Coach - Walt Sautter (book club suggestions txt) 📗

the team ya know. He’s a football player like us” I replied.
“Yeah, pretty good too!” came from Boogie in the back seat.
“You know the black halfback from Waring, he’s probably gonna be better than him before he’s done” chimed in Tojo.
“How come I aint never seen him play?” asked Flash.
“He’s only a sophomore like us,” I answered knowing full well that was not the real reason.
Ricky had more talent than most all the starters on the team but of course, one major flaw - black skin. Coach never came right and said it but everybody knew that Ricky was never going to play any varsity football at Highburg. The only chance he had was if Coach absolutely needed his talent to finish an undefeated season. At this point it didn’t look as though that would happen. We had already won the first four games by thirty-five points and there were no really tough games on the horizon for the rest of the season.
I don’t think Coach’s unwillingness to play Ricky came from bigotry, not his own personal bigotry anyway. It came from Highburg itself. He probably felt that the town would be affronted by the presence of a black player on the Highburg football team despite his talent. There had never been one and Coach wasn’t going to be the first to have one. Looking back, he probably assessed the town’s mentality exactly right.
“Well, okay but when we come back to town he’s gotta slide down so everybody don’t see him when we go down Main Street” demanded Flash.
So off we went towards Henderson at a snail’s pace with the engine revving in second gear all the way. We finally arrived at Ricky’s house and Flash blew the horn. Ricky emerged from the house, donning his well worn, brown and orange, Cleveland Browns hat. That hat was part of him, part of his persona. He wore it religiously, as a visible tribute to Jim Brown, his black hero. He had followed his career right from its beginnings at Syracuse, on through to the pros at Cleveland.
He knew everything about Jim Brown and the Cleveland Browns right down to their shoes sizes. When the Browns played on TV the telephone was off the hook at Ricky’s house. He sat transfixed by every play, especially when Jim had the ball. Whenever they played I knew the conversation of the following day. We would meet by our lockers and pull the required books and papers needed for the school day.
He would immediately start with “Did ya see the game?”
Then, with total disregard of my reply, he would begin a blow-by-blow description of every last detail of the entire event. Nothing was ever left out, not a single, minute happening.
He wasn’t the best student at Highburg High, far from it and I was always amazed by his powers of recall but only when it came to Cleveland Browns football. For that, his memory paralleled Univac. His narration of the game rivaled that of a Movietone newsreel. His banter ceased as we entered the first class of the day and then continued between classes, during lunch and until he related the recap of the final play.
Ricky slid into the back seat with Tojo and Boogie and we ground our way, ever so slowly, back to town.
Up and down Main Street we rode, over and over, looking for excitement. Every time we passed the other hang arounds in front of Snookie’s and Jack’s, Ricky crouched down as he was instructed while the rest of us endured their shouted jeers for riding with the Flasher. All of us, as if in one coordinated motion then, flipped them the finger as we rolled by.
“You know I’m getting’ sick of this shit!” Ricky suddenly announced from the rear seat.
“This is boring as shit!
Let’s have some real fun!”
“Like what?” I replied
“Nothings goin’ on, nowhere” I added.
“Tonight’s Mischief Night and we aint done no mischief at all” he replied.
“Like what kind of mischief do you want?
Knockin’ over a couple of garbage cans or pushin’ over Old Pete Pouter’s outhouse again? That aint no fun anymore. We already done that kinda shit last year and the year before that and the year before that” said Boogie in a resigned voice.
“Yeah” added Tojo.
“Same old bullshit. Count me out”.
There was a long silence in the car as we continued our creep down Main Street.
“I got a great idea!
Let’s go up to Coach’s house and soap up his windows. I bet nobody’s ever done nothin’ to Coach’s, ever on Mischief Night!” suggested Ricky excitedly.
There was another long pause. It was as if he had proposed another assassination of Caesar.
“Are you fuckin’ crazy?” blurted Boogie.
“What if we got caught?
No tellin’ what would happen”.
Silence again.
“I don’t think I’m in for that,” announced Tojo.
“Me neither” added Boogie.
“Pussies!” shouted Ricky.
“You’re all bitchin’ about nothin’ to do and I come up with this great fun idea and you guys chicken out right away.
Pussies” shouted Ricky again.
“Maybe we’re pussies but we aint crazy. If you guys are really gonna do it, drop me off by Jack’s” replied Tojo.
“Me too”, said Boogie.
After a brief quiet, “What about you?” Ricky said to me.
I knew the whole idea was probably foolish but what fun it would be to know that we had the guts to actually do it. If we did it, Coach would be pissed and probably address the team about it before the next practice. That would surely elevate our reputation to “the kids with the biggest balls in town”. This could be an opportunity to earn the respect and deference of all our peers in Highburg.
“Yeah! Count me in Ricky. I’m no pussy,” I said as I turned towards the back seat and looked straight at Boogie and Tojo.
