Gym Candy (16 page)

Carlson had Drew stretch the defense by going deep to DeShawn. The play almost clicked, but the ball slid off DeShawn's fingertips. The next play was a screen pass to me. I blocked my guy for a two count and then slipped into an open area in the right flat. Drew's pass was on target. I watched it into my hands and only then turned upfield.

I got two good blocks and cut back toward the middle, and suddenly only the free safety was between the end zone and me. I bore down on him, but instead of
holding his ground, he stepped to the side and waved at me as if I were a bull and he were a matador with a red cape. I broke right through his arm tackle, and then I was off, running straight into the end zone. Touchdown!

The guys on the Black team circled around me, screaming, but I kept a stone face.
When you get into the end zone, act like you've been there before and you're planning on being there again.
Those were Carlson's instructions, so that's what I did. I high-fived a couple of players, trotted to the sidelines, pulled my helmet off, and took a swig of water. Carlson glanced over his shoulder. "Nice running, Mick."

The Red team took over on offense, with Dave Kane in at tailback. By the time they ran their third play, Drew had planted himself next to me on the bench. "You were awesome," he said.

He kept talking and I managed to answer, but my eyes were on the field, watching Kane. I tried to see him the way Carlson was seeing him. Did he run hard? Did he run north-south? Did he block? Was he as good as I was? The answers came pretty quickly. Yeah, he ran hard. Most of the time he ran north-south. Yeah, he blocked. No, he wasn't as good as I was.

The Red team made a couple of first downs and then
punted. I pulled my helmet on, my world got small again, and I headed back onto the field.

All through that scrimmage, I was in the zone. When I needed a burst, I could feel my muscles explode. I was fast to the hole; I was strong through contact. I had more endurance than ever before. I felt as if I could play and play and never get tired.

When Carlson finally blew the whistle, he still had questions to answer about the team. Who was going to be our strong safety? Our right cornerback? Our kick returner? But there was no question about the featured running back, because that job was mine.

After practice, I was too pumped up to go home. I climbed into the Jeep, stuck an old Rolling Stones CD into the player, and pounded on the steering wheel as I drove out on Greenwood toward Shoreline. The wind was blowing in from all directions, and my hair was flying like my spirits.

I'd done it.

I'd won the starting spot.

I turned the Jeep around at the community college and came back on Third Avenue. When I saw the turnoff for Carkeek Park, all I was thinking about were the curves on the road going down. I pushed on the accelerator, taking each one as fast as I could, tires squealing in the summer heat. I didn't think about Piper's Creek until I reached the parking lot and saw it, right in front of me. I looked around. No police. I revved the engine, popped the clutch, bounced up and over the curb, and then roared down into the creek and up the other side, tires spinning but pulling me out and back onto the road.

Saturday I went to the gym early. I knew Peter would want to hear how I'd done. The sun was shining and a breeze was blowing in from the Sound. Popeye's was nearly empty—everybody was outside. I asked the guy behind the counter if Peter was around. "He said he was going to Jamba Juice. He's probably sitting on the steps leading down to the cut."

I walked toward the water and spotted him leaning against a cement block, watching the boats. "Hey," I said. "Got a minute?"

"Tell me," he said. "How'd it go?"

"I did it, Peter. I blew them away. I'm starting, and I feel so strong out on the field. So ready. I'm going to have a big year. I know it all through my body."

He reached and gave me a high-five. "I told you you'd rock and roll. Didn't I tell you?"

I nodded and then fell silent.

"So what else? I can tell there's more," he said.

"The season is starting now."

"So?"

"So this is when I stop using the steroids. Remember?"

"Yeah, yeah," he said. "I remember you saying something like that."

"What I'm wondering is, will you still train me?"

He smiled. "Ofcourse. I'll admit I've made a few extra bucks from the steroids, but it's not like I need that money to pay the rent. And your dad pays me for the one-on-one sessions. I just hope you know what you're doing."

"What's that mean?"

He looked out over the water. "Most guys don't go off the juice unless they have to. They don't drug test in high school, right? So why not do another stack? You see what it does for you, how strong it makes you. Why stop?"

