Out of His League Page 4

  “Ossie?”

  “Ozzie.”

  “Well, pleased to meet you, Ossie! I’m Dave Graham, this is my wife, Nancy, and these are our kids, David Junior and Alison.”

  Nancy’s hug surprised Ozzie; he nearly headbutted her. She wore a beaming smile and makeup that almost hid her middle-aged wrinkles.

  David Jr. was a few years younger than Ozzie but just as tall, and Alison was entering puberty with a mouthful of braces. Ozzie nodded hello.

  “Is this everything?” asked Dave, picking up Ozzie’s bag. “Heck, Nancy brings home more after a day in Houston!”

  They zigzagged across a carpark until David Jr. finally spotted the family sedan—a Buick the size of a small bus. Whizzing along the highway, Nancy kept turning around from the front seat, saying, “You must be tired, you poor thing,” and Dave kept looking in the rearview mirror, wanting to know if Ozzie wrestled crocodiles.

  It was freezing in the Buick, but outside it was hot and brown. There were cattle roaming and cotton growing, and the only thing Ozzie didn’t recognize was a metal contraption sticking out of the ground.

  “What’s that … thing?”

  “That thang,” said Dave, “is what keeps Texas runnin’.”

  As Dave sucked in a deep breath, Alison slipped on some headphones and David Jr. began pushing buttons on a handheld computer game.

  “When the town of Hope first sprung up in the desert it was a lot like hell on earth,” Dave said slowly. “We have dust storms here that make you forget there’s a sun.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Ozzie. “Sometimes we have so many grasshoppers at home they look like a cloud.”

  Dave held up his index finger. “But then somebody found out that below Hope was a hidden gold mine. Something dark and powerful that changes the way people live. Something that can make and break men.”

  “What Dave’s trying to say,” interrupted Nancy, “is that you were looking at an oil rig.”

  Dave gave Nancy a frown, then kept going. “When oil was discovered, Hope grew more in a few weeks than it had in fifty years. Our twin city, Denham, got the rich investors …”

  “Rich assholes, more like it,” said David Jr., not looking up from his computer game.

  “Watch your mouth!” said Nancy.

  “But they are.”

  Dave continued. “And Hope attracted men known as boomers, who trudged into the desert to get oil and came back with faces stained black. My granddaddy was one of those men.”

  “So people do all right round here?” asked Ozzie.

  “Sometimes, sometimes not. When the price of oil is high we’re happy, but during the busts there’s not much to be grateful for, besides God and football.”

  They were passing a field where the thick, green grass looked out of place in the sunburned landscape. Posts at either end stood like motionless men with their arms raised high, as if a gun was being pointed at them.

  “Who plays there?” asked Ozzie.

  “No one,” said Dave. “That’s the practice field for our football team.”

  “The pros?”

  Dave laughed. “No. High school. Your new high school.”

  Ozzie couldn’t believe it. His school in Australia had one field, used for practice and games. It was hard, with lots of thorns. “The practice field? Where do they play?”

  Dave pointed. Behind the field a concrete stadium rose out of the dirt like a colosseum. “Fits twenty thousand people. Used to pack ’em in like sardines every game. Now, it’s only full once every two years.”

  “When?”

  “The Armadillo game. Haven’t beaten them in a long time, but darn, it doesn’t stop us hoping.”

  Even David Jr. stopped pressing buttons long enough to look at the stadium.

  “We’re huge fans. Nearly everyone in town is. Course we’d love it a whole lot more if the Shooters’d win like they used to,” said Dave. “Season starts in less than a month, so you’ve come at the right time.”

  “How many on the team?” asked Ozzie.

  “There’s fifty in the squad, eleven on the field at any one time.”

  “Only eleven out of fifty play? What about the rest?”

  Dave laughed. “You looking to try out?”

  Ozzie shook his head. “Doesn’t sound like my kind of game.”

  Dave gave his wife a wink. “That’s a wise move, ’cause let me tell you, it’s tough.”

  “And there are so many rules,” said Nancy. “I’ve been watching it all my life and I still don’t understand it.”

