#3 The Option Read online

  Text copyright © 2014 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

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  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.

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  Front cover: © Mike Powell/CORBIS. Backgrounds: © iStockphoto.com/mack2happy, (grass).

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Brown, Herman 1971–

  The option / by Herman Brown.

  pages cm. —(The red zone ; #3)

  Summary: The Central High Trojan’s star quarterback, Shane, was arrested for drunk driving and Coach Z may have covered up, so when Shane gets in trouble again, back-up quarterback Gary must decide whether to expose them both.

  ISBN 978–1–4677–2128–8 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978–1–4677–4651–9 (eBook)

  [1. Football—Fiction. 2. High schools—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Drunk driving—Fiction. 5. Conduct of life—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.B737757Opt 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013046619

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – SB – 7/15/14

  eISBN 978-1-4677-4651-9 (pdf)

  eISBN 978-1-4677-7418-5 (ePub)

  eISBN 978-1-4677-7419-2 (mobi)

  1 / FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20—PARTY AT DEVON’S HOUSE

  I got it. I paid for it with a dislocated jaw and a severely damaged ego, but I got it. I got the video.

  The proof.

  Coach Zachary would have to listen to me now. And he’d have to do the right thing. Or else.

  “Dude,” Orlando said, smiling. “You got your butt kicked.” Orlando Green, Troy Central High’s star wide receiver, had big talent, a bigger ego, and an even bigger mouth.

  “Chut uck,” I said. My dangling jaw made it hard to say shut up. I held the jaw with one hand while clutching my smartphone in the other. That phone had the precious footage on it.

  “You gotta get to the ER,” Ernie Erickson said. He was a varsity tight end, but he wasn’t a big shot like Orlando and a lot of the other guys. He didn’t get all caught up in the mythology around Troy football. He believed in the game, but he knew it was only one part of life—not life.

  The crowd that had gathered in the yard to watch the fight was drifting away. Onlookers headed back inside the house to the party. Someone changed the music and cranked it up—some kind of metal. A few blocks away, tires squealed and horns honked. That would be Shane Hunter, the starting QB and the star of my video, swerving through the streets of Troy.

  I realized my head was pounding.

  “Yeah,” I said to Ernie. “I khink you wight.”

  “What you gotta do,” said Orlando, “is erase that video. Now.” He reached for the phone in my hand, but Ernie grabbed his wrist.

  “Step off, O.”

  Orlando got up in his face. “Who you think you talking to?”

  Ernie gave him his meanest game face and puffed up his big chest. He was an imposing guy. Orlando was tough, but even with his ego, he knew he didn’t stand a chance in a fight with Ernie. Nobody did.

  “You better go inside,” Ernie said in a voice like Clint Eastwood. “Or else we’ll have to find out just how tough you are.” Just to make sure Orlando got his point, he added, “I will turn you into a stain on this driveway.”

  I was glad Ernie was on my side.

  Orlando stared Ernie down for a few seconds, enough to convince himself he didn’t look like a total wimp. But then he went inside as he was told. Ernie and I climbed into his dad’s pickup and took off for the hospital.

  “Chanks,” I said, still holding up my jaw. I wanted to puke, it hurt so bad. But puking would hurt even worse.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. He glanced over at me. “I just hope it was worth it.”

  At that point, I wasn’t sure it was. I pulled up the video on my phone. Shane stood swaying on the screen, a plastic tumbler of OJ and vodka in his hand, just after hitting me in the face so hard that I saw stars. I was surprised you couldn’t see them circling my head on screen, like in cartoons.

  In my defense, Shane didn’t look so hot either. Bloody nose, black eye. I think he spilled some of his drink, too, which probably hurt him more than anything else.

  “You got nothing, backup!” he yelled. “Nothing! You can practice twenty-four hours a day for the rest of your life, and you’ll always be my backup. You’ll be backing me up on the nursing home team.”

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and laughed at the blood that came off on his wrist. His eyes dared me to say something else. But his gaze was loose and unfocused. “Always gonna be second best, Gary.”

  He turned and stumbled off the curb before getting into his Chevy. The tires squealed, and he took off.

  Everything was as clear as can be. Shane had been drinking, which he’d promised Coach he wouldn’t do. And then he’d been driving—which he’d already been busted for once. That was a district violation and, more important, a team violation. Once Coach Z saw this, Shane would be benched, maybe even suspended.

  And I’d be the starter.

  “Yeah,” I said to Ernie. “It yuzh earch it.”

  2 / MONDAY, AUGUST 19—TROJANS FOOTBALL PRACTICE

  I’ve always been Shane’s backup. Even in Troy’s Half Backs kids’ football camp. We were good buddies back then, and it never bothered me that Shane was the best and I was second best. Football was just a game. It was something us kids did together for fun, just like baseball and soccer. Just like Legos and video games and climbing trees. Just like damming up the creek one rainy day so that our army man war zone got flooded and we played out a muddy battle. That battle was awesome. We pushed our plastic tanks through the muck. We set up ambushes along the river, with army men hiding in the branches attacking enemy army men that rafted down the stream. I still consider that day one of the most fun of my life.

