Kid Field

We played tackle. Our parents wanted touch. Every Saturday morning before the Tech game, we had our own game at Kid Field. A patch of grass between apartments where we turned ourselves into warriors.

At ten, I'd start calling.

I had a list with everybody’s phone number on the wall.

“Hi Ms. Coggins, is Will there?”

“Hi Mr. Robert, is Wynn there?”

“Hi Ms. Price, is Ben there?”

By eleven, all the Foxridge kids dotted Kid Field. Some on the green electrical box. Some hanging off the rusty jungle gym and lookout tower. Some throwing spirals. 

Pellet Head Ronnie was there, doing toe touches. His sister sat up in the tower reading a Sharper Image catalog. She liked memorizing all the prices. Ronnie stretched and ran his mouth. He was always lying about Maine, where he’d lived before moving to Southwest Virginia. The time he saw the biggest black bear in the world. The time he ate a live crab out of the ocean. How he got bruises up and down his arm. How his sister ended up with a black eye. Most of the time everybody just laughed at his lies and let him keep telling them. 

Ronnie was telling everybody about a place called Newfoundland.

Tuck McMichael said, “We live in America, dipshit. Nobody cares about Canada.” 

  “You don’t think I know that fat fuck?”

Everybody called Tuck fat fuck. The only reason he wasn’t playing JV yet was because he’d been held back in fifth grade because he couldn’t read. He laughed most things off but mention his mom or missing dad and he'd pin you down, pants at his ankles, mashing his butthole against your face.

We spun for first pick. Ronnie and I were always captains, quarterbacks. We hated being on the same team. Some nights, Ronnie and his sister walked Prices Fork, drinking Dr. Perky from the quarter machine. Just like Karl and me, except we could go home when we wanted. Once Mom brought them home. Made them spaghetti. I watched Ronnie watching Family Matters like he was cramming for a test. Like if he memorized enough, he could take it home with him. Next day he lied and told everyone there was a big wet spot on my bed.

“Darnell,” Ronnie said.

“Tuck,” I said.

I picked Karl last. My brother was always picked last because he was the youngest and smallest out of everybody. Everybody called him my shadow. I'd be lying on the carpet on Saturday mornings, ESPN on, sketching plays in my notebook and he'd be right there beside me, asking what position he was playing. Dad watched from the couch, wondering why I didn't put that much energy into my math homework. I wanted to win.

Ronnie punted off and it was a mad scramble to run the ball back. The rules went like this: three count blitzes, no sneaks, center eligible after the count.

We went back and forth scoring touchdowns. First came the grass stains. Then blood leaked between teeth. Then bruises formed. Then whatever lived beneath bruises lived in us. Darnell ran a slant route, and Tuck speared him in the chest, and everybody went “Ohhhhhhh!” Elvie ran over to Darnell and gave him some water. An old man walking a dog walked by and stopped to watch and said, “Ya’ll having gladiator tryouts today or what?” Darnell wiped away tears with the underside of his shirt as he got back in the play.

If we played long enough, we eventually stopped keeping score. It just became about what team was tougher. Who could keep going until someone started complaining about being hurt or tired. I drew the play on my palm in the huddle. We lined up and I said, “Hike!”

I faked the hand off to Coggins, pump faked to Vest in the flat, and then hit Karl on a post route. He caught the ball and took off, pumping his little legs. We were all screaming “Go Karl! Run!”

Then Ronnie came up on him fast and blasted him right as he crossed over the running path for a touchdown, his little body crumpling against the green electric box, the ball going loose. Karl didn’t move. Ronnie scooped up the ball and ran it back the other direction. We all ran over to Karl to make sure he was okay. He cried, snot streamed from his nose.

I touched his hand. “You still alive?" Thinking that if I could make my brother laugh, I knew he’d be okay.

But he didn’t laugh. Just cried. Something he never did around Dad.

“Why’d you hit him so hard, dickhole?” Tuck said to Ronnie.

“I barely touched him!” Ronnie said back.

My brother lay in the end zone, and I saw him at breakfast that morning, sitting with me drawing plays, both of us quiet, believing his big brother would protect him. “What’s wrong with you?” Tuck said, moving closer to Ronnie, pushing him hard in the chest.

