Copperhead Page 2
The Kilton Valley team comes from an hour away. Rich kids in a commuter town. There will be a few boys like Jessup on the team—everywhere, there are boys like him—but mostly the kids from Kilton Valley live in houses with epoxy-coated garage floors, four-bedroom homes with gas fireplaces used only for decoration, thermostats set to seventy-two in the winter, sixty-eight in the summer, cedar fences to keep the golden retriever in. Jessup has heard that the Kilton Valley team practices on an indoor field when the weather is bad. There will be boys on the Kilton Valley team who are already looking forward to getting home before the game has even started, thinking about warming up and drying off instead of the ritualized brutality Jessup loves.
As he jogs through the parking lot, the stadium lights seem too bright for the weather. He can see fat, furious dollops of ice and rain coming in streaks. The wind has kicked up, too. It’s sharp, cutting. The hit of skin on skin, helmet on skin, skin on turf is going to burn. It’s going to burn now, but worse, it’s going to burn later, under the hot showers. Around him, most of the other boys jogging to the field are wearing long sleeves under their pads. Not Jessup. Just his jersey. Bare arms. He wants the boys from Kilton Valley across the line to think about the cold. He wants them to think about what it means that Jessup isn’t hiding from the weather, what it means that it doesn’t bother him. It won’t bother him. Not during the game. He accepted, long ago, that to play football is to understand pain. Both to give and to receive. It is one of the reasons he is good at what he does. Because the secret to being a linebacker is not just the willingness to punish and to accept punishment alike, but to revel in it.
MINUS EIGHT
There’s still real grass and dirt on the fields surrounding the stadium, but they play their games on synthetic grass. He grew up playing Pop Warner football on rec-league fields. The grass torn into mud by October, standing water after a rain, no way to run without stumbling in ruts and divots. By contrast, the turf at the stadium is immaculate. The football field is perfectly flat, the plastic grass a smooth mat, the seams sewn together and invisible. The school district rakes the plastic fibers and sweeps the field clean regularly. The rubber pellet infill mixed with some type of sand means that even when it is raining, the water drains quickly. But the sleet is starting to stick. It’s coming down hard enough that the Kilton Valley Cougars aren’t going to risk throwing the ball. Which is good for the Cortaca High School Bears. Injuries have meant relying on a third-string quarterback. The Bears have won with defense the whole year. They aren’t going to win a shoot-out, so anything that keeps the ball on the ground for the other side is a net win as far as Jessup is concerned. Another ten minutes like this and a thick slick of sleet will cover the lines. It will be slippery. Straight-line running. Bloody-nose football. Ugly football. Jessup is excited.
They jog into the stadium to muted applause. The stands are nothing like what you’d find in Texas. Not even big enough to fit two thousand people. And today, with the weather, even though this is a playoff game, the first in forty years, the first home playoff game in even longer, the stands are only half full. There is no history of excellence. Jessup’s stepfather played, and he only had one winning season. Jessup’s brother played, too, and they were winless three out of four years. Both Ricky and David John write regularly, follow the team best they can from prison. Living vicariously. Ricky wrote this week to say how much he wished he could be there to see Jessup suit up for the playoffs. Loves that Jessup wears his old number. Brothers. But if he can’t be there, at least David John is going to get to see Jessup play tonight. Can hardly believe Cortaca is in the playoffs.
Jessup can believe it. Both his freshman and sophomore campaigns were marked as three-win seasons. But between his sophomore and junior years, Cortaca High School hired Coach Diggins and the team got good. They missed the playoffs last year by a shanked field goal in overtime, a pain so keen that Jessup actually cried on the sidelines. This year, though, it’s been clear that they were headed for the playoffs. They are still not a favorite to win, but most people think they have some chance. There’s energy. It doesn’t translate to a full stadium, however. Call it twelve hundred people, but the crowd is big enough for Jessup. He looks for his mother and Jewel and David John, but he can’t find them.
