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Both, maybe. But this kid had the advantage of knowing how good he was. And we both knew Coach Borman wasn’t really the problem. The only person who could stop Mike from going onstage tomorrow night was Mike.
“You’ve played football in front of crowds nine times bigger than the one that’ll be in that auditorium. Hell, when you boys went down to Dallas for the regionals last November, you played in front of ten or twelve thousand. And they were not friendly.”
“Football’s different. When we hit the field, we’re all wearing the same uniform and helmets. Folks can only tell us apart by our numbers. Everybody’s on the same side—”
“There are nine other people in this show with you, Mike, and that’s not counting the townspeople I wrote in to give your football buddies something to do. They’re a team, too.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Maybe not quite. But one thing is the same—if you let them down, the shit falls apart and everybody loses. The actors, the crew, the Pep Club girls who did the publicity, and all the people who are pla
“I guess that’s so,” he said. He was looking at his feet, and mighty big feet they were.
“I could stand to lose Slim or Curley; I’d just send someone out with the book to read the part. I guess I could even stand to lose Curley’s Wife—”
“I wish Sandy was a little better,” Mike said. “She’s pretty as hell, but if she ever hits her mark, it’s an accident.”
I allowed myself a cautious inward smile. I was starting to think this was going to be all right. “What I couldn’t stand—what the show couldn’t stand—is to lose you or Vince Knowles.” Vince was playing Le
No one could replace him, with his unique combination of size and actual talent. He was the linchpin.
“What if I fuck up?” he asked, then heard what he’d said and clapped a hand to his mouth.
I sat down beside him on the couch. There wasn’t much room, but I managed. Right then I wasn’t thinking of John Ke
At that moment I cared more about Of Mice and Men than I did about Lee Harvey Oswald.
But I cared even more about Mike.
I took his hand off his mouth. Put it on one huge thigh. Put my hands on his shoulders.
Looked into his eyes. “Listen to me,” I said. “Are you listening?”
“Yessir.”
“You are not going to fuck up. Say it.”
“I . . .”
“Say it.”
“I’m not going to fuck up.”
“What you’re going to do is amaze them. I promise you that, Mike.” Gripping his shoulders tighter. It was like trying to sink my fingers into stones. He could have picked me up and broken me over his knee, but he only sat there looking at me from a pair of eyes that were humble, hopeful, and still rimmed with tears. “Do you hear me? I promise.”
4
The stage was a beachhead of light. Beyond it was a lake of darkness where the audience sat.
George and Le
“George? Where them guys goin?”
Mimi Corcoran was sitting on my right. At some point she had taken my hand and was gripping it. Hard, hard, hard. We were in the first row. Next to her on her other side, Deke Simmons was staring up at the stage with his mouth slightly hung open. It was the expression of a farmer who sees dinosaur cropping grass in his north forty.
“Huntin. They’re goin huntin. Siddown, Le
Vince Knowles was never going to be an actor—what he was going to be, most likely, was a salesman at Jodie Chrysler-Dodge, like his father—but a great performance can lift all the actors in a production, and that had happened tonight. Vince, who in rehearsals had only once or twice achieved even low levels of believability (mostly because his ratty, intelligent little face was Steinbeck’s George Milton), had caught something from Mike. All at once, about halfway through Act I, he finally seemed to realize what it meant to go rambling through life with a Le
“George!”
“Yeah?”
“Ain’t you go
“What do you mean?”
“You know, George.” Smiling. The kind of smile that says Yeah, I know I’m a dope, but we both know I can’t help it. Sitting down beside George on the imaginary riverbank. Taking off his own hat, tossing it aside, rumpling his short blond hair. Imitating George’s voice. Mike had nailed this with eerie ease in the very first rehearsal, with no help from me. “‘If I was alone, I could live so easy. I could get a job and not have no more mess.’” Resuming his own voice . . . or Le
“Then tell me like you done before! Bout other guys, and about us!” That was when I heard the first low sob from the audience. It was followed by another. Then a third. This I had not expected, not in my wildest dreams. A chill raced up my back, and I stole a glance at Mimi. She wasn’t crying yet, but the liquid sheen in her eyes told me that she soon would be. Yes, even her—hard old baby that she was.
George hesitated, then took hold of Le
“Guys like us . . . Le