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From: "Rev. Cotton Mather" <revcottonmather@hotmail.com>
Subject: {ASSM} RP - Playing to Win: Playing the Game II by R.C. Mather 16/41 (mf soccer)
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Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 07:10:04 -0400
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Are we enjoying this retelling?

Rev. Cotton Mather
Senior Pastor,
Church of the Erotic Redemption
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**If I had to do it all over,
I'd do it all over you**

<1st attachment, "PTW16.txt" begin>


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PLAYING TO WIN:
PLAYING THE GAME, BOOK II


by Reverend Cotton Mather




- 16 -

SUBTLETY AND DEVIOUSNESS



Molly was at school the next day, but she looked terrible.  No
amount of makeup could cover up the big welt by her left temple.  It
looked like somebody had popped her with something abrasive, and she
was walking around school slowly, as if her body hurt, too.

At lunchtime, I grabbed Austin, and the two of us went out in search
of Josh.  We found him outside, sitting under a tree with Andrea and
a couple of other kids.

"Josh.  I need to talk with you, man," I said.

He looked up, but made no move to stand.  "Sure, Sean.  What's up?"

"Alone," I said.  I knew I was sounding like a bad spy movie, but I
didn't have much choice.

He made a big production out of packing up the remains of his lunch,
standing, and tossing the sack in the general direction of the trash
bin.  "I'll be right back," he said to his girlfriend, and then he
stalked over toward the side of the building, obviously unhappy with
the interruption.

As we caught up with him, he stopped and turned toward Austin and
me.  "Okay, we're alone.  What's so freaking important?"

"Have you seen Molly today?" I asked.

His face fell.  "Yeah," he admitted.  "Looks like she took a hit
yesterday."

Austin and I told him about what had happened at the barn the
previous night.  We held nothing back.  We didn't want the blow
softened at all.  In fact, I wanted him mad, as mad as he'd ever been.

"Goddamnit.  Goddamnit.  Goddamnit!  Now what?"  He started pacing
back and forth.  He stopped and took two steps back to us.  "What can
we do about it?  Have you got a plan?"

"No, I don't," I admitted.  "But we don't have much time.  It looks
like she's the property of Del Toro now, but who knows what'll happen
if he gets tired of her, or she pisses him off somehow."

"Shit, I know what'll happen to her.  The same thing that's
happening to Pammy right now," he said disgustedly.

"I don't know if we can do anything about Pammy, anyway, even if we
can remove Molly from the situation," Austin said.  "From what I've
heard, she might be there willingly."

"Shit," I said.  "What kind of a girl would want to get involved
with the Bulls willingly?"

"Don't go there," warned Josh.  "It cuts a little close to home."

"Yeah, sorry," I apologized.

"I've gotta get her out of this," he said, almost to himself.  "But
how?"

"I don't know, but we're going to need a plan," I said.

"And some help," added Austin.

"Yeah, you're right," agreed Josh.  "You're both right.  Man, I just
want to kidnap her right now, but I know that's no good," he added.

"I would bet she's about ready to try to get herself loose of the
Bulls," I said.  "Molly's never been the kind of girl who would put
up with that kind of shit.  They've just got her beaten down right
about now."

"Still, it's coming up on the weekend.  What can we do quickly?" he
asked.

"I don't know.  I've got a game tonight, and you've got a football
game tomorrow afternoon.  The soonest we're going to be able to plan
anything out is probably either tomorrow morning, or Sunday morning."
I knew none of us wanted to wait that long, but it didn't look like
we had a choice.

"And what if Jilly gets tired of her after tonight?" asked Josh
sourly.  "Does she become community property tomorrow?  Fuck!"

"Josh, do you think you can talk to her, maybe find out what she's
thinking?"  Austin was thinking out loud.  "If she's a willing
conspirator, it might make it easier to get her out."

"I don't know.  Wait a minute," he said.  He looked over to where
his girlfriend was sitting.  I had noticed that she was glancing over
toward us occasionally, and looking very concerned.  "Andi, can you
come over here for a minute?" he called.

"This is about Molly, right?" she asked as she joined us.

"Yeah, how did you know?" I asked.

