[Excerpt] Strong Like You by T.L. Simpson

I haven’t cried one time since you disappeared. Not even at football practice when Paton Roper told the whole team you were probably dead. He said, “You know how sometimes a dog gets sick or bites somebody and you have to put it down?”

Somebody said, “Yep.”

“That’s probably what happened to Walker’s daddy.”

Some people laughed. Others turned away like they ain’t heard nothing. Paton said he knew that kind of thing since his father’s the Ike County sheriff. Paton looks like the quarterback in every movie ever made about football. Blond hair. Blue eyes. Muscles everywhere. He looks tough, but there’s one thing I know that he don’t: Muscles don’t make you strong. Strength is in your brain. In your blood. In the way you are hardened by the things around you. Some folks got it soft, but I am not one of those people.

Truth is, what Paton said don’t bother me much. Because I know something else he don’t.

You ain’t dead.

There’s no way you’re dead.

There’s no way someone strong like you is gone forever and don’t nobody even know about it.

Chapter 1

Ain’t nobody take this serious—getting ready for a game. They look around at each other, make jokes, blast music real loud, and act stupid. I put on my shoulder pads, tighten the straps under my arms, and don’t say nothing. Old Coach let this shit slide.

But our new one ain’t the type. Letting small stuff slide is how you end up with back-to-back winless seasons. And if you’re Old Coach, it’s how you end up getting run out of your job.

The door to the locker room flies open, and Coach Widner steps inside, blowing his whistle so loud it hurts my ears. Someone cranks down the stereo, and we stand there in all different states of dress and undress.

Coach Widner runs a brown hand over his mouth, smoothing out his mustache. “What is this? What are we doing?” He walks up and down the aisles, his hands on his hips, a frown on his face. “Why are we grab-assing around when we got a game to win?”

Coach Widner took over our program last offseason. Moved here from Mississippi for the job. Held a parent-player meeting the first week, and told every person there his aim was to turn our losing program around. His goal was simple: to win football games and build better men. Take a guess which of those two got cheers from the crowd.

When the parent meeting was over, someone said to you, “A black feller, huh?”

And you said, “He could be a blue kangaroo for all I care. Long as he wins football games.”

At first, I didn’t give a damn about who our coach was, but when you went missing, he started coming to the house “to check up” on me. He’s been coming by almost every day, and every day he talks to me less and talks to Momma more.

Does he think I’m stupid?

Does he think I don’t know what he’s doing?

What does he think will happen when you come home?

I’ve put up with it about as long as I can handle.

“You boys think you are ready?” he says, patrolling up and down the locker room, his bald head already pebbled with sweat. “Think you’re going to loaf around before the game, then go out there and win? Let me tell you something. It doesn’t work like that. Not in my locker room. Not in my football program. Don’t talk. Don’t play grab ass. Don’t do nothing but focus. This is War Eagles football.”

Sawyer Metcalf gets dressed across the room. His daddy, Rufus, gone missing same time you did, almost a month ago now. Which makes sense because y’all are always running together. From the start, I figure you two was out cutting loose somewhere, getting up to who knows what kind of trouble. I like to think about you and him getting up to no good. Like Wild West cowboys. Hootin’ and hollerin’, I bet. I laugh anytime I think about it. You two was friends since you was little. Friends who married sisters. Sisters who got pregnant at the same time and had boys—me and Sawyer. Cousins who growed up together from the start. Who never stopped backing each other up. Who became little versions of you and Rufus. On and off the football field.

Sawyer catches me looking. He grins his crooked, missing-tooth smile, tucks a strand of his long, blond hair behind an ear. “Focus, Walker,” he says, a laugh hidden somewhere behind his words.

Coach Widner scowls at him. “You can leave if you don’t like it.”

Sawyer’s eyes widen. “Sorry, sir.”

Coach Widner stares at him for a long time. Then he keeps walking. When he leaves the room, I pull my jersey over my shoulder pads and walk over to Sawyer. “You think our dads will show up tonight?”

Sawyer turns away from me, acts like he is looking for something in his locker, but all his shit is on the bench behind him. There ain’t a thing in the world inside that locker he could be looking for. “They wouldn’t miss it, Walker. Ain’t no way they’d miss our first game.”

When we’re dressed, Coach Widner leads us to the field, his bald head steaming in the cold air. Some cheerleaders inflate a gigantic orange-and-blue football helmet with the word SAMSON printed on the side. More cheerleaders hold a paper sign that says SLAY THOSE DRAGONS across the front.

We huddle together inside the helmet, and I look down at myself in my War Eagles uniform.

I have waited so long for this moment.

Waited so long to step on that field.

