Shots on Goal Read online

  “Big game today,” he says. “You guys need a win.”

  “We sure do,” I say.

  “Just get the ball to the man,” he says, winking at me. “Get the ball to the man.”

  The team is quiet warming up, but we seem more focused. We’ve got a lot to prove to ourselves. I haven’t heard one word from anybody about Joey’s tirade after the last game, but I know it’s on everybody’s mind.

  We’ve got four games left: Laurelton today and Midvale on Wednesday, then East Pocono and Greenfield the following week. We lose any one of them and we’re finished. Even a tie might put us out of the race.

  Joey is over on the sidelines with a ball, juggling and stretching. He hardly said anything on the way here. I tried a couple of times to get a conversation going, but he just mumbled and shrugged. The rest of us are shooting at Herbie, going two-on-one.

  It’s a sunny day, warm and breezy. We probably have the biggest crowd in Sturbridge soccer history, about two hundred people. Joey’s parents are here. Shannon and Eileen, too. Even Herbie’s parents.

  Coach calls us over. “New beginning,” he says. “Look inside yourselves, fellas. You can start fresh today or you can pack it in. It’s up to you.”

  We’re all quiet for a few seconds. “Anything to say?” Coach asks. “Joey?”

  Joey shakes his head.

  “Dusty?”

  “Just kick ass.”

  “Anybody else?”

  More quiet. Coach says, “Let’s go,” and we trot onto the field.

  Joey scores about three minutes into the game, taking a pass from Trunk, maintaining control of the ball as he fights through a pack of defenders, and driving it deep into the net. The crowd yells like crazy, but nobody on the field says much.

  Joey scores again midway through the second quarter, receiving a throw-in from Hernandez, sprinting toward the goal line, stopping short and pivoting as a defender overruns him, and bulleting it into the goal from twenty feet out.

  He makes it 3–0 just after halftime, intercepting a pass at midfield, going straight down the center, turning his back on a midfielder, then knocking the ball between the guy’s legs, recovering the ball, and simply outrunning that midfielder and a defender, heading straight toward the right corner of the goal but managing to drive the ball in the opposite direction, sending it cleanly into the upper left.

  The crowd goes wild. Joey keeps a stern expression on his face, not looking at any of us.

  Coach brings in some subs for the fourth quarter and puts me and Rico on the front line with Joey and Trunk. It’s my first chance to play forward this season.

  Late in the game Joey nearly scores again, sending a high, hard shot toward the upper right corner of the goal. Their goalie leaps and gets a hand on it, deflecting it over the crossbar.

  We set up for a corner kick; Trunk’s taking it. He lofts it in front of the goal, and everybody goes up for a header. One of their guys gets it, but he doesn’t hit it far and I get control near the top of the box. I take one step toward the goal, then slide it to my left, where Rico is open. He knocks it forward and gives a quick fake to his right. The goalie takes the fake, dodging in that same direction, and Rico kicks it past him into the goal.

  Rico throws both fists into the air and I run over and grab him around the waist, lifting him off the ground. We sprint back toward midfield, and Hernandez comes running up to meet us. It’s Rico’s first goal for this team.

  We’re back in a groove now, playing like champions. When the game ends Herbie takes his shirt off and twirls it around his head. We’re yelling and clapping and jumping up and down. Rico goes around slapping palms with everybody.

  Everybody but Joey, who walked off the field alone.

  Rico’s still flying, so psyched about scoring. He’s sitting on the bench in just his shorts, reliving the moment. Herbie’s on the floor with a can of Coke, leaning against his locker.

  “See, I gave him that little juke and he went for it,” Rico’s saying. “He left the whole side of the goal open for me.”

  “He got suckered,” Herbie says.

  “That’s what makes you so effective,” Rico says. “You never go for that first fake, Herbie.”

  I look over at Joey, standing by the door, already dressed to leave. I’m getting ready to give up on this guy if he’s going to keep being such a prick. He’s staring at us. I catch his eye.