They’ve already done warm-ups and then gone back to the locker rooms for last-minute pep talks, reminders of assignments, a final chance to take a piss or squeeze out a nervous crap. Some of the boys puke before every game. But now there are only a few minutes before the whistle. Jessup takes a couple of runs up and down the field, getting a feel for how slippery it is. He sees Coach Diggins chatting with one of the referees.
Diggins should have picked Jessup as one of the four captains—Mike Crean, whom Jessup is friends with, is a good player but not as good as Jessup, was named one of the captains—but he didn’t. Took Jessup into his office the week before the first game of the season and said that it wasn’t just about how good you were on the field. It wasn’t enough to be the best player on the team. Leadership. Jessup doesn’t talk enough, Diggins says. Loners don’t make good leaders. Oh, Jessup talks during games; he calls out formations and changes the defensive read. All off-season, Jessup was one of the group of players that Diggins had come to his home on Sunday afternoons to do film study so that they understood the game better. He’s taken to it. His junior year he was good, but this season he’s been a stud. He’s a late recruit, but colleges have come calling. Part of it is that he’s big and fast, but it’s more now—because all that time in Diggins’s office has meant that the game’s slowed down for him. Doesn’t matter if he’s playing strong side or weak side, he’s directing the defense. Should be the middle linebacker calling it out, except that even though Damian Greene is a solid player, he can’t read the offense quick enough, so it’s Jessup’s job to play traffic cop. But even though Diggins has occasionally named other players as additional captains for a game, an honor given out, he’s never named Jessup.
“Hope you understand, son,” Diggins said in his slow Mississippi drawl.
MINUS SEVEN
Jessup doesn’t argue with any of what Diggins says. It’s true. He doesn’t talk much in groups, doesn’t talk more than he needs to in class. Gives answers but keeps them short. He keeps to himself too much. He knows that. He isn’t a follower, but he isn’t a leader either. He’s just Jessup. But it gets under his skin that he isn’t a captain. Plus, the college coaches recruiting him—mostly starting this year—have asked why he isn’t in a leadership role. How come the best defensive player on the field, the best player on the team, doesn’t go out to call the coin flip?
What’s Jessup supposed to say to the college coaches? That Diggins is black and there’s no way he’s going to pick Jessup to be a captain? That Diggins has never brought up Jessup’s brother and stepfather or their church, has always acted like none of it matters, but of course it matters?
Diggins is a big man, but not as big as Jessup would have expected for somebody who played in the NFL. Though Coach is quick to point out that he was on the bubble for all eight years he played pro. “The only reason I stayed in the league as long as I did was because I was smart,” he likes to say. “I couldn’t make myself any faster, but I could learn the game and see it faster. All the same”—and with this he’d always grin—“best player or worst player on the team, you all get a ring.” National championship his junior year in college at Alabama, when he was one of the better players on the team, and Super Bowl ring his last year in the pros, when he didn’t take a snap until his team was already up four touchdowns. He’s a good coach, even a great coach at the high school level, but he’s not a lightning-and-thunder guy. He rarely raises his voice except to be heard. Work hard, do your job, understand the game better than the boy across the line from you.
Jessup watches Diggins shake hands with the ref and then trot over to the sideline and up to where the fence separates the bleachers
from the field. His wife, Melissa, leans over for a kiss. Diggins is born and raised Mississippi, played college in Alabama, and bounced around in the pros. He met Melissa while he was playing in San Francisco. Coach is late forties, Mrs. Diggins a couple of years younger but looks midthirties. She’s a California girl: white and blond and an athletic kind of skinny, like her job is to work out, except that her actual job is doing something up at Cortaca University. Jessup doesn’t know what, except that she’s the reason the Diggins family moved here, the reason why Coach Diggins was willing to try to turn around Cortaca High’s football team.
