A Short Move by Katherine Hill

Author:Katherine Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: IG Publishing
Published: 2020-09-01T16:00:00+00:00

9. MITCH, 2006

By Mitch’s final season, it happened a couple times a game. That moment of gentle panic in which he felt he was faking football, while everyone else was playing for real. He was playing at playing, and the only way to avoid being caught inside himself was to stick to his assignment, stay in his lane.

He usually found his target, even under these questionable circumstances. A read. A gap. A surge. An unh. Then he and his man would get to their feet and the panic that had gripped his inside self would leave him with a shiver of withdrawal. Before he knew it, he’d be back in his body again, back in motion, back in play.

As for the panic, it tended to hang around. He could see it, sometimes, in his opponents’ eyes, transferred there by the hit. It was a look that said, “Oh God.”

And, “Wow.”

And, “None of this is real.”

Day to day it was all too real. He awoke on Tuesday, Week 14, feeling like a man with a beating heart trapped inside a stone.

Wake up you peace of shit. A text from Hardy, Hardy who was done: out there somewhere, living. Hardy who had a Super Bowl ring.

Peace be with you you piece of s#!+, Mitch thumbed back.

He had just four more regular season games ahead of him. Four more for the rest of his life. Though for the moment no one knew that but him and God. Not Kowalczyk, not his agent Phil, not even Lori or his mom. Even Mitch didn’t know for sure. God changed his mind daily. In the middle of a game he sometimes felt he could go on another decade. The day after, as a rule, he was ready to call it quits.

A short week, in the home stretch, the players’ lot was packed when he arrived. Technically, it was their day off, but everybody was in the building, getting food, getting looked at by the trainers. Through the double doors at the end of the hall, he could see Matt Rainey, the QB, pacing the practice field with his dogs.

When he arrived at his locker, D was already there, shirtless and fussing at his own spot, while Lowry and Griggs, both second-year defensive backs, and Moore, from the D-line, gathered around in their sweats.

“Sup, Wilk.”

“So early,” Mitch scolded him. “I know you’re not injured.” Since his rookie season ACL tear, D hadn’t so much as lost an eyelash. He was more committed to maintaining his body than most women were to marriage. Though he turned out to be committed in that way, too. He and Shawna had finally tied the knot that summer—a confident move for a guy in his contract year—and he’d spent much of the preseason bragging to anyone who would listen about the beauty and brains of his black wife. Still hadn’t found God, but that was fine, he would. In his heart he was a man of faith.

“Naw, naw,” D said now. He aimed a small digital camera at Mitch.

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