Читать книгу Hooper's Revolution - Dennie Wendt - Страница 8

ONE

Danny Hooper, of East Southwich Albion Association Football Club, of the English Third Division, was big and strong.

That’s what they’d told him since he was a boy, and that’s what people told him now. Over and over again they told him. “You’re a big, strong lad, Danny. It’s a blessing in this game, my boy. You’re big and you’re strong. We’ll need you to play like it.”

In the corner shop and at the chips stand by the Albion ground, they called him “big man.” “Well done at the weekend, big man,” they’d say, whether he’d done well or not. When he walked the gray and ancient streets of East Southwich, the old men nodded at him, the women smiled at him, and the kids just got out of his way. Today, on his way to the pub for a swifty with the only person he was talking to this week, the man in the coffee shop said, “Heyyyyyy, big man!” as he strolled by. Danny nodded, as big and strong men do.

In his youth, he’d enjoyed it—he was happy to have something that set him apart from the other boys. When you’re young, you’ll always get chosen for the team if you’re big and strong. No one will expect anything from you but muscle, even if you’d like to show them your finesse, a bit of subtlety—but at least you’ll always get picked. You’ll always have a place. The thing was, at twenty-two, Danny wasn’t so young anymore, and he was getting a little sick of being only and always the big, strong lad from gray and ancient East Southwich.

A few days before, at training, he had removed the ball from the foot of young Stevie Johnston, a flashy wisp of a young winger, and had kept possession as Johnston had caught back up to him to try to win it back. While Johnston made his hasty effort at the ball, Danny eased the soggy, leaden ball through poor Johnston’s Eiffel Tower–ed legs with the casual insouciance of a Dutch or Brazilian prodigy. It was the third time Danny had nutmegged someone, anyone, in his entire life, and only the fourth time he’d tried it. It filled him with joy. For a moment.

East Southwich Albion’s manager, a doughy and crusty World War II veteran named Aldershot Taylor, whose body had been infused through his feet with Third Division mud and through his face with third-division gin for decades, brought the session to an immediate halt.

“Danny, Danny, Danny,” moaned Aldy Taylor, whose voice came only in the bruised shades of Shatteringly Loud and British Forlorn. At the moment, he was surprising the squad with the British version. The blue-tracksuited and orange-bibbed members of East Southwich Albion stopped and looked at forlorn Aldy Taylor. “Danny,” Taylor said, “you’re paid by this football club”—he motioned with his stumpy arms at the mud and the men and the faded glory of East Southwich Albion Association Football Club—“to be big and strong. Money changes hands, my boy. You must... stop... that. Stop... whatever that was, my boy. Please.”*

The words hung gin-soaked in the dirty, damp English air while Taylor remembered why he’d said them, and then they hung waiting for the old man to free East Southwich Albion’s Royal Blues to continue their preparation for godforsaken Dire Vale United in the FA Cup Fifth Round Proper. They hardly even belonged in the Fourth Division, Dire Vale United. Just up from non-League football, Dire Vale United was promoted on a series of technicalities after finishing their customary twelfth. A lucky draw for East Southwich Albion, Dire Vale United. One of the few sides in all the world that could make East Southwich Albion feel they’d gotten a lucky draw. East Southwich Albion would surely be moving on in the world’s oldest cup competition, moving closer to that winner’s medal that Danny wanted so badly, so badly, at the expense of Dire Vale United Football Club.

Then Aldy Taylor said, “All right then. Continue, lads.”

If they don’t want expression, Danny thought, I won’t bloody give them any. If they want big and strong, they can have that. And nothing more. He determined that he would not speak until the FA Cup Fifth Round Proper match against Dire Vale United, and he did not.

Who on earth did Danny think he was? Where did he think he was? He could see it in their faces. Danny never imagined himself to have anything remotely Brazilian about his game, but he thought he measured up with a few of the Dutchmen. That didn’t seem too far a reach. They were big and strong too, some of them. Huge. And they played in mud, the Dutch. No one told them to shut down their imaginations, at least as far as Danny could tell.

Danny had once told his father he’d like to win a championship someday. As far as hopes and dreams went, that was about it for Danny. He couldn’t imagine a career without taking a trophy in his hands and kissing it just the once. Lifting it above his head and listening to the mighty, relieved “Whoaaaaaaaaaa,” the exultant roar of men and boys and those few and brave women and girls who wanted nothing but to see that cup, whatever it was, held aloft in the springtime sun by its beribboned handles, ribbons the color of whatever shirt Danny was wearing at that very moment. Danny’s father laughed a little and gave him an eloquent wink that said, You’ll do what you’re told, Danny. If a championship comes from that, then fair play to you. Otherwise...

Even the old man.

Everyone spoke to Danny in the gray, sodden language of the English weather. “You’ll take what you’re given, son.” “You’ll win if you win, Danny, but you probably won’t, you likely won’t, you won’t you won’t you won’t...”

