how when people avoid a subject and say there's an elephant in the room? You and my uncle have, like, a whole
circus
.”

Now here they both were, just the two of them.

“Mind if I pull up a seat?” Matt Warren said, sitting down next to Charlie on the bench.

Dressed the way he was usually dressed—khakis and a button down shirt and Nike sneakers in Bulldog blue—when he was on the field for practice, walking around, all business, going from coach to coach, sometimes talking to players, like this was his real office, not the one upstairs.

“Kind of neat when the place is empty like this,” Matt said, “isn't it?”

“Totally.”

They both sat staring straight ahead, Charlie feeling suddenly quite small.

“Can I tell you something, Charlie?”

“Sure, Mr. Warren.”

“Please . . . We went over this before. My dad is Mr. Warren. Call me Matt.”

“Sure . . . Matt.”

“At first,” Matt said, “I didn't want you around.”

Here we go
, Charlie thought.

“You don't seem surprised.”

“Not really.”

“But now I'm glad you're around, and not just because you made a couple of calls that even the smartest personnel guys in the league might not have made. Including our own.”

“Probably because it's not my job,” Charlie said. “You guys are the ones under all the pressure, every single week. Since I've been around the team like this, I went back and looked at all the draft choices you've made, especially the lower ones.” Charlie paused and said, “You've done way better than people think.”

Matt grinned. “People like my niece, you mean?”

“Seriously,” Charlie said. “I like to think I follow things
really
closely with the Bulldogs. But when I started going over the decisions you've made, year by year, I can see how people have focused on the stuff that didn't work out more than the things that did.”

“That's the job, Charlie, at least until you win,” Matt said. “And then sometimes even
after
you've won.
I
know what I can do.
I
know I'm a better general manager than all those people you're talking about think. But my job isn't to turn
them
around, it's to get this team turned around. Which I think we've finally done.”

“People who only focus on Tom coming here this season aren't seeing the whole picture, are they?”

Matt grinned and shook his head. “Nope. But it's like my dad told me one time: Sports fans just see the hole in the donut. Not the whole donut.”

“Can I ask you something?” Charlie said.

“Ask me anything.”

“How come you don't defend yourself more? Your record, I mean.”

“Because I'm a Bill Parcells guy all the way. His most famous line was the one about how you are what your record says you are. And everybody can see what our record has been since we were an expansion team.”

“I got criticized over Jack Sutton and I didn't want to come out of my room,” Charlie said. “I read the papers and listen to the radio and go on the Internet and it's like, wow, you have to take it all the time.”

“But if you get fixed on it, then you're taking time away from doing your job,” Matt said. “And my job, more than anything else, is to build a winner, for our fans. Mostly for my dad.”

Charlie looking at Matt now like he was seeing him for the first time.

“I really didn't think you liked me very much,” Charlie said. “Especially when Jack was messing up big time.”

“Like I said, there were times . . . But guess what? That was so dumb it made me not like
me
.”

Then: “Take a walk with me, Charlie.”

And so now Charlie began a walk around another football field, this time with Joe Warren's son at Bulldogs Stadium.

“I'm just glad those guys worked out for us,” Charlie said.

“Not as glad as I am,” Matt said. “All I've ever wanted to do was put together a team like this. Not just a quarterback who can get it done, or a linebacker who's found a second chance. But all over the field, up and down the depth chart. But those two players, they really fit like missing pieces to a puzzle. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I never officially thanked you for what you did to help the team. I am thanking you now.”

“I was never looking for a thank-you. I used to just want the Bulldogs to win for me, because it would make me happy. But now I want it even more for your dad.”

“That makes us more alike than either one of us would have ever thought, huh?”

They had gone up the Bulldogs' side of the field, crossed the end zone, were heading down the visitors' side now.

“You know what that means?” Matt said. “You and I—we were always on the same team.”

Then he paused and said, “He told me he told you about being sick.”

“Yeah.”

“So now he's a happy guy who happens to be sick,” Matt said. “Which is why it's a good thing that you help make him even happier. I watch the two of you and you both make being around each other look so . . .
easy
. Makes me wish it had always been that easy between us. My dad and me.”

They kept walking, Charlie saying, “He tells me all the time how proud he is of you. How he knows how hard it is for you being the owner's son. The other day he was saying again how none of this would have been as much fun for him if the two of you weren't doing this together. Even in the bad times.”

There was a stray football in the grass in front of them that the equipment guys had somehow missed. Matt picked it up and then surprised Charlie by getting off a booming punt—crushed it—that traveled fifty yards in the air at least.

“Seriously?” Charlie said.

“Once I realized in college I was never going to be good enough to make the NFL as a player, I started kicking, thinking I could punt my way there. That was long before the Bulldogs. Made it through a couple of cuts with the Cardinals before I got sent home.”

They started walking again, Charlie not sure how long they'd been out there, or what time it was. Just enjoying the talk more than he'd thought he would.

“When Dad got sick,” Matt Warren said, “I started to wonder if I had even less time than I thought to get this team figured out. Not so much in the draft, that's a crapshoot even for general managers a lot smarter than I am. I'm talking about some of the quick-fix trades I made.” He paused and blew out some air and said, “There's this old racetrack expression: Scared money never wins. I was getting more and more scared that I was running out of time with him.”

“I get jumpy just making fantasy trades!”

They were back at the Bulldogs' bench now. They both sat back down. Matt looked at his watch. “Dad should be out any second.”

“Thanks for the talk,” Charlie said.

“Should have had it sooner.”

Then Matt said, “Here comes the big guy.”

There was Joe Warren, coming out of the tunnel, walking as slowly and carefully as before, as if afraid the turf might reach up and bring him down.

Don't fall
, Charlie heard him saying.

“One last thing, Charlie?” Matt said. “It turned out to be good for me that you were around, too. Because I learned something from you.”

“I doubt that.”

“No, I did. I figured out that one of the reasons you get on the way you do with Dad is because you don't need anything from him, the way I've always needed his approval.”

Charlie was about to tell him that he was wrong, that he needed Joe Warren—needed all of this, the team and the place and all the rest of it—more than Matt could ever know.

But now Joe Warren was walking up to the bench area, saying, “Well, look at my brain trust.”

“Yeah,” Matt said, looking at Charlie and grinning. “Look at us. Couple of brains.”