Nuclear War Club: Seven high school students are in detention when Nuclear War explodes.Game on, they are on their own. (4 page)

Coach signaled for a long pass to running back Zeke Brown. David nodded, and motioned with both arms for the huddle.

“Coach called red zebra, Zeke runs right, Stone, you are the alternate up the gut,” David said, looking at two other players to confuse Excalibur. He had learned in Alabama to summarize the pattern, because players forget, or get nervous and confused.

“Your block could decide the game,” David said quickly looking each player in the eye, “don’t let us down”.

“Coach is giving us a chance to get our jerseys dirty, so let’s get this done,” David said, as he clapped his hands, breaking the huddle. Two replacements who also had clean uniforms nervously grinned, nodded, and hustled to the line.

Zeke was the fastest receiver David had ever played with, he decided he would launch the pass when he reached the letter F in the children’s ABC song.

When the ball was snapped, David scrambled, giving Zeke time to sprint downfield. The pass seemed too long, but it was timed perfectly, or rather Zeke’s last second burst of speed made it seem perfectly timed, and it fell into Zeke’s arms midstride . Zeke seemed to hit overdrive, and ran into the end zone untouched.

“Touch down! Barley High. David Phelps’s pass to Zeke Brown,” the announcer broadcast, as both refs raised their arms.

Barley missed the extra point, as usual, the score was now Excalibur 25- Barley High 15.

People leaving the Barley stands stopped, clogging the aisles, then climbed back to their seats. On the Barley sideline Zeke smiled, pointed to David, then moved his hands like he was filming, signaling that last play would be on his college recruiting Dvd.

Excalibur had put their first team back in every position on the return. You could feel the tension, the Barley fans began to scream. David could feel the momentum swinging to Barley High, you could see it by the way the defense charged the field as predators. The reenergized Barley defense quickly thumped Excalibur with a turnover, their first of the year, and a touchdown, when the Excalibur quarterback muffed the handoff reaching for a first down.

Barley missed the extra point again. The score was now 25-21.

The Barley fans went nuts, the crowd noise made it hard to hear. Excalibur botched the kick return, but kept the ball. Time was running out, and Excalibur was still ahead 25-21. Their players were getting angry, their Coach was rabid after the bobbled kickoff return and turnover, their first in three years, he screamed. Now some of Barley’s sophomore players were getting slammed hard. Excalibur’s superb coaching
kicked in, as the well trained players methodically executed running plays. Excalibur needed just one more first down, then they could kill the clock on the next set of downs until the game ended.

“Zeke!” the Barley High Coach yelled.

Zeke was confused. What did the Coach want with him on defense?

“Huddle around,” Coach commanded to David and offense players standing nearby, to prevent Excalibur from watching. Coach squatted to the ground, motioning for Zeke to do likewise.

“Excalibur is running out the clock. Strip the ball. Once you have the ball, fall on it,
do not run
,” Coach commanded.

Zeke just nodded, overwhelmed. This was ballgame, and Coach came to him. But Zeke had not played defense since junior high school.

“I can do it,” Zeke said.

“What do you do after you strip the ball?” Coach repeated.

“Fall on it,” Zeke said. Coach looked doubtful.

“Got it, Coach. I will fall on it,” Zeke promised, nodding.

“Go,” Coach smiled with confidence he did not have, pushing Zeke’s back.

David watched the Excalibur Coach when Zeke ran on the field. He looked concerned, probably deciding whether to use his last timeout, David thought. But Excalibur saved their last time out.

As soon as the ball was hiked, the Excalibur quarterback handed off the ball. David saw Zeke lock in on the runner’s eyes, which darted right, then lingered left. David hoped Zeke sensed the runner would fake right, then run left just trying to get a first down. David got excited when he saw that Zeke ran full speed, not to the runner, but to where David had subconsciously plotted the intercept point.

David knew Zeke was fast, by far the best sprinter on
the team, but he was stunned at this speed. Zeke seemed to fly across the field. It seemed all Zeke saw was the ball. To David, time seemed sluggish, everything was in slow motion. Zeke reached the runner at the line of scrimmage, and snatched the ball from the bewildered runner, who was looking the other way.