  “And the footballers here are real big,” said David Jr. “You’re not small but you’d probably get snapped like a twig.”

  Alison kept listening to her MP3 player.

  “What do you play in Australia: Ossie rules, rugby or soccer?” asked Dave.

  “Rugby League,” said Ozzie. “A hundred years ago it broke away from rugby to become our first professional football. Now it’s the most popular sport in the top half of the country. We call it the greatest game of all.”

  Dave laughed.

  chapter 9

  The Grahams’ house had two floors, and large manicured yards, front and back. Inside were three toilets, two bathrooms, and five televisions—all connected to cable. As well as a television with fifty channels, Ozzie’s new bedroom had a trampoline-sized bed. He resisted the temptation to jump on it.

  Nancy called him down for afternoon tea, and David Jr. gave Ozzie his first American lesson. “The secret to good iced tea is loads of sugar,” he said, heaping five spoonfuls into Ozzie’s glass.

  “So it’s just you and your grandfather at home?” asked Nancy. She passed over a plate of chocolate-chip cookies.

  “Yep.”

  “What’s that like?”

  “Not bad. I don’t get cooking like this, though.” Ozzie took a bite.

  “These are straight out of a package,” said David Jr.

  Alison giggled.

  “You’ll have to excuse your new brother and sister,” said Nancy, frowning. “They’re a little cheeky sometimes.”

  In the late afternoon Ozzie hit the wall, so he went to his room for a nap. He woke bright as a button at three a.m. and crept downstairs to hunt for some breakfast, or dinner, he wasn’t sure which.

  Dave was on the couch watching a giant, flat-screen television. “Can’t sleep?”

  Ozzie nodded.

  “Join the club. Wish I had your excuse, though.”

  Ozzie looked at the huge screen. “What’s on?”

  “Football.” Dave pressed a button and the picture froze. “Always football.” He turned to Ozzie. “You want to fit in here?”

  Ozzie shrugged.

  “Then you need to understand what football means to this town. But first, I’ll fix us something to eat.”

  He disappeared and returned with reheated pizza. “Your granddaddy let you drink beer?”

  “Yep.”

  He threw Ozzie an ice-cold can.

  “If I bore you, just tell me,” said Dave. “My kids do.”

  Dave cracked open his can and took a swig. “Around here, football’s a religion, it’s as simple as that. Why, I’m not sure, but I’ve got some theories. For one it’s a team game, and when you live in a place that’s God-awful hot and dusty and flat as the desert ’cause it is the desert, then you need a team of friends to help you survive. Also, it’s a sport where physical strength still means something. People around here don’t like hearing about California girly men making a fortune punching keys on some computer. This is the frontier, where men are men if they can throw cattle to the ground and shoot a gun. The fact is, football bands people together, through bad times and bad weather, and the Hope Shooters and Denham Armadillos always were two of the best high school teams in Texas. Denham had a bigger weight room and a better stadium, but more often than not, Hope beat ’em.”

  “How come?”

  “Well, we had Coach Hayes and the tough sons of oilmen. The Armadil
los had the sons of doctors and lawyers and oilmen who never spent a day working the rigs, but sat in air-conditioned offices and owned their own airplanes. By the mid-eighties, Hope had won twice as many state titles.”

  Dave took another drink. “Then integration came along.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A law that says schools can’t have only white kids anymore. Most of the blacks and Mexicans live on the south side of Interstate 20, and nowadays they’re bused to either Hope or Denham.”

  “Why did that change anything to do with football?”

  “This is where it gets sneaky. The black kids, well, they love football, and the Hispanic kids are more into soccer. Now soccer might be big in most parts of the world, but not in Texas. When the boundaries were drawn for integration, somehow most of the African Americans ended up at Denham and the Latino Americans at Hope. Today, Hope has one of the best soccer teams in the district, but when it comes to football, well, we ain’t been a force since.”

  “What about Denham?”

  “They’re awesome. Pre-season rankings have them at number three in the country. Every October they beat up on us and spend the rest of the year rubbing it in.”

