Free Jane Two by Sean Patrick Flanery

leave the field. I love you, son. Now let’s show ’em who we are.”
    Grandaddy set me down, fire in his eyes, and yelled for the game to start just as James arrived. He stopped right in front of me and hacked something huge into his mouth from his lungs, then swished it around in his mouth before finally spitting it onto the field. “Nigger-cock, unnastand?” And I did.
    I played a position that I’d never played before just to line up across from that Devil—downs that involved me completely disregarding the action at hand and solely focusing on cracking that little pussy as hard as I could. He was on the field a total of six plays that day, and spent the remainder of the game on the bench.
    *  *  *
    “Hey, you all right?” Lew Hoagie was extending his hand down to me, flashing a clear prediction of more rain.
    Albeit covered in mud, I had padding and a helmet. Back then no one was too concerned about concussions unless you were dead on the football field. I lay down on the bench every time the other side had the ball, and held ice on my head.
    The scoreboard read Angleton Red Devils 35, Braeburn Bears 0 , and parents and spectators were hooting and hollering all around at this possible shutout. Lew dragged me into the huddle around Grandaddy and Coach Gasconade, my Grandaddy sending smoke signals with the cigarette and toothpick, a little bonfire dangling from his lips.
    “Listen up, ya little shits! We’ve got about a minute and a half left in this season, so we ain’t gonna win this one, but any you folks thinkin’ we gettin’ shut out in this game get the hell off this field right now.”
    My Grandaddy would’ve kept yelling at us, but Coach Gasconade cut in. “Let’s get some touchdowns here!” hollered Coach Gasconade, interrupting my Grandaddy—which, incidentally, no one ever dared do—and attempting to tone down The Language.
    But my Grandaddy cut him off before Coach Gasconade could wax eloquent. “Or, get used to bein’ where we are, wallowin’ in pig shit!” yelled Grandaddy. “But I’ll be DAMNED if my BEARS are gonna be shut out like a buncha pussies!”
    “Ain’t no way!” bellowed Lew taking a drag on his unfiltered Camel.
    “Now it’s time you men asked yourselves how bad you really want it.” Grandaddy’s voice got real low. “Life wears a cup, so you kick that fucker straight in the balls, men! Y’hear me? Yeah, that’s right, you ARE men, you’re not boys, so I’ll talk to ya like men!” Coach started to open his mouth but Grandaddy just plowed right through his intentions, and then I saw James give Gasconade a look that was sure to shut him up for good. “It’s time to shit or get off the pot! ’Cause otherwise you’re gonna regret it your whole life. This is when you decide if you’s a winner or a loser. This is when you reach inside yourself and you pull somthin’ out that you’ll take with you the rest of your lives.”
    Grandaddy spat out his toothpick and took a long, slow drag on his cigarette before he spoke again. Every one of us teammates hung on his every word. “Let you tinies in on a little secret…tell you how you gonna beat a team that may be bigger, faster, hell, even stronger. Sometime talent gonna get you in trouble, make you fat if you ain’t got no heart. Heart gonna beat the shit outta talent every goddamn day. Maybe they capable of playin’ at a level ten and you’s only capable of a nine. But heart gonna determine how much’a that ten they gonna grab out they pockets every day. Pullin’ it all out take heart, desire, discipline; shit my Bears got in spades. Yep, maybe they capable of ten, but I look in they eyes and know they only got the heart to call on eight of they ten, day in and day out. I look in each of you eyes and goddamn if I don’t know each and every one’a you gonna demand all nine of your nine…every goddamn day. Sometime the talent you ain’t worked for breed pussies, and that what you seein’ right now in