Shoot-Out

Jake Stuart was the man now. Oh yeah, definitely the man, playing the only position he ever wanted to play, center mid, feeling like the center of everything now, the whole game going through him. Breaking into the clear at midfield, plenty of green in front of him, dribbling the ball like a total pro, like one of his heroes, the ball on a string with both feet, Jake feeling the way he always did in moments like these, as if the field were tilting away from him. As if he were running downhill. Jake thought: Please let everybody stay on side. Wingers, strikers, everybody. Please just wait for me this one time. No whistles. That was all the help he was going to need. He’d already made up his mind that somehow, whatever it took, he was going to figure out a way to take it all the way, that he was going to score himself this time. He just hadn’t let anybody else in on his little secret, at least not yet. Jake totally loved this part, running in the open field even before he got into the box, before things got a lot more crowded, like somebody had shrunk the huge field to something that felt like the inside of a school bus. Jake loved the moment—a moment at full speed—when you started to make something happen, when you turned defense into offense all by yourself. Coach Lord called Jake his “coach on the field.” All game long, the center mid for Lincoln’s twelve-year-old travel team had been coming up hard on Jake when he’d try to make any kind of play. The other kid had figured out early that if he could be aggressive with Jake, knock him off the ball first chance he got, before Jake got a head of steam going for him, that Jake’s team—Belmont—had hardly any chance of pushing the ball, forcing the action, in any kind of serious way. Smart kid. One who knew that if he could force Jake to pass before he wanted to, Lincoln’s outside guys could shut down the play every single time, pick Jake’s teammates clean. And just like that, Jake would be back on defense, throwing his own game into reverse, knowing he had to help out the guys behind him. Even with all the help he was supposed to have behind him on defense, stoppers and sweepers and fullbacks set uplike a defensive backfield in football, Jake still felt alittle bit like it was him against the world. But Lincoln’s center mid hung back this time. Maybe it was because he was just gassed by now. Maybe he was being lazy, assuming this would be another time when Jake was going to give the ball up early, even this late in the game. Whatever. Didn’t matter. Jake had room to maneuver now. Like finally having room to breathe. The big scoreboard at Belmont Middle School was behind him, on the parking lot end of the field, but Jake knew there had been thirty seconds left when he started up the field. Plenty of time, he told himself. His ball now. Forthe last seconds of this game, his game. At last. Quinn O’Dell, Jake’s best friend on the team,Belmont’s goalie, always said that Jake didn’t just have eyes in back of his head, he had them on both sides of his head, too. Sometimes Jake really felt as if he did. It was why he knew, just knew as he slowed down a little, that his guys weren’t offsides, that they hadn’t gone too far ahead of the play and behind the last Lincoln defender. Cal Morris was running a step behind over on his right, and his left middie, Matt Purcell, was farther behind than that to Jake’s left. He knew that because Matt was the one who’d been acting gassed the whole second half. Jake knew all that the way he knew what was going to happen at the end of this play. What was going to happen was that he was going to put the ball behind the Lincoln goalie. Control things right until the ball was behind that hot dog. Finally—finally—this was the way it was supposed to be, the way things were supposed to work out for him in the last minute of a game. Jake saw it all: Their center mid laying back, the outside guys inching up anyway, as if Jake were going to pass it to Cal or Matt just by force of habit. Give it up for the team one more time. Only sometimes, especially this close to the end, the best way to be a team guy was to score the goal. Seemed like a plan. Jake moved the ball to his left foot, which usually meant a pass to Cal on the right. The Lincoln kid, a tall redhead, face full of freckles, forgot about making the sliding-tackle move he’d been making on Jake the whole game, and flashed to his left thinking he could pick the pass off himself. Only Jake kept the ball on his left foot, moved into that extra gear he had, that he’d always had, and went flying past the redhead. He saw him slip and fall out of the corner of his eye. Jake against their sweeper now. Their free