She gave me a look, as if I was the dumbest creature she had ever
had the misfortune to come across.  It was a look I was getting used
to seeing, unfortunately.

She turned to Josh, holding onto his shirt front for emphasis.  "I
didn't want to bring it up to you, not until you mentioned it first.
But you've got to help her, Josh.  She's in bad trouble, hanging
around the Bulls, and the longer she stays with them, the worse it's
going to get."

"Well, it's already started to get worse, according to Sean and
Austin," Josh said.

We gave her the condensed version of the story.  Andrea was a bright
girl, and I knew she would be able to fill in the blanks without
difficulty.

She listened without comment, until we finished.  "So what are you
planning?" she asked.

"That's just it, we don't have a plan," complained Josh.  "Sean's
got a game tonight, we're at an away game tomorrow.  It looks like we
really can't get together and work anything out until Sunday."

"That's okay," said Andrea.  "Let's plan on meeting on Sunday
afternoon.  That'll give me time to find out what I can, and maybe
recruit some help."

"Don't be talking up this story," admonished Austin.  "We don't want
too many people knowing about this.  And we really don't want Del
Toro and his thugs to hear about it."

I was gratified to see that Andrea didn't reserve those 'you are an
idiot' looks for just me, as Austin was rewarded with one.

"Gee, you think?" she said sarcastically.  "Believe it or not, boys,
I can be subtle and devious when I want to be."

"Of course you can, baby," soothed Josh.  "You're a girl, after all."




The soccer team had to leave school about an hour early.  Our game
was at Lincoln Valley High School, over an hour away by bus.  We were
undefeated so far, and we were determined to stay that way, all the
way to the State Championships.  About midway through the season,
Trent Abbott was the leading scorer in our conference, and Eric
Johnson had the most assists.  Most of our opponents had opened their
offensive sets by testing our right side, mostly to see if it was as
strong as rumored.  Between Kevin Soranno in the midfield, me as
defenseman, and Brett Oldman and Jorge Mendoza minding the net,
nobody had yet scored by attacking that side.  Even after switching
to the left, they still had to contend with Brett and Jorge, along
with Mike Evanson plugging up the middle, and a very tenacious
Anthony Rogers roaming the defensive turf over there.  In six games
played so far, we had only had 4 goals scored on us.  By contrast, we
had never scored less than 5 goals, and our offensive production
totaled 38 goals.  We were a scoring machine.

Even Coach Neville, a history teacher and a man prone to worry,
seemed relatively relaxed and confident.

According to the scouting reports, Lincoln Valley had a moderately
strong team.  Study of the film at Thursday's practice had shown us
that they had some weakness in the middle, but their defenders seemed
capable, and they were especially strong at stopper and keeper, the
two key defensive positions.  They were strong enough, it seemed, to
be able to cancel out the deficiencies of their center midfielders
and forwards, as they had only lost one game so far, to perennial
powerhouse Rockton Heights.

When we got to the field, there was a slight drizzle falling.  On
the one hand, that would slow down the ball for our quick offense,
but on the other hand, we might be able to press their middle harder
in slower conditions.

We unloaded our gear and hauled it over to the playing field, and
got ready to warm up.  Eric and I liked to take a couple of quick
laps around the perimeter of the playing field before we started,
just to limber up a little, and we took off while the rest of the
team stretched and finished putting on their shin guards and shoes.

On our first circuit, we were just passing the goal where some of
the Lincoln Valley players were warming up, taking practice shots on
an empty net.  I heard one of them say to a teammate, "Look at that.
Chocolate and vanilla."

His friend answered, "Yeah, all they need now is a freakin' Indian,
and they could call themselves the Neapolitans."

This comment was apparently hilarious, as several of the players
began laughing uproariously.  I could sense Eric stiffening beside
me, but we kept on jogging around, doing our best to distance
ourselves from the other team.

On our next time around their net, I noticed that several of their
players were clustered together.  "I sure hope they don't try to play
us too close today," Eric said, just loudly enough to be overheard by
the group.  "Just in case their stupidity is contagious."

"Hey!" I heard one of the guys yell out to us.  I glanced back, and
a couple of the players were being held back by their teammates,
apparently taking Eric's remark a little too personally.

