My Name Is River Blue (30 page)

The Hawks fans
were on their feet cheering and stomping. When I looked at the Knights
sideline, their team acted shell-shocked and beaten even though they still had
the lead.

Coach Haney
called for the onside kick attempt. It was our only chance to get the ball back
with enough time to score. Ant, Max, Matt, Gary, me and all the other skill players
with good hands made up the onside kicking team. We would attempt to beat the
Knights to the ten-yard kick and recover the ball before they did. Again, the
stadium cheered with hope when Max Summers recovered the onside kick for us.

Our offense went
no huddle, and I worked each sideline with first a pass to Matt Broome, followed
by one to Ant on the other side. Max took the ball straight up the middle for
another good gain. The Knights defense looked bewildered as we kept them off
balance and steadily moved the ball until we were inside their twenty-yard
line. On the next play, I faked a handoff to Max, who ran up the middle while I
took the ball around right end until the defense pushed me out of bounds at the
four-yard line with fifteen seconds left in the game.

On the next
play, I looked for an open receiver and not finding one, I brought the ball down
as if to run. The cornerback guarding Ant gave up on the pass to cover my run,
but I stopped short of the line of scrimmage and tossed the ball over the
defender's head to a wide-open Ant Jefferson for the touchdown. We kicked the
extra point and with six seconds left in the game, we led 21-17.

When we ran off
the field, it sounded as if everyone in Bergeron County was yelling for our
team. Our stadium wasn't tall enough to sway, but for a second, it appeared
that the stands were moving side to side. Coach Booker explained that it was an
optical illusion created by the fans swaying with our fight song, which the
band played each time we scored.

I thought our celebrating
teammates might beat Ant and me to death on the sideline. Coach Haney had to
call his last time out to calm us down and organize our kickoff team. He warned
all of us that we had not yet won the game. With six seconds left, our players
had to stay in their lanes and prevent the possibility of a kickoff return for
a touchdown that would win the game for the Knights. There was no need to worry
as we gang-tackled the return man and notched our first win of the season.

We were a happy
bunch as we showered and relived moments of the game. Most of us were looking
forward to the dance in the school gym where our celebration would continue. Our
high spirits would carry us through the dance, and when we eventually crawled
into our beds that night, we would realize how tired and sore we were.

When Ant, Max, and
I walked out of the locker room together, fans and reporters mobbed us. None of
us had ever been in such a situation with strangers' hands grabbing us and it
was a little unnerving to me. Some of the fans wanted to congratulate us, and
others just wanted to touch the three freshmen who had become Harper Springs'
heroes by helping to win a game people would talk about for years to come. I remember
thinking how boring their lives must be for them to get a thrill from touching a
kid like me.

We attempted to
work through the crowd to find Papa, the Mackeys, and my foster brothers, but
it wasn't easy. Some of the reporters weren't satisfied with the brief post
game comments we gave them on our way into the locker room, so they insistently
stretched out microphones in our faces, blocked our paths, and shouted
questions. They kept trying to earn our attention, and at the same time, the
fans still fought to get a hand on us.

I became frustrated
over the unwanted contact, and my frustration rapidly changed to anger when a
hand grabbed me between my legs and held on to me long enough for me to know that
it was not an accident. I couldn't tell who did it, but there was a trashy
looking woman walking close to me at the time. She was smiling at me but so
were other people. I was so pissed that I was on the verge of throwing random punches
when Papa and Hal reached us. They loudly thanked everyone for their good wishes,
and ran interference for us as we all moved through the crowd to the parking
lot.

There were still
two reporters attempting to stick their microphones in our faces as we reached
Papa's truck, and one of them accidently poked me in the eye. I grunted in
pain, and for the first time, I saw Papa lose his temper. My mentor snatched
the mike and tossed it twenty yards away into the bushes that bordered the
parking lot. Papa stared at the reporter, and the man wisely kept his mouth
shut and walked away to hunt his equipment.

Ant, Max, and I
were relieved when we were safely riding in Papa's truck with the Mackeys and
my foster brothers following us in the minibus. Max was going home with us to
change for the dance and afterwards, he was spending the weekend with us at the
farm.

I was still
irked about the grabbing. "What the hell is wrong with those people? I
think a nasty looking woman got a feel of my junk. I'll have nightmares."

"Language,"
reminded Papa as he drove. "You owe me twenty-five more."

"Sorry,
Papa. Ant, help me remember to write it on my list when we get home."