  “Don’t get carried away,” he says.

  Rico frowns at him. “Get bent,” he says.

  “It was one win,” Joey says. “We got a long way to go before we’ve got a reason to celebrate.”

  “Oh, take a hike, Joey,” Herbie says. “You made your point last time. None of us is as committed as you are, none of us has any guts.”

  “It’s true,” Joey says.

  “Get a life.”

  “Got one.”

  “Do you?”

  “Better than yours.”

  “Is it?”

  Joey shakes his head. He calls Herbie a dirtbag.

  Herbie gives Joey a salute and says, “Yes, sir, General.”

  Joey salutes back, but with just one finger. Then he pushes open the door and leaves the room.

  Herbie turns to Rico. “What a jackass,” he says. And they both crack up. I laugh, too, but not as hard as they do.

  18

  THE OCTOBERFEST

  The guests are fashionably late in arriving, but by 6:50 all seven of us are present. I’ve got the gas grill going on the patio and we’re sitting at the kitchen table munching olives and chicken wings and drinking lemonade spiked with vodka.

  Joey keeps saying how tired he is, reminding us that he worked late last night and ran his ass off in the game today. Plus he has to be in by midnight because his parents are concerned about a bad grade in algebra.

  I get up and take the plate of steaks out of the refrigerator. I had them marinating in soy sauce and parsley. “How does everybody want these?” I ask.

  Everybody says medium except Herbie, who wants his extra well done.

  “You might as well eat dirt,” Joey says with a sneer.

  “You might as well eat shit,” Herbie answers.

  Joey glares at him. Shannon pats Joey’s hand. “What difference does it make how he eats it?” she says.

  “No difference,” Joey says. “It’s just stupid to cremate a nice piece of meat.”

  Shannon laughs. She makes a fist and shows it to Herbie. “He’ll kick your ass if you ruin that steak,” she says. “And I’ll help him.”

  Herbie puts up both palms. “Whoa. I’m shaking.”

  She gets up and puts Herbie in a headlock, rubbing her fist gently into his jaw. “You bastard,” she says. “Charring that poor little steak.”

  Herbie’s faking like he’s in agony. Joey shoves back from the table and stands up. He goes out into the living room and turns the TV on to the Penn State football game. He doesn’t come back until I say the steaks are ready.

  When I come in with the meat everybody else is at the table and the only empty seat is next to Eileen. Shannon’s sitting between Rico and Herbie.

  The girls only want half a steak apiece, so Hernandez takes Shannon’s other half and Herbie says he’ll take Eileen’s. He reaches over and stabs it with his fork, then gets up to put it back on the grill.

  “There he goes again with the incineration,” Joey says, sounding disgusted.

  Herbie just grins. “What the hell do you care?”

  “Just sit down and eat the thing like a man,” Joey says.

  Herbie shakes his head. “Okay, Dad,” he says. But he goes out to the patio anyway.

  Shannon gets up and says she’s going to floss her teeth. Joey finishes his steak and goes back out to the TV.

  Other than that things go pretty smoothly until about quarter to nine, when the bell rings. I open the door and there’s Tony Terranova with four of his friends and a couple of cases of beer.

  “Bones, my man,” he says.

>   “Tony.”

  “Thought we’d keep you company.”

  “You did, huh?” This could be trouble, but Tony’s not a bad guy. Plus he has a few items with him that would help the party: the beer and the friends, since two of them are girls. “Why not?” I say, and I step aside to let them in.

  They station themselves at the kitchen table and put the beer in the refrigerator. I sit out there, too, and we talk about music and stuff, concerts we’ve been to in Scranton.

  The two girls are cute. Dana and Staci. They’re both juniors. Dana has long brown hair. Staci is black, with her hair gathered in a ponytail and one tiny gold earring. The guys are all wrestlers.

  Eileen comes into the kitchen after a while and asks me if there’s any lemonade left. I say I don’t know, but I get up to check. There’s enough for half a glass, so I pour it for her.

