My Name Is River Blue (20 page)

"I can see that
you guys are becoming a good team," said Papa. "I think you're going
to cause a lot of excitement in the fall. This is a football town, and after
seeing you play a year of junior high ball, everyone will be impatiently
waiting to see you both on the high school team."

"Do you
think we will play for the varsity as freshmen?" Ant asked.

"I can't
guarantee it, but I think it's real possible that you guys will make varsity
and see at least a little playing time. Coach Riddle will definitely make you both
starters for the junior high team, so how you play this fall will help decide
what happens next year on the varsity."

"I don't
see any reason we couldn't start as freshmen on the high school team," I
said.

"Well,
you'll be fighting for playing time with all the older, more experienced guys. When
you're a freshman, the current starting quarterback will be a senior,
so it will be hard for you to take a senior's spot
with all his experience running the offense."

"Will the
coach at least give me a shot to prove I'm better than the senior?" I
wasn't happy with the idea of just
making
the high school varsity. I saw
no reason why I couldn't be the starting quarterback.

Papa could see
that I was very serious about trying to take a senior's starting job. Of
course, he realized that it was much harder than I thought. "The coach
always looks at everyone, River, but it takes time to learn your team's plays,
to understand other teams' defenses, and to become a team leader like a
quarterback should be. No matter how talented you are, you need experience, and
you need to mature more than you are now to be the leader of that team."

I persisted. "But
will he give me a chance? Just to see how I would do?"

"Yes, River.
I promise you that Coach Haney will let you show him what you can do."

"Okay. All
I want is a chance." When I remember my conversation with Papa, it's hard
to believe how naive I was. During the next year, I would learn how much I
didn't know about the role of a starting varsity quarterback.

"Same for
you, Ant," said Papa. "Work hard and I'll make sure he gives you a
good look, but both of you need to trust the coach and let him bring you along
when he thinks you're ready."

"Yes, sir,"
I said. "You know, I like the idea of playing pro football when I grow up.
They make tons of money."

Ant had another
concern. "I'm not sure that I want to play pro football, but I want to go
to college, and a scholarship is the only way I'll be able to go. The foster
kid scholarship helps, but it's not enough. If football can give me a free ride
to college, then I'm down with it."

Papa glanced
sideways at us. "You boys just need to do what I ask you to do. You need
to work hard at football, even harder on your schoolwork, and just as important,
you need to work at being good boys who stay out of trouble. If you give your
best in all those areas, I'll make sure that you go to college, scholarship or
not."

"Thanks,
Papa," said Ant. "Nobody's ever tried to help me like you have."

"Me either,
Papa," I agreed with Ant. "I promise I'll work hard, and you won't be
sorry."

"Yo, I'm
glad to get a chance," said Ant. "Back in my old neighborhood, the
dudes I called my friends didn't mind gettin' me in trouble. Daring me to take
five-finger discounts. Offering me weed or something stronger. If my mom's lies
hadn't sent me to Stockwell, I still woulda been arrested one day. Now I can do
things the right way. River and me are gonna work hard to be better people and
to have better lives, and nothing's gonna hold us back."

Papa and Ant's optimism
rubbed off on me, and I began to believe that I could accomplish anything with
them on my side. For the first time I could remember, I was looking forward to
the future.

***

Max Summers, a
player for the junior high team, was one of the boys who played touch football
with Ant and me in Harper Park. Max was the stereotypical white boy next door,
providing you lived in an expensive, gated neighborhood. He was a good-looking
kid with huge blue eyes and wild, curly blond hair that was uncontrollable but
suited him perfectly. His personality could be just as crazy as his hair, and
he reminded me of a wild surfer kid I saw in a movie Jenny rented for us at
Tolley House. Max was three inches shorter and twenty pounds lighter than I was,
but the more I watched him play ball, I saw that he was athletic, fast, and
remarkably agile.

Max had already
played a year of junior high football as the starting quarterback, and he was
the favorite to be QB1again in the fall. Before junior high, he had played
quarterback since he was eight-years old in the city recreation department youth
league.

At first, I was
uncomfortable around Max because Papa had been training me for the quarterback
position. He was confident that I would beat Max because I was a much better
passer. Max was aware of my intentions and had seen enough of me to know that
he had serious competition, but he was surprisingly friendly to me. He even
complimented my play, and said that he would have to work harder to beat me for
the starting job. He said that Coach Riddle would start the best player at each
position, and if I beat him, he would support me for the good of the team. I
was impressed with his maturity, and I thought that he was definitely better leadership
material than I was.

Ant and I
quickly saw that Max didn't care about race or social status. He wanted to be
friends with everyone and as far as we could tell, all of the players thought
he was a great guy.

Max began to
take breaks with us, and he and Ant did most of the talking. My mind would
frequently drift away to other things, but the afternoon I heard Max say that
Carlee Summers was his cousin, he had my full attention. I wasn't very smooth
when I plied Max for details about Carlee, so I flushed with excitement when he
told me that Carlee was interested in me. After Max made me promise never to
tell where I heard the information, he talked about his cousin until I thought
that I knew the girl pretty well.

Carlee Summers was
everything a junior high school girl wanted to be in the summer prior to her
eighth grade year. Many of the girls at school envied thirteen-year-old Carlee
because her body had matured earlier than most of them who were impatiently
waiting for their own transformations. She was a naturally beautiful girl on
her way to becoming a stunning woman. With guidance from her mother, Carlee
took good care of her skin, using cosmetics sparingly. The pair routinely drove
sixty miles to the Salon of Clarice where a professional worked on Carlee's
long, blond hair.

