The Subprimes (13 page)

ABOUT A BLOCK UP ILIFF,
we come upon something remarkable: a half-dozen boys between the ages of eight and puberty, playing a game of football over two stretches of lawn bisected by a driveway. They are playing three-on-three, a self-hiking quarterback
and two receivers versus a rusher, who is counting—and I love this—in Mississippis, and two pass defenders. The game bears no resemblance to the football played on television or the Gruden NFL computer game. This is padless, helmetless, in flat-soled sneakers on patchy grass, and it is beautiful. They are tackling each other on the hard earth, wrapping each other and collapsing to the ground in piles of boys. How many hours had I spent playing like this? One end zone a driveway, the other a flower bed. This feels like time travel. I look at Ronin. He seems fascinated by the game, by kids playing a game in their own front yard. It is something he has not seen before, not in our neighborhood, where children are driven to and from games and practices in armored vehicles.

“What are they doing?” he asks.

“They're playing football.”

“Where are the uniforms? The, you know, helmets and stuff?”

I tell him that you can play football in whatever you are wearing. You just need a ball.

One of the boys, tall with black hair that falls to his eyes, completes a long pass to a teammate, who runs through the driveway for a touchdown and then is tackled by his opponent anyway.

“Let's play,” I say.

Ronin shakes his head. “That would be weird.”

“Come on,” I say. “There's two of us. It'll be even.”

“Dad, come on, don't—”

Maybe it's because I'm still stoned, but I step out onto the lawn and ask if we can join. “One and one?”

The boys look at each other and shrug. How weird is this? I'm having trouble figuring that out, but I realize I'm going to have to ignore my perceptions of any reactions to my weirdness and just have fun. As soon as I pick up the football, I feel better. I toss it to Ronin, who drops it.

“Hey, Ronin,” says the dark-haired boy who threw the touchdown pass.

“You two know each other?” I ask.

Ronin nods.

Two of the other boys whisper something to each other, and I believe I hear the word “Freaks” hissed in their exchange, but I choose to ignore it.

“Okay, Ronin, you play with them”—I point to the dark-haired player's team—“and I'll play with these guys.”

I receive the punt to start the game, and I hand it to one of the boys on our team and he runs alongside some ice plants before being shoved into the patch of dirt around a lemon tree. We huddle up. The biggest boy on my team is named Martin, and he is the quarterback. The other two, the two who were whispering about Ronin, are named Brian and something that sounds like Fizz. Martin gives us each a pattern. Brian and Fizz are going to run a crossing pattern, I'm to go deep. We break and I look over at Ronin, standing with his hands in his pockets at the line of scrimmage, looking down at the grass. I want him to be more engaged, to be in an aggressive-looking crouch like the other defenders, or with a knee-forward, legs-bent stance like the pass rusher, but his body language is of total indifference.

“Come on, Rone. Ready?” I say.

He shrugs.

“Hut, hut, hike!” Martin fades back, the two boys run their crossing pattern, and I begin to lope downfield, looking back for the ball, which is on me surprisingly quickly. The kid has a good arm. I catch it, and take a few slow steps, not wanting to take too much advantage of my size, when I am gang-tackled by three defenders—they are fast little fuckers—and the collective weight of them collapses me and I feel for a moment like I am going to vomit. For good measure, Ronin jogs over and jumps on the pile
as well, and I feel a sharp cramp running down my side. I should have stretched.

I shake it off and get up.

“Yeah!” I lateral the ball back to the center of the field.

We line up and complete another pass.

Every time I catch the ball, I am gang-tackled, at first by the defense but eventually by everybody. The biggest of these kids must weigh over 120 pounds, and they have heads, elbows, and knees sharp as spikes. I'm sore and bruised, my legs ache, and I feel cramps in places I didn't even know I had. But I keep bouncing up. The kids are giggling and laughing.

“Throw it to him again!” the defense is shouting.

“No, no, no,” I beg.

And sure enough, Martin tosses me another one and they gang-tackle me again. It is play that is right on the verge of pure and simple violence, just the way boys like it, and it is infectious enough that even though I am getting brutalized, I keep playing.

