“About you. Here I am engaged to you — and I know practically nothing about you!”
“Well… I like Count Basie’s records and blonde hair; apple pie with vanilla ice cream… and blonde hair—”
She poked him with her elbow. “I mean… your family. You’ve never told me a thing about them.”
“Not much to tell. My old man isn’t an airplane engineer like yours — he’s just a sawyer.”
“A… what?”
“Boss sawyer. In a lumber mill. He’s a good one, too. And he’s still got all his fingers after thirty years of it. You’ll like pop. He’s rough and tough, but you never have any trouble figuring out what he thinks.” Dan looked at her. “He’ll like you, too. Plenty.”
“And your mother, Dan?”
“Ah now, there’s quite a party, that mom.” His smile broadened. “She’s got it to spare. Her last letter asked me about ‘this Marla girl you’re so interested in.’ I’m gonna send her one of those snaps I took up in Griffith Park.”
“Let me, Dan. I want to write her, anyway.”
The girl came for their trays. He was glad of the interruption. He hadn’t figured out what to tell Marla if she asked for his home address.
Sooner or later, he’d have to reach a decision about that.
But maybe he could put it off just a little longer.
VI
Stoney stood at the blackboard, with a fist full of colored chalk. The locker room was quiet except for the scraping of cleats on cement. Dan was sprawled out on a bench.
“The other team can’t score while you’ve got possession of the ball,” the head coach made red circles rapidly on the board, in the single wing. “They can’t get the ball as long as you keep making those first downs. That’s why it’s more important to be able to make a first down than to try to shake a man loose for a touchdown on every play.”
He sketched in a 6-2-2-1 defense in white. “Say we’ve cracked off tackle and inside guard and picked up only four or five on two tries. We’ve got one more down to gamble with, before we have to kick out of trouble. Play I’m going to outline is for a spot like that… and no other. If it goes, and it ought to work so smoothly it goes every time, it’s good for that six or seven you need, to keep the ball and have four more shots at pushing it downfield.”
Stoney traced the path of the ball in yellow chalk. “You don’t want to use it very often or it’ll curdle on you. Save it for those spots where you have to get that first down.” He used the pointer. “It’s a pass. Run from any formation. Goes best when the ball is thrown by a bucker.” He glanced at Dan.
Dan shifted his position uncomfortably. He knew all there was to know about the Paycheck Pass.
The pro clubs used it right along. No good for big gains. Tough to stop, when you needed small ones. Yeah. He knew how it went.
Stoney said: “You have to be about fifteen yards in. Pass goes right to the sideline — six or seven yards down. Like so…” he zigzagged the path of the mythical receiver. “End goes down, secondary covering him. He fakes a catch, as the passer fakes a throw. End cuts in as if he’s going to cross over. Secondary runs along with him.
“Then the end wheels, sprints for the sidelines. The ball has to be there… about a yard inside… to meet him. The defense can’t intercept or bat down, because the secondary has four or five yards further to run, since he’s at an angle, while the end’s running straight for the sideline. Understand?”
The squad rumbled assent.
“Webb?” Stoney was sharp. “See how it goes?”
“Sure.” Dan had the feeling the coach was well aware how thoroughly the fullback understood that particular play.
“You’ll do the passing.” Stoney laid down the chalk. “We might need this against Stanford, Saturday. Let’s go out, run through it.”
As they trooped up the ramp into the stadium, pictures flashed through Dan’s brain. Movie shots of the famous ‘Jet’ Janok, dancing back from the battling linemen, fending off tackles crashing in with upflung arms, calmly taking his time, faking off to the left, double faking to the right, firing the ball at the last possible instant far to the sidelines at the left.
The paycheck pass. The Sure-thing Shot. How many had the flashy Janok completed? Twelve out of fourteen, — when the chips were on the line? Yes… he remembered very well indeed.
They lined up against the C’s, on the forty.
Coco called: “Ninety. Webb. Block, youse. Block your butts off.”
The whistle. The pass-back. Dan had it. He faded. Tacklers tore in.
He faked. Retreated another three. Faked again. Threw to Ship Morey as a shoulder drove into his hip.
Ship caught it, for seven. But Stoney found nothing right about it.
“What good’s a fake, Webb, if you keep looking at the eventual receiver all the time? You have to bank on his being there, keep your eyes off him until you throw. Over.”
They did it again. This time Dan didn’t look in Ship’s direction after the first momentary fake. His pass was a little low. Ship fumbled it.
The Head Coach was patient. He took Dan aside for special treatment while Dommy kept on with 90.
“Never mind about your passing style, Webb. Forget all that crap about hitting your ear with the ball when you bring it back. Throw it like you would a baseball. It’s just like a baseball only shaped different. Use your wrist. Get some snap in it. It’s just doin’ what comes naturally.”
Dan tried. Again and again. If he improved, Stoney didn’t say so.
“Keep the point up. Ball coming at a receiver end down is twice as hard to hold.
“Don’t try to see how swift you can shoot it. Nobody’s going to intercept these. Just get ’em accurate.”
And finally:
“You’ll never make a great passer. Work your head off, you might get to be a fair one. That’s all you need to be to make this 90 click.”
“I’ll get it down,” Dan answered, “so he can catch it in a soup plate.”
“Never mind perfecting it that far,” Stoney retorted dryly. “Get it in clothes basket range, I’ll be satisfied. Didn’t you do any passing on your high school team in… where was it, Petosky?”
“Yuh,” Dan said. “I did a little.”
“You must have forgotten everything you knew.” The coach started to say something more, changed his mind, turned back to the scrimmage.
“Webb in,” he called. “We’re going to get this right if we have to keep at it until they play hockey in hell.”
“Yuh,” Dan said.
Lin Hollet hung his houndstooth sport jacket carefully on a hanger. He poked a cigarette in his genuine amber holder, eased into his swivel chair, adjusted it at a satisfactory angle and shuffled the morning applications for “six seats on the forty-yard line.”
“Did my eyes deceive me, my precious petal? Or was that you with Dan Webb in the Bowl last night?”
Marla jerked a letter out of her machine.
“It was I. Why?”
“Don’t tell me the big gahunk goes for longhair music!”
“Maybe he goes for me,” she said primly. “And you’re a fine one to be calling him a gahunk. We ought to have a couple more like him on the team.”
Hollet slit open an envelope marked Personal. He read it with a smug expression. “The soph’s done all right for himself so far,” he conceded. “Stoney might make a back out of him, yet, if nothing goes wrong!”
“Promising young athletes have been known to flunk out. Or fail to make sufficient grades.”
“Go ahead and bet your cash on Southern. Dan’s right in there with the old marks.” She was mildly scornful.