"There are a bunch of reasons."

"Like?"

I paused. "It's hard to explain."

For a long time neither of us spoke. Then he held out his Jamba Juice cup toward me. "You want some mango smoothie?"

"Sure," I said.

I took a good swallow and handed the cup back to him. He stirred his straw around a few times. "We're sort of back to where we started, aren't we?" he said.

I nodded, then stretched my arms over my head and stood. "I'm going to work out now," I said and started toward the gym.

Once I was in the gym, I headed to the free weights area and lifted. It was the first time I'd lifted without the help of steroids in a long time. I hadn't been able to explain to Peter why I was quitting because I couldn't totally explain it to myself. What I'd done was cheating, but deep down I didn't think of myself as a cheater. I'd gotten on the train for a while, just to get a boost, just to get that starting spot. But now that I had it, it was going to be
me
that was keeping it, not some drug. And there was more. By stopping, I could look Drew in the eye again without feeling like a liar, and that mattered a lot. Maybe I could even get things going with Kaylee. People become alcoholics or drug addicts, and then they stop and nobody holds it against them. It was the same with me. I'd used steroids, but I'd stopped. I wasn't proud of what I'd done; I wouldn't want anybody to ever find out; but the important thing was that it was in the past.

***

The rest of the summer went by in a flash. Football practice ... chores for my dad ... weightlifting. I kept working out at Popeye's, kept getting help from Peter. I wasn't setting any new personal records, but I wasn't dropping off much from my highs. I could do it. I could do it on the up-and-up; I could do it right.

Our opener was at home on a Friday night against the Franklin Quakers at Memorial Stadium. Franklin is good at soccer, they're good at tennis, and they're great at basketball, but at football they suck. They've got sixteen hundred kids, same as every school in our league, but their best athletes never go out for football.

Friday after school we had a short meeting. Carlson went over the defensive game plan first: lots of zones, not much blitzing. Finally he turned to the offense. "We're going to run Mick at them until they prove they can stop him. Linemen, block straight ahead. Nothing fancy—just find the closest guy and knock him on his ass. Mick, keep your head up, look for a hole, and then explode into it. Drew, no audibles. I don't want to see the ball in the air unless I call for a pass play."

Drew nodded.

"All right, then. One final thing. We are playing smash-mouth, in-your-face football. But smash-mouth football is not dirty football. We are the Shilshole
Raiders, not the Oakland Raiders.You hear the whistle, you stop. No cheap shots, ever. Understood?" He paused, looking us over. "Come tonight with your A game."

When I pulled onto our street, I saw my dad's pickup in the driveway. He opened the front door as soon as he saw the Jeep. "I took the day off," he said. "I wouldn't have been able to concentrate anyway. How you feeling? You nervous? You want to practice anything?"

I was glad to have a way to get rid of the two hours. We went to Crown Hill Park and tossed the ball around just enough for me to break a light sweat. At five o'clock we headed back to the house. At five-thirty, I was driving down Fifteenth toward Memorial Stadium.

I was nervous in the locker room. I looked around at the other guys, and they were feeling it, too. Before every game, you worry that some guy on the other team is going to manhandle you, humiliate you, show you up. Everybody talks big, but the fear of failure is as close and tight as your helmet.

Carlson's pregame talk was no different from those of any coach I've ever had. When he finished, he looked at his watch and then looked at us: "All right, men, time to take the field." We ran through the tunnel screaming, trying to fight back our fear with noise.

We won the coin toss and took the kickoff. Carlson had thrown Dave Kane a bone, making him our return man on punts and kickoffs. Kane ran the ball out to the thirty-five, giving us good field position. As soon as the whistle blew, ending the play, I trotted out with Drew and DeShawn and the rest of the offense, trying to do everything slowly because inside everything was racing fast.

Carlson had me running out of the I formation, which I prefer to any split-back formation. I like to get the ball deep in the backfield, stretch the defense as I take my first couple of steps looking for a hole, and then go.