"Got it, RB.
Your arms are gonna fall off from all them pushups."

"Yeah, yeah,"
I mocked. "How many do
you
have so far?"

Ant bragged.
"I ain't got none."

"Oops, you
do now. Papa, how many pushups does Ant do for a double negative when one of them
isn't even a real word?"

Papa glanced at
us. "I think that's worth twenty-five too."

I howled, stuck
my tongue out, and elbowed Ant in the ribs.

"Stop
laughing, RB. Be glad he gets on you mostly for cussing."

"Ant,
you're a goober. It's not like he asks you to speak a foreign language, and you
know better anyways. You're just trying to sound like a Colliers' hood
rat."

Max was
laughing. "Are you guys always like this? I could be entertained for
hours."

Papa coughed loudly.
"Yes, Max, they're always like this. Only
they
would be arguing over
trivial things right after winning one of the most exciting games I've ever seen."

Friday night was
my first high school dance, and even though I couldn't dance as well as Ant and
Max, I still looked good with Carlee hanging onto me. A few of my teammates
joked about some of my moves, but in a good-natured way that didn't hurt. Some
of the older guys helped me to relax by telling me how badly they sucked at
dancing when they first started. I still didn't like dancing, but I had a much
better time than I thought I would.

***

Saturday night
at Deer Lake, Ant and Max were already asleep in our tent. I sat alone by the remains
of our campfire and enjoyed the night sounds and the moonlit surface of the
lake. It seemed impossible for a state kid to be as happy as I was at that
moment.

A sudden, chilly
breeze blew off the water towards me, and I sank deeper into my lined, denim
jacket, digging my hands into the pockets. Almost a year had passed, but I knew
what it was I felt in my pocket. After the game, I had worn the jacket from the
locker room through the crowd to Papa's truck and to Tolley House but not to
the dance. I put the jacket on again Saturday evening when it grew cooler. It
had to be one of the people crowding me after the game. It was the perfect time
for one of them to plant a folded piece of notebook paper in my jacket pocket.
It looked like an exact copy of the letter that threatened me.

I put more wood
on the fire and stayed awake all night.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

Late
November 2001

I told Ant that
I didn't feel well enough to join the others for breakfast. After he ate, he
brought the Saturday morning edition of
The State Reporter
to our room
and quietly placed it on my bed. In addition to the physical pounding I had suffered
in our playoff game the previous night, I had slept poorly, waking several
times from nightmares in which I repeatedly made the same mistake that gave the
game to the Eagles. When the morning light brightened our room, I was not only
tired and sore, I was sure that I had the stomach bug that had ravaged our team
for three days.

It had been three
months since I found the second threatening note in my jacket pocket. After
another investigation, I still didn't know who it was. I turned in my bed to
face Ant, who was trying to sleep in his own bed just four feet away. I coughed
loudly until he opened his eyes and looked at me. I told him that I was
beginning to think the letter culprit was using voodoo. He groaned.

"Ant, what
if it's true? Maybe he put a curse on me that made me throw a bad pass and lose
the game for us. Maybe he's making me feel sick now too."

"How about this,
RB? Maybe you're actually human and capable of making mistakes just like us
normal people. I know it's unlikely but it's possible, isn't it?

"Are you
being sarcastic?"

"Never, RB.
I live to worship you."

"Liar."

Ant was grinning
at me from his bed. "I'm going back to sleep, dude. That's what you should
do when you finish the sports page because I definitely think you're
feverish."

"Damn, I
think you're right, Antman. I was really beginning to believe in voodoo."

Looking over the
sports section of the paper, I was uncomfortably warm and nauseous with vague cramping
pains in my lower abdomen. I thought that reading about the game would only
make me feel worse, but I decided that it was fitting punishment. If I put a
copy on my dresser mirror, it would be a good reminder of how bad it sucked to cost
my team a chance to play for the state title.

The State
Reporter
was the only newspaper I read consistently, and it was mainly because of the
sports coverage by Howie Spearman, a well-known sports reporter and columnist. I
met him at the beginning of the season, and I often gave him interviews because
I respected his integrity and common sense. He wrote the truth without
favoritism or sensationalism. He never attempted to bait players or coaches
into making controversial remarks, and he was sensitive enough to back off at a
moment when a kid's emotions prompted him to act out of character. Howie
focused on the facts of the game and the positive traits of players and
coaches.