At least that’s what Deanne says. Deanne is a junior and Coach Diggins and Mrs. Diggins’s daughter. Coach is dark and Mrs. Diggins isn’t, and Deanne is a mix of the two of them. She gets mad at him when he compares her skin to food, says he’s exoticizing her, but it’s become a joke between the two of them. At least he thinks it’s a joke. They’ve been dating for four months. Jessup worked at the golf course doing grounds six days a week over the summer, worked at the movie theater six nights. Gave up the golf course when football started but still works at the cinema, Saturdays and some Sundays after film study at Coach’s house. Needs the money. Deanne worked at the movie theater over the summer and has kept it up during the school year, Saturdays and some Sundays, too, schedules in sync. They’d met before that, but they’d never spent real time together. He’s still not exactly sure how they started dating. In any case, they’ve kept it discreet. Deanne’s told her friends, and word has gotten around at school. Jessup’s quiet, but he’s not low profile. And Deanne’s black. That means something with his family history. Mrs. Diggins knows they’re dating, but he’s pretty sure Coach doesn’t know. If he does, he hasn’t let on to Jessup.
He watches Deanne lean over the fence, too, kiss her dad on the cheek, and then straighten up. She looks at him and gives him something approximating a smile. They’re going to meet up later, at the party, the two of them planning to sneak off and park somewhere. They slept together for the first time about two weeks ago, and he thinks he might love her, but that’s something else Jessup shouldn’t be thinking about right now.
Behind Mrs. Diggins and Deanne, two rows up, he sees an assistant coach from Syracuse University. This is the second game he’s been to, and a scholarship offer is forthcoming. That’s what Jessup has heard. He’s not good enough for big-time football schools, but he’s good enough to get offers from the bottom-feeding Division I schools. More important, his grades combined with his play on the field means the Ivies have started calling. An assistant coach from Brown University is at tonight’s game, and Yale and Princeton have both been recruiting him. If he didn’t play football, he’d be unsure about getting into Ivy League schools on his own merits, but he does play football, so the Ivy League coaches are salivating. His grades and SAT scores are high enough that he’s an easy sell to administrators. The Ivies don’t offer athletic scholarships, but he’s poor as shit, so they’ll give him a full ride. His mom wants him to stay home and play for Cortaca University—though she’d be okay with Syracuse, only an hour away, if that comes through, or the University at Buffalo, which offered already, too—but Jessup wants to put some miles between himself and Cortaca.
He knows the Cortaca University coach thinks he’s in the bag, and he’s pretty sure Syracuse feels the same way. Local kid? Why wouldn’t he want to stay? But that’s just it. He doesn’t want to stay. He wants to get as far away from Cortaca as he can, and he wants to make sure he never has to come back. He hasn’t said this out loud yet. His mom doesn’t know he applied early decision to Yale. He’ll hear at the beginning of December. If that doesn’t work out, he’s got applications out to Dartmouth, Brown, and Princeton, and just last week he got a scholarship offer from Duke. Bye-bye, upstate New York.
He takes another quick scan of the stands. His mom usually sits right in the middle, up high, her back against the fence, but there’s a group of kids from the high school already there.
He doesn’t see her, but they haven’t kicked off yet. She texted him and said that the pickup at the prison went fine and that she’d be at the game. He’s not worried. She’s always there. She works days as a cleaning lady and a few nights a week at Target on the register, but she’s always been clear with her manager that if she has to choose between taking a shift on a Friday night and losing her job, well, in a town like Cortaca, there are plenty of places she can work part time making a dollar and fifty cents an hour more than minimum wage.
MINUS SIX
He sees one of the Kilton Valley Cougars high-stepping. Kid named Kevin Corson. He’s a running back. Good player. They’ve overlapped at a couple of one-day football camps. Never talked, which makes sense, since they play on opposite sides of the ball. Corson is already committed to play for Syracuse. Real dark skin—hide-in-the-night kind of black—but not one of the poor blacks. Six foot, two hundred pounds, fast in the flats with a good first move. He keeps himself low to the ground when he runs, shoulder down, ball tucked high and tight. He runs with purpose. His mom is an optometrist and his dad works at a bank or something. Money. Even from here, Jessup can see that he’s wearing a brand-new pair of Nike turf shoes and pro gloves. The shoes go for something like $130 a pop, the gloves $60. Must have bought them just for this playoff game. He’s heard Corson has worked with a personal trainer since middle school. He looks like it, all fast twitch, no fat. Could be the assistant coach from Syracuse University is here to take a last look at Corson, too. There’s a part of Jessup that hopes so.