  “So it was just bad luck?”

  “Good luck if you ask the people of Denham. But in Hope there’s a saying, ‘A Denham judge can’t draw a straight line.’”

  “What do you think?”

  “I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that the people of Hope would do anything to have a team that wins like it used to.”

  Dave pushed a button and the picture sprang to life. A boy in a black-and-white jersey zigzagged through the clutching hands of half a dozen defenders. Both the commentator and the crowd were yelling as he crossed the goal line.

  Dave stopped the tape. “That’s the last time we won the district championship.”

  “When was it?”

  He thought for a bit. “Too long ago.”

  Ozzie went back to bed around five, where he tossed and turned and thought of football, and Jess. Sleep had almost found him when the birds started singing, and the habit of rising at dawn to feed hungry cows prevented him catching any more shut-eye.

  From his bedroom window he watched the sun rise over identical-looking backyards. Through the spray of automated sprinklers, Ozzie spotted a rainbow.

  chapter 10

  Ozzie began his time at Hope High in the principal’s office. Mr. Fraser, a short man in a cheap suit, shook Ozzie’s hand briefly and said, “Howdy. Hope you have a great time here.”

  Ozzie smiled at the way he said “time,” the i sounding like the ahhh patients make when a doctor checks their throats.

  “Anything you need, anything at all,” said Mr. Fraser, “just ask Miss Simms. She’ll take care of you.”

  Miss Simms, the school secretary, then introduced Ozzie to his “buddy”—Jose Garcia.

  “Hey, amigo,” Jose said as they shook hands.

  “G’day, mate.”

  They toured the school. Jose was in no hurry to get to Advanced Algebra 4 so they walked slowly.

  “You live nearby?” asked Ozzie.

  “About an hour that-a-way.” He pointed south. “With the other Mexicans.”

  “So … which are you? American or Mexican?”

  Jose thought for a second. “My folks are Mexican, still can’t speak English too good. But I was born here, which makes me as American as Yankee Doodle.”

  “Yankee who?”

  Jose chuckled.

  Unlike Yuranigh High, much of the school was enclosed, linked by stairs and passageways. They passed the lockers and the cafeteria and ended up at the gym, where pretty girls were giggling and hanging up posters.

  “Jose!” said one, waving. “Hi Joey!” said another. He seemed to know them all.

  One girl squealed and ran over, all bouncing hair and smiling braces. She wrapped Jose in her arms, hanging on a bit longer than just a friend would.

  “This is my girl,” Jose said.

  Ozzie shook her outstretched hand.

  “I’m Braidie,” she said.

  “Ozzie.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Ossie. I love your accent!”

  He looked around. “What are the posters for?”

  “Tonight’s the big pep rally. Coach McCulloch is introducing the team.”

  “The footy team?”

  She giggled. “I have no idea what you just said, but your accent is sooo cute!”

  She gave Jose another hug and the boys left.

  “Nice girl,” Ozzie said. “How long you been going out?”

  “Actually, we don’t date,” said Jose. “Braidie’s my Hopette.”

  “Hope what?”

  “Hopette. They’re like a spirit group for the football team. Every player is given one for the season.”

  “What? To keep?”

  Jose grinned. “She bakes you cookies on Wednesday, makes you posters on Friday, looks after you so you can play better.”

  “Like your own personal slave?”

  Jose laughed. “You’re a crack-up, man.”

  After a day of introductions Ozzie was ready to go home and sleep. He had a headache from trying to remember names, and although he could mostly understand the locals—from growing up on a diet of American TV—most of the locals couldn’t understand a word that came out of Ozzie’s mouth, so he had to repeat himself a hundred times. But when Jose asked if he wanted to watch football practice that afternoon, curiosity got the better of him.

  In the locker room before practice you could smell the testosterone in the air. You could also hear it. An icecube flew past Ozzie’s head, crashing into the lockers; there was the regular snap of white towels flicking against boys’ legs; and one boy rapped, pretending his hand was a microphone.

