Hometown Legend by Jerry B. Jenkins Page B

name is not more important than this team. If you didn’t learn that from
     your cousin—”
    Buster turned away, and when Brian ran off, I said, “Coach, your nephew would have been only six when Jack—”
    “Not now, Cal. Please.”
    • • •
    Later, when the players were gone, I heard the faint squeak of cloth on glass and poked my head out of the training room.
     Coach Schuler was polishing the trophy case that held his son’s jersey.
    He put his fingers on the glass real gentle and stood quiet for a minute. Then he pulled away, rubbed off his prints, and
     left without saying a thing. I waited about a half hour and then tried to call him, but his little brother’s wife told me
     he was at the rehab center. “Miz Schuler,” I said, “I’m just wondering, do you think I should offer to go with Coach sometime?”
    “Go with him?”
    “To visit his wife.”
    “What’re you, kidding?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “She doesn’t even want to see
him
, Mr. Sawyer.”
    “I know, ma’am. I mean just to be with him, maybe sit in the waiting room or even in the parking lot.”
    “You’d have to ask him.”
    “Well, have you and your husband been to see her?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “No?”
    “Not on your life.”
    I wanted say I was sorry I asked but I just thanked her. No wonder he never talked about them. I just wished he’d talk about
     his wife once in a while and tell me how she was doing.
    • • •
    I was falling behind at work and so stopped into the office for a couple of hours. I tried calling Rachel, but got no answer.
     When I finally got home, Bev Raschke was parked out front and Rachel was getting out of her car. I pulled next to Bev and
     rolled down my window.
    “These kids today,” she said. “Find em wandering the streets and ya feel obligated to bring em home.”
    “I can’t keep track of her anymore,” I said, smiling. “You wanna come in a minute?”
    She hesitated like she maybe wanted to, but she said no. “Better call it a night.”
    So much for not taking an interest in her. I walked Rachel in. “Where were ya?”
    “Just out. Bev gave me a ride home.”
    “I noticed. Got homework?”
    She shook her head, looking puzzled. I never had to push her on her studies. She was a way better student than I’d ever been,
     which wasn’t saying much. Rachel was one of those who does most of her work in study hall and the rest at home before she
     does anything else and gets straight A’s. Obviously got that from her mama.
    Just before I turned in I came out of my bedroom to get something to read and, not trying to, overheard Rachel on the phone.
     “He didn’t even ask,” she was saying. “I wouldn’t lie to him, but I’m glad he had other stuff on his mind.”
    It was all I could do to not try to hear more. Rachel’d never given me cause to worry. And I trusted her. I didn’t need to
     know everything. Course I didn’t.

17
    S unday morning Coach and I were sitting at the end of our favorite pew when Bev came and stood right next to me in the aisle.
     “Got a date for this morning?” she said.
    “No, ma’am,” I said. “Right now I’m following your advice.”
    “Well, who’da believed it?” she said. “You boys scoot down a little and let me in here. I don’t want you bellyaching about
     having no one to sit with in church cept a broken-down old football coach.”
    “What?!” Buster whispered as we made room for her.
    “I never said any such thing,” I said.
    • • •
    The following Friday, September 7, my geography class was so hard to control, I could tell the students couldn’t concentrate.
     I said, “You’d think we were opening football season tonight,” and everybody whooped and hollered. That didn’t help.
    The stadium was full when Coach and I showed up that evening. The Beach Bearcats’ bus was already there. I didn’t know if
     Coach needed anything more to psych him up, but all he could talk about was Beach’s smart aleck new coach and