the Big Time (2010) (6 page)

TROY LOOKED UP AT
his mom. She inclined her head toward Seth, signaling for Troy to go. Troy followed Seth down the concrete hallway for a bit, stopping in a quiet corner where two metal doors opened into another section. Seth turned to face Troy, his long dark hair still wet from the shower. His face—Troy saw now—was drawn not only from pain and exhaustion but from sadness. Troy jammed his left hand into his pocket and clutched his father's business card. Somehow, it gave him comfort.

“Hey,” Seth said, the word without tone or meaning.

“Seth, I'm sorry,” Troy said, blurting out his apology.

Seth grimaced and held up a hand for Troy to stop. “Please. I'm the one who's sorry. How I acted out there, well, it wasn't fair to you.”

“Seth,” Troy said, “you're right, though. Without you, none of this would have happened. The Falcons never would have given me a chance. Without you, Tate and Nathan and I wouldn't be champs. Our team never could have gotten into the junior league playoffs, let alone win the whole thing.”

“But I didn't coach the team because I wanted you to help me with the plays,” Seth said. “I mean, I wanted you to help me, but that's not why I coached you guys. I had fun. I like you, Troy,
and
Nathan and Tate. And I love your mom. I wanted to help just to help, and I had a heck of a lot of fun doing it.”

“Even with all the rumors in the newspaper?” Troy said, thinking of the scandal and the damage to Seth's reputation when the paper and others in the media falsely accused him of being a steroid user.

“Yeah,” Seth said. “Even with that. Good things don't usually come easy, you know. There's almost always a price.”

“Gramps said something like that to me just yesterday,” Troy said, releasing the card to motion excitedly. “He said, ‘Anything worth having is worth fighting for.'”

“See?” Seth said. “Great minds think alike. So, yeah, it was worth it, even with the trouble. And you and I are okay now. With this. You've got an incredible gift, and I don't want anyone to ruin it for you, especially me. I want you to use it and have fun and make all the money you can. Buy that house for you and your mom.
Get her that Benz we talked about. And I don't want you worrying about me, because I'll be fine.”

“Are you mad at the Falcons?” Troy asked.

“Nah,” Seth said, “it's business, this NFL thing. They've got to win or they're gone, too. It's just how it is. But if that's the way they're going to play it, then you get yourself the best doggone agent out there and hammer them on a long-term deal, okay? I can have my agent give you a call if you want. John Marchiano. The guy is honest and good. That's what you need.”

“Well,” Troy said, thinking of his father and the card in his pocket. “Maybe. I was thinking of getting a lawyer instead.”

Seth pulled his head back and gave Troy a curious look. “How about you? Talking agents and lawyers.”

“Just an idea,” Troy said, shrugging.

“Well, Marchiano is a lawyer, too, so you're all set.”

“Maybe,” Troy said, wavering.

“Well, whatever you and your mom decide,” Seth said. “Not my business, really.”

“Is this it for you, Seth?” Troy asked, his eyes wandering down to the ice bags packed to either side of both knees.

“I'm not going to say that,” Seth said, shifting his weight from one bad leg to the other with discomfort. “Today, well, I didn't have it, but I've seen guys come back, get better. They're not usually my age, but it can happen.”

“So, you want to keep playing?” Troy asked.

Seth heaved a long, tired sigh but nodded his head slowly as he released his breath. “I do. I know a few days ago I said I was tired and sore and all that, but being pulled from that game today? That made me realize how much I want to keep doing it. So, I'll get to work on these bad joints and see if I can't get the swelling down enough to get back into running shape. If not this week then the next, or the week after that. The way we're going with you, it looks like we're headed for the playoffs, so I'm not going to give up until the day after the Super Bowl, because if we're in it and there's any way at all I can play, you better believe I'll be there. Even if it's just to block on the punt team.”

Seth smiled at him, and for a moment it outshone his weariness. Then the spark went out. Troy felt an ache in his chest for the man who he could only dream of getting an autograph from a few months ago.

“I get that,” Troy said. “Seth?”

“Yeah?”

“What about this Border War game?” Troy asked. “Do you think you'll still be able to coach that?”

Seth smiled painfully and said, “Funny thing about me is that when I say I'll do something, I never back out. Plus, if my career
is
over, it won't hurt me to have the top coaches in the SEC see
me
in action either. You never know where your first break in that business is going to come. Yeah, I'm coaching. And you're playing,
right? Even though you're in the big time now with an agent or a lawyer or whatever?”

“Sure I'm playing,” Troy said. “I'd love to go to Georgia, and like you said, those coaches will be watching, so…”

“Okay, good,” Seth said, shuffling toward the door. “Now, I'm headed home.”