He’s watched a lot of film, and he thinks he’s got Corson dialed in. Corson’s got a tell when he’s going to cut left. Jessup will be able to contain him, keep him mostly bottled up, but if he plays it perfectly he’ll be able to blow Corson up at least once. With a little luck, he’ll jar the ball loose. Even if he can’t make a highlight-reel hit, it’s going to be a running game the whole night. Jessup will be able to take some shots. Maybe one of the guys on the line will stand Corson up so Jessup can go in hard and take his helmet off early on. Send him to the bench thinking about whether or not he really wants to keep going. That’s the kind of thing that can tilt a game.
Corson sprints and takes a few quick shakes, getting a feel for the turf. It’s sloppy, and it looks like Corson isn’t happy. The kid glances up and sees Jessup watching and gives him a big wink. Jessup doesn’t smile. Doesn’t look away. Thinks, I’m going to put you on your ass. A kid like Corson likes to play football while Jessup needs to play.
He feels a hard slap on his shoulder pads. Derek Lemper plays nose guard. He’s a junior. Dumb as shit, but nice, and a tank. Dad’s out of the picture, but Mom is the sales manager at the Honda dealership. She’s a little hefty but still attractive. Nothing like Derek. Derek is close to three hundred pounds, his belly rolling over, head like a watermelon. He’s got a girlfriend who looks like she came out of a gumball machine. Lot of jokes about her being crushed to death if Derek ever falls asleep after sex.
“Ready, Jessup? Kick some ass?” Derek has his hand out for a bump, and Jessup tags him.
“Kick some ass,” Jessup agrees.
Derek grins and does a shimmy that makes Jessup laugh. He turns to see Wyatt Dunn doing his own sort of dance. He’s been best friends with Wyatt since David John first started taking the family to church. Met him at church but went to the same elementary school, too, same middle school, same high school, Wyatt like a brother even if they don’t go to church together anymore. Jessup hasn’t gone to church since David John and Ricky were arrested, but even though Wyatt took a fair number of Sundays off to go hunting or just to sleep in when he was in eighth, ninth, tenth grades, he’s started going regular again with his parents, every week, just like Jessup’s mom and Jewel. Wyatt plays tackle. He’s got a scholarship offer from UConn. Doesn’t expect any more to come his way. The Huskies only won two of their twelve games last year. Wyatt’s under no illusions, but he figures it’s bet
ter than paying for college.
Wyatt reaches around him with his meaty arms and pulls Jessup in for a hug. He presses the side of his helmet into Jessup’s. “Saw you watching Corson warm up. Knock the shit out of that son of a bitch, okay? Let’s teach him a lesson, man. Teach him where he belongs.” Wyatt squeezes Jessup and then says, “Jesus loves you and I love you, brother. Let’s light ’em up.”
Jessup says it back. Rituals. Jesus loves you and I love you, brother. Light ’em up. And together, Jesus keep us safe from harm. The same thing before every game since freshman year.
A couple of other defensive linemen have drifted over, and he goes through the routine with them, too, tapping fists, kick some ass, protect this house, stop them cold. The coaches are gesturing for them to head over to the bench, so they break it up.
In the few minutes since they’ve come back out from the locker room, the field has garnered a scrum of slush. It’s a haze on the plastic grass. He looks up at the lights. The sleet has started to fully give over to snow. It comes down tracing the arc of winds and gravity, the pure glow of the lights turning every snowflake into a falling star. If he didn’t have a game, he’d be happy to stand there forever. But he feels a few other hands slapping his shoulder pads, so he jogs over to the sideline, each step careful and testing, getting a sense of how his shoes are going to bite. He feels good. Loose. He got home from practice last night, helped his sister with her math, finished his own homework, and was in bed by ten, asleep so quick that he could have been drunk. He doesn’t remember dreaming. People would pay good money to sleep like that.