If Rock and Roll Were a Machine (10 page)

“That's Camille Shepard,” Bert replies. “I work for his dad.” A voice in Bert's head is telling him to be cool, not to present even the slightest suggestion that he needs this. “I could give it a try,” he says.

Darby rises and waves the Asian kid over. “Bert Bowden,” she says, “this is Cheng Moua. He's a member of the
Hmong ethnic group, and he's the photographer you'll work with. Read my lips,” she says. “Cheng Moua, not Eddie Hmongster.”

As Bert rises to shake Cheng's extended hand, Mark Schwartz, seated on the window ledge, chants, “Hmongster! Hmongster! Hmongster!”

“Shut up, Schwartz, you gonad,” Darby says.

“Hi, Bert,” Cheng says. “Call me Eddie if you want.”

Before Bert can reply, Darby says, “Cheng is the only photographer we have who can shoot thirty-six exposures without thirty of them featuring Krista James.”

“I have exposed Krista many times,” Schwartz says. “On the volleyball court and other places. It was good for both of us.”

As Darby faces Bert and Cheng, Schwartz makes masturbation gestures.

Darby turns and catches Schwartz with his hand in midstroke. He pretends that his hand is a camera and brings the other hand up to capture the moment. “And now, Darb Vader,” Schwartz says. “I have exposed you.”

Darby shakes her head as she turns back to Cheng and Bert. “I've been trying to recruit some female photographers since school started,” she says.

“So have I,” Schwartz says.

Darby doesn't acknowledge this. Cheng says he's got film in the bath and jogs back to the darkroom. Darby moves to sit, so Bert sits too. But then Darby does not sit,
and Bert is eye level with the neatly sewn stitches that hem the portal in her paisley-patterned boxers. He wonders if she's wearing panties under there. And what's that fragrance? Is it . . . ? Oh, God, it's baby powder!

Bert's throat begins to constrict. His mass goes critical. He will melt down if he doesn't disengage. He drops his head to the table with a turgid thunk.

Darby turns and looks down. “You're a strange one, Bowden,” she says. “You might be a good writer, but I think you are also an egg.”

Great, Bert thinks. Camille Shepard is a stud muffin and I'm an egg. He opens his eyes and watches Darby's hands wrap up her grapes and cheese. He watches her boxers move toward the door.

“I had you pegged for an egg,” says Darby. “A reticent egg.” And then she's gone.

The Hmongster sits down in Darby's chair. “She called you a
resident egg
?” he asks.

Bert raises his head.
“Reticent,”
he replies. “Reserved, hesitant to speak out.”

“She's right,” the Hmongster says. “These are the first words I've heard you say.”

“It also refers to a guy with some really ugly shit in his hair,” Schwartz says as he points toward Bert's right ear.

Bert reaches and finds the goo. He rises and heads for the door. “Be right back,” he says. “Please don't eat my sandwich.”

“Don't worry,” the Hmongster says.

“Looks
like it already passed through that stage of the nourishment process,” Schwartz says.

Bert walks to the bathroom with a smile on his face. He gets a kick out of the Hmongster and Schwartz. And to his peanut-butter-and-honey-covered ear,
reticent egg
has begun to ring like a term of endearment.

Bert saw Jim Zimster sitting
in his wheelchair on the front porch of a house a couple blocks away from the stadium. This was the second time he'd seen him sitting there on the evening of a football game, and the thought flashed: What if he'd like to go but doesn't have a ride? Bert couldn't take him on the Sportster, but he slowed, anyway, as he watched Jim sitting in the yellow glow of his porch light.

Bert was so absorbed he didn't hear the rumble of the engine behind him. When the horn went off a few feet from his rear fender he almost lost control. He pulled to the curb and took a couple deep breaths. When no car went by, Bert looked behind him. There was the Shepard's Classic and Custom van idling in front of Zimster's house. Zimster was rolling down the sidewalk, and Scotty was waiting for him at the back of the van.

Bert waved and Scotty waved. Rita Dixon, Scotty's girlfriend, waved from the passenger seat. Bert was amazed that Zimster waved too. Scotty pulled two motorcycle ramps out of the van and set them the width of Jim's wheels. Bert thought about helping, but Scotty had Jim up
in the van before Bert could climb off his bike. Bert waved again and headed for the stadium wondering how Zimster knew the Shepards.