“Flash, will you drop these two pussies off and drive Ricky and me up by Coach’s house?” I added emphatically.
“Sure, but I aint waitin’ for you guys. You’ll have to walk back!” he replied.
With that, we dropped off Boogie and Tojo at Jack’s and then stopped at Pete’s Minimart to pick up the soap. Ricky emerged with the soap and a half dozen eggs too just in case we got really gutsy.
We drove to Coach’s house at the outskirts of town. Flash parked about two hundred yards down the road from the driveway. He wanted to be sure no one spotted him and linked him to the travesty that was about to occur.
“Don’t you guys ever tell nobody that I drove you up here, ya know what I mean” he said as Ricky and I exited the car.
“Never” I replied.
We stealthily crept back up the road towards the driveway as Flash’s taillights receded into the darkness. We moved across the lawn to the side of the building being careful to stay in the shadows cast by the tall pine trees in the moonlight. The house was in complete blackness save the light emanating from one, rear basement window.
“Beautiful, nobody home.
We can probably get every window in the house,” Ricky whispered.
We both pulled the bars of soap from our pockets and tiptoed towards Coach’s house. Halfway there, we suddenly heard muffled voices come from the lighted basement window.
We stopped cold in our tracks. We stood as frozen statues as the sounds continued.
Ricky silently pointed to the source and then slowly stooped down on all fours. I followed and we both inched up to the window with excited curiously. By the time we got there we were on our bellies pulling ourselves along the ground with elbows and knees army style.
The pane was almost completely frosted with the evening dew however a small portion in the lower left corner remained clear.
Ricky peered through in. Within seconds he recoiled with a look of horror and slowly rolled to the side of the window opening.
“Holy fuckin’ shit” he mouthed and point to the small transparent opening through which he had been looking.
“Look” he mouth again excitedly waving.
I crawl over and peeked in, excited as to what I might see. After a few seconds, I too recoiled from my viewing point and moved to the other side of the window. I looked at Ricky, with my mouth hung open, unable to speak.
Ricky then moved back to the window for one last look, probably to reconfirm for himself, what we had just seen.
I motioned to him as he pulled away from the opening for a second time and we both crawled back into shadows of the pines. Once there, we arose and carefully walked back across Coach’s lawn and back to the road.
For the first few hundred yards of the journey back to town we said nothing. We walked solemn and mute.
Suddenly, the sound of an approaching car came from behind. Instinctively, we both ran into the brush adjacent to the road and crouched down.
It was a fifty-five Ford. It was hard to be sure but it looked to be a red and white two tone in the dim moonlight. We could hear the pop pop pop of the glass pack muffler as it coasted down the hill passed us.
We turned and looked at each other as we emerged from our roadside hiding.
“Howie!” I said.
“Sure be” replied Ricky.
“Man, I can’t believe what we just saw” I said.
“Me neither.”
“What are we going to do?” I asked hesitating.
“I’m not doin’ nothin’. I’m just pretending that I never saw shit,” Ricky answered.
We continued our two-mile walk towards town.
The night quiet was again broken by the sound of an on coming car. We immediately recognized it with its broken left headlight and loud muffler. It was Moose.
He pulled over ahead of us, rolled down the window and tapped the horn.
“What are you guys doin’ out here?” he yelled.
“Come on! Get in!”
“Hey Moose, we thought your leg was all fucked up” I said as we opened the passenger door. Ricky jumped in the back seat; I slid in the front and pulled the door closed.
“Yeah, it is” he replied.
“But I can still work the gas with my toes. Aint easy but I can do it” and with that he pressed unevenly on the accelerator. The car bucked forward and off we rode.
“So what are you guys doin’ out here?” Moose repeated.
“Nothin’” I exclaimed.
“Nothin’? You walked all the way out here to do nothin’?”
“You know Harry Raines. Somebody said that he hid a case of beer out here by Shady Road and we came out looking’ for it” came Ricky’s replied from the back seat.
“Aint never heard of any Harry Raines,” answered Moose.
“He’s from Henderson. He’s a friend of mine” Ricky responded instantly.
“I don’t see it. Ya didn’t find it?” said Moose.
“No we didn’t. Guess he was just bustin’ balls” Ricky answered.
“I might be doin’ some bustin’ on his face when I see him again” he added emphatically, attempting to make his story even more convincing.
I sat silently, amazed at Ricky’s impromptu. It was a pretty weak story but it certainly seemed to satisfy Moose’s curiosity and that was what counted.
Moose dropped us off at Snookie’s. I exited the car with a sigh of relief. Not only had Moose’s inquisitiveness been erased but also we had arrived back at town safely in spite of his severely limited, broken leg driving skills.
We stood out front and again spied Flash snailing towards us. We flagged him down; eager for the chance to allay any interest he might have in our episode at Coach’s.
“Well boys, how did it go?” he queried.
“Not that good”