"Way to go, Eric.  Get them riled up before we take the field.  Good
plan," I said sourly.

He gave me a big, toothy grin.  "You been gettin' it too easy
lately, Porter.  I'm just tryin' to ratchet up the competition for
you, so the press will notice you again.  You can thank me later."

"Did you notice," I pointed out, "that it wasn't me who was mouthing
off to them?"

"Mmm...hmmm," he replied.

"And don't you think they'll target the one with the big mouth?"

"Uh-uh," he said with a smile.  "They're gonna think twice about
focusing on a poor token colored player like me.  They hardly even
saw me when we were going past them.  Besides, we all look alike to
crackers like those guys.  But you..."  He grinned, and nodded at me
with satisfaction.  "You, they'll recognize.  And focus."

"Focus," I repeated disgustedly.  "What a pal.  Just what I need, a
little focus."

"You're welcome," he said, even though I didn't remember thanking him.

They focused, all right.  On their first offensive possession, they
attacked our right side, throwing every available player into my
sector.  Kevin Soranno came back to try to help out when he saw them
cluster, and I moved up to meet the ball handler.  Two other Lincoln
Valley players came up and sandwiched me, trying to take me out of
the play as I moved on the ball.  Brett stayed home, guarding his
turf, but Mikey Evanson slid over to help out, trying to cut off a
passing lane.  Robert Anderson, from his offensive midfield position,
dropped back to cover Mike's area, and Anthony, on the left, was all
alone.  He slid up to help Brett and Jorge protect the net.

As the two forwards converged on me, I put on the brakes, digging my
heels in for traction.  I stopped, but they didn't, and they ended up
colliding with each other, falling over each other to the ground.  I
dropped and tackled the ball out from beneath the ball handler's
foot, right past Mikey, who had the good sense to let it go.  The
ball scooted over to Robert, who deftly trapped it, and passed it up
to Eric.  Eric one-touched it over to Javier, our forward in the
middle, and he juked the last remaining defender before tapping it
over to Trent, who shot a bullet into the back of the net.

As everybody was untangling themselves from my corner of the field,
I heard one of the Lincoln Valley players say to another, "We'll get
him next time."

"Yeah," came the reply, "we'll have to work him on an angle next
time, so he can't evade."

"Work it any way you want to, little boys," I said to them.  "It'll
still result in a goal against."

They spun around to glare at me.

I just shrugged at them.  "Didn't you see what just happened?  Play
the ball, not the position.  It's not that difficult a concept."

"Go fuck yourself, Mr. All-Stater," came the reply.

I sighed.  "Or try it again, if you think it's such a good plan," I
said.

They worked hard at ignoring me.

At the kickoff, they worked the same play back over to my side.  I
had seen how they operated, and I didn't have any worries that they
would be a threat on goal, so I backpedaled as the same two guys came
at me again, one down the sideline and the other from midfield.  The
ball was in play up by Kevin, and Brett and Mikey covered the passing
lanes into the middle, so I kept moving back, until the two chasing
me were well beyond where they intended to be.  I stopped and waited
for them to get closer, and then I sidestepped, quickly shuffling to
my left a half-dozen times.  By the time the Lincoln Valley duo
realized that I wasn't there anymore, they were a little confused.
The ball handler, with Kevin harassing him, had two options.  He
could either do the conservative, and correct, thing by passing back
so they could restart their offense, or he could do the foolhardy
play by passing forward to the two bozos up by me, getting in each
other's way.  He chose to advance the ball, no doubt the echoes of
his poor coaching ringing in his ears about moving the ball forward
at every opportunity.  He passed it to Bozo Number One, with Bozo
Number Two at his side, and nowhere to go.  He was pinned in the
corner, with me, Brett and Jorge between him and the net, and nobody
from his team anywhere in his range, except, of course, for Bozo Two,
who was practically standing next to him.

I was crouched in front of him, knees bent and on my toes, ready for
him to move.  "Take the shot," I said to him.

He was jigging the ball back and forth, trying to find an opening.
"What?" he said, unsure if he had heard me correctly.