*  *  *

The Explorer varsity was five-and-five going into their game with the Rogers Pirates. Camille Shepard had played only a few downs late in games with the outcome already decided. Bert had interviewed him twice for the profile, and he was about ready to put it together. He just wanted to watch one more game.

Camille had said it was great just being on the team, but Bert could tell it hurt him not to play. At least Bert thought he could tell that. Something had been in the big kid's voice and in his eyes that hadn't been in his words.

It was Rats 27–Explorers 7 with less than a minute to go in the third quarter and the Explorer receiving team taking the field when Coach Heslin walked up to Coach Christman, said something, and then looked toward the bench. Christman yelled, “Shepard!” and Camille came running.

Bert carried a press badge that allowed him on the field, but at the half he'd walked up into the seats to munch some of Rita's popcorn. Rita, Scotty, Zimster, and Steve Shepard sat in the first row of the second level because the walkway there was wide enough for Zimster's chair, which was positioned between Scotty and Steve. Next to Steve sat Mike Jackson's dad, and in the rows behind sat the families of other team members.

When Camille ran onto the field, Steve jumped to his
feet, raised both fists, and yelled, “Yes!” Scotty was a little slower. He yelled, “Go get 'em, Shepard!” Bert saw Eddie Hmongster move up closer to the sideline and raise his camera. Everybody in the Thompson section stood for the kickoff.

Mike Jackson and Camille were deep to receive. It was a high, beautiful kick, and it settled into Mike's hands at the same time eight snarling Rogers Rats were tearing up the Explorer wedge. Mike headed to Camille's side of the field, away from the carnage. But the carnage pursued him, and he hadn't made five yards on his slant when orange jerseys blocked the way. Mike Jackson could take a hit as well as anybody, but he lateraled the ball to Camille.

Shepard would have made a yard or two up the sidelines, which is what everyone including the Rats figured he'd do. But he ran the other way. Not far, just enough to slip past the charging Rats, then he cut straight to the middle of the field.

The Rogers half of the field was nearly deserted. There was only the Rat end converging from the far sideline, and the Rat kicker waiting at the thirty.

The Thompson fans were going crazy. For a moment Bert was blinded by popcorn.

Camille shifted the ball to his right hand as the Rat end bore in on his left. Scotty and Steve looked at each other, then Steve looked down at Zimster. “You might want to hide your eyes, Zim,” he said. “This is going to be rated R for violence.”

Camille didn't juke, jive, fake, cut, or leap. What he did was time
his collision with the end to correspond with the twin explosions upward of his left arm, which he had cocked in the manner of a defensive lineman about to deliver a forearm shiver, and his left knee. The Rogers player went up in the air like a sack of beets leaving the back of a truck. Camille didn't break stride.

The Rogers kicker, a little guy, had an angle on Camille, and he kept his head up all the way to the point of impact. Or he would have if there'd been impact. Camille cut inside just as he was about to make the hit. All the kid hit was air.

In a couple more strides Camille crossed the goal line. He tossed the ball to the ref, then was knocked flat by a flying Mike Jackson. Soon they were both buried in a green-and-gold pile of Thompson players.

Scotty and Steve chanted into each other's faces, “Shep-ard! Shep-ard!” Zimster howled like a dog. Rita jettisoned the rest of the popcorn. It was a middle-American high school football family madhouse.

The Thompson players finally unpiled and Camille jogged back to the sideline carrying his helmet. When he neared midfield he stopped and looked up at Scotty. Bert had been watching him every step, and he observed this moment isolated from the movement all around. Bert turned and saw Scotty looking down at Camille. What Bert saw pass between the father and son sent a current of emotion through him.

Bert knew there was a story in that look.

“Are you ready for some foot-bawl?” Mr. Jackson sang out as the Thompson kicker waited for the ref's whistle.

The Rats ran a play, then the horn sounded and the teams changed ends. Fourth quarter. Rogers 27, Thompson 14. Plenty of time.

The Rats made a first down, but Thompson held in the next series and Shepard went in to receive the punt. The Rat punter dribbled it about eight yards. Shepard didn't get near it.

