They left early the next morning. Cary liked to sleep till 10 at least, and Rory didn’t. They’d been getting up much earlier than Cary liked since they’d been at the cabin. They had a last breakfast there. Cap had told them not to bother cleaning the place as he had a service to do that before his next clients arrived.
They’d packed their things the night before, so it was get up and shower, dress, eat and into the car for Cary. He didn’t get in next to Rory. He got in the back and lay across the back seat, fighting for space with Morris, and was back asleep before they reached the highway. Morris was asleep, too, with his head on Cary’s stomach.
With no one to talk to, which Rory liked, he was able to simply think. He thought about the horse story he was starting to write, he thought about working as an assistant to the director on films, he thought about what he wanted to accomplish in Ripley’s Creek. And that brought his thoughts back to his high school days there, and Bobby, and football.
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Practices were strange for Rory. He was still the same as he’d been mentally. He was still afraid of bigger boys and getting hurt, but Bobby was constantly encouraging him not to be.
He did realize that now that he was taller, heavier and stronger, the other boys weren’t so dismissive of him. Because of that, he didn’t feel so threatened.
Still, facing larger teammates in practice, mostly seniors and juniors, scared him at first. Only a few sophomores had made varsity: Bobby and Rory and four other boys.
There was a separate coach for receivers just as there was for offensive linemen and backs and special-team players, and for defensive linemen, linebackers and defensive backs. Most of these coaches had been hired from a nearby college just for the high school’s fall practice. Once the season started, the team would only have the head coach and three assistants.
Rory worked with the receivers’ coach when they separated for the day after doing stretching and calisthenics. The coach’s name was Rod Stimson. He told his group to call him Rod or Coach.
The other receivers were three seniors and three juniors. They all had experience. Rory had none at all, only catching passes from Bobby and running the routes the two of them had figured out on their own. He had no idea what a receiver in a game was required to do.
Rod discovered this early on. He had the guys run some standard routes, down and outs, comebacks, posts, fades and flies. The other guys ran them. Rory stood still, watching, bewildered.
Rod assigned other guys to work on routes with the quarterbacks, then pulled Rory aside.
He asked Rory to tell him about himself. That was difficult for Rory. He didn’t like to talk to adults, and he didn’t like himself very much, and just what was he supposed to say?
“Well, I’m friends with Bobby Tate. He’s one of the running backs. He told me we were going out for football. I don’t know anything about football. I guess Coach saw me run, saw me catch the ball during tryouts. But I don’t know about those, what, routes? You called them routes. I don’t know what they are.”
“You don’t know anything about football, huh?”
“Nothing at all.”
Rory was afraid the man would just walk away or maybe even yell at him for wasting his time. Rod didn’t. He smiled. “I guess I don’t have to worry about breaking you of any bad habits you have. Are you willing to work and learn?”
Rod had a very easygoing manner and a soft voice. Rory felt some of his nerves settling down. He hated confrontation, and this man didn’t present himself that way. He also remembered that what he was trying to do this summer was lose some of his tentativeness. This was an opportunity to work on that.
So he said what he wouldn’t have dared say a month earlier. “Yes. I’m mostly here to support Bobby. He’s the only black kid on the team. He deserves having a friend on the team. As for me, well, can I tell you something just between you and me?”
Rod looked at the slender boy with the slumped shoulders and anxious air. “Sure.” He said it encouragingly.
“Okay. Well . . .” He paused. This was hard. “This might
sound funny, but I’m kinda scared of getting hurt. A lot of these guys are much bigger
than I am, and sometimes they try to hurt the people they’re hitting.” He stopped
and wasn’t able to look at the coach. “I guess I’m a coward.”
Rod didn’t look shocked or belittling. “Okay, here’s a secret from me. Most of these guys were scared when they started. Some still are. But the game itself attracts them. They have different reasons for playing it, but they all like it or they wouldn’t be doing it. I hope you’ll get to like it, too. We’ll work on the fear part. You have to learn how to hit and be hit. How to tackle and be tackled. And something you’ll like: how to avoid being hit and tackled. First off, I’ll teach you how to block. It’s an essential skill for any football player, and doing it, doing it well, is really going to help with that fear.”
Rod was a great believer in fundamentals. Rory didn’t know anything, which made it easy for Rod to begin. He told Rory to wait a second, then went and pulled a linebacker over to work with him and Rory.
The guy outweighed Rory by 30 pounds or more. Rory felt the emotions he always did when facing someone like that.
He introduced the linebacker, Todd Gunderson, to Rory first. Then, “Okay guys, this is what we’re doing. I’m the running back. Todd is trying to stop me. Rory, you’re supposed to prevent him from doing that. Looks impossible, doesn’t it?”