  But even then, we sensed that football was something more for everyone else in town. Especially those adults who’d grown up here. Trojan football wasn’t a game for them.

  By the time we reached middle school, people started paying a lot more attention to Shane. They knew he had the talent to be a star. In eighth grade, I heard people saying he could get a full ride to Ohio State—or anywhere. Seriously.

  The legend began to grow. Shane could throw a football that hit a jackrabbit at full sprint eighty yards away. Shane could outrun a cougar. Shane could bench press a grizzly bear.

  No wonder his head got so pumped up with pride. No wonder he couldn’t see the fun in this kid’s game anymore.

  And just to be clear: I was good. Dad said I’d be starting on any other team in the division, and he was right. I’d seen lots of other QBs come through town over the years, and I knew I could have beaten them out. When Shane was starter on the varsity team as a freshman, I ran JV. We went undefeated while Shane and the rest of varsity were taking their lumps.

  Now that we were seniors, everyone said we had a shot at the state title. Even Coach Z thought so, though he wouldn’t admit it. You start looking more than one game ahead, you lose focus. That’s what he’s always said. And I believed him.

/>   Anyway, here I was backing up Shane again, just like when we were little kids in Half Backs. But unlike our Half Backs days, he rode me all practice. “Yo, backup, watch how it’s done!” he’d say. “Hey backup, get me a water.”

  With the attitude came the drinking, and you could tell Shane wasn’t having fun playing. All he cared about was winning, partying, and Ohio State.

  Any trace of the kid he used to be was long gone.

  Last summer, something changed. Shane showed up to practice so hungover he couldn’t get through the reps. Then he did it again a week later. That was cool, because I got his reps. I don’t mind saying it: I looked good. I even thought I could beat him out.

  Yeah, I was fooling myself. I couldn’t beat him out, even on my best day. But I started getting the itch.

  Then, just a few days before the first game, he missed practice. First time ever. Well, all right, I thought. That was the kind of crap that Coach Z would not put up with. I was going to get my shot.

  Next day, Shane shows up like nothing happened. But here’s what’s even weirder: Coach also acted like nothing happened. Shane played with the first team, and I was second string. Same as ever.

  But even if Coach wasn’t talking about what happened, the team was. Shane had been busted for driving under the influence. He hadn’t been at practice because he had been in jail.

  After practice, I came up to Coach while the rest of the guys headed for the locker room.

  “What’s up, Jayo?”

  I was supposed to feel good because he called me by my last name. Most second stringers? Coach Z just referred to them by number. Hey, 54! You gotta make that tackle! Stuff like that. But he respected me. He knew I could go live with my mom in Harvest Valley and start for them. But Dad needed me here. That’s why I stayed.

  “Coach, I was wondering, you know, since Shane missed practice yesterday, I know that’s one of your Golden Commandments. Probably the biggest one. So, anyway, I was wondering if since he missed, you know, I would be starting Friday.” God, Coach Z made me nervous. I hated the way I sounded when talking to him. Like a nervous little boy.

  Coach cocked his head at me and spat on the grass. I squinted into the sun and the blazing fire of his authority.

  “You let me be the coach, all right, Jayo?”

  “Well, yeah, but, I mean, of course. But, you know, it’s one of the Golden Commandments. I thought that was unbreakable.” I was sweating more now than I had during practice.

  “I’m gonna tell you this one more time,” he said, “I’m the coach of this team, and I will make the decisions about who plays. You got a problem with that?”

  “No,” I said softly. “No problem, sir. Sorry.”

  “All right then.”

  Coach started to walk toward the locker room. I just stood there. It started to burn me up. All that garbage about how there’s no I in team, how you have to respect the game, how if you break one of Coach’s Golden Commandments, you sit—all that was just BS. At least it was if you were Shane Hunter.

  I ran to catch up with him.

  “Coach!”

  He stopped, but he didn’t turn around.

  “Coach,” I said. “I know why Shane missed. I think you know too.”

  He turned to me. I waited for him to say something, but he just stared me down. We stood like that for a few seconds. My knees started to shake, but I didn’t back down.

  Finally he said, “I don’t know what rumors are flying around, son, but I guarantee you don’t know the whole story. Remember this: everybody deserves a second chance.”

  Really? That wasn’t the message he usually sent. Usually it was “My way or the highway.”

  “We through here?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  And he went inside.

  3 / MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16—BEFORE SCHOOL

  One Monday a few weeks later, after we’d won our third game to get to a two–one record, I woke up to the sound of my dad throwing up in the bathroom again. He didn’t just make some normal puke sound. When Dad had one of these days, you could hear him all the way down the block. His body would twist itself into a knot trying to get every last bit of his insides out.

