Copperhead Page 4
The black kids come at him. Ricky said he told them he didn’t want trouble, was just there to do a job, but words were exchanged. Names called. Liveson, the bigger of the two black students, hits Ricky with his bottle of Yeungling—the booking photos show a deep bruise seeping down from Ricky’s eye and a cut across his cheek, could have lost an eye—and according to Ricky, the other one, Holmes, the one from Atlanta, has a knife. Ricky reaches through the open passenger-side door, grabs a loose pipe wrench from the floor.
Self-defense, Ricky said.
Eighteen inches and five and a half pounds of steel. Swings the pipe wrench as hard as he can. Takes the jaw off Liveson. Kid spins and flops to the asphalt. By this time, the yelling’s brought David John out into the alley. He’s grabbing the back of the second black kid’s shirt, Holmes, the one Ricky claims has the knife, when Ricky swings the wrench a second time. Connects right on Holmes’s temple. Staves his head in. Dead before he hits the ground.
The bar has a video camera on the back entrance, but it’s low quality and doesn’t capture everything. Jerky, shooting at 7.5 frames per second, and grainy. The whole fight captured. Liveson twitches for thirty, forty seconds before going still, but it’s not clear when he actually dies. As for Holmes, only his body from the knees down are in the frame, and his legs don’t move at all. There’s no sound, but you can see Ricky sit down and lean against the front wheel of the van. He drops the wrench and slumps over, rests his head on his hands. He’s still shirtless. David John stands in front of Ricky for a full minute, his back to the camera. Then he turns and looks around. After a few seconds, it’s clear that he spots the camera. He stares at it, and then David John is in and out of the van—you can’t see what he’s doing, no way to prove he’s grabbing a knife, wiping it clean of prints—and walks past Holmes’s body. There’s a herky-jerky movement, shadow falling into the frame, and then Holmes is rolled over, still only his lower legs in the frame, his sneakers now turned so that he’s on his back. Another minute, and then David John comes back into the frame. He says something to Ricky and pulls his phone out of his pocket. Calls the cops and then sits down next to Ricky.
THE AFTERMATH
The video shows Liveson hitting Ricky first, but there’s no angle that shows whether or not Holmes is holding a knife before David John turns him over. Holmes’s got a knife in his hand by the time the police and the ambulance arrive, that’s for sure, but there’s only a single set of fingerprints on it, as if somebody had wrapped Holmes’s fingers around the handle. It’s a cheap folding pocketknife, the kind sold at hardware stores for twenty bucks. This model comes from Home Depot. Something a contractor—or a plumber—might carry, but there’s no way to tell who bought it. No audio, so no way to prove what the black kids said to Ricky, what word Ricky might have said back.
It’s a messy case, the kind that’s a no-win for the prosecutor. David John’s record is pretty clean—he’s never done time—but his brother, Earl, is the preacher and the face of the Blessed Church of the White America, and David John has his own tattoos. Affiliations. If the dead kids were white, you could settle it as self-defense, give a slap on the wrist, call it a day, but with two dead black kids, both students at Cortaca University to boot? Holmes’s dad a police chief in one of Atlanta’s suburbs, his mom a kindergarten teacher, Liveson’s parents both lawyers and moneyed. It hits the national papers, CNN and Fox News and MSNBC sending news trucks, Jessup’s mom having to chase at least one reporter off their property. Protests at the church—Jessup hears this from his mom and Wyatt, because he refuses to go—with signs and chanting and eggs thrown at congregants’ cars. It plays on the news for weeks.
The whole thing is high profile, but it’s not open-and-shut: with the video, and with both Ricky and David John sticking to their stories, there’s too much room for it to go off the rails if the prosecutor takes it to court. The victims drinking, Ricky claiming self-defense, the video showing Ricky getting hit first. If the boys had been empty-handed, it would have been a disproportional response, but with the beer bottles, with a knife found in one of the black kid’s hands? It’s the kind of case that can kill a political career if it goes poorly. The prosecutor decides to deal.