Rory nodded, not enjoying this at all. Todd looked at Rory, then grinned. Rod pulled Rory back and whispered, “I’m going to run to my right, try to go around him that way. You have to stop him from moving to his left to tackle me. When I say, ‘Hike’, that’s when I’ll start moving, and so will Todd.”
He walked back to his position, and Rory said, “Wait! I can’t stop him. He’s bigger than I am.”
Rod said, “Yeah, but he’s not interested in you. I’m the one he wants. You just try to stop him. Let’s try this.”
Rory moved so he was standing in front of Todd. Rod yelled, “Hike!” Todd reached out, shoved Rory out of the way, and grabbed Rod.
“Okay, great!” Rory didn’t think it was great. He thought he’d
looked foolish. Rod came over to him and asked, “Did you get hurt?”
“No, but—”
“Okay. Stop. You had no idea what to do, you were facing a larger player, and you didn’t get hurt. So, that’s your first lesson. When you’re blocking, what are you doing? You’re trying to stop someone who’s trying to avoid you. They’re not out to get you. So that’s one thing you can stop worrying about. You can see that, can’t you?”
Rory thought about that for just a moment, then smiled. “That does make sense.”
“Good! Now, let’s see if we can make you a decent blocker, now that you see what blocking is, and what it isn’t.”
He worked with Rory, using Todd as a foil, showing him how to set his feet, positioning, weight distribution, sideways movement while keeping his man in front of him, what holding was and the penalty for doing it, how to stay low rather than standing tall—all the things Rory needed to know to block effectively.
They ran the play over and over. Todd tried different ways of getting past Rory. Some of them involved pushing him aside and Rory falling down. Rod and Todd both helped him up. To his surprise, Rory wasn’t hurt; it was nothing like he expected. Once, by staying low and coming up sharply into Todd and catching him off balance, he even managed to knock the larger boy to the ground.
They spent two hours on this. During their third break, Rod asked Rory how he was going to get better at this.
“By keeping doing what you told me?”
“Well, yeah, but that isn’t the answer I wanted. This is all new to you. Like picking up a trumpet for the first time. I can show you how to blow correctly, how to hold your lips, but are you then ready to join the school band? Of course not. What do you need to do to get to that point?”
“Practice?”
“Exactly. Just as you now know the fundamentals of blocking, guys like Todd know the fundamentals of not being blocked. This will be a learning process for you. The more you work at it, the better you’ll be. You’re smart. You know how I know that? Because you caught on really fast to what I explained. So, use your head, use these daily practices to work on technique, and you’ll be fine. Better than fine. You’ll be an asset to the run game, and maybe help your friend Bobby get some yards.”
He drank some of the water from one of the bottles that were available for the players and coaches, then screwed the cap back on. “I think that’s enough instruction for now. Stay with Todd for the rest of the time you have today. Use the time to work on what we just did. I’ll see you again tomorrow.”
“But what about catching passes? Routes? All that stuff? I’m supposed to be learning how to be a receiver.”
Rod smiled. “I love your enthusiasm. Tomorrow we’ll get into that a little. I still have to teach you about tackling and being tackled, though. Tomorrow you’ll learn not to be afraid of being tackled, either. Just like blocking. Once you’ve done it, it’s not nearly so scary.”
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Cary woke up. He struggled into a sitting position and wiped ineffectively at the drool Morris had left on his shirt. Morris sat up, too, then licked Cary’s face, making him giggle. “Is it time for lunch yet?” he yawned.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Rory said. “I’d have awakened you when we crossed into Wisconsin but Morris needed his sleep. Oh, and I don’t want to go to jail. Fasten your seat belt.”
Rory had driven south after leaving the lake and Ryan behind. It had taken two hours to get back into Minneapolis. He’d worked through town, heading into St. Paul, then had caught US 10 and headed southeast to where the Mississippi River met the St. Croix River and the two rivers merged. He’d crossed the river, entering Wisconsin at Prescott. He’d thought about waking Cary so he could see where the two rivers formed into one, but they still had time driving near the river for the boy to see it, and he knew boys needed their sleep as much as dogs did. Without waking him, Rory had continued southeast on the Great River Road, Highway 35, now in Wisconsin, and headed toward Nelson, where he’d crossed back over the Mississippi into Minnesota and continued down the west side of the Mississippi, heading toward the small town of Winona on US 61. He’d thought that would be a good stopping place for lunch. They were now about a half an hour outside of Winona
“We’ve been driving for days!” Cary complained. “Do I at least get frequent miles, even if they’re over the road?”
