Knights of the Hill Country (3 page)

“But don't worry, Hamp,” Blaine said finally. “Come February first, when we finally get to set down and sign a National Letter of Intent, I'll make sure you sign on with OU right alongside me. We just gotta get a little more
mean
in you. You'll do just fine. Old Blaine'll look after you.”

And I would've just let it lay right there, happy to get
things back on an even keel, or at least as even as things usually got with Blaine, but Jake had to throw one more stick on the fire.

“What are you talking about, Blaine? You ain't even heard from OU. Hamp'll do just fine on his own. And I'll bet he'll go wherever he wants, with folks like Harvey Warrick calling him up.”

“Who?”

“Harvey Warrick. All-American linebacker five years ago for—”

“I know who he is,” Blaine said. “Just about the best line-backer to ever come out of this state.” He looked over at me. “What I'm wondering is why I ain't heard about this till right now.”

“It ain't nothing official,” I said. “He just wanted to tell me about his old college program and all like that.”

I had to turn and look out the side window. It wasn't like I was trying to hide anything from Blaine, but I knew how he was. If any hotshot players was going to call anyone about college programs—even if they wasn't from OU—he was bound to figure they ought to be calling him first. Truth be known, I thought they ought to call him first too. He was the leader. Just 'cause his knee was dragging him down a little this year didn't change that.

“You better watch out for that kind of deal,” he said. “That could be a recruiting violation right there. Alumni ain't supposed to be calling high school players during the regular season.”

“Come on,” Jake said. “I'll bet the boys up in the big Class 5A and 6A high schools are getting calls from alums right and left. Probably some's even getting calls from agents already.”

Blaine shook his head. “If they are, they're in violation. The NCAA's got a whole stack of rules on who can contact you, when they can contact you, when you can go on official visits, and all that. There's what you call 'quiet periods' and 'dead periods' when you can't hardly have any contact. Coaches, assistant coaches, boosters, alums—there's different restrictions for all of 'em. I oughta know. My dad made me take a test over it. I had to study and everything. He graded it just like it was for school. It's the only test I ever made an A on too.”

“Well, whoop-de-do for you,” Jake said. “Having rules and actually going by 'em is two different things. The only reason Hampton ain't getting flooded with calls from the big boys is 'cause we're stuck in piddly little 4A. But I'll tell you what, Hamp. You don't need Blaine to put a word in for you. You'll do just fine on your own. By the end of the season, you'll have everyone in Oklahoma and Texas ringing you up. I don't care how far we are from the big-city newspapers—you can't keep five undefeated seasons off the sports page.”

“I guess,” I said, but I couldn't get excited about it like Jake. It just hadn't dawned on me before that me and Blaine might not both get picked to go to the same college, and I wasn't anywheres near sure I could make it up at some big-time school by myself.

Blaine didn't say nothing more about it, though. He didn't say nothing at all. He just stared through that dusty wind-shield down at the dark end of Main Street.

The cramped little rent house I lived in with my mom was almost to the end of Mission Road, not exactly the bad side of town but a long way from Ninth Street Hill, where all the big white houses was. Blaine pulled Citronella up to the curb, and I got out and told the boys to take it easy. There was a light on in the living room window radiating off a warm yellow glow, but it didn't give me any good old homey-type feeling. It was more of a what's-it-gonna-be-this-time? feeling instead. That was a pretty familiar one by now.

Up on the front porch, I could hear the stereo playing inside. Fleetwood Mac. My mom loved Fleetwood Mac. Didn't matter that they was about as ancient as a bunch of Egyptian mummies, she never got tired of them. There wasn't anything to do, though, but open up the door and go in, so that's
what I done. Sure enough, she had her a man in there, another new one.

They was over on the other side of the couch, slow dancing, even though it wasn't a slow song playing. He was short, with a Hawaiian shirt. She had one hand on his shoulder and he had one on her hip, and in their other hands they was both holding these jelly-jar glasses with golden brown liquid sloshing up against the sides. An open whiskey bottle set on the coffee table and you could smell the sharp-sweet odor of it from clear across the room.