Jessup’s mom wants them to fight, but the court-appointed lawyer—they can’t afford any better, though there’s some talk of a collection at the church—explains that her son and her husband aren’t going to find a sympathetic jury. Not here. The mayor of Cortaca, a former Cortaca University student who is only in his midtwenties, is incensed. He’s calling it a hate crime, calls it a crime against the community. He’s asked the Department of Justice to open a civil rights investigation. The mayor is earnest, but there are other politicians getting in on it, grandstanding. It’s a litmus test.
The lawyer, frustrated, tells them that if they risk a trial, Ricky might spend the rest of his life in prison, David John along for the ride. It’s not going to look good. White-power tattoos and two dead black college students?
They take the plea bargains. Rock and a hard place and all that. Ricky lucky to be able to walk out of prison when he’s nearly forty, half his life gone by. That’s a good deal for killing two men, the lawyer tells them, and David John’s only doing five years. Less if he behaves himself.
He behaves himself.
David John skates after four.
KICKOFF
David John is walking behind Jessup’s mom and Jewel. From thirty yards away, Jessup recognizes his stepfather, but can’t see if the man looks any different. Jessup’s been good about writing back to both David John and Ricky—both men write him at least once a week—but he’s refused to visit either. He doesn’t know why.
The hum of the crowd swells as the kicker for the Kilton Valley Cougars runs at the ball. Everybody’s watching the field, the way the kicker plants his foot and swings through, the ball tumbling high in the heavy falling snow, spinning up into the darkness and then back down, dropping near the ten. The first wave of Kilton Valley players crashes against the Cortaca High players, and even though he’s looking away from the field, at his family, Jessup can hear the grunts and the crack of pads and helmets. Everybody is watching the kickoff except for David John. His stepfather’s eyes have found him, and he gives Jessup a nod. Jessup nods back.
He turns in time to see the Kilton Valley gunner—a white kid who plays tight end when he isn’t tasked with head-hunting the Cortaca High kick returner—cut in and take Simeon Lesko down at the seventeen.
Five of the players on the kick-return team are also starters on offense, so it’s a piecemeal swap of players for Cortaca High. Kilton Valley fills the box, ready to stop the run. They know what’s coming. Cortaca’s starting quarterback, Jonathan Choo, could sling the ball, but he broke his clavicle the second game of the season. There’s a chance he’ll be back for next week’s game if the Bears make it through. In the same game Choo got hurt, the backup—a mouthy, arrogant senior named Jayden Carlisle, who resented having to sit behind Choo—got his knee torn up. Since then, it’s been Phillip Ryerson. Kid is fourteen, a true freshman, looks milquetoast, but tough as heck. Not a great arm, but smart and only had five turnovers for the season.
All preseason with Choo, they practiced Diggins’s plan to have them run and gun. With Jonathan at quarterback, they figured they’d be able to score four, five touchdowns a game. All the defense had to do was keep it close and let Choo do his thing. But plans change; they have to, otherwise two injuries over three quarters sends the season down the tubes. With Ryerson back there, the plan has been grind it out. Three yards and a pile of bodies. Live and die by the defense. Ryerson only throwing eight, ten times a game, just trying to keep the other team honest.
But it isn’t enough to keep the other team honest. When the Bears have the ball, opposing teams fill the box. And that’s what Kilton Valley does on the first play. Nine men up front, both safeties crowding the line and ready to corral the run.
Of course, that assumes Cortaca does, in fact, run the ball.
They practiced it all week. It isn’t the play that is the issue; it’s selling the run. Ryerson has to keep his head down, look back at Mike Crean playing fullback and Pearce Trion at running back behind him, motion them over a foot or two. And split all the way left, Trevell Brown, looking like he’s half-assing it.