safety. The gambler on the Lincoln team. This guy wasn’t laying back, wasn’t hesitating. He was coming right at Jake. But Jake put one ofhis favorite moves on him, nearly coming to a stop even though he’d been going at full speed, and put the ball behind him as he did, just for an instant. Reached back with his left leg like he was using it to shut a door behind him, like he was making a behind-the-back pass to himself, and just absolutely dusted the guy as he went right. Money. Just Jake and the goalie now. This was the goalie who’d been talking nonstop since the game began. Talking to his teammates, to the refs, to the Belmont players, to his coach, even to his buddies in the stands. One of those guys. Coming way up into the field even when he didn’t have to, showing off constantly, making flashier plays than he needed to make—how much did Jake hate that?—making hey-look-at-me saves and heaves and kicks and dives. Another one on the Lincoln team who wasn’t going to hang back. Wasn’t his style. And this guy was all style. He wasn’t going to be looking for his defense to bail him out, somehow get back into the play, somehow get between him and Jake. You could see by the look on his face that thiswas the way he wanted it, the way it was, the way Jake wanted it: Me against you. Jake knew that eventually, even in team sports, it always came down to that in the end. He had always been a team man in soccer, from the beginning, but in sports you always looked for the moment when it was man-on-man, one-on-one, your best against his. From the time Jake first started watching sportson television, he’d heard football announcers talking about how quarterbacks didn’t really make it inthe NFL until the game slowed down for them, until they could sit back there in the pocket and feelas if the play developing in front of them were inslow motion. Jake felt that way now, even though he was flying,even though he’d made guys on the other teamgo flying past him. Pick your spot, his mom had always told him, from the first time they were kicking the ball aroundin the backyard and the goal was the area between two stakes in the fence around the swimming pool. Pick your spot unless the goalie commits first. Most of all, don’t rush. Jake wasn’t rushing. Had to be around ten seconds left now. Still time for him to beat this guy once and for all. End the day right against this goalie, with hisshirt that had more colors than Baskin-Robbins had flavors, with his bright red gloves and even his baseball cap turned around in a hot dog way. The goalie clapped those red gloves now, eyeballing Jake the whole time, as if to say bring it. In the words of Quinn O’Dell, who had a language all his own, the goalie was thuggin’ on Jake to the end. Jake didn’t care. Upper right corner. That’s where he was going with the shot. But the goalie, no dope, was thinking right along with him, leaning that way. Cake, Jake thought. The kid had committed just enough, made up Jake’s mind for him. He could feel pressure coming now, feel the crowd that should have been there earlier coming from behind and from the sides. But no way they were getting there in time. Jake planted his left foot, gave the ball one last small push to the outside, like he was teeing the sucker up. Then he let it go. For one shaky moment he thought he’d leaned back and got too far under it, that it might go sailing over the crossbar. And how many times had Jake seen that happen, a shooter alone in the box, all setup, getting too amped up and sending it deep into the woods? Not this time. The best part, the very best part, was that theLincoln goalie was so sure of himself to the end. He was going to dazzle everybody with one more save, launch himself one last time like he was auditioningto get himself into SportsCenter’s Top 10 Plays. He had cheated a step to his left, shifting his weight, ready to pounce. But Jake had put one last fake on the guy. The goalie went one way as the ball went the other. It wasn’t just the ball Jake had on a string now; it was like he’d turned the goalie into a puppet that he’d flung to the side. The ball tucked itself into the top corner, the strings of the net making Jake feel as if he’d swished one in hoops, as neatly as a hand fitting into a glove. Goal. But Jake didn’t celebrate, didn’t run around theway guys in other sports did at times like this, as if they’ve forgotten what the scoreboard said. Jake hadn’t forgotten. Jake turned and took one last look at that scoreboard now, just because he couldn’t make himself look anywhere else from where he stood on the field. Visitors 6, Belmont 1. It felt like the longest game of Jake’s life. And it was only the first game of the season.