“That’s what you want? Another road trip?”
Cary started to say no, but then reconsidered. “It’s been okay. I rode a horse. I met two cute boys and had sex with them. I thought that was never going to happen! I didn’t expect it to, and when it did, it was better than I thought it would be. I think that was because I liked both the boys I did it with. But beside the sex, I’ve been able to spend time with you and Morris. And, I caught some fish. I’m glad we did this.”
“Me, too, although you’re the only one having sex. Doesn’t seem fair, somehow. I’m spending all the money, and you’re having all the sex.”
“Hey, if you want to find someone, I’ll turn my head toward the wall while you’re wrinkling the sheets. Now that I know how it’s done, I probably don’t need any visual lessons.”
Rory laughed, then said, “That’s okay. I’m fine without it. Used to that. I’m turning into a GINO.”
“Huh?”
Well, you’ve heard of Republicans In Name Only? RINOs? Well, that’s me, Gay In Name Only.”
Cary chuckled, but then asked, “Does that bother you?”
“Not really. I would like to find someone. I would like to raise a kid or four. But I’m still young and still haven’t decided what I want to do—you know. I mean a job.”
“Me, neither. I’m not even sure I want to go to college.”
“You want to continue acting?”
“A little, I guess, but not as much as I did. And I know I’m aging out. There are many more parts for young kids than older teens. I don’t know. I’m just letting the days pass by. Maybe I’ll figure it out next year.”
“That’s one reason I wanted you to see a college campus. Madison is pretty, I’ve heard. It’s summer, but there’ll still be college kids there.”
Cary didn’t answer. He was watching the river out his left window, happy to still be in the backseat. He eventually leaned forward and asked again, “When’s lunch?”
“I was thinking we can get something in the next town. Not much farther. Winona, Minnesota. Then, just a bit farther, we’ll join the I-90 and it’s only a couple hours or a bit more to Madison. It’ll still be light out so we can see the campus. We’ll be in Winona soon.”
They lunched at the Blue Heron Coffeehouse in Winona, close to the river in the downtown area. Then it was back on the road. They met the I-90 in Dakota, then crossed back into Wisconsin on the I-90 through French Island. They drove east on the I-90, met the I-94 and drove south to Madison.
They parked and walked around, seeing the buildings on the extensive and beautiful campus located on the southern shore of Lake Mendota.
“This is an excellent school, Cary. These buildings are for the engineering department. You could do worse than being a professional engineer.”
“What’s this huge building?” Cary asked, pointing at a nearby jumbo megabuilding. He was getting tired of looking at buildings he was sure he was seeing for the first and last time. No way was he going to college this far from where he was comfortable. That was in L.A.
“That’s Camp Randall, their football stadium. This is a Big Ten school and has a top-flight football team year after year.”
“I don’t like football.”
Rory pretended to be shocked. “Don’t like football? Are you sure you’re an American?”
Cary laughed. “Last time I checked. Yeah.”
“Then you should like football.”
“I don’t like any sports.”
“Well, when we’re back in the car, I’ll tell you something about football.”
“First thing,” Rory said when they were back on the road, “is to figure out where we’re going now. We could sleep here, but that would mean getting to Ripley’s Creek late tomorrow after a long drive, and I’d rather get there earlier. So I was thinking we should drive a little farther today to make tomorrow’s drive fairly short.
“We have options. We could drive to Chicago, Milwaukee, or even Indianapolis and spend the night there. We can take all interstate highways or smaller roads. Do you have an opinion?” He smiled. He knew Cary just wanted to be out of the car.
“You’re driving. I’m just going along for the ride. You have the helm, you do the steering.” Cary grinned, too.
“Well, what I’m thinking is, we want to get where we’re going during the day. And we don’t want to drive a whole lot more today. So, how about this? Drive a couple of hours to Davenport, Iowa. It’s on the Mississippi, so maybe we book a hotel overlooking the river, have a late dinner, maybe on a patio with the river running by, sleep there, and then have about a five-hour drive to Ripley’s Creek, arriving in the early afternoon. You game for that?”
“Sure. Morris and I can nap again.”
“No, I want to talk to you about football. Morris can nap if he wants to.”
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The drive from Madison to Davenport on US 18, US 191 and US 61 took a little over two hours. Cary didn’t nap, intrigued by what Rory had to say.
He’d never heard Rory speak as much as he’d done on this trip. Rory didn’t think he’d spoken as much, either.
“Cary, I was a mess when I was your age and younger. Bobby saved me. Well, he says I saved him, too, but that’s just him talking. He would have done fine without me. But me—I really don’t know that I’d have survived without him and his dad.
