Read Online War and Watermelon by Rich Wallace - Free Book Online Page A

comes up from under me with a brutal block. I see stars as his forearm meets my mouth, and I fall backward to the dirt.
    I lie there for a few seconds, in the end zone. Esposito is standing over me with the ball. He scored.
    Coach pushes Esposito aside and looks down at me. “You all right?” he asks.
    I sit up and spit out my mouth guard. I reach for my jaw and it feels okay, so I nod. But my fingers are bloody when I take them away. I can taste the blood, too, but just on the outside of my lip. No big deal.
    â€œBetter sit out until that stops bleeding,” Coach says. “Offense’s ball at the twenty, going the other way.”
    Sarnoski comes back onto the field, so that’ll be the end of it for me. I join Tony and the other subs on the sideline.
    Â 
    Nobody says anything about my performance, but I’m feeling good about it as we leave the field after practice. They came at me on every play and I held my own. I stuck ’em right back.
    My lip is stinging and I can feel it starting to swell, so I check it in the side mirror of Coach’s Wonder Bread truck as we pass through the parking lot.
    There’s a crust of dried blood and dirt covering about a third of my lower lip. No way I’m wiping that off.
    â€œLucky break today,” Tony says. “Getting in there with the first string.”
    I shrug. Lucky or not, I made the most of it.
    â€œHow’s your face feel?”
    â€œFeels all right,” I say. “Looks good, too.”
    â€œLooks awesome.”
    We reach the Boulevard and turn right. It’s a twelve-block walk home (two more for Tony), but I don’t mind. I like being seen in my football stuff. Football is big here; we’re one of the few towns in the county with a lighted field for Friday night high school games. Most of the other high school teams play on Saturday afternoons, and the junior football teams play on Sundays. We go Saturday nights for our home games, and the crowds are big. Not like Friday nights, of course, but big enough.
    Tony grabs my wrist as we’re approaching Corpus Christi. “Look over there,” he says, jutting his chin toward the other side of the street. Janet and Patty are sitting on the steps of the church.
    â€œLet’s cross,” he says.
    â€œYou really want to keep bugging them?” I ask.
    He frowns and gives me a light shove. “Who’s bugging who?” he asks. “You think they don’t know when practice is over? That we walk past here every day at a quarter to six?”
    Maybe he’s onto something. I touch my lip, feeling the crust. I swing my helmet at him and we cross the street.
    â€œLadies,” Tony says.
    Janet turns her head as if she’s looking for the ladies he might be referring to. But she looks back and says, “Men.”
    Tony puts his foot on the bottom step, in front of Patty. I glance up at the church, which is huge and mysterious and kind of freaks me out. Seems like everybody I know goes here except us. I mean, there are at least six Protestant churches in town, too, but all together, I think the Catholics way outnumber us Methodists and Lutherans and Presbyterians. The guys I know who go here are scared to death of the priests.
    â€œLooks like you got beat up,” Janet says to me.
    Tony waves her off. “You should see the other guy. We hammered ’em good today. Blood all over the place.”
    â€œYou got some on your shirt,” Patty says, finally speaking.
    I look down. There’s a small streak of blood above the 3. (My practice number is 43; I don’t know what my game jersey number will be yet.)
    â€œI’ll survive,” I say. And I don’t know why, but I take a seat next to Patty, not close or anything, but on the same step. I stretch out my legs and look at the traffic.
    â€œSo what are you girls doing here?” Tony asks. “You have catechism class or something?”
    â€œNo,” Janet