Danny walked through town every Monday to the shouts of “Big man!” and the nods of the old men and the smiles of the women and the scurrying of the children, to meet his dad down at the pub for a swifty. They called it a swifty, but it rarely turned out that way. They’d have a weekend’s football to discuss, plus the goings-on in the First Division and the Match of the Day broadcast, and finally, after the two or three swifties had well and truly entered the bloodstream, a thorough consideration of the most recent East Southwich Albion fixture to write itself into the blur of East Southwich football history. Danny’s father was a quiet man, opinionated in facial expression but, like his son, disinclined to make sounds. Danny had inherited this gene—except when his dad was around. When his dad was around, Danny opened up, rambled and jambled, said what was on his mind. Mr. Hooper listened—loved listening to his son address most any topic, but especially the Funny Old Game—and responded with a litany of eyebrow wrinkles, curled mouth corners, and even a few things that said plenty that he alone could do with his ears.

This Monday presented Danny with plenty to say and for his father to hear. Danny’s East Southwich side, representatives of the only club either Hooper had ever supported, had conceded late and not scored at all in a depressing loss to Bloat County. “Bloat,” Danny sneered, a light ale cream coating the underside of his mustache. “Bloody Bloat County, come to East Southwich and left happy. And why? Because we play pre-war football in these parts, Dad. It was a kicking contest Saturday. A kicking contest. Nothing more. How far and how high. And could you get stuck in, could you earn your right to play. Earn your right to play football? I’m bloody paid to play football, not foul gits from bloody Bloat County. But that’s all they want, Dad, all they want.”

He stopped, polished off another half pint, slammed the glass down on the table, looked at his father, and said, “Bloat. How they even stay up in this division I’ll never know. All you’d have to do to nick the points off of Bloat County would be to keep the ball on the floor for a minute or two at a time. Pass the bloody thing, Dad, pass the bloody thing.”

Danny slumped in his chair, leaned his head back to take in the dark brown ceiling of the Southwich Defeatist’s Arms, and raspberried a frustrated, malty spray of alcohol into the close, warm tavern air and let the mist of disappointment settle back on his hairy face. “We can’t take two points off of Bloat County at home,” he said, and sat back up. “Not likely to win anything that way. Not likely to win anything at all.”

Danny’s father narrowed his eyes and wrinkled his nose. He locked his sons’s eyes in his own gaze and held still, stiffening his shoulders. Danny said, “I know, I know. It’s what I signed up for. It’s what I wanted, to be a professional footballer, to play for the Royals, but I also wanted to win something, Dad. A cup, a medal, a little ribbon, something.”

Mr. Hooper leaned forward, and Danny said, “I said I know.”

Then Danny’s father spoke. “Aldershot Taylor has the imagination of a horse. Since you lads were boys, I’ve seen his methods: his idea of a side is nine of the biggest boys he can find and two of the fastest.”

Danny waited for his dad to finish, because he knew he wasn’t finished.

“The nine of you graft and grind and kick the ball up to the fast ones. For decades, Danny, for decades...”

This was Mr. Hooper’s version of a speech, and he was now most likely done speaking for a week. He took a drink from his third pint.

“I’ll go play in Holland,” Danny said. “It’s not so far away. And it’s real football. I could help some nice Dutch club win a trophy. I’ll—”

Danny’s father made an incredulous face.

“Why not?”

Mr. Hooper used his ear-twitch to say, Seriously? You can’t play in Holland.

“I could do.”

Mr. Hooper’s crinkled chin said, They wouldn’t have you.

“Well, I can’t stay in this league forever.”

Mr. Hooper raised an eyebrow.

“What?” Danny asked.

Danny’s dad raised the other eyebrow, just to be perfectly clear.

“The mines?” Danny said. “No, Dad. Not the mines.”

The elder Hooper surprised Danny and spoke out loud again: “Danny, your options are few. You play for this club because you’re big and you’re strong and you’re from here. No one else is calling for you, are they? You lads can’t even beat Bloat County. It’s Albion until you’re hurt, and then it’s the mines for you, my son. Unless something happens that neither of us sees coming.” Now he was done for the week.

Danny put his hand up in the air, which he did only to call for offsides or to get his hands on one more round.

^* A NOTE ON DIRE VALE UNITED FOOTBALL CLUB: As of the 1975–76 season, the club held the remarkable distinction of being the only known footballing organization on the planet to have finished twelfth in every league competition they had ever entered. This had come to light all the way back in 1903, after the team finished twelfth in the Mid-Maidenfoot Alliance Second Division, despite a unique playoff system in which the teams were re-seeded after each match and the contests were scored by judges based on foot speed and playing style. In time, the club’s management determined to build the squad based on a stated desire to finish in twelfth each year without ever being suspected of throwing a match; United’s unique aims put them in the awkward position of paying exorbitant transfer fees for players of what the club deemed “exactly our kind of mediocrity.”