Hometown Legend (25 page)

I left for my meeting at school with Coach and Elvis, telling Ginny where to call me in case we got a fax from Malaysia. It
went totally against my grain, but I dug my cell phone out of the charger—where it’d been for at least three months. Most
folks in Athens City still avoided em like sushi. If I had to carry one, it sure wasn’t gonna be where anybody could see it.
And I set it to vibrate instead of ring. Let people think I was running to the head if that thing started humming. Your reputation
could be ruined by one custom ring in public, especially if it was some melody from a New York musical.

• • •

Elvis came in to Coach’s office looking scared. “I’m studying,” he said, sitting across from Coach and me. “I don’t know what
else I can do. Coach Sawyer knows I got the best tutor here.”

“You’re teetering academically,” Coach said, “but you’re eligible. That’s not what this is about.” He slid the envelope from
Indiana across the desk and let Elvis take the stuff out himself.

The boy moved his lips as he read. Then he straightened up and laid the picture of Jennifer Lucas on the desk next to the
letter. “You understand what they’re saying?” Coach said.

“Pretty much,” he said. “They got some kind of, um, restraint—”

“Restraining order to keep the dad away. Yeah.”

Elvis’s hands were shaking. “I almost brought her with me,” he said.

“Count your lucky stars you didn’t pull something like that,” Coach said. “You’d been up to your neck in it, boy.”

“But I told her I was going to, then I had to leave before she knew I was gone.”

“That been working on ya?”

He nodded and his chin quivered. “I almost didn’t make it as it was. She would have slowed me down.”

“You stay on sixty-five all the way?”

He nodded.

“They’d had you before you got outa Indiana,” I said.

Coach nodded. “And Lord help ya if you’d crossed state lines with a minor. Mercy.”

Elvis covered his eyes. “I couldn’t call her. Not at home.”

“Well, you can now.”

“She’s going to cry. She’ll want to come here.”

“No way.”

“I know. So what’s the point?”

“She wants to hear from you.”

“It’ll just make it worse.”

“Maybe a letter.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.” He looked at the stationery. “This address?”

“They’ll get it to her.”

“Why’d you do this, Coach?”

Schuler waved at him like it was nothing. “Cause I said I would. I keep my word.”

Jackson dropped his head again. “I don’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I gave her my word I’d get her out of there.”

“She’s out. She’s safe. Be glad and don’t muck things up.”

“But I promised her.”

“You shouldn’t a done that.”

“But I did.”

“You didn’t have the right. You promised something you couldn’t deliver.”

“Story of my life.”

Coach stood and looked through the blinds into the empty locker room. He turned back with a sigh. “Don’t be doing that now.
Keep your head up. She’s gonna be all right.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Don’t understand? You don’t know who you’re talking to, boy.”

“She’s the age I was when I got stuck in foster homes,” Elvis said. “She’ll be praying every night that somebody will take
her, wondering why I lied. She’ll turn out just like me.”

“And how’s that?”

“Can’t trust anybody.”

“I ought to be offended,” Coach said. “You don’t trust me?”

“I’m starting to.”

“I should hope you are. I tell you something, I do it.”

“That just makes me feel worse.”

“Jackson! You’d have never seen that girl again if you’d tried to bring her with you. You’d be incarcerated in Indiana somewhere
and she’d probably be back with that same family. You did the right thing. You got out, you told somebody who could do something
about it, and you made her life better.”

“She won’t see it that way.”

“Someday she will.”

I leaned forward. “What’d you mean you almost didn’t make it?”

He shrugged. “Hitchhiked. Got sunburn. Blisters. Ran out of money.”

“What’d you eat?”

“Not much, once the money was gone.”

“You steal?”

He shook his head. “Almost. I was already scared a picture of me was circulating. I couldn’t risk it. I was at a convenience
store where this guy I was riding with was buying food for his dog. I almost slipped something in my pocket, but there were
mirrors and, for all I knew, cameras. I rode in the back of the pickup with the dog, and the guy opened the dog food and poured
it in a bowl before he started driving again. Stuff was like meat-flavored marbles.”

“You ate dog food?” I said.

Elvis gave me one a those teenage looks. “No. I asked the dog what it tasted like.”