We started the way Carlson had said we would—a run straight up the middle. I took Drew's handoff, saw a glimmer of a hole between Tyler Ashby and our center Dan Driessen, and made my move. I hit that hole hard and fast, was through it before I felt contact, and then burst into the secondary. Some Franklin guy took my legs out from under me and I went down hard, but I had gained eight yards. I bounced up and hustled back to the huddle.

"Thirty-four delay. On one."

After the snap, I waited two beats. Drew pretended to be dropping back to pass and then slipped the ball
to my gut. This time the hole was outside our left guard. I drove into that opening, no fancy moves, and I gained another six yards. "First down!" the referee called.

All it took was a handful more plays. A toss sweep, a delay, another toss sweep, and then a counter that I cut back against the grain for the final thirty-four yards. Four Franklin guys took shots at me on that last run, but not one could bring me down. Over the loudspeaker I heard the magic words: "Mick Johnson scores a touchdown for Shilshole."

Drew was there to high-five me, and so were DeShawn and the other guys. We trotted as a group back to the sidelines. I took a couple sips of water and then heard a huge cheer from the student section behind me. Franklin had fumbled the kickoff. "Go! Go!" Carlson was shouting. "Offense on the field!"

I pulled my helmet over my head and raced onto the field. "Thirty-four sweep left, on one," Drew called out. Five seconds later I was breaking into the open field again, and ten seconds later the PA announcer was saying, "Mick Johnson scores a touchdown for Shilshole."

That's how it went, drive after drive. I ran and ran, scoring twice in the second quarter and once more in the third. I was sure Carlson would yank me when the
score reached 28–0, but he kept the first team in, on both offense and defense. I scored the last touchdown of the game on a sixty-yard run with a minute left. That touchdown pushed the score to 48–0.

In the locker room afterward, guys pounded me on the back, hollering that I was all-world. I was smiling so hard, my cheeks hurt. In the middle of the celebration, Carlson called me into the office. I thought he'd be beaming, but his eyes were serious. "You're going to read all about yourself in the paper tomorrow. You set a bunch of records today. Touchdowns, yards gained—all sorts of records."

"The blocking was great," I said. "It was the line that did everything."

Carlson shook his head. "Our line was good, not great. You did what you did because Franklin was terrible."

I stood silent, not sure what he wanted.

"I don't like running up the score, and I don't believe in individual records. I let you rack up all those yards and touchdowns because I want the rest of the teams in the league—Inglemoor and Eastlake and especially Foothill—I want them to see the score and wonder about us, maybe even fear us. You understand?"

I nodded. "I understand."

"Good, because the one thing I don't want is for you to think you're Walter Payton just because you're wearing his number. Clear?"

"Clear."

"All right then, get back out there with your teammates."

When I returned to the locker room, the craziness was ending and the exhaustion was setting in. Guys were sitting on benches, pulling off their shoes and undoing their shoulder pads. I went from lineman to lineman, patting them on the back and thanking them for all their blocks. Each of them looked up at me, tired but happy, just like I was.

It wasn't until I got home that I even thought about the steroids. I'd stopped using them, but weren't they still in my blood and in my muscles? How much of what I'd done was me and how much them? I'd never know for sure. But there was one thing I did know—with every tick of the clock, I was moving closer to the day when I'd be entirely on my own. It was a good feeling, but it was a scary feeling, too.

When I stepped out of bed Saturday morning, I expected to have to crawl to the bathroom. All those carries meant that many hits, and a running back pays for every hit with an ache somewhere. I'm not saying I didn't hurt at all, because I did, but the pain wasn't half as bad as I'd expected.

I went downstairs to eat. My dad was sitting at the table, waiting for me. Next to my cereal bowl was the
Seattle Times.
He had it opened to the high school sports page. The headline jumped at me.

Mick Johnson Runs Wild

Below the headline, in smaller type, were the words

Record-Shattering Performance

"Read it," he said. "Go ahead."

I read the article and then reread it. I'd gained three hundred twelve yards and had scored six touchdowns. The list of school records I'd set or tied made me woozy:
Most yards in a game. Most touchdowns in a game. Most yards per carry.