Bleachers by John Grisham Page A

sitting quietly in the bleachers did not know Messina without Eddie Rake. And for the older ones who were very young when he arrived as an unknown and untested twenty-eight-year-old football coach, his influence on the town was so overpowering that it was easy to assume he’d always been there. After all, Messina as a town didn’t matter before Rake. It wasn’t on the map.
    The vigil was over. The lights were off.
    Though they had been waiting for his impending death, Mal’s message hit them hard. Each of the Spartans withdrew to his ownmemories for a few moments. Silo set his beer bottle down and began tapping both temples with his fingers. Paul Curry rested his elbows on his knees and stared at the field, at a spot somewhere around the fifty-yard line where his Coach would storm and fuss, and when a game was tight no one would get near him. Neely could see Rake in the hospital room, green Messina cap in hand, talking softly to his ex–all-American, concerned about his knee and his future. And trying to apologize.
    Nat Sawyer bit his lip as his eyes began to moisten. Eddie Rake meant much more to him after his football days. “Thank God it was dark,” Nat thought to himself. But he knew there were other tears.
    Somewhere across the little valley, from the direction of the town, came the soft chimes of church bells. Messina was getting the news that it dreaded most.
    Blanchard Teague spoke first. “I really want to finish this game. We’ve been waiting for fifteen years.”
    Paul: “We ran flood-right, Alonzo got about six or seven, and made it out of bounds.”
    Silo: “Woulda scored but Vatrano missed a block on a linebacker. I told him I’d castrate him in the locker room if he missed another one.”
    Paul: “They had everybody at the line. I kept asking Neely if he could throw anything, even a little jump pass over the middle, anything to loosen up their secondary.”
    Neely: “I could barely grip the ball.”
    Paul: “Second down, we swept left—”
    Neely: “No, second down, we sent three wide and deep, I dropped back to pass, then tucked it and ran, got sixteen yards but couldn’t get out of bounds. Devon Bond hit me again and I thought I was dead.”
    Couch: “I remember that. But he was slow getting up too.”
    Neely: “I wasn’t worried about him.”
    Paul: “Ball was on the forty, about a minute to go. Didn’t we sweep again?”
    Nat: “To the left, almost a first down, and Alonzo got out of bounds, right in front of our bench.”
    Neely: “Then we tried the option pass again, and Alonzo threw it away, almost got it picked off.”
    Nat: “It was picked off, but the safety had one foot over the line.”
    Silo: “That’s when I told you no more passes from Alonzo.”
    Couch: “What was it like in the huddle?”
    Silo: “Pretty tense, but when Neely said shut up, we shut up. He kept tellin’ us we were stickin’ it down their throats, that we were gonna win, and, as always, we believed him.”
    Nat: “The ball was on the fifty with fifty seconds to go.”
    Neely: “I called a screen pass, and it worked beautifully. The pass rush was ferocious, and I managed to shovel the ball to Alonzo with my left hand.”
    Nat: “It was beautiful. He got hit in the backfield, broke away, and suddenly he had a wall of blockers.”
    Silo: “That’s when I got Bond, caught that sumbitch fightin’ off one block and not lookin,’ buried my helmet in his left side and they carried him off.”
    Neely: “That probably won the game.”
    Blanchard: “The place was a madhouse,thirty-five thousand people screaming like idiots, but we still heard the hit you put on Bond.”
    Silo: “It was legal. I preferred the ones that were not legal, but it was a bad time for a penalty.”
    Paul: “Alonzo picked up about twenty. The clock stopped with the injury, so we had some time. Neely called three plays.”
    Neely: “I didn’t want to risk an interception or a fumble, and the only way to spread the defense was