here was the proof—but they’d made it through somehow, got away. Maybe I would too. Maybe this was all part of it.
I was a long way from that shed I’d found, anyway. A long way from just drinking sudden aftershave.
Here I am though, right?
Because of—I don’t know.
According to Ms. Godfrey, it’s to write all this down, to be that player disappearing into that square of night, slinging the ball back that can save the game once and for all.
I kind of doubt it.
***
It was because Leonard was late to start the bus. It was because Geoff Koenig’s mom had to drive his shoes up, pass them through the window in a folded-over paper bag that smelled like peaches. It was because Fidel made one of the three T’s go back inside, shave. It was because Coach got a phone call just as they were all walking out. It was because the sun was shining, it was because the Reverends Green and Wood had liked the lay of this land, it was because Texas had been stolen from Mexico.
It was none of that. It was all of that.
It was the team and the coaches and the two managers watching the rows of cotton to either side of them speed up, whip past.
Instead of going straight up FM 1379 to the Garden City Highway to hook it through Rankin to Iraan, they turned
left
out of the high school parking lot and stopped at the church, Leonard looking both ways three stupid times like he always did then turning east on Cloverdale, no traffic at all, not a car or truck or witness for miles.
And maybe that was it, yeah. Instead of going across on 20, to Odessa, and because 1379 was torn up in some way up the road—Leonard still lived up toward Sprayberry, would have known— the bus was hooking it over to 137, to go south.
By this time, Rob King was home, of course, his right hand useless to control the throttle on a tractor, but he could throttle and steer with his left hand, and dump the baskets too, or run the module builder, whatever was needed, his cast the whole time wrapped in a plastic bag, his co-op hat pulled low so nobody could see his eyes, his left hand always opening and closing these days. Opening and closing.
As for the trampoline that had blown into the fence or his pump house that the wind had exploded, those weren’t important yet. There was still
some
cotton to be packed into modules, anyway.
Christmas had been quiet, strained.
All the boys wore pants to the breakfast table, chewed their food thoroughly. Belinda King cried, swept away in her robe, came back ten minutes later, her cheer such a mask that the two younger boys started crying too.
Rob King stood at the window, stared down the empty rows, the brown stalks arm bones to him. All the people planted out there, reaching up for something.
He understood.
Under the tree was supposed to have been the spark plug to a three-wheeler for the boys to share, a Honda 110 he’d been talking about since school had started.
None of them had asked after it, though. Not out loud.
The skin of the trampoline caught in the fence was losing its basket weave, the fibers fraying. By dusk it was some crash-landed wraith. The biggest, deadest crow ever.
By noon he was back out in the fields, stripping alone.
Soon enough Arthur King joined him and they worked together, no words necessary after all these seasons.
In the back of
his
truck, Arthur’s, wrapped under a tarp, was the Honda 110.
Rob King didn’t say anything, just nodded, took it home filled with gas, and the headlight worked, and that night there were two boys with blue lips, one helmet between them, Belinda King on the porch, trying not to say anything.
Rob King probably puts his arm around her waist here.
Give them that.
Three days later, though, he’s in the fields again, the boys too, with promises to be careful, to take turns. But Belinda’s standing on the porch just the same. Already Jonas has got his heel caught on the knobby front of one of the rear tires, been pulled down between the fender and peg, the
I was a long way from that shed I’d found, anyway. A long way from just drinking sudden aftershave.
Here I am though, right?
Because of—I don’t know.
According to Ms. Godfrey, it’s to write all this down, to be that player disappearing into that square of night, slinging the ball back that can save the game once and for all.
I kind of doubt it.
***
It was because Leonard was late to start the bus. It was because Geoff Koenig’s mom had to drive his shoes up, pass them through the window in a folded-over paper bag that smelled like peaches. It was because Fidel made one of the three T’s go back inside, shave. It was because Coach got a phone call just as they were all walking out. It was because the sun was shining, it was because the Reverends Green and Wood had liked the lay of this land, it was because Texas had been stolen from Mexico.
It was none of that. It was all of that.
It was the team and the coaches and the two managers watching the rows of cotton to either side of them speed up, whip past.
Instead of going straight up FM 1379 to the Garden City Highway to hook it through Rankin to Iraan, they turned
left
out of the high school parking lot and stopped at the church, Leonard looking both ways three stupid times like he always did then turning east on Cloverdale, no traffic at all, not a car or truck or witness for miles.
And maybe that was it, yeah. Instead of going across on 20, to Odessa, and because 1379 was torn up in some way up the road—Leonard still lived up toward Sprayberry, would have known— the bus was hooking it over to 137, to go south.
By this time, Rob King was home, of course, his right hand useless to control the throttle on a tractor, but he could throttle and steer with his left hand, and dump the baskets too, or run the module builder, whatever was needed, his cast the whole time wrapped in a plastic bag, his co-op hat pulled low so nobody could see his eyes, his left hand always opening and closing these days. Opening and closing.
As for the trampoline that had blown into the fence or his pump house that the wind had exploded, those weren’t important yet. There was still
some
cotton to be packed into modules, anyway.
Christmas had been quiet, strained.
All the boys wore pants to the breakfast table, chewed their food thoroughly. Belinda King cried, swept away in her robe, came back ten minutes later, her cheer such a mask that the two younger boys started crying too.
Rob King stood at the window, stared down the empty rows, the brown stalks arm bones to him. All the people planted out there, reaching up for something.
He understood.
Under the tree was supposed to have been the spark plug to a three-wheeler for the boys to share, a Honda 110 he’d been talking about since school had started.
None of them had asked after it, though. Not out loud.
The skin of the trampoline caught in the fence was losing its basket weave, the fibers fraying. By dusk it was some crash-landed wraith. The biggest, deadest crow ever.
By noon he was back out in the fields, stripping alone.
Soon enough Arthur King joined him and they worked together, no words necessary after all these seasons.
In the back of
his
truck, Arthur’s, wrapped under a tarp, was the Honda 110.
Rob King didn’t say anything, just nodded, took it home filled with gas, and the headlight worked, and that night there were two boys with blue lips, one helmet between them, Belinda King on the porch, trying not to say anything.
Rob King probably puts his arm around her waist here.
Give them that.
Three days later, though, he’s in the fields again, the boys too, with promises to be careful, to take turns. But Belinda’s standing on the porch just the same. Already Jonas has got his heel caught on the knobby front of one of the rear tires, been pulled down between the fender and peg, the
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