David saw Zeke secure the ball, then pounce to run. Zeke told David later a primal adrenaline surge screamed for him to run with the ball. Zeke said the instinct to run was almost overwhelming, but he obeyed Coach and fell on the ball. Enraged Excalibur players jumped on him, despite the whistles, punching savagely for the ball while hidden in the pile. David wondered what the Excalibur Coach’s punishment was for having a turnover would be at practice.

Coach was right, David thought, if Zeke had tried to run, he would have lost the ball, this was brutal.

A Ref immediately pointed his arm to the Barley Union end zone, and hit Excalibur with a personal foul. The crowd on both sides erupted, one side in delirious joy, the other in bitter rage. Barley Union had the ball.

David heard Matt Dimon run up to the Coach and plead, “Coach, put me back in, I can win this game.”

“In football you eat what you kill, Phelps got us here, Phelps will finish this,” said Coach, dismissively as he leaned over and put both hands on his knees.

Doron Cohen was filming the game for the Barley High Film Club. David had thought that was very clever, the Film Club was actually just Doron. He told David he had created it to fill up the empty space for extracurricular leadership positions on his college applications, and because he got to ride to the games with the cheerleaders. Doron had captured Zeke’s turnover, with a tight close-up of his predatory eyes. The turnover, and the next play with audio, went viral on the internet, then on ESPN.

The Excalibur middle linebacker moved behind another player so the officials could not see, then angrily pointed at
David, then the dirt. David met his gaze and laughed. Doron got it all on video with face shots.

David motioned in the huddle for players to conceal him from the other team when Excalibur used their last time out.

“Can you run twelve yards with the ball?” David said into the ear hole of the helmet of Nate, the morbidly obese left tackle.

The left tackle looked up from the huddle. David wasn’t sure Nate had heard right, the crowd noise was deafening. Doron zoomed in to his face, pupils dilated, sweat stinging his eyes. Nate seemed confused, but David was sure he could run twelve yards, maybe even fifteen yards, before he would collapse. Wide eyed, Nate shook his head yes. David then demonstrated as if he was asking Nate to block differently, to confuse Excalibur.

Suddenly three of the trumpet players in the Barley Union High band stopped on their way to the bus, and began defiantly blasting the opening notes to
Sweet Home Alabama
. The Barley side recognized the tribute to their Pirate backup quarterback, and began to stand and scream and stomp their feet in rhythm on the aluminum stands on the visitor’s side. The Band Director, horrified, ran out of the bus and immediately stopped them from playing.

“Don’t forget this play gives me the ball,” Zeke reminded him, as the ref marked the ball as the Excalibur time ran out.

“I know,” David replied. “ Nate you watch out in case I fumble and grab the ball,” David commanded hurriedly.

David glanced hurriedly at the Coke game clock, 17 seconds left in the fourth quarter. They were down 25 to 21. It was third down and he was on the 12 yard line. Realistically, this was probably the last play.

He almost did not have to fake a fumble, in fact, from watching the film later, it might have actually been a fumble. The hike was wobbly and short as the Center nervously hurried
to block the middle linebacker who had been running right over him, then introducing David to Mother Earth.

As David bobbled the ball, he noted Zeke was swarmed by triple coverage, just as he expected. The Excalibur middle linebacker was very good, and was only a step away from slamming David into the dirt, when Nate took the fumble.

People joked Nate’s play wasn’t
like
slow motion, it
was
slow motion. Doron had to explain to ESPN that he had not slowed down Nate’s run, it was live action, and could be verified by the synchronized soundtrack. As soon as Nate grabbed the fumble, David attacked the middle linebacker. Excalibur was caught completely unaware.

Compared to Zeke, Nate moved turtle slow, but steadily, to the end zone. He held the ball with both hands. He was the weightlifting champ, benching 365, and his huge hands smothered the ball. David easily caught up behind Nate, and took out a diving tackle speared at Nate.

Nate had now advanced eight yards, in the midst of players piled up, littering the field.

