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New Castle came to the line. Our defense got into position. In my middle linebacker role, I jumped around behind our two defensive tackles. When the ball was snapped, I thought the space-time continuum had crumbled. Everything was in slow motion. I saw the New Castle quarterback drop back to pass, but each step took an eternity. All our linemen rushed straight upfield. I took a step back into coverage. When the New Castle center saw me go backwards, he turned to help his teammate block our tackle. The quarterback was looking from right to left, trying to find an open receiver, his feet dancing over the torn up sod. I saw the opening. The New Castle center had been dragged to his right in a fight with Billy Hancock, our huge defensive tackle. There was a gap in the line, and I had a straight path to the quarterback. I charged. My head told my legs to run very fast, but the message must have gotten intercepted by the arms or something. I felt my legs pumping, churning, my cleats tearing into the grass. So why wasn't I moving any faster? The quarterback didn't see me yet; he was looking to his right. He cocked his arm back, and I thought my chance had been lost, but then he pulled the ball back down. His dancing feet took him to his left. His head swiveled that way and abruptly stopped. He had seen me. Running with everything I had, I was close now. Knowing he was in trouble, the quarterback cocked his arm back again, preparing to throw the ball away. My chance was slipping through my stubby little fingers. As he stared at me, wide-eyed and weary of being hit by the large, angry children of dairy farmers, I leapt. Stretching my body out from head to toe, I lunged for the quarterback. While I was in the air, I caught sight of my hand out in front of me. I stared at my fingers again and wondered why a father would do that to a son. Then I looked at my thumb. A fat, thick worm with a half-moon nail. So hideous in fact it was separated from the other fingers and in fact is not considered a finger at all. If any digit ever needed an adornment, it was the thumb. Just as the New Castle quarterback was about to propel his arm forward, my hand struck it at the elbow. I continued my flight through the air until my upper body collided with his head. We both hit the ground with a vomitous grunt. My full body weight drove him into the ground, and I tried to make myself feel as heavy as I could. I wanted him to go home never wanting to be hit by number 52 again. I rolled off of him and saw the ball rolling free. Before I could make a dive, Billy Hancock wrapped his hamhock hands around it, but the ball squirted free. It jumped into the air and sailed right to me. I tried to pull it in, but it bounced off of my chest and out of my reach. Craning my neck around I saw it bounce up again, this time into the hands of another one of my teammates. He never broke stride as he took it in for a touchdown. Everyone was going crazy. The band played the school song loudly and proudly and a little off-key. Players were running toward the end zone, hugging one another, dancing, knocking each other over. The PA announcer's voice shot up to an uncomfortable octave as he screamed "Dairymen score, Dairymen score, Dairymen score!" What I remember most was the familiar smell of high school football game hot dogs, cold hard ground, and a night sky full of stars. Because while everyone else ran around like mad, I lay on my back on the field, holding my hand up against the black fabric of the heavens. A star lined up over each knuckle, including a bright twinkling one over my thumb.
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