Ryerson barks in cadence, pauses and motions to his right, pulling everybody but Trevell to the line. Kilton Valley is playing a six-two, but the middle linebackers are almost close enough to touch the offensive line, and the free safety is right in the middle, barely five yards back. The cornerback on the right side has drifted in with his assignment, and even from his spot on the sideline, Jessup can see that the cornerback covering Trevell has already turned his hips to the inside. It’s one on one with Trevell. No backup for Kilton Valley if Trevell can get past his man: it’s clear to Jessup even before Ryerson has the ball in his hands that Kilton Valley has bit on the play.
The crowd in the stand recognizes it even as the two lines smash into each other, a throaty roar washing over Jessup as he watches Ryerson taking a seven-step drop, Crean and Pearce rushing up to keep a pocket around him. Jessup has to admit it’s a ballsy call by Coach Diggins. They ran it at least twenty times in practice, and even with a soft defense, they only pulled it off half the time. Trevell’s got straight-line speed, but he’s also got hands of stone, and it’s not like Ryerson can just drop it in the breadbasket. And tonight, with the cold and the sleet turned into heavy, fat snow, a thousand sparkling candles in the floodlights, Jessup figures it for a wasted play. Best case, it gets Kilton Valley to play receivers like they are a real threat for a while, give a little space for Cortaca to run the ball.
But good Lord, Trevell gets the jump on the cornerback. By the time he’s five yards off the line of scrimmage, the cornerback is just starting to turn. Trevell has got his man beat easy, wide-open field in front of him. He’s running flat out, head down, not supposed to even look for the ball until he’s twenty yards off the line. And Ryerson finishes dropping back and then cocks the ball back and steps forward, all his weight behind the ball. He gives it everything he’s got.
It’s an ugly throw. Slow-motion highlights from college and the pros always show the ball in a tight spiral, spinning through the air like a bullet, but this ball is wobbling and a floater. And yet it’s clear that despite how wounded the ball looks, Ryerson has overshot. He’s thrown the ball forty, forty-five yards. A hell of a throw. Trevell still hasn’t looked up, and he’s got at least ten yards on the cornerback now. Finally, he turns his head, and even though Jessup is across the field, he swears he can see Trevell’s eyes popping out of his skull. He’s got a bead on the ball, and he takes one last step before laying himself full out in the air, the ball nestling perfectly into his fingers. He pulls the ball in to his chest and twists as he comes down, landing on his back on the Kilton Valley thirty-five and sliding a good ten yards in the mess of snow and slush. When he comes to a stop on the Kilton Valley twenty-five-yard line, he holds the ball up and there’s an explosion of noise from the stands behind Jessup.
SEVEN TO THREE
One minute and forty-four seconds left in the second quarter. The temperature has dropped at least two degrees. It’s full snow now. Still wet and heavy, but no longer sleet, and there’s at least half an inch coating the field. The line markings are invisible. A couple of middle school kids with brooms sweep the sidelines clean every time the play stops, but on the field, the yardage markers might as well not exist.
After that first play, they moved the ball down the field in two- and three-yard chunks, Coach Diggins deciding to go for it on fourth down when they were on the Kilton Valley eighteen, converting, and again when they were on the one-yard line, punching in for the touchdown. Up seven zip before Kilton Valley touched the ball. Other than that first pass, however, it’s been bruising football. The punters on both teams getting a lot of work. Cortaca hasn’t even gotten it past the fifty-yard line since the opening series. Kilton Valley only on the board because their kicker is a senior and committed to playing at Colgate University. Not a football powerhouse, but still, a Division I school is a D-I school. Despite the weather, their kicker hit a forty-seven-yard field goal at the end of the first quarter. The score has been stuck at 7–3 all of the second quarter.