“I thought my mom was going to pick up some ribs from Fat Matt's and we were going to watch the Sunday night game?” Troy said.

Seth let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “I've had enough football for one day. Tell your mom thanks, and I'll call her later.”

“Won't she be kind of mad?” Troy asked, glancing over his shoulder at where his mom now stood talking to her boss.

“Not her,” Seth said. “That's one of the reasons I love her. She doesn't get bent out of shape about little things like that. She knows how I get about being hurt. I'm not good company right now. Besides, I need to just get home and get to work on these knees.”

Seth reached into the front pocket of his jeans and removed a pill bottle that he shook gently at Troy. “I've got some heavy-duty medicine and an appointment with a bucket of ice in my tub. Speaking of ice, you'd better stick your finger in some, too.”

“Medicine? Like painkillers?” Troy asked, his forehead crunching up with concern.

“No,” Seth said, stuffing the amber plastic bottle into his pocket and beginning to walk away again, “an anti-inflammatory. Same stuff they give to racehorses.”

Troy's jaw went slack, but before he could say anything else, Seth had disappeared. He sensed Tate at his side and turned to see that his mom and Nathan were also there.

“How is he?” Troy's mom asked, her eyes following the arc of the metal door as it swung closed. “Was he mad?”

“He said he'd call you later, Mom,” Troy said. “Mad? No, he wasn't mad. I'd say more like hurt.”

“Mentally?” his mom asked. “Or physically?”

Troy looked at his mom. “I'd have to say both.”

AS SETH PREDICTED, TROY'S
mom did understand when Troy explained what Seth had said about not being good company and wanting to get started on icing his knees. She still stopped at Fat Matt's, and they ate ribs and grilled chicken back at Troy's house, watching the beginning of
Sunday Night Football
. Between eating, Troy's left hand kept secretly returning to his pocket to caress the corners of his father's business card while his right hand stayed dipped in a big glass that held icy water for his hurt finger. Normally, he would have wanted Tate and Nathan to stay as long as they could, but he was relieved when Tate licked the BBQ sauce from her fingers and stood to go.

Troy saw them to the door, and Tate and Nathan disappeared into the pines, headed down to the tracks
that would take them home. As soon as his friends had left, Troy removed his father's card from his pocket, studied it, then put it back. He marched into the living room. The Styrofoam boxes from Fat Matt's still lay about the coffee table, but his mom had already disappeared into her bedroom. He could hear her talking to Seth on the phone. Troy tried to ignore the soft, gooey sound of her voice through the door as she offered sympathy and comfort to the star linebacker.

Troy turned off the TV in the living room and waited impatiently. Finally, he heard his mom tell Seth that she loved him, and her bedroom door creaked open.

“What?” she asked. “You're not watching the game? You feeling okay?”

“I want to call my dad,” Troy said, his hand sneaking back into his pocket to clench the rumpled card.

His mom sighed, then her face did that thing where her chin went up and the corners of her mouth tugged out and down into little crescent-shaped wrinkles. “Yes, we need to talk about that.”

“I want to see him,” Troy said, “and you said that if he tried to sue for me, you'd let me see him. You said. Gramps was right here.”

“Right,” she said, drawing out the word. “He's suing me. Funny how that happened all of a sudden at the dome, after you spoke with him.”

“He came up to me,” Troy said, feeling the ground slip out from under him. His stomach sank, because
he knew where this was headed and he knew his mom couldn't be fooled. Even so, he had to try. “Gramps said my dad needed to prove I wasn't just a whim because he saw me on
Larry King
, and he asked his client to get him passes so he could see me. That proves it wasn't just a whim.”

His mom looked at him for a long moment before she put her hands on her hips and said, “But it wasn't his idea, the lawsuit thing, was it?”

Troy's mind went into hyperdrive. “He's a lawyer, Mom. You heard him. He knows all about that stuff.”

A grim smile lit his mom's lips. “You didn't answer my question and I'm glad you didn't, because I think it means you respect me enough not to lie. Now, I know, and you know, that Drew didn't think up that lawsuit business. You just kind of mentioned it to him, didn't you?”

“He came to the game because of me,” Troy said, panic filling him.

“But that's not the same thing,” she said. “That's not what we agreed to.”

Troy's sweaty hand dampened the card. The pressure in his head felt like a boiling pot, and his hurt finger throbbed. He tried to contain his rage, but it burst, and he yelled, “That's my father, and I want to see him! I
will
see him!”

His mom's voice went eerily calm. “No, you won't see him unless I say you'll see him. I'm keeping that
number. Now, I'll live up to my original agreement.
If
he really sues me, then we'll work something out, but no more coaching from you.”