“Git back to class,” Coach said.

“Thanks for doing this,” Elvis said.

Coach waved at him again. “You write to that girl now.”

“What can I tell her?”

Coach cocked his head. “About what?”

“About what we’re going to do for her.”

“It’s been done, son.”

“You’re leaving her in an orphanage. She’s not going to get adopted. She’ll wind up in another foster home.”

“There’s good foster homes, Elvis.”

“Maybe. Guess I just wasn’t lucky.”

“There’s only so much you can do.”

Elvis looked shocked. “Man, that doesn’t sound like you,” he said. “Didn’t see that one on the wall in the locker room.”

“Git.”

“Coach, really. I don’t want to sound like I don’t appreciate—”

“Go on now.”

I held the door for Elvis and he whispered, “Isn’t there something else we can—”

“Scuse me,” I said, grabbing my pocket. “I gotta run. We’ll talk later.”

“Where you going, Sawyer?” Coach said.

“Be right back.”

I waited till Jackson was out of sight, then grabbed the phone. “Mr. Seals is trying to get hold of you in a bad way,” Ginny
said. “I didn’t figure you wanted him to have this number.”

“You figured right. Let me have his and I’ll call him in a little while.”

I slipped back into Coach’s office. He was in his chair, facing the wall. “Kid’s a piece a work, ain’t he?” I said.

He spun back around and banged his hand on the desk, and on that big ol battleship-gray metal job it sounded like thunder.
“He’s getting to me with that little girl,” he said. He scratched his ear like he does when he doesn’t want people looking
at him. But I couldn’t help it.

“You’ve got a daughter, Sawyer.” He pointed to the picture. “Isn’t she sticking in your craw?”

“High schoolers think we have unlimited means,” I said. “They think everything’s possible.”

“We do have unlimited means compared to them,” he said. This from a guy living in one room of his little brother’s house,
tapped out by the co-pay on his wife’s treatment.

“Yeah, I’ve got a daughter,” I said. “What your excuse?”

He tipped his head down and peered up at me. “I know what it’s like to be a parent,” he said. “I remember.”

“I’m sorry I said that, Coach. That was stupid.”

“Just don’t forget about that little girl,” he said.

“I don’t guess you’ll be letting me.”

• • •

I had an hour before class, so I sat in a corner of the smoky teachers lounge and called Mr. Seals. As I was waiting for him
to come to the phone, Jacqui from the copy center peeked in and waved at me. I nodded and wished I hadn’t. She hurried over.
“You on hold?” she whispered.

“Sort of.”

“Hadn’t seen you for a while. Wondering what you were up to.”

“Oh, just senior club activities, you know. Shuffleboard and bingo at the home.”

“You’re senior class sponsor?” she said.

“No, I meant, me, you know, senior—just a minute, Mr. Seals.”

“I have a problem, Mr. Sawyer,” he said.

“Just hold a second, sir.” I turned to Jacqui. “Long distance.”

“You live in a home? I thought your daughter was a junior.”

“I was just kidding. I’ll talk to you, hm?”

I turned back to the phone. “Mr. Seals!”

“Sir, I don’t understand the figures you submitted. I was under the impression you were talking about shifting your entire
operation here.”

“That’s what I’m studying, yes.”

“And this represents the extent of your business?”

“Too small for you?”

“Well, it might be, I mean, for us to give you the most competitive per unit rate. I was expecting something substantially
larger.”

“And why was that?”

“Mr. Sawyer, you must realize that I’m not a telemarketer. I don’t do cold calling, hoping to find an interesting business.
We do our homework. We have your annual report. We study the trade journals and the appropriate Internet sites. According
to my research, the prospectus you faxed us today represents little more than half the business you grossed last year. Am
I reading it wrong?”

“If the copy is legible, you’re reading what I sent.”

I wondered if I’d lost the connection.

“Hello?”

“I’m here, sir. I, uh, just want to say that we will do our best to come up with as attractive an offer as we can. But if
we were basing this on what we thought were the parameters of your operation last year, we could have been much more competitive.”

“Mr. Seals, if the parameters of my operation were close to what they were last year, I wouldn’t be looking to sacrifice a
hundred jobs to slave labor.”