  I had to pee pretty badly, but I knew he could be a while, so I went in the backyard. I’m not proud of it, but I’d done it before. When your dad is on the kind of meds that scrape the core out of your body, certain life changes come your way. Peeing in the grass is a small one.

  I went back inside and measured out some oatmeal and water into a bowl and stuck it in the microwave. Dad would be hungry when he was done, and oatmeal was about the only thing he could hold down. I’d become a decent cook since Mom left, but sometimes, the simple things were all the situation called for.

  The microwave beeped. I pulled out the bowl and stirred in some brown sugar and cream, just like Dad liked it. A few minutes later, he came into the kitchen and inhaled deeply, like he was smelling something special instead of the same old thing.

  “Ah,” he said in a big fake Italian accent, “oatmeal à la Gary especialamento!”

  Dad was always trying to be funny and complimentary and everything. He hoped that through all this goofing around and buddy-buddy stuff we did, like going to the clinic together, I would stop being mad at him for cheating on Mom. For getting HIV from that woman in Columbus and breaking up our family.

  But it wasn’t his true self. All his acting did was remind me—as if I needed a reminder—how important it is to do the right thing in life. Be true to yourself, do what you say you’ll do. And then you don’t have to act like a doofus to try to win your son’s love.

  Besides, I was already here. I’d chosen him. What more did he want?

  “Sounded like a rough one this morning, Dad.”

  “It wasn’t a pleasure cruise, that’s for sure. You working tonight?”

  “Swing shift,” I said.

  I started bussing tables at Café Helen last year after Mom left to live in Harvest Valley with her sister. Money became really tight really fast, especially with Dad missing out on work. He was usually too sick to plow snow or cut lawns. Not to mention all his meds added a strain to the budget.

  I made decent tips down at the café. But it wasn’t always easy to balance a job, school, homework, and football. Now that I was a senior and still not starting, I sometimes felt like sports weren’t worth it. Sometimes I wondered why I stayed on the team.

  “Well, don’t miss practice, son.”

  Oh, yeah. That was why: Dad. He’d be heartbroken if I gave up the game. He’d played when he went to Troy High, and he expected me to play, too. He was one of those people who believed the mythology of Trojan football. It was life.

  Even though I was mad at him, and even though I did not think Trojan football was life, I couldn’t let him down. He was such a mess without Mom. He needed something to believe in. One thing he believed—foolishly—was that I could beat out Shane and start for the Trojans. He felt that favoritism had allowed Shane to start over me.

  “Don’t worry, Dad,” I said, grabbing my gear on my way to the door. “I won’t miss.”

  “Hold on,” he said, stirring his oatmeal. “I’m trying to tell you something. I got a feeling they’re going to need you on the field this week.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just something I heard yesterday cutting the graveyard. From Bailey.”

  Alfred Bailey was his boss on the yard crew. He was on the Friends of Troy Football boosters too, and he had a way of nosing into everything. Always plugged into the gossip.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You remember a few weeks ago when Shane got arrested?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “Well, the word is that Principal Donahue found out that Coach Z was covering up for him. Could be some trouble coming downstream—and some opportunities.”

  I was stunned. Coach Z was an Important Man, capital I, capital M. He’d played on the only undefeated Trojans
team in school history, and now he was leading us to a state championship—so he believed. And so everyone else believed. It was hard to imagine trouble coming downstream for him. Not now. Not ever.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Wow. Now knock ’em dead today.”

  4 / MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16—TROY CENTRAL HIGH

  Pulling into the school parking lot in Dad’s Honda, I saw Shane and Orlando near the back of the lot. I parked next to them and rapped on the window of Shane’s Chevy. Shane rolled it down.

  “What up, Two?” He meant QB2. As in, backup.

  “Have you heard anything about Coach?” I asked.

  “Heard what? What’re you talking about?” Orlando handed him a plastic water bottle full of orange juice. And vodka, I assumed. Shane took a swig. Even his hands had bulging muscles.

  “Uh, nothing,” I said. “Just, you know, just wondering if you heard anything.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I ain’t heard a thing.”

  “OK, cool. Talk to you later.”

  “Hold up, Two,” Shane said. “You want a drink?” He handed me the jug.

  “No, I’m good.”

  Orlando leaned in front of Shane. “Yeah, you are good, aren’t you? Such a good boy. Such a mama’s boy. Whoops, I guess not, since you got no mama around, huh?”

  He and Shane laughed pretty hard at that. Then Shane hit a button on his stereo and Eminem came cranking out. I never understood how he had his own ride and an awesome stereo while his family was dirt poor. No money, lousy grades, no anything—except football.

  Actually, I had an idea. Illegal gifts from college recruiters.

  “Classy,” I said over the music and started to walk away. Then Shane turned it down again.

  “Hey,” he said, “why didn’t you come to the party Friday? It was a rager.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Everyone was asking about you.”

  “Really?”

  “No,” he said and took a drink. “They weren’t.”

  I left them laughing there and went into the school.