Papa had known Howie
Spearman since 1993 when the reporter moved to South Carolina from Florida with
his wife and young son. The two men didn't know each other well enough to say
they were friends, but they developed a mutual respect for each other during
those times when Mr. Spearman's job required him to cover the Hawks. Coach
Haney told me that Mr. Spearman had once written a story praising Papa's
efforts to help disadvantaged kids in our community, and he wrote it in such a
way that readers donated money to help fund one of Harper Springs' after school
programs.

When I found the
sports headline, my eyes burned, and disappointment ached deep inside me. I imagined
how badly my teammates were hurting that morning after our failure to reach a
goal we had worked so hard to achieve. After our come-from-behind victory over
Iverson, we had won seven more regular season games to capture our conference
title with a record of 8-2. We had high expectations of doing well enough in
the playoffs to make it to the state championship game, but we came up short of
our goal because of one bad pass.
My
bad pass.

The title of
Howie Spearman's story was
Clinton-Bowman Wins 45-42 Shootout at Harper
Springs
.

Friday night, the
Clinton-Bowman Eagles took one the state's best defenses into Harper Springs to
defeat the Hawks and their young, high-powered offense by a score of 45-42. The
Eagles' win propelled them into the 4A state championship game next Saturday
against the Jefferson Bulldogs. To win, the Eagles offense had to score their
highest point total of the season because River Blue, the Hawks' freshman
quarterback, lit up the Eagles defense for six touchdowns, four of them passing
and another two rushing. To put into perspective what fourteen-year-old River
Blue did, the Eagles' defense had previously given up an average of only 11.5
points per game.

The game turned
out to be one of the wildest contests ever in the state playoffs with Eagles
senior quarterback  Simon Chase having the best statistical game of his high
school career, and Blue matching him step for step throughout the game until
late in the fourth quarter.

The Hawks were
driving for the game-winning score and had reached the Clinton-Bowman
twenty-two yard line. The Eagles did a masterful job of disguising their
defense, which caused Blue to misread the pass coverage and throw his only
interception of the game. The interception, coming with only fifty-nine seconds
left in the contest, was all the Eagles needed to run out the remaining time in
the game. It was fitting that the winning score, with five minutes left in the
game, was a naked quarterback bootleg by Simon Chase, who will be going on to
greater glory in college football next year. There is no doubt that his performance
against the Hawks will have college recruiters salivating as they wait for him
to give his final decision on which scholarship offer he will accept.

There was more
information describing the scoring drives and statistics that I skipped.

In previews of
the matchup, the Eagles, with seven seniors starting on defense and six on
offense, were favored to win against the Hawks, who had to start freshmen in
several key skill positions since the first game of the season.

The Hawks lost
their starting senior quarterback, number two quarterback, and junior starting
tailback before the first game, and each new contest added new faces as players
were injured. Most people could have understood better if the Hawks had ended
their regular season 2-8 instead of 8-2. It was incredible to have eight wins in
their tough, competitive conference when they played half their games with fourteen
freshmen and sophomores filling starting positions. It was primarily the
inspired leadership and sensational play of River Blue that enabled the Hawks
to capture a conference championship and an automatic playoff spot. All season,
opposing coaches, players, and the media shook their heads in disbelief at
Blue's mounting stats, which shattered every state record for a first year starting
quarterback of any age.

As if having to
play so many underclassmen was not hard enough, the football gods frowned on
Harper Springs when the team was hit with a stomach bug just three days prior
to the game. In case anyone thinks the Hawks used sickness as an excuse, to my knowledge,
none of them mentioned it to the press, but some of my colleagues and I saw how
they used the little white buckets behind their bench. I have good binoculars
and seeing many of them doubled over the buckets was not a pretty sight, but
the team's indomitable spirit was. I can honestly say that if I were that sick,
there is no way that I would have the fortitude to play that well in any game,
much less one against a talented team like the Eagles.

Eagle fans
should be very proud of the way their team played, and there is no doubt that
they deserve to compete for the state title. Likewise, the Harper Springs fans
should also be proud after they witnessed the courage and determination of
their kids who fell one miracle short of the state title game.

Coach Conway and
the Clinton-Bowman Eagles will be favored to win their third state title in the
past ten years when they play next Saturday. If they do, it will be the first
state championship for their graduating seniors, and something they will
remember for the rest of their lives. For the players returning next season,
they will have big shoes to fill and defending their title will be very
difficult after losing so many outstanding seniors. Still, the Eagles have a
strong program, and if they are not in the title hunt next season, it won't be
long until they are.