Zeke knocked out another Excalibur attempted tackle aimed at Nate. Then there was what was later referred to as “the bone crusher”. Two Excalibur players hit Nate hard, one at the waist from the right, the other on the arms from the left. There was a reason Excalibur was the number one defense in the State, they earned it. They aimed for the knees, but Zeke knocked the Excalibur player, blocking that hit.

The hit was audible over all the crowd noise. The crowd on both sides gasped.

Nate staggered, but somehow held on to the ball with both hands. By a fluke, because he had been hit hard in different directions at the same time, the hits offset each other, and he was still upright. Nate’s huge legs kept moving slowly forward over bodies sprawled over the field.

Nate was now just inside the 2 yard line.

The buzzer sounded. Time was out. This would be the last play.

Nate desperately drug an Excalibur player who had grabbed his ankle for one stride, before collapsing into the end zone face first. The ball was over the line before his knees and elbows hit. The Refs had plenty of time to get into position.

Both officials immediately raised their arms straight up.

Touchdown!

Barley Union High had come from behind and won the game in the very last play. Half the crowd erupted. The mighty Excalibur had fallen.

But then, instantly the entire crowd, on both sides was silent when Nate did not get up. He was still face down. David has sensed the same, shared, dread of parents with a hurt son hushed both sides of the field in Alabama.

David heard Nate panting, gasping for air. He pulled players off Nate, as the Refs and the paramedics rushed up.

Nate caught his breath, rolled over, jumped up, held the football tightly in both hands, then handed it to the refs.

The Barley side erupted in pandemonium, running onto the field. One thing was certain, no one even thought about carrying Nate off the field.

David walked off the field, proud of his dirty uniform. He still could not find his Dad in the stands. He watched the Excalibur Coach give the Barley Coach the game ball for Nate. Nate was being interviewed on camera by Doron, explaining that when he saw the fumble, he knew he would have to save the play.

The last plays were instantly uploaded to the website that night around 10:30pm, before Doron even left. David watched Doron frantically edit it all on his laptop amid the celebration, then rush to the McDonalds across the street and use their Wi-Fi to email the clip to all the local channels sports directors. David remembered Doron had gone by each local TV station and introduced himself as Director of the Barley High Film Club, and told them to be looking for his game highlights.

David always recorded a local ESPN feeder TV
station when he played a game, in case they were shown. He saw there were splices of the cheerleaders from a stationary camera during the clip, and Zeke’s turnover.

David thought Doron had a gift for tight, professionally editing, and the clip and it was shown, uncut, at 27 seconds, on ESPN, all the local channels on the 11pm news, and went viral on You Tube. It helped that this was an unusual mid-week game, with no competition. The cheerleader captain, Ashley Kensington, looked really good, and most importantly for California, it was on TV.

Doron enlarged, to poster board size, the screen shot ESPN film credit listed to “Doron Cohen Media Productions, in association with the Barley Union High School Film Club,” the next day, and gave David a door size poster board of him passing to Zeke.

Doron kept the play on his smartphone and downloaded it onto a special micro thumb drive chip, and gave David a copy.

Later, during dark times, David watched Doron view that ESPN video clip over and over until the battery died. Doron would say how everyone should admire his editing, and he would tell them to remember a long forgotten history lesson

The Battle of Waterloo had been won on the playing fields of Eton.

8.

“Why did Sun Tzu write
The Art of War?”
the Teacher asked, as the bell rang.

Doron Cohen sensed first period after a big football night probably would not find a room full of Sun Tzu scholars. The room was dead quiet. No one raised their hand, everyone seemed to be hoping the teacher would attack someone else. So Doron raised his hand. He was pleased at the relief many students showed when he volunteered.

Doron enjoyed his status as an urban legend at Barley Union High School. He had read
all
the World Literature assignments for the whole semester the first weekend of class. That way, he repeatedly explained to everyone, he could devote more time each day to physics, calculus, and writing Apple Apps. As a result, he could compare and contrast books with the Teacher they had not even read yet in class.

Although Doron was esteemed for his ability to always take a question in class, and usually divert the teacher away from other, grateful, prey, the password protected website
“
geek-peek.com
”
was his real claim to fame. The site contained all the teaching and homework assignments for each class scanned in for panicky student who lost their syllabus. There was a smart phone app also.