LORENZE Wilder stood by the stadium seats, leaning on the chain-link fence, watching the kids practicing while his hand dipped into a bag of french fries doused in ketchup. He shoved a handful of fries into his mouth and licked ketchup off his fingers. He hadn’t thought to get some napkins from the Chinese chicken house he’d stopped into up on the strip. Cheap-ass slope who owned the shop, he was probably hiding the napkins in the back anyhow.
Wilder nodded to one of the parents of the kids who was seated nearby. Man barely gave him the time of day, just a kind of chill-over with his eyes. One of those bourgeois brothers, Wilder guessed, thought he was somethin’ with his low-grade government job. Maybe he didn’t like Wilder’s T-shirt, had a big picture of a marijuana leaf on the front. Didn’t like him wearing it in front of all these kids. Well, fuck him, too.
The coaches were working these boys tonight. That whiteboy coach they had, he had set up three of those orange cones road crews used in the center of the field. The kids were running to the cones, and the white boy had the pigskin, and he was shouting “Right” or “Left,” and the kid would cut that way without looking over his shoulder and get the pass from that coach. The pass would always be there, on the money. Wilder had to admit, the white boy had an arm on him, but he should’ve thrown it much harder, taught those boys what it was like to feel the sting of a bullet-ball. That’s what Wilder would do if he was the coach. He wouldn’t mind getting out there himself, show them all how it was done.
The one named Strange was out there, talking to another coach, a brother with a gray mustache who looked even older than him. Wilder didn’t care much for this Strange, who he could tell didn’t want him hangin’ around his little nephew, Joe. First time they’d met, Strange had given him one of those chill-looks, too.
Now the kids were being told to come in and take a knee. It had gotten near to dark, and Lorenze Wilder guessed the practice was coming to an end. Wilder had brought his car with him tonight. He wasn’t gonna let Strange talk him out of spending time with his nephew. Joe was his own kin, after all. And Lorenze Wilder needed to speak to him about something important. He’d been looking to get up with the little man on it for a long time.
CHARLES White sat in the backseat of the Plymouth and watched Garfield Potter return from the fence bordering Roosevelt’s stadium. In the passenger seat, Carlton Little ate a Quarter Pounder, his eyes closed as he chewed. He had made them stop at the McDonald’s near Howard before doubling back up here to the high school. Little always got hungry behind the herb.
Potter crossed the lot slow, putting a down-dip to his walk, a kind of stretched-back grin spreading on his face. The things that made Potter smile were not the things that made other people smile, and White felt a tightening in his chest.
Potter leaned into Charles White’s open window.
“You drivin’, Coon. Get out and take the wheel. Roll over to Iowa and park on the street. We’ll wait there for him to pull out.”
“Wilder’s here?” said Little, looking up from his meal.
“Yeah,” said Potter. “And we gonna dead this motherfucker tonight.”
STRANGE gave his usual closing talk to the Midgets and Pee Wees, and answered their questions patiently. Then he asked them for the starting time of the next practice, on Wednesday night.
“Six o’clock on the dot, be there, don’t miss it!”
“See you then,” said Strange. “Those of you on your bikes, get home now. If you’re waitin’ on a ride from one of the coaches or parents, you wait over there by the stands, or at the parking lot if you know the car.”
Strange looked over to the stands, saw the parents and guardians grouped together, waiting for their kids and for those who were not theirs but who depended on them for a lift home. He noticed Joe Wilder’s no-account uncle standing apart from the rest, leaning on the fence, a brown bag of trash at his feet. He probably just dropped it there, thought Strange. Wouldn’t think to move a few feet and throw it in a can.
Prince and Joe Wilder were walking together toward the stands.
“Prince! Joe! Y’all wait for me, hear?”
Joe Wilder turned his head, made a small wave back to Strange, and kept walking. Strange could see the boy’s eyes blink under his helmet as he took out his mouthguard and fitted it in the helmet’s cage. He was holding one of those wrestling figures of his tight in his hand.
If Lionel or Lamar were there, he’d tell them to go ahead and get up with the boys, make sure they waited up by his car. But Lamar was baby-sitting his little sister, and Lionel had stayed home to catch up on his schoolwork.
“Derek,” said Lydell Blue, coming up beside him and startling him with his voice. “Can I talk to you a minute? Need some advice on what to do with my offensive line. I mean, they did nothin’ on Saturday. You and Terry been handlin’ yours pretty well.”
“I can’t talk long,” said Strange.
“This won’t take but a minute,” said Blue.
Some of the boys had stayed on the field and were throwing long passes, tackling one another, clowning around. Strange glanced over at Arrington and Quinn, who were gathering up the equipment on the far sideline.
“All right,” said Strange, “but let’s make it quick. I gotta get these boys back in their homes.”
JOE Wilder saw his uncle Lorenze standing by the fence as he neared the stands. Joe’s mom was mad at his uncle or something, and Joe hadn’t seen him around the apartment for quite some time.
“Little man,” said Lorenze.
“Hey, Uncle Lo,” said Joe with a smile.
“How you been doin’? You lookin’ strong out there, Hoss.”
“I been doin’ all right.”
“I got my car. C’mon, boy, I’ll drive you home tonight.”
“Thanks, but I was gonna ride with Coach Derek.”
“You like ice cream, don’t ya?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, c’mon, then. We’ll grab a cone or a cup or somethin’, and then I’ll run you home.”
“I like ithe cream,” said Prince.
“Sorry, youngun,” said Lorenze. “Only got enough to spring for me and my man here. Next time, okay?”
Joe Wilder looked back at Coach Strange, who was still on the field, talking with Coach Blue. His uncle seemed pretty nice. He wouldn’t let anything happen to him or nothin’ like that. And an ice cream sounded good.
“Tell Coach Derek I got a ride home with my uncle,” said Joe to Prince. “All right?”
“I’ll tell him,” said Prince.
Prince had a seat on the lowest aluminum bench in the stands and waited for Strange to finish what he was doing. Joe and his uncle climbed the concrete steps to the parking lot. The shadows of dusk faded as full dark fell upon the school grounds.
“THERE we go,” said Potter, looking through the windshield of the Plymouth from the passenger side. “There goes Wilder right there.”
Lorenze Wilder was letting a uniformed boy into the passenger side of his car. As he went around to the driver’s side, he looked around the parking lot, studying the cars.
Potter chuckled under his breath, then took a deep swig from a forty-ounce bottle of malt liquor. He slid the bottle back down between his legs.
“He got some kid with him,” said White. “That’s his nephew, right?”
“Whateva,” said Potter.
“Yo, turn that shit up, D,” said Little from the backseat. He was busy rolling a fat number, his hands deep in a Baggie of herb.
Potter turned up the volume on the radio.
“That’s my boy DJ Flexx right there,” said Little. “They moved him into Tigger’s spot.”
“Put this shits in gear, Coon,” said Potter. “They’re pullin’ out.”
“We gonna do this thing with that kid in the car?” said White.