P
ractice that afternoon was another eye-opener. “I could get used to coaching just fifteen players,” Schuler said.

“It ain’t the number, Coach,” I said. “It’s the kids.”

He made a noise and moved away from me, and the boys, looking crisp, ran through a bunch of plays. I caught up with him. “What?
I say something wrong?”

“Naw. I just thought you were gonna say it wasn’t the number, it was the coach.”

I bowed from the waist, hands raised. “That goes without saying, great one.”

“Sawyer, you are without a doubt.”

After practice Coach and I stopped at Tee’s before going to see his wife. Elvis kept glancing my way while clearing tables.
Finally he motioned me to come talk to him. “Okay if I come over and see Rachel tonight?”

I was gonna see Bev after visiting Helena. “Long as you stay outside till I get home, probably about nine.”

He nodded. “She there now?”

“She doesn’t know you’re coming?”

“No.”

“Don’t you think you ought to arrange this with her first?”

He looked down. “She gave me kind of a standing invitation to finish a talk.”

“Uh-huh. Well then, be sure you stay standing.”

He quickly looked up at me.

“That was a joke, Jackson.”

• • •

Coach and me were the last ones out of Tee’s, and Elvis was still working. We got to the rehab center a little after six-thirty
and I waited outside Helena’s door while Coach greeted her. She sounded different but awful tired. “It feels so strange to
be fully conscious,” she said. “I’m getting tired of this place.”

“They tell me we can start taking you out on day trips in a week or so.”

“That long?”

“We’ll start slow and take it easy.”

“Did you bring Mr. Sawyer?”

“He’s here. You wanna see him now?”

“Of course I do.”

I don’t guess he wanted her to think I was standing right there listening. He stepped out and put a finger to his lips and
we stood there for a second. Then he pulled me in. “Here he is, darling.”

“It’s been a long time,” she said, and I almost didn’t recognize her. She’d aged twenty years in twelve and people could easily
mistake her for Coach’s mama.

“Miz Schuler,” I said, shaking her hand. Her firm grip surprised me. “Coach tells me you’re coming along real fine.”

“For an insane old drunk, hm?” she said, but she was smiling.

“Oh,” I said, “he may be insane, but I’ve never seen him drunk.”

Coach said, “She wasn’t talking about—”

Helena threw back her head and laughed. “I like that, Calvin! I don’t remember your being funny.” She lowered her voice but
still spoke loud enough for Coach to hear. “Explain it to Buster later.” She turned to him. “Would you mind terribly if Calvin
and I had a few minutes alone?”

He looked as surprised as I was, but course he said sure and asked if we wanted anything while he was gone. “Some kind of
clear soft drink,” she said.

“Cal?”

I shook my head and he left. Helena pointed to a chair next to her bed and I sat.

“You’ve been good to Buster, and I appreciate that.”

“I owe him,” I said.

“You do? Why?”

“Coached me. Taught me. Was a good example. Had a big influence on me.”

“That so?”

I nodded and she looked toward the window, but the blinds were shut. “Me too,” she said.

“Ma’am?”

She turned back. “Buster’s had a big influence on me too.”

I sat there awkwardly. I wasn’t about to quiz her. “Good man,” I said idly, the silence hurting my ears.

“Your daughter was here recently,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It’s lovely that she’s a volunteer. We had a good long talk. First time I saw her I didn’t know who she was. She looked familiar,
heaven knows. I still see some of the little girl in her. Do you, or are you too close to her?”

“Oh, I still see it,” I said. “See her mama in her is what.”

Helena nodded. “I heard about Esther. I was so—”

“Estelle.”

“Of course. We were so sorry. Buster sent a note, I believe.”

I nodded.

“Unfortunately, I was going through my own particular pain. Just know we were thinking of you.” She rubbed her eyes with the
heels of her hands. “Doing nothing can certainly be exhausting.”

“Coach seems encouraged with your progress.”

She smiled weakly. “Progress here is measured in lucidity. Everything happens in stages. I don’t even remember coming here.
I don’t want to think about what I put Buster through. Pieces of it come back to me now and then, but mostly from Kansas City.
I must have hit rock bottom for him to bring me all the way here.”