“Oh, hi, honey,” she said, not bothering to unwrap herself off Mr. Hawaiian Shirt long enough to even pretend nothing was going on. “Is the game over already?”

“It's been over two hours.”

“I'm sorry I didn't make it to watch you play. I just got off work a little while ago.”

I glanced back at the bottle on the table. It looked like more than just a little while's worth of whiskey was drained off to me. Not that my mom was an alcoholic or anything like that. She only drank a lot if the man she ran around with did. That was how she was. Every time she took up with someone new, she'd change herself to go along with him. And ever since my dad run off on us, she done a lot of taking up with someone new.

“How'd y'all do?” she asked. “Win as usual?”

“Yeah, we won.”

“I'll bet you were the star too.”

“Well,” I said, making the mistake of thinking she was really interested in anything I done, “there was this one play—”

“Oh, where are my manners?” she cut in. “I haven't even introduced you and Jim. Jim, this is my son, Hampton. Hampton, this is Jim, uh, Jim…”

“Houck,” he said, sounding about like he was hacking up a chunk of lung. “Jim Houck. I'm sales manager over at Butler Ford in Lowery.” He let loose of my mom long enough to reach out his hand, and I gave it a shake. It was cold and damp from holding the drink, but that didn't stop him from trying one of them extra-firm grips to show me how even though I was a football player, he was more than a match for me in the strength department. He must've been a good eight inches shorter than me and wore these glasses that was too big for his face. They was a sporty style, though, and I figured he had hisself pictured as some kind of hotshot playboy.

“It was the funniest thing,” Mom said, tacking on her little girly giggle. She was kind of young and girly still, I guess, with her bobbed-off blond hair, button nose, and petite figure, but still, a flirty little giggle just don't sound right coming out of your mom. “There I was working at the store and happened to look up, and who do you think came strolling in?”

It wasn't something I hadn't heard before, but it was still more than I wanted to know.

“So, did you say you made some sort of big play at the game tonight?” Jim Houck said, adjusting his sporty, hotshot glasses so as to give me a good once-over.

“Nothing too big,” I said, not caring one way or the other what Jim Houck thought.

“You look all wore out, honey,” Mom said then. “Why don't you go on back to your room now and get some rest.” She waved her jelly-jar glass back towards the bedroom like maybe I forgot how to get back there or something.

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Sounds good.” And it did sound good too. Sleep would've felt just fine.

In the bedroom, I eased my clothes off around the leftover pains from the game without even bothering to turn on the light. Laying down on top of the covers, I stared up into the dark, thinking about how the game went, rerunning every big play, building up to that moment at the end when them cheers busted loose and come pouring down like a big fat rain on some thirsty little broke-tail desert rat.

But sleep wouldn't come, not with Fleetwood Mac and Jim Houck playing that same old familiar tune in the living room, and the cheers faded out of my head. The good memory sank under the bad thoughts. Thoughts of what would happen if we didn't win out the season or if me and Blaine ended up not getting picked to play at the same college. Or if we didn't get picked to play football anywhere at all. And then it was just me, laying there in the dark alone.

Was a time I never would've thought twice about anything coming between me and Blaine. Like I said, him and his dad got me into football in the first place, and Mr. Keller taught me how to hunt and fish and all sorts of stuff I never done before. Some weeks, I was over at their house more than I was at my own. But things had been changing this year, and maybe since longer ago than that.

Course, Blaine's knee injury got him frustrated, and seemed like he was always taking it out on the closest handy thing—which a lot of times was me—but that wasn't the only difference. I couldn't have told you what else it was, though, to save my life. You know how when you see someone day in, day out, year after year, you don't really notice him getting taller or wider or older or whatever? It can be like that with the way people are on the inside too.

Me and Blaine had been friends since we was nine years old. Met on the Fourth of July. It was one of them long summer days when the sun's blazing on high beam and the grass is still cow-pasture green, thick and long around the tree bottoms, way before it gets burned off to a scorched yellow like it does in the dry days of August when you know summer's running out on you. It was also the first day, far as I can remember, that I ever made time stop.

