Like You'd Understand, Anyway

I met Wainwright my first day of varsity practice. I came out of the locker room and hadn't buckled my chin strap, and already there was an altercation. Wainwright and this fucking giant were locked up and pulling each other's face masks around. The giant I knew, everybody knew: Junior Cooley, our All-State offensive tackle. He benched 350 pounds. His helmet on his head looked like a bucket on a bush.

They avoided each other for a play or two, and then on a screen pass Junior swung upfield looking for someone to block and Wainwright was already in the air and en route. They hit each other so hard I could feel it. The little ear pads came out of Junior's helmet. The ball carrier and some of the pursuit all piled into the body. Everybody made those oooh sounds.

Wainwright pulled himself from the pile, his helmet a little askew. Junior's face mask bolts were snapped and the blood from his nose had fanned upward to cover his forehead. Wainwright put a hand on each side of Junior's helmet and got in close and waited for Junior to focus, and told him, “Remember: the next play could be your last, but your educationll never be taken away.”

He says he motivates through intimidation and positive reinforcement.

He runs full tilt, adjusts full tilt, arrives at full tilt. He hits like someone falling down an elevator shaft. “Friggin' seismic,” I heard the defensive line coach murmur once. What the coaches love about him is that no matter what, he gets to where he needs to go. And always arrives on time, in a hurry, and in a shitty mood.

Between games he likes to mingle with the regular students. Sprats, he calls them.

Most of us played for serious youth football or Pop Warner programs but even so this was eye-opening, this level of hitting. Whenever you'd hear a pop or a real collision on the field, a coach would murmur, “Welcome to the big time.” They didn't even need to be looking.

“Those of you who want to play, strap on your hats,” Big Coach said at our team meeting, day one. We call our defensive coordinator Coach and the head coach Big Coach. “Because we're gonna be flying around and cracking heads.”

An hour or so after Junior's reorientation Wainwright and I converged on a hit and his forearm shiver glanced off the ballcarrier's helmet and whacked mine. My helmet opened a divot in my forehead. I was bleeding like someone was pouring water over my head.

Wainwright liked my stitches afterwards. He called me The Lid for the way my scalp looked.

I had to miss two or three practices until I figured out how to keep one of my mom's maxipads over my stitches with a headband.

Here's the thing: Wainwright and me are pretty sure that my dad's kid is this All-State running back for Port Neches-Groves down around Beaumont. We saw the kid's picture in the Street & Smith's last year and he looked just like me. We checked him out on the Web site and Wainwright was like cackling when the kid's face popped up. “You, only smarter” was the way he put it. Plus my aunt made my mom cry once just by mentioning Beaumont. Plus she wouldn't answer when I asked about it. “Don't talk stupid,” she said. “I don't know any other way to talk,” I told her.

We wouldn't play a school from Beaumont unless both schools got pretty deep into the state tournament. But that could happen. They're district champs, and we're us.

Wainwright and me both got brother issues. When I point that out to him, he goes, “Yeah, except yours are uninteresting.” His brother's now with the Jaguars, getting paid serious money to hurt people every Sunday. He's third on their depth chart, but still. If you don't count Mystery Boy out at Port Neches-Groves, my family hasn't amounted to much. My regular brother's five years older than me and his main claim to fame is that he taught me how to play by kicking my ass up and down the field. I played a lot of games with him when I was crying so hard I could barely see the ball. “Be a Spartan,” he'd say in front of our friends after he'd leveled me, to keep me from running home to my mother. “Be a Spartan.” “I'll kill you,” I'd usually scream, when I finally could, and then I'd try.

“Get off me,” he'd tell me when I'd go after his Adam's apple or eyes.

Our dad left when I was two and my brother was seven. My mom says she never heard from him again but we think she's lying. I ask my brother what he was like and he says, “What do you think?. He was a dick.”

When I keep after him he'll say to Mom, “Mom. Wasn't Dad a dick?”

“Stop it,” Mom'll tell him.

I Googled his name and came up with a guy who wrote science fiction who I couldn't tell where he lived and a guy who sold boats in Michigan. I don't think either guy is him.

There's nobody with his name in the Beaumont area, according to the phone book. But get this: the kid's name is Corey. Our name's Royce.

“Look at that: it's a fucking antonym,” I said when I realized.

“That's anagram, you fucking clown,” Wainwright said back.