Chapter 6: The Scout and the Sofa
The man who wanted to meet me was named Gerald Holt.
He was standing with Mason near the center circle, holding a business card between two fingers, and he had the particular stillness of someone who spent a lot of time in rooms where other people were nervous.
"Mr.
Holt is from Northeastern," Mason said.
"Full scholarship offer.
Official."
Gerald extended his hand.
"Your son is one of the most complete players I've seen at the high school level in fifteen years of recruiting."
I shook his hand.
"He's worked for it."
"That's obvious." Gerald glanced at Mason.
"We'd love to have him visit the campus.
Meet the coaching staff.
See the facilities." He looked back at me.
"We understand there may be other programs in conversation."
"There are," Mason said, with a calm I recognized — the same calm he used when he was negotiating for a later curfew, which meant he had already thought this through.
"Then we'll make sure our visit is worth your time." Gerald handed me the card.
"Both of yours."
He shook our hands again and walked toward a group of coaches near the sideline.
Mason watched him go.
Then he turned to me, and the calm dropped, and he was just eighteen again — wide-eyed, slightly disbelieving, still in his muddy jersey.
"Full scholarship," he said.
"I heard."
"Dad."
"I heard, Mason."
He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me once, the way he used to when he was twelve and something good happened that he didn't have words for.
Then he pulled me into a hug — a proper one, both arms, the kind that lasts long enough to mean something.
I held on.
"What you said up there," I started.
"Don't."
"Mason—"
"I mean it." He pulled back and looked at me.
His eyes were wet.
"Don't thank me.
Don't make it a moment.
It was just true.
I just said what was true."
"Okay," I said.
"Okay." He wiped his face with the back of his wrist.
"Also I'm absolutely starving and I want a burger the size of my head."
I laughed.
It came out louder than I expected — a real laugh, the kind that clears something out of your chest.
"Get changed," I said.
"I'll bring the car around."
He jogged toward the tunnel.
I watched him go — that long stride, the captain's armband still on his arm — and I thought about a sofa with a broken spring that had wrecked my back for eleven months.
About a motorcycle I hadn't thought about in years.
About a piece of notebook paper with five words on it, and a four-year-old on a rug with a bowl of dry cereal.
Gerald Holt's business card was in my hand.
I turned it over once.
May you like
Then I put it in my jacket pocket and walked toward the exit.
Behind me, the stadium lights clicked off one bank at a time.