To play football on Friday nights.

To wear the same uniform you once wore.

To burst out of that helmet and through that paper sign.

Someone, Paton maybe, starts a chant. It starts low and slow and builds like fire growing. Before long, we yell it together.

“BLOOD.

“BLOOD.

“BLOOD MAKES THE GRASS GROW.”

We jump up and down.

“BLOOD.”

Shoulder pads thumping.

“BLOOD.”

Helmets scraping.

“BLOOD MAKES THE GRASS GROW.”

The whole time I wonder . . . are you out there? Somewhere in the stands? Waiting for me to burst through this helmet and take the field for my first varsity football game?

The band plays the fight song. Someone lets loose with a fire extinguisher. And we come pouring through the front of the facemask, emerging from the smoke, tearing through paper, thundering down the sideline.

I look up at the stands.

I scan every seat, hoping to find you.

Sawyer comes from behind me. “You see them anywhere?”

“God damn.”

It don’t make sense, you missing my first game. I know you were looking forward to it. It was all you talked about for a while. You drove me to practice all summer, dropped me off in our old, beat-up Dodge Ram truck, blue paint faded on the hood into gray and rust, Arkansas Razorbacks sticker on the back glass. And when I come off that practice field, there you were. Every time. Waiting in the parking lot. Country music playing too loud through the rolled-down windows.

You said football made you the man you are today. And you said it would do that to me too. When I was little, I used to ask if you’d read to me before bed. You’d always put down your beer and say something like, “Sure thing, Walker. I’ll be back there in a minute.” But I always fell asleep before you showed up. The more I think about it, I could hardly get you to show up for anything. Except football. You showed up for football.

But not tonight.

So when they blow the whistle to start the game, I check the stands one more time. Just to be sure. Think maybe you’ll sneak in the back. Stand near the top. Look down on me like surprise, Walker, I’m here. And I ain’t leaving. Let’s play some football.

Steelville lines up against us. Bunch of little boys from the hills a county over. Sawyer takes his spot at the “Will” linebacker spot. That’s the weak side. You’d be proud to see us there. Anchors on the defense. Me and my cousin. Sawyer, the son of your best friend in the whole world. Momma’s nephew. And me. Your blood. Out there on the field. Just like you when you were my age.

I reach out and slap Sawyer’s hand before the first snap. Coach Widner makes a hand motion like he is throwing a lasso. “Rodeo, rodeo,” he yells. “Let’s hit them in the mouth, set the tone for this game!”

Sawyer grins at me. Rodeo is our favorite blitz.

Their center hikes the ball, and we crash the “A” gaps. There ain’t a fat lineman from Steelville can block either of us. We break into the backfield and there he is, little skinny Steelville quarterback, number twelve on his jersey, with not a soul to protect him. He curls his back away from us, afraid of the hit. Me on one side. Sawyer on the other. The whole world quiet. Waiting for the moment. The crunch.

Our shoulder pads and helmets sandwich this boy between us, and I hear the naked air come rushing from his lungs. We hit the ground in a heap. Legs tangled. Arms tangled. Steelville quarterback starts moaning before I can stand up. A ref separates us on the ground. He takes one look at the quarterback, and his face turns as green as a moldy apple. He blows his whistle and waves for the other officials. The quarterback groans. Lifts his leg.

Then he screams.

His leg is broken through the middle of the shin. Like a twig somebody stepped on. Looks like nothing but his sock is keeping his foot from falling off.

We take a knee, Sawyer next to me. He pinches the back of my calf to get my attention. He whispers, “That happen to me, I’d be up ready for the next play already.”

“With a broken leg?” I say, trying not to laugh.

Sawyer grins crooked. He is missing one front tooth that never growed in, or maybe got knocked out somehow and I never heard about it. “Limp right into the end zone, whole team on my back.”

The ambulance drives onto the field, throwing red and blue strobes over everything, like the lights outside my bedroom so many times. I think of you on the porch, arguing and cussing, some poor deputy trying to talk you down from something stupid. The more I picture you bowed up against the law, Momma and I watching scared from the kitchen window, the more I think if you had found the time to come to this game, you would have been proud of me. Proud of your boy. Proud if you’d seen it. Seen me hit the quarterback so hard he broke his leg.

But you ain’t here.

And I got to chew on that.

But I ain’t about to cry. No way. Not even one tear will leak from these eyes. ’Cause you told me. Told me from the day I was a baby. Men like us, we don’t cry. We don’t ever show weakness. We’re strong, I can hear you saying it, we’re strong, Walker, strong because we got no choice. Strong because this world will crush you if you ain’t. Strong because there ain’t no other way for a man to be.

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