  “Thanks,” she says. “You’re missing some fun out there.”

  “I’m having fun in here,” I say.

  “Everybody’s dancing,” she says.

  I nod. “Not me.”

  “Oh,” she says. She looks into the glass, then takes a sip. She shrugs her shoulders and heads back into the living room.

  Staci looks at Dana and they both shake their heads. “Oooh, ooh, Bones,” Staci says. “She’s aching for you.”

  “No, thanks,” I say.

  “She’s not so bad,” Dana says.

  I just roll my eyes.

  “Go dance with her,” Staci says.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Staci clicks her tongue. “Don’t be a hard boy.”

  “Not interested.”

  “You’re no fun.”

  I lock eyes with her and smile. “I could be.”

  She smiles back but shakes her head slowly. “I think I’ll go out and dance,” she says. She winks at me. “Come on, Dana,” she says.

  By ten o’clock Tony and the two guys he brought with him are pretty drunk, and they’re getting loud. When the phone rings I yell, “Everybody shut up! Turn off the stereo.”

  I pick up the phone. It’s my mother.

  “Everything okay, Barry?” she asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “What are you up to?”

  “Nothing much. Joey came over. That’s okay, right?”

  “Sure. How did you do today?”

  “Good. We shut them out. We seem to be back on track.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Um, is Tommy there with you?” I ask.

  “Yes. Just a sec.”

  I hear her say his name. After a few seconds he takes the phone.

  “What’s up?” he asks.

  “I got a situation here.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Terranova and some of your other friends showed up.”

  “And?”

  “I wanna get rid of them.”

  “Oh.”

  “I know you can’t talk,” I say.

  “Right.”

  “I was having some people over. Not too many. They must have heard about it.”

  “Hmmm …” he says. “So we’ll try to go fishing next weekend, maybe.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll talk about it later.” He kind of emphasizes “later.”

  Five minutes later the phone rings again. I yell, “Shut up and turn off the stereo” again.

  “Hello?” I say.

  “It’s me.” Tommy.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m in my own room now. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing bad. Just more people than I wanted.”

  “Let me talk to Tony.”

  I call Tony over and he takes the phone. “It’s my brother,” I tell him.

  “Yo,” Tony says. “Yeah.… No.… No.… We’re not.… Dana.… Her, too.… Yeah.… Sure.… Right.” He hands the phone back to me.

  “What?” I say to Tommy.

  “They’ll be gone by eleven.”

  “Okay.”

  “They’ll take all the beer cans with them, too.”

  “Good.”

  “Listen,” he says. “Tomorrow morning, or even tonight after everybody leaves, check under the furniture for empty cans or used glasses. And check the wastebaskets in the bathrooms. Tomorrow check the yard. I got nailed once because somebody left an empty Jack Daniel’s pint under the couch.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last year. You guys went to Aunt Beth’s for the weekend for Katie’s christening. I had too much studying to do.”

  “Right.”

  “Shannon there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Uh-huh.” I can almost hear him smile.

  “Joey’s here, too,” I say.

  “Too bad. See you tomorrow.”

  “Okay, man. Thanks.”

  I stay in the kitchen for a while, avoiding the living room, where Eileen is. When I stick my head out there I notice that Joey is asleep in the armchair. I catch Herbie’s eye and he grins, nodding his head slowly. He walks over to the kitchen. Rico comes, too.

  “He’s gotta be home at twelve, right?” Herbie asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s help him along,” he says, reaching for the clock above the sink. He takes it down and moves the hands ahead an hour and a half to 12:15. Then he asks, “Where else?”

  “There’s one on the mantel in the living room,” I say.

  He goes out and resets that one, a digital clock radio.

  Rico says, “He got a watch on?”

  We look, but he doesn’t.

  Everybody else is dancing or drinking and seems oblivious to what we’re doing. But Shannon steps over to me and asks what’s going on.

  “Nothing,” I say. “A little joke.”

  She smirks. “Poor Joey,” she says.

  “You wanna wake him up?”

