a good distance from the phone, I could tell it was Rube, because he talks loud, especially on the phone.
“Is Cameron there?” “Yeah.”
“Are y’s goin’ up the oval
“Maybe,” at which point Steve looked over and I nodded. “Yes, we are,” he answered. “I’ll be up there in ten minutes.” “Right. Bye.” “Bye.”
Secretly, I think I preferred it when it was only Steve and me who went. Rube was always brilliant, always starting something and mucking around, but with Steve and me, I enjoyed the quiet intensity of it. We might never have said a word — and I might have only kicked the ball back hard and straight, and let the dirt and smell of it thump onto my chest — but I loved the feeling of it, and the idea that I was part of something unspoken and true.
Not that I never had moments like that with Rube. I had plenty of great moments with Rube. I guess it’s just that with Steve, you really have to earn things like that. You’d wait forever if you wanted one for free. Like I’ve said before, for other reasons, that’s Steve.
On the way down to the ground floor a few minutes later, he said, “I’m sore as hell from yesterday’s game. I got belted in the ribs about five times.”
At Steve’s games it was always the same. The other team always made sure he hit the ground especially hard. He always got up.
We stood on the street, waiting for Rube.
“Hey boys.”
When he arrived, Rube was puffing gently from the run. His thick, curly, furry hair was too attractive for its own good, even though it was a lot shorter than it used to be. He was wearing only a jersey, sawn-off track pants, and gymmies. Smoke came from his mouth, from the cold.
We started walking, and Steve was his usual self. He wore the same pair of old jeans he always did at the oval and a flanno shirt. Athletic shoes. His eyes took aim, scanning the path, and his hair was short and wiry and tough-looking. He was tall and abrupt and exactly the kind of guy you wanted to be walking the streets with.
Especially in the city.
Especially in the dark.
Then there was me.
Maybe the best way to describe me that night was by looking again at my brothers. Both of them were in control. Rube, in a reckless, no matter what happens, I’ll be ready when it comes kind of way. Steve, in a there’s nothing you can do that’s going to hurt me way.
My own face focused on many things, but never for too long, remaining eventually on my feet, as they traveled across the slightly slanted road. My hair was sticking up. It was curly and ruffled. I wore the same jersey as Rube (only mine was slightly more faded), old jeans, my spray jacket, and boots. I told myself that although I could never look the same as my brothers, I still had something.
I had the words in my pocket. Maybe that was what I had.
That, and knowing that I’ve walked the city a thousand times on my own and that I could walk these streetre feeling than anyone, as if I was walking through myself. I’m pretty sure that was what it was — more a feeling than a look.
At the oval Steve had shots at goal.
Rube had shots at goal.
I sent the ball back to them.
When Steve had a shot, the ball rose up high and kept climbing between the posts. It was clean, ranging, and when it came down, it rushed onto my chest with a complete, numbing force. Rube’s ball, on the other hand, spun and spiraled, low and charging, but also went through the posts each time.
They kicked them from everywhere. In front. Far out. Even past the edges of the field.
“Hey Cam!” Rube yelled at one point. “Come out and have a shot!”
“Nah mate, I’ll be right.”
They made me, though. Twenty yards out, twenty yards to the left. I moved in with my heart shuddering. My feet stepped in, I kicked it, and the ball reached for the posts.
It curved.
Spun.
Then it collided with the right-hand post and slumped to the grass.
Silence.
Steve mentioned, “It was a good shot, Cameron,” and the three of us stood there, in the wet, weeping grass.
It was quarter past eight then. At eight-thirty, Rube left, and I’d had another seven shots.
At just past nine-thirty, Steve was still standing behind the posts, and I still hadn’t got