I'd only lived in Kennisaw for about a month after moving down from Poynter, which is a little town about fifty miles to the north. It was a pretty fine old town. I had me plenty of friends and got along real good with my folks, especially my mom. She wasn't always like she was now. Used to be, my mom was about my best friend. Wasn't nothing I couldn't talk to her about back in them Poynter days. And talk about funny. She could crack a joke with the best of them, at least up till that day I come home from school to find her setting on the wood front porch by herself.

Her face was washed-out pale, and there was tearstains striping down her cheeks plain as skid marks on a dead-end road. That wasn't right. My mom was a laugher, a teaser and a tickler and a bathroom singer. She only cried at black-and-white movies.

I asked her what was the matter, and she kind of stuttered around before finally she come out with how my dad up and run off. Moved to Sapulpa and wouldn't be coming back no more. Even took the lawn mower with him. Then she drew her top lip in tight and said that was all right with her. That was just fine, 'cause it didn't pay to try and count on people anyways. I waited around for her to say something else, give some explanation about why he left, but she never done it.

Later on it come out that he run off with this little eighteen-year-old Barbie doll he met installing cable TV at her parents' house. My aunt told me that. She never had liked my dad. Or me neither, I don't guess.

Wasn't long before Mom got sick of walking around Poynter and having to look at all the stuff that reminded her of Dad, so she got a job at the dollar store here in Kennisaw. We moved down the very weekend after school let out. Now here it was, the Fourth of July, and so far I hadn't done nothing but wander the streets and vacant lots by myself, talking to the ants and horny toads. We didn't even have money for fireworks. I did have one thing to look forward to, though. They was having an outdoor ceremony down at Leonard Biggins Park, and who do you think was going to be the guest of honor but old T. Roy Strong, the ex-All-Pro from off the Dallas Cowboys.

As far as football stars from Oklahoma went, you couldn't get much bigger than T. Roy. Talk about your legends. T. Roy played quarterback for Kennisaw back in their famous undefeated days and went on from there to land runner-up to the Heisman Trophy as a college star, and as if that wasn't enough, he got drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in the first round and ended up helping them win the Super Bowl not once but twice. Now here he was, back with a pack of his old Kennisaw teammates to honor what a lot of folks called the greatest high school football team in the history of the eastern Oklahoma hill country.

So, taking my shortcut down through a grove of trees on my way to the park, I was pretty excited, daydreaming up how it would be to talk to T. Roy Strong. I even got so far as picturing us tossing a football around and telling each other
about our lives. Not just piddly things about where we was from and what kind of ice cream we liked, but deep things. Like what a father and son would talk about.

Then, all the sudden, this kid dropped down out of a tree right in front of me. Just—
boom!
—there he was. It was Blaine, but course, I didn't know that then. For all I knew, he could've been something from outer space zapping out of the sky.

“Halt there, knave,” he said, planting his hands on his hips. “Where doth thou thinkest thou art fixing to go?” Even way back then, he was broad shouldered and had him a deep tan and dark brown eyes and black hair that stuck up on top of his head like he hadn't combed it a day since school let out for summer. Nine years old and he already looked like he ought to be the star of something.

“What'd you call me?” I said. I hadn't never heard the word
knave,
and I wanted to make sure he wasn't calling me any bad names.

“Knave,”
he said, like he'd heard some dumb questions but that one was the topper. “That means thou ain't a member of my kingdom.”

“Who are you anyways?” The way he was talking, I thought he might be from another country.

“Me? I'm Sir Galahad. Who the hell art thou?”

“I'm Batman.”

He grinned his big old shiny white grin and said, “Why, hell, this here's fixing to be the battle of the century, then.” And he bucked his head down and charged straight at my belly with no more warning than a bobcat gives a weasel.

Right there was when I done it. Froze him solid in his tracks. It was almost like I was looking down on the both of us, figuring just what I had to do, and then—
click
—everything rolled
into motion again. I dodged off to one side and at the same time grabbed ahold of Blaine's T-shirt at the shoulder, wrenching him around so's he couldn't hit me square on. Then, before he could figure out what was what, I tackled him like he thought he was fixing to do me, and we went tumbling down the side of this steep hill there, rolling over and over each other, ending up in the tall grass at the bottom.