"I said, take the shot," I repeated.  "Shoot it now, or I'll come
over there and take the ball away from you."  Bozo Two, in the
meantime, circled around me, no doubt thinking he would outsmart me
by getting between me and the goal, even though I had plenty of
goalside help.  I moved to the side slightly, staying between the two
of them, even though I was pretty sure Bozo Two wouldn't know what to
do with the ball even if he was fortunate enough to be able to chase
down a pass from Bozo One.

Bozo One hesitated just long enough, so I took a step toward him.
He did the only thing he could do, which was to take a very weak shot
at the corner post.  It dribbled right to Jorge, who scooped it up,
took four steps, and punted the ball to the midfield stripe, where,
to almost nobody's surprise, Robert just happened to be waiting.  He
leapt up, and headed the ball over to Trent.  Trent let the ball hit
his chest, and it dropped to his feet.  He moved down the left
sideline another few meters, and crossed a pass across the face of
the goal, about 10 meters out, and Javier knocked it in for our
second goal in less than five minutes of play.

Bozo One turned to Bozo Two and said in amazement, "How did that
happen?"

I laughed out loud.  They both looked at me as if I had lost my
mind, as they started jogging back to their side of the field.

"It must have been an accident," I said.  "It just couldn't have
happened on purpose, could it?"

They both stopped and stared at me.  "You can't tell us that was a
designed play," Bozo One said.

I just shook my head at their foolishness.  "Are you two yutzes so
inept you can't recognize the consequences of your own bad judgment?"
I asked.

They both got stony looks on their faces.  "Okay, Glory Boy," said
Bozo One.  "We'll see who's laughing last, asshole."

"You guys will be so out of breath by the time you get done running
at me and getting beaten off the ball, you won't have the energy to
laugh," I said.  "Now shoo.  I've got a soccer game to play.  Join
in, if you can figure out how to play the game."

I thought they might come after me at that, but the referee was
looking right at them, waiting for them to get back across the line,
and they had no choice but to fall back for the restart.

During the delay, their coaches must have sent out instructions for
the offense to try attacking our left side instead, for the ball
ended up over there on the next play.  Bozos One and Two plunged
their way up and into the middle, effectively keeping the ball out of
harm's way for us.  I watched them run around without purpose, and
had to wonder at the shallow pool of talent that their hapless coach
must have had available to him, to have to start those two.  It
almost made me feel sorry for them.

Late in the first half, the ball got knocked over toward the right
side again, and somehow Bozo One managed to trap and hold it.  Before
he could move, I closed on him and got enough toe on the ball to kick
it out of bounds.  Bozo Two came up to throw in, and the Poor
Coaching Principle reared its ugly head for them once again.  His
instructions, I was sure, were to throw the ball upfield, no matter
what, so that's what he set up to do.  The only player upfield for
him to throw to was Bozo One, and I was all over him.  He threw it
anyway, and I stepped in front of Bozo One, trapped the ball, juked
around the slow and stupid Bozo Two, and carried the ball all the way
up the field.  Kevin dropped back to cover my assignments as I
dribbled up, and Jimmy Brooks, our right forward, moved over to take
the cross, pulling his defender with him.  There was no one around
me, and nobody challenging me.  They probably were so drilled about
staying in their positions or on their assignment, that they had no
idea about improvisation on the field, which certainly made it very
easy for me.  A defenseman bringing the ball upfield was completely
foreign to them, apparently, and they had no contingency plan for it.
I knew my team was covering and supporting me as I took the ball in,
just as I could observe that our opponents were moving indecisively
in their positions.  The defender stayed with Jimmy, and their
stopper was forced to come out and challenge me.  I head-faked him,
moved around his flank, and challenged the keeper.  He had to come
out of the net to me, so that he could cut down on my shooting
angles, but he was dead in the water, and he knew it.  I passed the
ball off the outside of my left foot over to Trent.  The keeper
scrambled over to cover Trent, giving him the opportunity to one-
touch the ball back to me, leaving the keeper slipping in the damp
grass, trying in vain to change direction.  Trent put the ball right
on my foot, and it was too easy to hit the back of the net.  The goal
put us up 5-0, and it wasn't even halftime yet.