But now, with less than two minutes until halftime, Kilton Valley is on the Bears’ eleven-yard line. Third down and three to go. The Cougars have been riding Corson hard. The running back is already over a hundred yards for the day. He’s only broken one run, for twenty yards, and Jessup brought him down from behind, but there have been a couple of others that have been close. Sooner or later, with the ground the way it is, Corson is going to go long. Jessup knows this, but mostly, at this moment, he’s only worried about short yardage. There’s the eleven yards between the line of scrimmage and his end zone, and there’s the three yards between the Cougars and a first down. If Corson picks up the first down, the Cougars have three more shots at the end zone before settling for a field goal. But worse, playing to protect only those three yards leaves Cortaca vulnerable for the whole eleven. The problem is that it’s not just Corson Jessup is worried about; the Kilton Valley quarterback has been throwing, no matter the snow. Short throws, but it’s meant Jessup has had to stay on his toes, calling out defensive alignments and shifts. He’s broken up two passes, but he can tell by the way his teammates are moving that they’re gassed. On their last possession, Cortaca punted from the fifty, the Cougars taking the ball inside the ten; they’ve backed the Bears eighty yards down the field.
And then he sees it. The quarterback has Kilton Valley lined up for what will be an obvious rollout to the left side. Anybody can see what the play is going to be. The whole offense is tilted left: there are two receivers split wide, the tight end looking back, and the fullback with his body angled to clear space for the quarterback. When the center snaps the ball, the quarterback is supposed to run left and then either keep the ball himself or toss it into the end zone. Except that there’s a reason Coach Diggins has them watch so much tape.
If Kilton Valley runs the play correctly, as the entire offense swings left, the quarterback paced by the fullback, the receivers flashing open, the defense follows suit, swallowing the play hook, line, and sinker. The whole thing is a feint. As the play starts, Corson, the running back, jams right against the tide, and instead of keeping the ball or throwing to a receiver, the quarterback turns and zips a fastball across to the other side of the field, where Corson has a wide corridor into the end zone.
Jessup looks over his teammates and sees that none of them have recognized it. They are all about to bite hard on the play: every single player on defense is oriented toward the overload, ready to protect the strong side. The smart move here is for Jessup to yell it out, make a defensive shift. He can call for a weak side pickup—peel the strong safety and the outside linebacker out, doubling Corson—or make the shift himself and cover Corson as he runs. Either option would take away Corson as an option. It would mean trusting the corners and the free safety to cover the tight end and the receivers in the end zone, forcing the quarterback to keep the ball himself. Best-case scenario, somebody takes the quarterback down behind the line of scrimmage, fourth down, and the Kilton Valley Cougars settle for the easy field goal, Jessup goes into the locker room at halftime with his team up seven to six.
His job is to recognize what the offense is doing, to make the call and shift the defense, but he decides against it. It’s a huge gamble, but he figures if nobody else on his team has recognized the play, maybe Corson and the Kilton Valley quarterback won’t realize Jessup has sussed it out.
He creeps up to the line, showing blitz. Let them think he’s coming hard at the quarterback. He’s on the weak side, the side Corson is going to be rolling to, and Jessup is careful to keep his eyes on the quarterback. As t
he quarterback puts out his hand, he takes one more quick scan of the field, and Jessup sees the gleam in the boy’s eye; as far as he can tell, the entire Cortaca High School football team is about to make a huge mistake.
The quarterback hits his cadence, “hut, hut, hut,” and the center snaps the ball. Immediately, the quarterback and the fullback and the entire offensive line start sweeping left. The defense follows. But not Jessup. Jessup has pivoted and is running hard away from the play. He’s following Corson.
He doesn’t even bother looking for the ball. He’s watching Corson. The running back sprints to the right and then stops and pivots. Corson is locked in, tunnel vision on the quarterback. The quarterback has already turned and is slinging the ball across the field, but with the wet and the cold, the ball is high. Corson has to jump, his hands up above his head. He’s a full yard behind the line of scrimmage as the ball comes to him.
Jessup times it perfectly. He’s fast. He runs the one hundred and two hundred in track and field for a reason. He’s running full speed as he propels himself. Corson’s locked in on the football, doesn’t even see what’s about to happen.
Jessup blows him up.
He absolutely murders Corson.
FOURTEEN TO THREE