As for Harper
Springs, kids are resilient, and while they may spend the
weekend brooding over what might have
been, they will snap out of it and realize how bright the future of the Hawks
really is with so many good young players. River Blue, Ant Jefferson, Max
Summers, and Gary Carson, along with a few freshmen promoted from the JV team, will
be Hawks for three more years, and they will only get better along with the
sophomores, who will be solid players as juniors next season.

If they were
honest, most opposing coaches would say that the thought of River Blue maturing
in size, strength, and skill is a frightening prospect. Adding in the fact that
his favorite receiver, Ant Jefferson, will be even faster and shiftier next
year, almost certain to require double coverage, just makes Blue's arm even
more dangerous. If any coaches
think they will sellout,
double cover Jefferson and bring pressure each play on Blue, remember Max
Summers, the freshman tailback. He finished second in their conference in
rushing yards. Next season, the Hawks' line will be more experienced and so
will Summers.

Coach Haney of
the Hawks is a competitive man and probably feels down today, but he really
shouldn't. He is a quality coach, who has a good relationship with his players.
If he sees things the way others do, he should be smiling each time he thinks of
next season.

The Eagles
deserve to be where they are. Coach Conway and his team worked hard, they were
the better team tonight, and it was simply their time. For Coach Haney, River
Blue, and the rest of the Hawks, next year is looking pretty darn good.

I wasn't
expecting Howie Spearman's story to lift my spirits, but it did. I still felt
terrible that my mistake cost us the game, but I was proud of what we had
accomplished, and the truth was just as Howie said. We would only get better,
and I would work even harder to be a better player and to bring a state
championship to Harper Springs. I was determined never to let my team down
again.

My improved mood
lasted about two minutes and that was when a severe pain in my right lower
abdomen caused me to jackknife in my bed. The worst pain that I had ever felt produced
a loud grunt from me and frightened Ant, who was resting across from me on his
own bed. A second later, I hurled unspeakable crap that ran down my bare chest
and abs to soak my boxers. Ant's eyes bulged, and he turned nearly white as he
scrambled from his bed. I was honestly scared that I might be dying.

Ant flew out the
door into the hall to yell for Hal and Jenny, who rushed up the stairs faster
than anyone had ever seen them move. Along with the Mackeys, my foster brothers
scrambled into my room to see what the emergency was. Within seconds after I
told Hal and Jenny how I felt, Jenny was dialing 911 from the hall phone outside
my room.

I will never
forget the way Hal took charge and helped me without a second's hesitation. He
told everyone but Ant to wait in the hall, and the way my room smelled, none of
my foster brothers argued with him. I was such a stinking mess that the sight
and smell was enough to make me want to hurl again, but it didn't deter Hal,
who sent Ant for warm, wet washcloths and dry towels. The two of them cleaned
the crap off me and helped me dress me in clean boxers and a fresh pair of sweats.
It was a gross chore, and I was grateful that they cared enough to help me.

It seems that I
should remember most of the details of my ambulance ride to the hospital, the
doctor's examination, and the surgery prep for my ruptured appendix, but I
recall it all as I would a vague dream. When I woke up in the recovery room, I briefly
wondered where I was and how I got there. A few days later, when I was much
more alert, my memory was still foggy as if I were trying to recall the scenes
of a movie that I had watched too many years ago. Much of what I "remember"
is really only what people told me.

The Mackeys and
Ant gave me their versions of how the news of my emergency spread that Saturday
morning, resulting in coaches, teammates, and students invading the hospital to
await news of my condition. It was hard for me to believe that so many people
filled the waiting room that most of them had to stand or sit on the floor.

Because my
appendix ruptured, I was quite sick, and my hospital stay was longer than it
would have been for a simple appendectomy. While I recovered there, the Mackeys,
Papa, or Manny took turns staying with me throughout the day until I went to
sleep for the night. Ant visited me each day after school, as did Carlee and
Max. Coach Haney dropped by several times along with some of my teammates.

I had been
embarrassed when I first discovered that my room was on the pediatrics floor
where the hospital generally assigned any patient under sixteen. My mood
improved when one of the nurses told me that my room was in a section for
teenagers, far away from the infants. On my fourth day, it turned out that I was
lucky to be on that floor. I had a visit from one of the long time pediatric
nurses, who learned that I was a patient down the hall from where she worked
with infants.