“Anyway, we worked out and ran together, and he wanted to go out for the football team when we were sophomores. I didn’t want any part of that. I was scared of kids bigger than I was. I was especially scared of all the jocks at school, and the football players were the worst.”
“So you told him no?”
“I couldn’t let him do it by himself. I was scared, but I went with him. I don’t know why, but both of us got picked for the varsity, which is a big deal for sophomores and especially for two guys who’d never played the game before.
“Anyway, I got chosen, and I was assigned to a coach who worked with the receivers. That’s what I was supposed to be, someone to run pass patterns and catch the ball. I was lucky; the coach for receivers was a good man. With the other sort of coach, I’d never have made it. But I told him I was scared, and he showed me how to play and put my fears aside.
“He taught me the fundamentals of playing football. The hard part for me was overcoming my fears of being killed on the field. He taught me well. I learned my fears were just that. You need to learn that, too.”
“That fears are nothing at all?””
“Don’t jump the gun. Let me tell it my way.”
“Jeez. You stretch things out. I’m a teenager. I like things short and compact.”
“I know. Short attention span. But bear with me; I’ll cut it short.”
Cary sighed, but Rory continued, undaunted.
“See, I really was afraid at first. Coach Rod knew how to deal with that. He taught me how to block, and that was against a much bigger guy. And I got knocked down a lot. I learned from that. I learned I didn’t have to be so scared, that being knocked down wasn’t something to be terrified about.
“But being tackled, and especially learning how to tackle; that was worse. You’re running full speed, and someone slams into you—yeah, that can hurt. And when they’re going full tilt and you run into them, that can hurt just as bad. So the coach showed me how to do it, and when you do it right, it doesn’t hurt much at all.
“I went home that night knowing I could tackle and that I could survive being tackled. My fear of those things was gone. Not all of it, but most. Now, tell me the most important thing I learned that day. I was you, remember. Just like you. Just as scared of everything as you are.”
Cary did think about it. And when he finally spoke, Rory was reminded of how smart Cary was.
“Was it that you didn’t need to be so afraid of so many things?”
Rory smiled. “That’s pretty close to being right. I learned that my fears were overblown. That I was so afraid of everything that I didn’t give anything a chance. When I did, it seemed the fears were much worse than the reality was, than what I imagined I’d be facing. I was scared of things that weren’t really that bad. That was a revelation to me. Yeah, I was sore, there was pain, but nothing too bad. Nothing I couldn’t handle. That was an awakening, realizing I could handle the pain that I’d been so frightened of.
“Not only was my fear excessive, but I’d had fun! I liked doing what I’d done out there! I wanted to go out again to do more of it the next day.”
When Cary was silent, digesting that, Rory continued. “Cary, you shouldn’t hate football, or any sport, till you actually try it. But my saying that won’t make any difference. I know that because I was that. Just like you. What I’m hoping this trip will do is give you some new life experiences. The more you live it, the less scary it’ll be.”
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They got a suite at the Davenport Plaza Hotel. It was right on the river, and they did have outdoor dining on their patio overlooking the wide expanse of water. They were late getting there and so didn’t have a problem getting a primo table.
The meals were expensive, as was the hotel, but Rory never worried about the cost of things. He’d grown up with no money at all, and now, from the book and the money made from the sale of the film rights—money followed by payment for the script and then his assistant film director’s salary—he had more money now than he’d ever be able to spend. So he never even thought about how expensive things were.
They had a great meal and enjoyed the ambience of the river and the twinkling lights surrounding the patio. The food was excellent. After the meal, it was late, yet neither of them was ready for bed. Cary had slept much of the day, and Rory had unexpected energy from the thought that he’d be back in Ripley’s Creek the following day.
They went to their suite, collected Morris and took a walk through the deserted Davenport streets.
They saw old mixed with new. Rory got a sense of the city as they walked. He was now accustomed to the hustle and bustle of L.A. That city was alive with energy, enthusiasm, forward movement. Davenport, in comparison, seemed to pulsate with the past. Its history seemed omnipresent. Maybe, he thought, it was because in the evening the streets were deserted, something that never happened in L.A., but no, it seemed more than that. There was a respect for the past here he’d never felt in L.A. There was a solemn dignity that he could feel as they walked. He wondered if the presence of the river flowing by endlessly, indefatigable and infinite, contributed to what he sensed. He wasn’t sure but knew there was a sense of the past here, and it was strong.
Eventually they returned to the hotel. It had been a long day. All three of them went to bed happy and slept soundly.
They’d leave after breakfast in the morning.