Tom thought it over. “I can do that.”
“Good boy! Now, about Wallinger’s slot. How do you think Sigel will shape up?”
“Not as good as Tide, of course. But Sigel’s willing. He did okay in the first game and faded in the second. He was all right the few minutes he was in the last game.”
“Work with him, will you? This afternoon I’ll put you on your own, and give you Chalmers and Gorsek. You work with Sigel and see if you can teach him the knack of getting you through those two boys.”
Three hours later, Tom had Sigel, Chalmers and Gorsek over in the far corner of the number two practice field.
He spotted Chalmers and Gorsek fifteen yards away, about ten feet apart, and called out. “You guys try to nail me good. Charlie, you smell out which one to block and see if you can get me through.”
The first three times. Tom was nailed hard after ten steps, with Sigel either muffing the block, or throwing it on the wrong one.
The fourth time he got through He was running easily, leaving the burden on Charlie Sigel. They took a few breaks and kept it up until they were all bruised and panting.
Tom said, “You’re catching on. You’ve got to develop a sixth sense of knowing where I am without looking around. And you’ve got to stay close and yet give me room to cut around you. I’ll follow your lead as well as I can, and when you do let the block go, you’ve got to drop one man where he’ll be in the way of the other one. Get it?”
“I won’t ever have it as good as Tide did,” Sigel said.
Tom clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll get it down good enough so that we can bull off some yards, boy.”
That evening, after his rounds of the furnaces, he and Carol Ann were oddly uncomfortable with each other. Tommy was coughing badly in his sleep and that made them both nervous and irritable. Somebody three doors down was having a party, and the laughter was too loud, too artificial.
He was studying when she said, “I’m going for a walk, Tom.”
Before he could ask where, the door shut quietly behind her. He raised his eyebrows for a moment and then went back to the books.
The strangeness persisted between them on Tuesday, Wednesday — right up to Saturday morning. He had explained about his arrangement with Robertson. When he left, knowing that he wouldn’t see her again until after the game, he held her close and said, “Wish you could come see it, honey.”
“I’ll be there,” she said coolly. “Janet is coming in to watch Tommy. I wouldn’t miss your last amateur game for the world.”
“Please don’t act this way, honey.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Why, whatever are you talking about, Tom? Act what way?”
He turned and went blindly out, and after he had gone a half block, he wanted to hurry back and find some way to get through the odd wall that had been erected between them ever since the night when he had walked out in anger. But he told himself that all would be well when he had paid off the outstanding bills and they left the flimsy apartment behind them.
Just one more afternoon of ball-carrying for Carvel. It was odd. Always before, he’d been nervous as a girl on the morning before a game. This time he was apathetic about it.
Sigel had shaped up pretty well — and even if he hadn’t, what difference would it make? His mood was sour and he was tired before he started.
3
Sold-Out Thunder
His cleats rattled on the concrete as he ran up the steps with the squad and out onto the field. The roar hit them like a wave. Usually he was proud of the way they looked as they came swarming out. This time it didn’t seem to matter.
Southern Mines was already on the field. They gave the impression of width and heaviness, but he knew that their style of play was wide open.
He lined up with the first team in the T, directly behind Judge, the quarter. Judge stepped aside and he took the long pass from center, faked a handoff to Brugan, the man in motion, and then swarmed down into the hole off tackle, Sigel bursting through first.
He felt lazy and depressed and he was mildly amused by the on-your-toes look of the rest of the squad. He went out and called the flip right, chose to receive, and they trotted back to defend the north goal.
The ball came high and far, end over end. Joe Brugan took it on the three and one of the Southern Mines ends slipped away from Tom’s block, nailed Joe on the five.
Tom flushed and bounced up and down a few times, went back to the huddle. That had been played like a high-school sophomore.
Judge called for him to take it right through the middle on a straight line buck, taking it from Judge on the way past. He knew, even as he started, that he had taken a full stride before the ball was snapped. The horn sounded on the play before he hit the line.
The five-yard man-in-motion penalty put it back on the one-foot line, and Conway, the kicker, came in to replace Tom.
Robertson gave him an odd look. On the next play, Conway kicked nicely out of trouble, and the Mines safety man had to drop back to their forty. An end came in fast and outsmarted the safety man when he tried to circle out of trouble, nailing him on the thirty-five.
On the first play that Mines ran, their quarterback made a half spin and clumsily faked a handoff to the man in motion. That man made a slow awkward sweep around the left end of the Carvel line. The defense ignored him... but not for long. Just after he got outside the Carvel end, the little quarter, after faking to the other wingback, made a beautiful jump pass, directly into the arms of the man to whom he’d originally faked.
Two of the Carvel secondary were hit with driving blocks that took them out of the play as they tried to cut over and intercept the pass receiver. The safety man angled over to force the runner over the sideline.
But the man didn’t force; he changed direction with a dazzling change of pace, and trotted unmolested over the Carvel goal.
The Carvel rooters sat in stunned silence and the Mines band blared in triumph as their men came trotting back up the field for the second kickoff.
Robertson sent Tom back in. The kickoff came to him. He pulled it out of the air, charged straight ahead. Just as a tackier drove at him, he turned and flipped the short lateral back to Brugan running on his flank.
Brugan got his hands on it, but the ball came alive. Brugan, running, tried to hang on and failed. The tackle tore it out of his hands and Mines recovered on the Carvel eighteen.
Eight men of the defensive team went in, but Tom stayed where he was. Their right wingback took it from the quarter at the end of a full spinner, faked a jump pass, and went through a hole in the right side of the Carvel line. Tom slammed him down after a six-yard gain.
They lined up fast, and got three more on a quarterback sneak. On a straight line plunge, their big fullback barely made the necessary yardage for a first down on the seven and a half.
On the next play, Tom went high and batted down a lazy looping pass intended for a man in the end zone.
On the next play, a whole host of them swept the left end. Sigel missed his shot at the ball carrier. The carrier, trapped, went all the way back to the fifteen. The crowd noise was a constant scream. Back on the fifteen, the man ran the width of the field and was trapped again. He reversed his field, ran back to the twenty, stopped, and threw a long pass to an end who stood all alone in the far corner of the end zone. The man caught it neatly. Tom drove hard and opened a hole through which Sigel went to block the conversion attempt.
Carol Ann sat high among the crowd on the Carvel side at about the forty-yard line and felt sick at heart.
Near her she heard a man say, “What the hell’s wrong with Lamar? He acts as though he did a little celebrating last night.”