Free Strange Country Day by Charles Curtis

gettin’ my head in the game,” he said. Claw held up the Snapple bottle and let loose a dribble of something brown into it. Yuck.
    “Same here.”
    “This is mah ritual before games.”
    “What is it?”
    He smiled as best he could through the giant lump. “It’s called packin’ a lip. You take tobacco and stuff it in there. Keeps you calm. Used to do it all the time back home.”
    I made a face of disgust, and Jimmy got defensive. “Well, it ain’t illegal!” he said, spitting again into the glass container.
    “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”
    His face relaxed, and he smiled at me again. “You’re a good guy. Thanks. And you got a cannon for an arm.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Just keep workin’ at it and Coach’ll reward you someday. That’s how it was when I was a seventh grader in Texas and he was my coach.”
    “I’ll try.” There was something I had to know, given what I now knew about my, uh, situation. “How do you stay so calm? Besides the, um, tobacco.”
    Jimmy rolled that one around his mouth for a moment before responding. “Being prepared is one thing that helps. But you gotta find, like … an image or something. A go-to moment that keeps you from thinking too much. When I’m on the field sometimes and it’s a big moment, I like to think about … well, there was this view from my daddy’s farm, on the roof, that reminds me of bein’ back home. Try somethin’ like that.”
    Before I could respond, we heard noise coming from the direction of the doors. Our teammates were about to pile in.
    Jimmy quickly put the bottle to his lips and, in one motion, spat out what looked like a ball of mud. He grabbed the Snapple cap next to him and screwed it on. Then, with the doors about to swing open, he spun around on the bench and threw it at a garbage can at the end of the row. Swish.
    He turned back to me and flashed that smile that girls around the school would have paid to see. Naturally, there wasn’t a trace of the tobacco anywhere.
    “Jimmaaaayyyyy! It’s game daaaay!” That was Dan Zewberry, the kid tasked with protecting Claw’s blind side as the left tackle. He was also there the day Flab cornered me by my house. I nodded to Jimmy and walked back to my locker before Zewberry found him.
    An hour and a half later, after warm-ups and stretches outside, we were back in the locker room, which filled with the sound of clapping when Coach entered. We gathered in front of Schmick, and I felt a tug on my arm. Who else would it be but Dex, swimming around in his oversized uniform.
    “You ready?” he said
    “I’m not going to play a snap, right?”
    “You never know.” He was serious.
    “Well, then I’m ready.”
    “Same here. Your parents here?”
    I nodded. “Yours?”
    Dex shook his head.
    Coach blew a whistle and asked us to take a knee. Somehow, I found myself behind the entire offensive line but was able to crane my neck to see Schmick pacing in front of us, his mirrored sunglasses looking even more polished and reflective than usual.
    “Gentlemen,” he began, and I swear I saw him smile for a half-second. “Welcome to game day.” The team roared back in unison.
    “Who’s gonna make a play for me today?” A saw a few hands go up in the front row. Everyone else shouted back at him “I am!” “Me, sir!” “I will!”
    Schmick yelled back, “Who’s gonna make a play today!”
    More of the same yells drowned out our head coach. Then, weirdly enough, he slammed his clipboard down, silencing the entire room.
    “Do you hear yourselves? ‘I will.’ ‘Me.’ ‘I.’ That’s not what this is all about.”
    Coach got quiet again.
    “You are a group of individuals at the moment. What you gotta do is start thinking like team. When I ask you questions like who’s gonna make a play, you’ve gotta start thinking collectively. You’ve got to support each other, think for each other, protect each other, and win for each other. The individuals become one