More important, Ronin has lost himself in our game, chasing me down and jumping on me along with the other boys with a ferocity and thoughtlessness that I find beautiful and reassuring.

When I am tackled again, I stand up, panting, my jeans and sweatshirt grass- and mud-stained. I'm sweating, and my jaw is throbbing and seems to have lost some mobility.

“Again!” the boys shout.

“No, no, no, someone else,” I gasp.

The sky beyond the gray shingled roofs has turned barbecue orange, a cowlick swirl of pinkish clouds rising up into the darkening sky. The receding light leaves behind darker grass, green going blue in the shadows, and the cars driving by beam cones of white light up the narrow, cracked street.

Oh, how I loved playing in the twilight, those last moments of a street football or driveway basketball game before my mother
would call me in for the night. And when it was finally so dark we could barely see, then it was “next touchdown wins” or “first to five,” this fleeting game suddenly taking on the timed intensity of more organized sports.

We line up again. Now I am defending. The tall boy completes a pass to Ronin. I chase him down, tackle him, and the rest of the boys predictably pile on again. We rouse, dust ourselves off, and then repeat the sequence—vicious tackling, shouts of anguish, screams and giggles, and then another play.

We score hundreds of touchdowns. We gain thousands of yards. We break every passing record.

Finally, when it is so dark we can barely see and house lights have come on up and down Iliff, I call out, “Next touchdown wins.”

We are defending. The tall boy completes another pass. I tackle the receiver. We are swarmed with boys. I manage to wriggle free from the pile, then launch myself back into it, driving the crown of my head into another boy's butt and squirming between the boys.

And then the scene is bathed in blue and red light, and I hear an echoed, amplified voice through a loudspeaker, ordering, “Stand up and move away from the children.”

The kids are still wriggling, not understanding that we are no longer having fun, and even after I extricate myself from the pile, two of the smaller kids keep charging at me and grabbing my legs.

“No, no,” I say and shoo them away.

Through the glare of lights, I can see that a squad car is parked diagonally in the street, blocking traffic. Both the passenger's-and driver's-side doors swing open and two officers walk toward the lawn.

“Are those lights really necessary?” I ask, and I turn to Ronin. “Come here.”

“Sir!” shouts one of the officers. “No contact with the children!”

“What's going on?”

The garish flickering of the lights strobes the whole neighborhood, so that trees and bushes and other cars turn shades of pink and blue.

“We've received reports of inappropriate adult-child interaction,” one officer says. “Several calls.”

“Adult-child interaction? We're playing football.”

“Sir, NO CONTACT WITH THE CHILDREN.”

By now I can see men and women, and a few kids, standing on front porches, or through opened front doors, watching us.

“The Two-Adult Rule,” the officer says, “is that you are to avoid situations where you are alone with a child, or children.”

“It's football,” I say. “Tackle football? With my son?”

“Football?” the officer says. “Without safety equipment? Helmets? Pads?”

“What the fuck? Nobody's hurt.”

I turn to the boys, who are now standing, the ball at their feet, unsure of what exactly is going on. I can tell they are suddenly wondering if they have been playing football with a criminal. “Guys,” I say, “tell them what we were doing.”

The officer steps forward. I can finally see him fully in the glare of the backlight. He is Hispanic, with a mustache that stops at the lip line and acne scars up both cheeks. “Sir, one more attempt to make contact with the minors and we will detain you. Any additional use of profanity, and we will detain you.”

I read the officer's shield, Hidalgo, and below that the gold Los Angeles City Hall logo set amid silver rays with the City of Los Angeles seal centered. On his shoulders are his chevrons, and below that, advertisement patches for Über Justice, Dodge Ram Trucks, and Discover Card Bail Bonds Inc., with phone
numbers highly visible. The other officer, Voshkov, comes around. He is clean shaven and wears a policeman's cap. Both men wear radio headsets—like Ronin's teachers wear. “Let's see some ID.”

I remove my wallet and hand him my driver's license. He studies it.

“We were walking home and saw some kids playing and we joined in. Nothing strange about that.”

“You were walking home? Who
walks
? Do you walk, Officer Voshkov?”

Officer Voshkov smirks. “Negative.”

