“Save it for after the game,” Tyler says without looking at us as he heads into school. “Give him some incentive to win.”
“We’re all going out to Harmon Lake tonight,” Tammy says with all the excitement of a sloth. “Bonfire.”
Ali smiles up at me, fresh as a newly tilled field. I trail my fingers down the red and black ribbons dangling from her braids and I have to believe all of this is going to work out.
If the Devil is real, then so is God.
And I have to believe he’s watching out for us.
51
THE STADIUM is packed. I don’t have to see it. I can feel it. The thunderous roar of boots stomping the bleachers in time with the marching band. The hum of the Jumbotron leaking through the thick concrete walls.
Some of the guys are praying. Some are taking it out on their lockers. I like to sit real quiet, study the playbook—clear my mind of any distractions. Before, it was simple worries like passing my trig exam or wondering if Ali liked me, not worrying if the Devil is coming to town for world domination. But worrying’s not going to help anybody. Miss Granger is doing her part. I have to do mine. She told me to win this game and that’s exactly what I intend to do. And the truth is, I want to win. I want to feel something other than pain and confusion and loss and madness. This is something I know how to do. I can run a play. I can throw a ball. I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow, if there’ll even be a tomorrow, but this moment is mine and mine alone.
Eddie Landers comes by, giving me a thumbs-up. I know there was a lot of talk after my dad died, people saying I’d lost my arm. Lost my nerve. Sure, I’ve got something to prove, but it’s more than that. Football was always the one place I could let it all go. All I had to do was put that ball over the goal line. How I got it there was up to me. My call. My domain. My team. Some people might say quarterbacks have a God complex, but I don’t want to be God. I just want to feel connected to something bigger than myself. For one night, I don’t want to think about my dad or my family or Lee or Ali or the wheat or the Devil. All I want to do is play ball.
“You ready, Tate?” Coach’s hand comes down hard on my shoulder. “It’s showtime.”
He gathers us around to bend a knee.
“We’ve had a hell of a week—hell of a week!” he yells. “Lost one of our own. Tonight, you don’t play for your mama or your daddy or your girlfriends. You play for Big Ben. Ben Gillman. He loved this team more than anything in the world. He loved football. His funeral’s on Sunday at Newcomers. I expect all of you to be there and I expect to be burying him with the winning ball from tonight’s game. The winning ball! And we’ve got this. We got our captain back—the Tate-en-Nator. You listen to every goddamn word that comes out of his mouth out there. He knows how to bring home the W. And you know what happens if we win this?”
“Women!” one of the guys calls out. A low chuckle rumbles through the locker room.
“Well, yeah, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of that. Despite our checkered season”—everyone stares at Tyler—“you’ll have a chance at redemption. You’ll be heroes. Tonight’s not just any game. We’re playing our rivals, the Sooners. Whether they win or lose, they’re going to State, but we have the opportunity to show ’em what we’re made of. This is the real championship right here. There won’t be a trophy, there won’t be any rings…” I feel eyes on me from every direction. I know they all blame me for taking it away from them last year, when I lost it out on that field and nearly killed that kid. “But you’ll be able to hold your head high in this town for the rest of your lives. The Sooners want to take that away from you. But this is our turf. We need to show them how real men take land … by force, like our ancestors did before us.”
I almost burst out laughing. If they only knew.
“We’re faster, tougher, smarter … and we will take this field. We will take what’s ours! On three.”
“One, two, three.”
“Pioneers!”
We storm through the doors and onto the field.
The band strikes up our fight song, the rush of pom-poms, the roar of the crowd, the lights, the cameras. This is Oklahoma football. No fucking joke.
On instinct, I glance up at the stands to where my parents used to sit. Mr. and Mrs. Neely are there now, clapping and screaming with a crazed look in their eyes. I shake it off. Not now. I can’t let anything get in my way, get in my head.
The Sooners fans are booing us as we take the field.
As much as they want to see me fail, they’re looking for magic. They want to believe. They’re looking for salvation. Redemption. And if throwing a pigskin ball at fifty miles per hour like a spinning Scud missile precisely into the hands of your receiver isn’t magic … I don’t know what is.