By the end of the game, Coach Neville had pulled Anthony, Jimmy,
Mikey and me, preferring to save us for another time.  Since Trent
was the conference-leading scorer, Coach left him in to score at
will, which he did.  He also let Eric continue playing, since he was
very proficient at feeding Trent.  At the final whistle, the score
was 11-0, and Lincoln Valley was demoralized.

After we had lined up to shake hands with our opponents, I heard
Bozo One and Bozo Two talking as they passed me, heading back toward
their bench.

"Could you believe that guy?" said One.  "What did he score?  Six
goals?"

"Un-fucking-believable," said Two.  "Shit, I'm the second-leading
scorer on our team, and I've only gotten 6 goals all season."

I laughed, causing them to stop and turn to look at me.  "Six goals
all season, and you're the second-leading scorer for your team?
Hell, I play defense, and I've scored four goals this season."  I
pointed to Trent.  "See that guy?  He had 24 goals, coming into this
game.  You want me to find you a calculator so you can figure out his
current total?"

"Ah, fuck you, and the monkey you rode in on," said Two, but there
really wasn't any heat in it.  He was too tired and too dispirited to
work up any real anger.

As I was walking back to our bench with Mikey and Eric, I saw the
Lincoln Valley coaching staff trotting over toward us.  Coach Neville
saw it, too, and came out to intercept, thinking that perhaps they
were upset over the trash talk during and after the game.

"Sean Porter?" inquired Lincoln Valley's head coach.

I nodded.  He held out his hand.  "My name is John Caruthers, Sean,
and I'm the interim head coach here."

Coach Neville came up.  "May I help you, Coach?" he asked, trying to
head off any potential trouble.

"No, Coach," replied Mr. Caruthers.  "I just wanted to bring my
staff over to meet your star player.  Sean, I had heard about you, of
course, but your reputation has not been exaggerated.  I just wanted
to tell you that I was very impressed with your play out there
against us."

"Well, thank you, Coach," I answered as I shook his hand.

"I gather you were doing a little teaching out there," he said with
a smile.

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean," I said uncertainly.

"My left offensive team," he said.  "They're a little thick-headed
about taking instruction from me or my staff, I'm afraid.  Think they
know it all, seen it all, you know the type.  They've been
successful, in spite of themselves, so far this season.  Anyway, I
wanted to thank you for helping me, by showing them the error of
their ways."

"I did that?  What did I do?" I asked.

"Well," he said with a rueful chuckle, "aside from shutting down
their movement of the ball, providing secondary assists to the first
three goals your team scored, intercepting our throw-in and taking
the ball all the way down the field unimpeded to score another goal,
essentially plugging up your side of the field from the net to
practically the midfield stripe, plus actually telling Bruce and Jack
what to do to improve their play, you didn't do much."  He paused,
turned to Coach Neville, and said, "I don't suppose you'd consider a
two-for-one trade, would you?  My left mid and left forward for your
right defender?"

I assumed that Bruce and Jack were probably the Bozo Brothers, and I
was a little insulted that Coach Caruthers would think that I might
be worth those two.

However, both coaches burst out laughing.  Personally, I thought
they were a little off their rockers, but maybe it was a coaching
thing.  Or an adult thing, of which I was just as oblivious.  Eric
and Mikey and I continued on toward the sidelines, leaving the
coaches to their odd sense of amusement.

On the bus ride back to school, we were all in high spirits from our
win.  A bunch of us were in the back of the bus, laughing and
swapping tall tales about our heroics on the field.

As we pulled into the school parking lot, Eric said, "Hey, Sean, I
hate to bring up what might be a sore subject, but who you taking to
Homecoming next week?"

I sat back in my seat, a little shocked.  Homecoming was already
only a week away?  And me, with no girlfriend, no date, and no
prospects.  Becky hated me, and Kristina's father hated me.  Oh,
great.

"Thanks for reminding me that I'm going solo," I muttered.  Eric was
just barely hiding his smirk, and Trent was elbowing him in amusement
over my predicament.

Practical jokers.  You gotta love 'em, I thought to myself.  If you
don't, you're liable to kill 'em.





(Continued in Chapter 17)
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