“So you were
walking
, and you joined in?” says Officer Hidalgo.

“Yeah, we started playing football.”

“Why would you join a kids' football game?” He turns to Voshkov. “Would you join a kids' football game, Officer Voshkov?”

“No, I would not.”

“Would you stop and inappropriately interact with minors without the presence of another adult, potentially endangering them?”

“That would be a huge blinking red light saying ‘Negative!'”

“I agree, Officer Voshkov. Yet that's precisely what Mr.”—he takes my license from Officer Voshkov—“Mr. Schwab here decided to do.”

“Bad call.” Voshkov nods.

Some of the boys' parents have come to collect their children. I cannot see clearly because of the glare, but I imagine I see suspicion, fear, concern. There will be careful, measured talks, asking about any unusual touching, about whose idea it was to play tackle, about whether the adult seemed in any way overly enthusiastic about the game.

And I can see the boys gazing back at me, and I hear one of them shout, “It was only a game!” before he is shushed by a parent.

Officer Voshkov takes down the contact information of the parents.

A line of four cars has already formed behind the diagonally parked police cruiser.

The officers either do not notice or do not care about blocking the street.

“Mr. Schwab, please step over to the vehicle.”

“This is ridiculous. Nobody saw anything wrong. Or weird.”

“We are responding to a complaint,” Officer Hidalgo says. “Now, if you'll step over to the car, we can run your license.”

“Complaint about what?”

“Child endangerment. Inappropriate interaction with minors. This is—”

“I was playing
football
!”

“So you have said, repeatedly. But complainant mentioned a middle-aged man rolling on the ground with minors. Complainant reported grabbing and fondling. Complainant reported crying and screaming.”

“Didn't you ever play football?”

“Not with children. Not without proper safety equipment. Just come over to the vehicle,” Officer Hidalgo urges.

I follow him to the car. Ronin is now standing by himself; the boys we were playing football with have left with their parents. He looks small and confused, his pale flesh alternately glowing red and then blue.

“This is just going to take a minute,” I shout to him.

I've managed yet again to embarrass my son.

Hidalgo sits down in the cruiser and swipes my license.

“Okay, no outstandings. And your credit score is very good. We don't get many 750-pluses. You are preapproved for an LAPD-branded credit/debit card. You can earn points that can be redeemed to remove traffic violations from your record.”

I shake my head.

“No?” Officer Hidalgo says. “You sure? Okay, Mr. Schwab. I'm writing a summons. It's a nuisance citation for reckless endangerment of a minor.” He reaches over and switches off the flashers.

He is writing out the ticket.

There is a website I am to go to to find my court date. The range of possible fines starts at $750.

“Are you kidding? Seven hundred and fifty dollars? For playing with kids?”

“Don't play with kids.”

“Ronin, come on.”

Ronin is silent. He trails a little behind and to the right of me on the sidewalk as we climb Iliff. His hands are stuffed in his hoodie pockets, he looks down at his feet as he walks.

“Wow, that was crazy,” I say.

Ronin says nothing.

“I mean, have you ever seen that?”

I hear Ronin stop behind me. I turn.

He is crying. “DO YOU KNOW H-H-H-HOW EMB-B-B-BARRASSING THAT WAS?” He screams through his tears. “WHY DID WE HAVE T-T-TO STOP? WHY?”

I reach out to him. He backs away.

“TO PLAY FOOTBALL? EVEN THAT WAS WEIRD. NOBODY'S DAD JUST WALKS AROUND AND PLAYS FOOTBALL WITH, LIKE, JUST KIDS HE SEES IN THE STREET.”

I shake my head.

“WHY ARE YOU SUCH A LAME DAD?” he says. “I WISH YOU WEREN'T MY FATHER.”

“Come on, Rone,” I say. “I thought it would be fun. And it was, right? For a while?”

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT EVERYONE IS GOING TO SAY? MY DAD IS A CHILD MOLESTER. MY DAD IS A FREAK. JUST LIKE ME.”

“What?” I shake my head. “No, this, this wasn't, like, your thing, this was just playing football, and then they saw it the wrong way. This isn't, like, your—”