“He said he was going to!” Troy said, banging his good hand on the coffee table so that a container of chewed-over rib bones spilled to the floor, making a mess.

“He's said a lot of things in his day,” she said bitterly. “You don't have any idea, Troy.”

His mom marched into the kitchen, and he heard her rattling something. Troy got up and followed to see her removing the phone from the wall. She marched back out into the living room and pointed at the mess.

“Clean that up and then get to bed,” she said. “You've got school in the morning. You can take another pill for your finger if you need it.”

“What are you doing with the phone?” he asked.

“It'll be with me, along with my cell phone,” she said, starting toward her bedroom before stopping in the hallway and spinning around. “It's not that I don't love you, Troy, but I can't say one hundred percent that I trust you. I know how you get, and I can see that look in your eye. I don't want you searching the internet all night, finding his number, and calling him. I'll keep the phone with me to make it easier for you to do what I'm telling you to do. Now, good night.”

“But he's leaving tomorrow night,” Troy said, his voice barely a whisper.

His mom disappeared without another word, gently closing her door with a final click.

Troy's muscles tightened until he shook. He picked up a pillow and whacked it against the arm of the couch until dust glimmered in yellow light from the lamp next to his mom's La-Z-Boy. He sneezed and huffed and threw down the pillow before slumping to the floor and holding his head in his hands, crying and growling to himself with rage.

Finally, he took a deep, ragged breath, cleaned up, and went to bed.

He hadn't lain there for more than ten minutes before he sprang from his bed, dressed, and slipped out the window into the night.

If he couldn't call his father, Troy had a different and better idea of how he could see him, and he wouldn't have to wait.

THE TREES ABOVE SHIFTED
restlessly in a steady wind that smelled like coming rain, and stars blinked between tattered holes in the clouds. Behind the toolshed lay his gramps's fourteen-foot aluminum ladder, and Troy knew he could lift it on his own. He found the middle two rungs and picked up the ladder, bumping his finger and cursing to himself. Struggling, he poked his head through so the ladder rested on his shoulders like a bizarre collar that balanced nicely. He knew the way through the dark pinewoods to the railroad bed almost without looking. The dull glow of the tracks lay like discarded stilts, pointing the way to where his friends lived and making him wish they were with him. He stood for a moment, thinking, then decided
it would take too long to get them, even if they could sneak away.

Besides, this was something he needed to do on his own.

This was a family thing.

He stepped carefully through the weeds onto a once-familiar path now overgrown and filled with ruts and gopher holes. Through the trees, he navigated the big ladder, his eyes recognizing the dull gray lines of the concrete wall like an old enemy's face in a crowd. It surrounded the entire Cotton Wood Country Club. He spotted his old way in—a gaping crack—that had since been patched with concrete and cobblestones. Troy raised the ladder off his shoulders, breathing with deep relief at the lifted weight. He braced the ladder against the wall, scaling it quickly.

Nearly a foot thick, the wall provided an ample perch for him at its top. He stood and stared, listening for any sign of life from within, but the wind cloaked all other sounds. He wiggled his feet, setting them firm, and lowered his center before raising the ladder up and over to the other side. After planting it in the dirt below, he swung out and around and climbed down. Because he'd been inside the country club so many times before—as an intruder, but more recently as Seth's guest—he knew well the way he had to go.

Even so, he kept to the shadows, avoiding the glow of street lamps and hustling along with his feet swishing through the grass shoulders of the quiet streets. The maze of winding roads and mansions nestled back in the trees or on hilltops behind iron or brick fences led him to an enormous home on the biggest hill in Cotton Wood. With lights shining up from the bushes and grass, the huge white building looked more like a museum or an old government statehouse than one man's home. The stone wall that ran along the street was for decoration, not defense, and Troy scaled it with ease. He snuck through the bushes up along a curved driveway until he came to a courtyard with a hissing fountain in its center. The driveway was crowded with glossy cars whose glittering grillwork reminded Troy of the rap star's own teeth.

Amid the Bentley, Mercedes, and Lexus vehicles—all midnight blue or black—Troy spotted the orange Porsche his father had driven into Seth's driveway. His heart pattered, but he wasn't certain if that was because he knew his father was inside or because of the men in dark suits with walkie-talkies he now saw prowling the perimeter of the house. Troy looked down at his own gray hooded sweatshirt and simple white V-neck T-shirt with faded jeans and sneakers. He sighed and popped out of the shrubbery, heading up the stone walkway for the broad front steps. A man in
a suit stepped out from behind one of the tall, fluted columns. He met Troy halfway up, arresting his progress with an iron hand. He spoke softly but urgently into his walkie-talkie about a kid appearing out of nowhere.