Most of the
junior high girls held no malice for Carlee; they simply wanted to be more like
her. However, there were a few girls who were not only jealous, they despised
her, and not simply because she could have been a model, but because of her
well-to-do family who granted Carlee's every wish. Those girls hated Carlee for
having a walk-in closet full of the most popular brand name clothes, for her
expensive jewelry, for her ridiculously large, professionally decorated bedroom
fit for a celebrity, and for her en suite bathroom, which was double the size
of most bathrooms the other girls were forced to share with their siblings.

Carlee's father,
Bill Summers, first earned his nickname "Big Bill" because of his
imposing size when he played football for Harper Springs High. After inheriting
his share of his parents' estate and using his money wisely, he became the
richest man and the biggest fish in the small tank of Bergeron County.

Bill Summers and
his three younger brothers inherited a fortune from their last surviving
parent, their father. Two of the brothers, Bob and Ken, lived out of state and
sold their shares of their father's businesses and the family home to Bill and
Sam, both of whom lived in Harper Springs. Sam then sold his half of the home
to Bill. All four men were left with plenty of money to invest and grow their
wealth, but only Bill and Sam continued to run the family business while investing
in new business ventures. In time, Bill did very well.

Bill Summers' business
investments were many and varied, and while he was a silent partner in most, he
was directly involved in others, such as his real estate company and his
restaurant chain of "Big Bill's Barbeque and Wings." Big Bill did particularly
well with his restaurants, which appealed to a variety of people since one side
was designed for casual family dining and the other side was a sports bar.

The man was
intuitive and had a knack for making smart investments at perfect times. He
also had a reputation for being ruthless in his business dealings and never
allowed personal feelings to present a barrier to his success. People were of little
value to him, unless he could use them to increase his profits.

Big Bill
did
care very much for his family, and he took pride in supporting his wife and
children. Beth never worked except as a volunteer for local charities that
created good will for her husband's businesses. Their affluent lifestyle
spoiled Beth just as Carlee was hopelessly spoiled by the time little Billy
arrived on her fifth birthday. Carlee's parents realized that she might resent
her new baby brother, so they pampered her even more, which only inflated her
sense of entitlement.

Sam Summers,
Max's father, hired experienced managers for his businesses just as Bill did,
but the difference was that Sam interfered and caused negative results. For the
most part, the only consistent profits Sam collected were from the businesses
he own jointly with Bill. When Bill would offer financial advice for Sam's
other businesses, Sam stubbornly refused his older brother's help. Since he was
a boy, Sam had always been jealous of Bill, who was more successful than Sam
was at anything he did, including football.

When I told Max
about the day Papa caught me staring at Carlee when her team was practicing their
cheers at the park, he chuckled and told me about the same day from Carlee's
perspective. He convinced me that she really was interested in me, but he again
made me promise never to repeat anything he said because he didn't want Carlee angry
with him.

Carlee was the
head cheerleader of the junior high squad that would be attending a two-week
cheer camp with a competition at the end. The girls had been practicing almost
every day because Carlee intended for her squad to win the first place trophy. As
important as their practice was to her, Max said that Carlee could hardly take
her eyes off me, and she knew that I was also watching her. She had purposefully
moved around enough to know that my eyes followed her wherever she went, but she
was careful not to let the other girls see what was going on between us.

As popular as
she was, even
her
reputation would take a hit if people discovered that
she was romantically interested in a kid like me. A blow to her popularity was
not the only problem she would have if word of her desire spread through Harper
Springs. From what Max told me about Big Bill, I understood that if he heard
that his thirteen-year old daughter, his precious princess, had the hots for a
mixed-race bastard from Tolley House, he would ground her until she was
eighteen. According to Max, fear of her father was not enough to make Carlee
give up her desire to be with me. She was used to having what she wanted, and
she wanted me.

Max informed me
that Carlee had not only staged her tripping mishap at school in hopes that I
would catch her, but she still thought of ways to get to know me better. When
Carlee discovered that Max and I had become friends, she saw an opportunity and
began working on a plot to use that new friendship to her advantage. After Max
shared Carlee's plan with me, I was nervous but also excited that a girl like
Carlee liked me that much. I imagined how jealous other boys would be if they
saw Carlee hanging on to me.

***

After Max told
me that Carlee liked me, I couldn't get my mind off her. One night in our room,
I was talking about her to Ant. He didn't say much and it bugged me.

"Ant, how
come you're so quiet? Am I going on too much about Carlee?"

"You
haven't even talked to that girl except that time she faked falling in the
school hall. If you want to beat Max for QB1, focus on football instead of what
he keeps whispering to you about Carlee. You aren’t as sharp in practice when
you’re daydreaming.”

I thought Ant
had a good point. Maybe I
was
being a little silly about Carlee.

"Yeah,
you're right. I need to focus on football at practice. I'll do better but kick
my butt if I'm messing up."

"If you
insist, RB. I'll be glad to kick your butt."

"I didn't
mean it literally."

Ant frowned.
"What's the fun in that?"

***

The next
morning, Miss Martin called me with news about my last foster family. The
previous night, fourteen-year old Michael Paulson hanged himself. He used a
support beam of the same tree house from which he shoved his little brother,
causing him to fall to his death. Since the day Trevor died, I had wondered if
Michael Paulson ever felt guilty. I guess he did.