Page 25 of The Bootlegger’s Bride
H ead Coach Erik Nordstrom and defensive coach Monk Monihan stood atop a rise with the sun lowering behind them, looking down on a rising cloud of hot dust. From it came the camphor smell of liniments, the sound of shoulder pads slapping against helmets, and the grunts of young men colliding.
Some thought it barbaric competition that glorified violence and aggression. Nordstrom, who’d witnessed deadly violence and aggression on his march up Italy, thought football an intriguing entertainment that safely siphoned off teenage testosterone.
Monihan shook his head. “That Nowak kid’s a freak, Coach. Most guys hate the box drill. Everyone pounding you one after another. He loves it. Him against the world.”
Nordstrom nodded. “Freakish in a good way. Balance like a cat and quick as a jackrabbit. Gets lower and outhits bigger guys.”
“Sure does.”
“But it’s his ferocity that makes him. Never seen anything like it in a fifteen-year-old.” Though he thought he understood why. “Let’s work him at safety, Monk. When he fills out, maybe next year as a junior, he’ll make a great middle linebacker. For now, he’ll be our secret weapon.”
“Where’d you find him? He just walk on?”
“Recruited him from gym class. Had to twist his arm.”
The previous February in freshman P.E. he had separated Nowak from two other guys in a dustup on the basketball floor. Afterward when he called him into his locker-room office the kid stood before Nordstrom’s desk shifting his weight from one leg to the other as if preparing to spring.
“What was that about, Nowak? Eckman said you were throwing elbows. In theory basketball is a non-contact sport.”
“Then tell them. They’re always pushing and putting hands on me.”
“What did you say to Eckman?”
“All I said was to leave me alone. In so many words. Then he poked my shoulder. I told him, ‘Touch me again and I’ll deck you.’ He didn’t think I could do it.”
Odd kid. Often didn’t show for class and kept to himself when he did.
But not a slouch or couch potato. Agile, keen on gymnastics, always first in wind sprints.
Nordstrom had heard the other guys call him Chief Nowak, though not to his face.
He now noticed that the kid carried a thick book on Cherokee history and the Trail of Tears.
“Who taught you to fight?”
“My Uncle Raymond. He learned to box in the C.C.C.s.”
Nordstrom knew about the family arrangement. Everyone did. Lots of kids lost dads during the war, one way or another. Then he lost his mom too.
Most students at Granite City High were open-faced Midwesterners, particularly the country kids.
Accessible, guileless, smiling. Not A.J.
Locked down, humorless, suspicious, and cold—a countenance that encouraged others to keep their distance.
Though Nordstrom had seen worse in the army: vicious, fucked up characters you wouldn’t turn your back on.
Sometimes they made good soldiers, though generally not for long.
Nowak wasn’t bad or mean just incognito. Whoever he was.
“You ever play football, A.J.?”
He shook his head. “No, sir. We live out in the sticks on Long Lake. Not enough guys around for that. Besides, no one’s got a football. Just fishing poles and shotguns.”
Nordstrom smiled briefly. “Some say it’s a contact sport, A.J.
They’re wrong. It’s a collision sport. A team sport with well-defined individual responsibilities.
Where you can be yourself and also part of something bigger.
I think you’d like it. A chance to knock people down without getting kicked out of school for it. ”
“You gonna kick me out for fighting?”
“Wasn’t much of a fight—one punch.”
That almost made Nowak smile.
“Football’s for big lummoxes,” he said. “I weigh one-thirty.”
“That didn’t stop you from slugging Eckman who goes one-eighty. But maybe you just don’t have what it takes.”
Nowak stared at him for a moment. “What’s it take?”
“Physical courage, self-discipline, and teamwork. Most of all toughness. Grit.”
Nowak stopped squirming. Finally, Nordstrom had hit on something that got his attention.
Now, after two weeks of summer practice he saw something in the kid that pleased him deeply—something even more than the natural athleticism and raw potential of A. J. Nowak as a football player. Nordstrom saw him becoming a teammate.