  “Ummm, no,” she says. “I don’t want to be a part of this.”

  “I’ll do it,” Herbie says. He walks over to the CD player and turns the volume up full, just for a second. Joey opens his eyes. We try to act like we haven’t even noticed him sleeping.

  Joey rubs his eyes and stands up. He walks across the room to the bathroom. When he comes out he glances at the clock on the mantel and says, “Shit.” The clock shows 12:22.

  “I’m screwed,” he says. He looks around for his jacket, finding it in a pile on the couch. “I’m outta here,” he says, bolting out the door.

  Herbie pumps his fist and yells “Yes!” after the door slams shut. He slaps hands with Rico. Shannon shakes her head but laughs.

  “What’s going on?” Eileen asks.

  “Sleeping Beauty just turned into a pumpkin,” Herbie says, mixing up his literary references.

  Eileen looks at the clock. “Oh, you guys are cruel,” she says, but she’s laughing, too. It’s a harmless joke.

  Terranova taps me on the shoulder. “We’re going,” he says. He’s got a full six-pack and another with two cans missing under his arm. “Thanks, Bones.” And the five of them leave, too.

  That leaves six of us. I set the clocks back to 11:03. Hernandez is dancing with Shannon, but that doesn’t mean anything. Rico starts dancing with Eileen. Me and Herbie just watch for a few minutes, then go out in the kitchen to eat the rest of the chicken wings.

  Shannon comes in after a while and sits at the table. She’s wearing a denim shirt, with the top two buttons undone. “Herbie, could you guys get Eileen home safely?” she says. “I need to talk to Bones.”

  About Joey, I figure. Herbie says, “Sure. Now?”

  “In a while,” she says. “Whenever.” She goes back into the living room. I can hear them laughing out there.

  Herbie’s picking chicken out of his teeth with a fingernail. “Brace yourself,” he says.

  “What for?”

  “Whatever,” he says. “She’s up to something.”

  When they leave I start washing the dishes, and Shannon gets a towel to dry them. Our arms keep bumping.

  “Great par
ty,” she says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It went all right.”

  “Those guys are a riot,” she says.

  “True.”

  “Don’t you dance?” she asks.

  “Not often,” I say. “Hardly ever.”

  She puts one hand on my shoulder and looks at my face. “Joey just sat there all night,” she says.

  “He was tired,” I say.

  “He was nasty.”

  “He’s under a lot of pressure,” I say.

  “From who?”

  “His father. Himself. Us.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s tough,” she says. “I was dancing with Herbie, and Joey was staring at us like he wanted to kill us both.”

  “He’s worried about you.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she says. “He knows Herbie cracks me up. It’s nothing.”

  “I guess it isn’t to him.”

  She runs her hand down my arm and squeezes my wrist. “That was great how you guys got rid of him,” she says. “I had a much better time after he left.” She runs her hand back up my arm and across my shoulders. “You didn’t seem to mind a whole lot when Eileen left, either.”

  I chew on my lip and scrub the plate I’m washing a little harder than I need to. “Eileen’s okay,” I finally say. “She’s just not, you know, not right for me.”

  Shannon turns her back to the sink and leans against the counter. “Yeah,” she says, inching closer to me. She knocks her knee gently against my leg. “Well, you know,” she whispers, “I don’t taste like puke.”

  And she doesn’t. She tastes minty and lemony. And God, she feels nice. She’s lean and solid. And warm. We work our way to the couch.

  We lie there, pressed tight against each other, making out nonstop for at least an hour. It’s exhausting.

  I walk her home about one o’clock, avoiding Main Street. Not many people are out. She lives up past the school, so we walk along Maple. I’ve got my arm around her waist and she’s got her hand in my back pocket.

  This feels more than a little strange, like I’ve taken a candy bar from Rite Aid without paying, or as if a referee didn’t see me knock the ball out of bounds and awarded me a throw-in.

  Her house is halfway up Buchanan Street, which is steep and dark. We stop on her walk.