“You wouldn’t leave anyone out to dry,” I said confidently, and he didn’t answer. “Everett?”
“One of the guys on the Portland team, their best receiver, was my teammate in college,” he said. “Jarron would say that I screwed him several times by tossing hospital balls while he was in the slot.” He paused the story to explain. “I threw to him when he was in the middle of the field, and I threw high and slow. That left him open to getting crushed by the defense. He didn’t play his sophomore season due to one of those passes and he hates my ass to this day.”
“After the game I went to, everyone walked around shaking hands and acting very professional, so I bet he’s over it by now. And you didn’t mean to throw like that,” I said. “You had good intentions.”
“We’re professionals but we’re still people. There are a lot of guys that I hate out there.”
I still wanted to argue and defend him. “But—”
“Also, the implant he had to get to stabilize his ankle makes him not give a crap about my good intentions.” He sighed. “And they weren’t good back then because I didn’t care how hard he got hit. I just wanted him to catch it.”
“But now you do care,” I said. “Did you explain to your coaches that you’ve changed a lot, like how you explained it to me?”
More silence.
“Because you said that you have,” I reminded him. “You said that you were an asshole and you did a lot of stupid pranks and acted childish and attention-seeking when you were in high school.”
“And college,” he added.
“I didn’t know it had continued, but ok. And you said that your first year in the league, you walked around with a swollen head and expectations that people would defer to you and your talent, that within a year, you’d be the starter.”
“Where are you going with this?” Everett asked me.
“You’ve changed,” I said. “You don’t act like that anymore. You’re humble and hardworking. You won’t throw any ICU balls.”
“Hospital.”
“Right, sorry. You won’t throw hospital balls or play the slots, which I think you said you were also doing in college. You could talk to that Portland receiver tomorrow and apologize for it,” I suggested. “And the coaches will watch you this season and say wow.”
“Wow,” he repeated.
“They’ll say, ‘Wow, we were wrong. Wow, he’s so good. Wow, we made the right decision when we made him the starter and we hope that he can forgive us for our doubts and negativity. We shouldn’t have been so mean and we’re really sorry.”
I heard him laugh quietly. “I’ve never heard a coach apologize like that, but there could be a first time.”
“You told me that you were going to show them how much you deserve this,” I said. “You’ve been doing that for the whole preseason, and you’ll go out there tomorrow and show it again.”
“Ok,” he said. “Ok, thanks.”
I was his friend just like he was mine, and I was very glad if I’d helped him. I also wanted to start another petition, this one to tell the Woodsmen offensive coaches that they needed to change the way they dealt with their players. Were they kidding with that? There were several books from my teacher training that they could have read to learn about intrinsic motivation and also about empathy. Had they cared that he’d played last season after the death of his grandmother? Had they noticed that he wasn’t the same guy now? Geez!
“I know you can do it!” I said, and it must have been loud. Jannie looked over at me, her eyebrows so high that I couldn’t see them due to her sombrero, and the 7 and 7 guy picked up his head from where he’d leaned back against the cracked vinyl seat. He blinked at me and then raised his empty glass to signal for another.
“I have to go,” Everett was telling me. “Team meeting.”
“I do too, but I’ll see you tomorrow,” I answered. “You don’t have to come talk to me or anything like that.”
“I’ll get you a field pass for before the game and we’ll see each other there. It’ll be an email so watch for that.”
“Ok,” I said, smiling. 7 and 7 smiled back, so I turned away from him. “I’ll see you there.” Then we hung up.
“Your sister is going to leave,” Jannie announced, and I ran to the window. But I saw that Willow wasn’t driving. “That guy just got dropped off,” she said, pointing to the person who had joined my sister in the car that I recognized as Boyd’s. Theyhad their windows open, so we could both see and hear their argument.
“You can’t take my car without asking,” Boyd told her. “No, you know what? You can’t take my car, period.”
“You let me drive it before,” she protested.
“I let you drive in a parking lot with no one else around and me in the passenger seat. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