The Explorer offense had a new look when they lined up. Shepard at tight end, Kelly McDougall set wide at the other end, Jackson a yard off the line between Kelly-Mac and the tackle in a receiver's position, and Sean Christman at QB.

Mike Jackson Sr. looked at Steve. Steve looked at Scotty. Scotty looked back at both of them. Zimster looked up at everybody but nobody noticed. “Guess they're goin' with the guys with the best hands,” Scotty said.

At the snap Christman dropped deep, Shepard ran a sideline left, Kelly-Mac went post left, and Jackson held his block. When the coverage had drifted far enough left, Jackson slid off the block and swung for the right sideline. Christman floated the ball sweet and fat as a pumpkin, Jackson ran under it and kept going to the thirty.

Shepard hooked over the middle and caught a bullet. He was nailed before he could go anywhere, but it was seven yards. Then everybody went deep. Shepard leaped out of the crowd at the goal line, pulled it in, and fell into the end zone.

Jubilation reigned only briefly among the Thompson fans. Both Explorer tackles had also gone deep on the play. Illegal receiver. Fifteen yards in the wrong direction and a loss of the down.

On the next play Christman rolled right in what looked like a sweep. But he reversed the ball to Jackson coming left. Shepard buried the defensive end, and Jackson outran the few Rats who realized he had the ball. Six more for the green and gold. The kick was good. Rogers 27, Thompson 21. Six minutes on the clock.

The Rats got a good runback. Then they ran for three first downs. Then the only place to go was into the Explorer end zone. But the Explorers held one . . . two . . . three downs. And then the Rats kicked a field goal.

“A field goal?” Bert heard Steve say. “What is this? High school kids don't kick field goals.”

“That's the seventh the Rogers kid's kicked this season,” Zimster said.

“Nobody kicked field goals when we were playin',” Steve said.

“You guys played in leather helmets—right?” Zimster said.

“Right,” Steve said. “And we had no modern footballs. We had to rip the larger organs out of our friends and use them.” Steve wrapped one arm around Zimster's thin shoulders and placed his other hand at his sternum, flexing his fingers like a claw. “And that, Jimmie the Zim, is what we did to our friends,” he said.

“I don't think you'd get a lot of play out of my organs,” Jim said. “They weren't made to last.”

Steve laughed. He kept his arm around Jim's chair and remained seated for the kickoff.

Pirates 30, Explorers 21. Three minutes.

The same kid who kicked the field goal booted this one into the end zone. Jackson couldn't run it out.

It didn't look like the Explorers could do it, and in this instance appearance coincided with reality: They didn't do it. There was one play, however, that made folks glad they stuck around.

After Christman got sacked on the ten, he hit Kelly-Mac for twelve and Jackson for six. But that was still two short of a first. So it was fourth down and the Explorers were on their own twenty-eight with a minute left. No sense punting.

Christman got the ball on the first hut, flipped it out to Jackson, who had stayed behind the line of scrimmage, then blindsided the linebacker who was bearing down on Mike as though he were a double cheeseburger after the game. Jackson, who can throw the ball from Spokane to the Canadian border, pumped his arm in Kelly-Mac's direction, stopping the rest of the charging Rat linemen. This gave him enough time to wind up and fling one to Shepard, who was streaking down the sideline like the famous French high-speed train.

The two Rat safeties had been camped at midfield, so they were right with Shepard when the ball spiraled over
their twenty. Shepard went up and the Rats went up. But Shepard went higher. He went so high, in fact, that the gold number 88 on his green jersey was visible above both Rogers players.

This was the point at which someone might have asked Scotty: Does your kid play basketball? But nobody did.

Shepard grabbed the ball with one hand but wasn't able to pull it in before the three of them landed out of bounds around the ten. Shepard was the first to his feet, and he was holding the ball high.

The referee signaled that the play was no good, that Shepard had caught it out.

Coach Christman exhibited signs of demonic possession. He ran onto the field waving both arms and kicking his legs high in the manner of a Nazi goose step. His clipboard flew into the air higher than Jackson's pass. Heslin grabbed him before he could get to the referee.

Steve, Mr. Jackson, Jimmie the Zim, Rita, and the host of Thompson fans in the seats behind screamed threats, excoriations, and vile expletives. Nobody but Bert heard Scotty say, “I think he was out.”