  Jose clapped his hands. “Hey, Shooters. This here’s my man, Austin.”

  Ozzie felt his face turn red.

  A boy-giant named Tex slapped Ozzie on the shoulder so hard that finger marks could still be seen that night. Then a kid called Malivai asked Ozzie to “give me some skin.” Ozzie didn’t know what the bloke was talking about until he had his hand slapped.

  Another boy stood buck naked except for a football in his hand. His wide shoulders were pulled back and he wore a smile that could double as a sneer. “Hey Australia, you have washing machines in your country? Those jeans could walk away on their own, man.”

  A few players laughed. Jose wasn’t one of them. “Your brain already left your head on its own, amigo,” he said. “A long time ago.”

  The boy cocked his arm back and threw the football at Jose. It hummed and spiraled before smashing into the locker, missing Jose’s head by inches. “You be smart enough to catch some bullets today, amigo.”

  “Asshole,” whispered Jose as the boy turned away, smirking. “You just met our quarterback, Sam Wilson. Superstar of his own mind.”

  Ozzie didn’t whisper. “Where I’m from a bloke like that would be taught a lesson, quick smart.”

  “Same here,” said Jose. “Unless you’re the star quarterback.”

  chapter 11

  Ozzie sat next to Braidie in the stands, watching. The Hopettes talked about the players they’d been assigned to.

  “Not only is Jose a starter,” Braidie boasted, “he’s smart. He wants to become a lawyer so he can help his family.”

  “Why? Are they criminals?” asked Toni.

  “No! I mean help them have a better life. Not every family owns their own condo in Aspen, you know.”

  Toni gave a little smile.

  Braidie looked at her. “Who’s your player?”

  “Kurt.”

  “Isn’t he a manager?”

  Toni didn’t answer.

  Braidie turned to Ozzie, but spoke so they all could hear. “A manager adds ice to water bottles and washes uniforms. He’s not a real player.”

  Leesa tried to stop things getting too nasty. “I wish I had Sam. He’s so fine!”

&nbs
p; The girls murmured in agreement.

  Ozzie couldn’t believe anyone would want to bake biscuits for that wanker.

  “We all knew he’d go to Unity, though,” said Braidie. “She’s so purdy.”

  “Who’s she?” Ozzie asked.

  Braidie pointed.

  On the red running track that circled the oval, long-legged girls in short skirts jumped up and down and waved pom-poms. They leapt and waved at exactly the same time and even wore matching smiles, though it looked like hard work. When they stopped, the girl in front talked to the others, waving her pom-poms around as she did so.

  “Unity’s head cheerleader and she’ll most likely be homecoming queen as well,” said Braidie. “She and Sam are dating. They’re such a cute couple.”

  Ozzie took a closer look at Unity. “Purdy” must mean pretty, he figured.

  The players were running laps and most looked up at “their” girls and waved. Some were a lot bigger than his teammates back home, Ozzie noticed. On his club team even the prop forwards, who were men, carried less bulk than a few of these blokes who were six feet tall, nearly as wide, and just plain fat.

  Others were lean but full of muscle, with wide shoulders, big chests, and narrow waists that showed their six-packs, if they were shirtless, like Sam was. And still others such as Jose were small and wiry, but you could tell they were quick.

  After the run the players suited up and split into groups—each controlled by a man wearing a cap and a whistle.

  “How many coaches are there?” asked Ozzie.

  “Just the head coach and the defensive coordinator,” said Braidie. “Our offensive coordinator quit after last season and the school said they can’t afford a new one.”

  “So, two?”

  “There’s the specialist coaches but they don’t get paid much,” added Toni. “For the linemen, the wide receivers and the kickers.”

  “And there’s the strength and fitness coaches as well,” said Leesa.

  Ozzie thought of the Yuranigh Magpies with its one coach, Mick, who was also the captain. “Is there a coach who ties their shoelaces?” he asked.

  “Pardon me?” said Braidie.

  “A coach who ties their shoelaces?” Ozzie smiled to let her know he was making a joke.