John D. MacDonald
Runaway Cleats
Gavis took it on the eight and got just over the twenty before he was dumped. On the first play, running from the T. Shelevat went wide on a naked reverse. I had plowed deep and come up in their backfield, but I was too far off the play for anybody to bother with a block.
It looked good for at least five. Maybe more. But a wide little chunk of meat traveling at terminal velocity hit Skimmer Shelevat across the thighs in the process of nearly tearing him apart, drove him back inside the twenty.
The wide little chunk of meat, Ferris Gallahan — Sir Gallahan — bounced up and yelled to Big Hunk, “You like that?”
Big Hunk, the assistant line coach, was carrying the whistle on the scrimmage. He had a sour, amused look on his wide face.
“You’re wonderful, kid!” he said.
Shelevat bounced a few times to make sure he still had legs. He towered over Sir Gallahan. He spat, looked down at Gallahan, and said, “What was that school again, kid?”
“Yohannus College.”
As always, it got a laugh. And, as always Sir Gallahan looked bothered by the laugh.
Mike Kaydee, the head coach, was sitting across the field on top of the sound truck, the hand-mike in his hand. “Get rolling out there!” the metallic voice bawled.
The next play looked like the same thing. When you play two seasons of big time football, you begin to smell out the plays. Once again I found my way under the line and popped up out of the play. I saw right away that it was an old game called suckalong.
Sir Gallahan came in fast as before. Maybe faster. And when Skimmer went up for the jump-pass into the flat, Sir Gallahan didn’t horse around with tackling him. He went right up too, a beefy elbow tickling Shimmer under the chin as the outstretched fingers of his hand tipped the pass straight up into the air.
Gallahan came down on his feet and moved under the pass, and the jarring tackle that Nick Toroki handed him didn’t loosen the ball a bit. Sir Gallahan had it. He jumped up and yelped, “We did it that way at Yohannus.”
It didn’t get much of a laugh.
Too many guys were hot after their positions on that fourth day of September. As you well know, Karr Tech always puts a team on the field. A very loyal alumni group keeps the talent rolling in. Mike Kaydee turns out tough, smart teams, and each year there are always a dozen ex-high school team captains on the freshman squad.
It was my senior year, and no different from the others. First comes spring practice, and then the pre-season warm-up. Each year the forty top boys go to the estate of Homer Winkledine. He played guard for Karr back in the days of the flying wedge. His estate is set in beautiful country, and there is a special wing big enough to handle the whole forty and the coaching staff — all except Mike Kaydee who stays over in the main part of the house.
The remaining eighty or so hopefuls turn out for the first practice sessions back at the school after registration. Sometimes before scheduled toughies, Kaydee will set up a secret practice session at Winkledine’s place.
We all knew how come Sir Gallahan was with us. He was a transfer from Yohannus College somewhere out in the wilds where, during his sophomore year, he had captained the stalwart Yohannus eleven. One of the biggest contributors to the alumni fund had talked him into the transfer and had let Mike Kaydee know that it was give Gallahan a king-size break, or else...
And thirty-nine of us were wishing Mike had taken the “or else.”
I had arrived, drawn my room, gone up and found him sitting on the bed. He was a kid with a face like one of those brown rocks you find in New England fields, with a pair of perpetually surprised-looking blue eyes stuck into it.
“Jeez!” he said when I walked in. “Why, you’re Ed Stumpke! All-American! Jeez!”
“You’ve been reading my scrapbooks,” I said, tossing my bag onto a bench.
“Yeah, I keep one too. But of course, you never heard of I’m Ferris Gallahan from Yohannus.”
“You’re what from what?”
“They call me Sir Gallahan,” he said hopefully.
“Oh, sure. Sir Gallahan from Yohannus,” I said. I can go along with a gag. I looked him over. “Back?”
“Oh, I play any position. I played ’em all with Yohannus.”
It was hard to keep from laughing at the kid. And yet there was something almost pitiful about him. I hadn’t seen a wide-eyed look like that in years. I noticed he had a funny build. Wide as a barn door and about the height of a hydrant. And no waist. Just meat. Beefed to the heels is a good expression.
“Gosh,” he said. “I never thought I’d be rooming with the great Ed Stumpke.”
I straightened up from the bag I was unpacking and looked at him. It if turned out that it was a gag, I was going to learn him some manners. But it wasn’t. Those sappy words were dished right out of his little soul.
I grinned at him. “Kid, it’s awful hot and old Mike Kaydee is going to melt some of that baby fat right off you.”
His face fell. “Oh, I’m in good shape. I’m in better shape than you are. You puffed a little after coming up the stairs.” He jumped up, spread his arms out and said, “Go ahead, Ed. Hit me in the gut. Hard as you can.”
I shouldn’t have done it. He had made me sore and even so, I pulled the punch a little. But I know how to pivot and get my back into it. It was exactly like hitting the shoulder of a side of beef. Smack! It didn’t even put a trace of a crimp in his smile.
“See?” he said. “I bet you wouldn’t let me do that to you.”
I held my arms out and shut my teeth hard. He had to look up at me a little. My heels lifted off the floor and came down again. Little yellow pinwheels were bouncing off the backs of my eyeballs. I walked over calmly and stretched out on the bed. Then I tried to breathe. It sounded like the last bit of water running down a drain.
“See?” he said. “Condition is everything. The coach was very firm about that at Yohannus.”
During the first couple of days of push-ups and trotting around, Mike Kaydee had the look of a cat after a canary sandwich. He knew he had something. With his backfield of Blair, Toroki, Gavis and Shelevat on offense — and with Jak, Silberson, Gestrey and Raegen on defence, a very rough schedule began to look soft indeed.
I could tell that he was itching to throw us at each other. Mike Kaydee is a firm believer that there is no way to get in shape for football like playing football. He was willing to risk pre-season injuries in order to find out for sure that the stuff was good, and nobody had faded too badly.
Raegen, the defensive left wing, had sprained an ankle during the summer. He said it was okay, but Johnny Jerome, the trainer, didn’t like the look of it. And that was why, during the first scrimmage of the practice session, Sir Gallahan was in there.
But after the first couple of days, he was far from unknown. The boys were fed to the teeth with his big talk about Yohannus. He wasn’t a bad little guy, but be talked too much. And he let it be known at meals, in the showers, and everywhere else that he was one hell of a fine football player. At any position.
But every squad needs a fall guy. Sir Gallahan elected himself to the position.
However, I couldn’t help but feel there was something just a little phoney about him. It didn’t seem possible that he could have lived so long and stayed so green.
It noted, however, that he worked hard.
Now we were all beginning to wonder if maybe Sir Gallahan had some stuff after all.
When we grabbed the ball — or Gallahan grabbed it — old Mike raised hell with the offensive backfield, and sent us trotting down the field to kick off again.
Gavis took it, flipped it back to Toroki, and they formed fast. I was angling over and didn’t quite step clear of a good block. As I scrambled up, I saw Gallahan go in hard, and get bounced on his can while Toroki stepped around him. Silberson finally knifed through and nailed Toroki on the forty.