“Hey, back off, fat boy,” Ronnie said, shoving him back.

I wiped the snot and tears off my little brother’s face with the bottom of my shirt. Karl propped himself up and we sat there watching Ronnie and Tuck go at it. 

“How’d you like it if I hit your sister like that, huh?” Tuck said.

“You wouldn’t touch my sister,” Ronnie said. He moved so close that he and Tuck were almost kissing. 

Now people were starting to cheer and yell. They yelled “Fuck ‘em up, Tuck!” or “Get him Ronnie!” And then somebody else yelled “Just kiss him and make up!” and everybody laughed. No one called for help.

Tuck caught Ronnie in a head lock and wrestled him to the ground.

From the sideline, Elvie screamed. “Stop! Stop! You’re hurting him!” She ran toward their apartment.

Tuck held him down on the ground in a chokehold like he was The Undertaker. Ronnie tried escaping, writhing around. Tuck cinched up and grinned.

“What are you going to do Pellet Head?” Tuck said.

“Fat bastard,” Ronnie said, spitting out the word like venom.

Tuck stopped grinning and his face went stone cold. He cinched the headlock tighter, and Ronnie squirmed and writhed on the ground trying to get free. It went on like this for minutes and minutes. Just Ronnie fighting to get free and Tuck holding him down even tighter.

Everybody started saying stuff like, “Just let him go, Tuck” or “You’re gonna kill him, Tuck”.

Ronnie's stepdad weaved toward Kid Field. His fists were balled at his sides. His stained maroon Virginia Tech shirt stretched over his beer gut. 

“Get off my boy!” Ronnie’s stepdad yelled as he got closer.

Tuck got to his feet still holding Ronnie in the headlock, but as Ronnie’s stepdad got closer, he let Ronnie go and gave him a shove. Ronnie ran over to his sister and hid his face in his t-shirt. Ronnie’s stepdad got right up next to Tuck and looked down at him. 

“What’s your name?”

“Tuck McMichael.”

Ronnie’s stepdad worked at the armory over in Radford making missile caps for the military. My dad had seen him smash a beer bottle over someone’s head once about a game of darts. Everybody knew that family’s business because he was always doing that kind of stuff in public. 

“You think you can just bully people around?” Ronnie’s stepdad said.

“I didn’t bully anyone,” Tuck said. “Everybody saw what happened.”

“I know what happened,” Ronnie’s stepdad said.

“Bullshit, you do,” Tuck said. “You weren’t down here.”

That’s when Ronnie’s stepdad grabbed Tuck in a headlock just like Tuck had gotten Ronnie. Ronnie’s stepdad said, “You like that? You like bullying people?” Tuck pulled at Ronnie’s stepdad’s arm around his neck. Ronnie and Elvie just watched along with the rest of us.

Only Tuck bent down and grabbed Ronnie’s stepdad’s legs and picked him up. Tuck held him up like that for a few seconds and everybody gasped. Tuck was still in the headlock, but just fell to the ground and slammed Ronnie’s stepdad right on his back. He let out a big “Ughhh” and Tuck broke free. I looked over at Karl and he looked back at me, our mouths hanging open. It was like watching WCW Nitro on Monday night. 

Ronnie’s stepdad said, “Ugh, my back! You broke my back!”

Tuck kicked him in his beer gut. Said, “You like hitting your kids? You like hitting Ronnie?” He kicked him again. The questions became just breath.

We all watched until it was over.

Karl and I shared another look then, the same look we shared at home. I could read his mind. 

Ronnie and Elvie were standing off to the side from everybody else, watching. I thought about the time Ronnie told us his real dad had fought Sgt. Slaughter at a bar in Bangor, Maine. Elvie cried and pleaded. Said, “Please, stop.” But Ronnie’s face had gone blank. Thinking hard about something that hadn’t happened just yet.

TERRANCE WEDIN was born and raised in Blacksburg, Virginia. His writing has been featured in Esquire, Fourth Genre, Ninth Letter, Washington Square Review, New World Writing, and other literary journals. He is an assistant professor at Texas State University. For more, visit terrancewedin.com.