#im FINALLY gettin to the good stuff at work im so pumped

[raineandsky]

#81

The hero’s capture shouldn’t have happened. She’s not even entirely sure how it happened. She stepped a foot wrong, or so she assumes, and the villain’s henchmen had leapt on her.

She’s contemplating her predicament from the villain’s classic choice of iron bars and dingy jail cell. Nothing is adding up. The villain always targets her when she’s obvious—in the public eye, in the limelight, on show. Tonight his henchmen found her alone, on a random street, blending into the background. How the hell did they know where she was? Who she was?

Her blood runs cold at the implications. If they found her this easily, who’s to say who else they could find? It doesn’t bear thinking about, not when she’s as useless as this in a goddamn cell.

The door opposite clanks open like it’s purposely announcing the newcomer. Not that it needs to, since the hero knows exactly who’s approaching her cell by the clicking of heels and the swish of a well-loved coat.

“Fancy seeing you here,” the villain greets, his grin weaving into his voice.

The hero doesn’t even grace him with a glance. She stares at his shoes instead. “What a coincidence.”

“Thought you’d at least be curious who got you here.”

“Not really.” The hero scowls. “I know all your henchmen by name by now.”

The villain makes a noise vaguely resembling a laugh. “No, my dear hero. Not who picked you up. Who found you.”

The hero frowns. She can smell a trap from a mile away. “You, I assumed.”

The following silence forces the hero’s gaze up to the villain’s face. The grin in his voice is also on his face, the asshole. “No. Not me.”

He turns to gesture beyond the doorway, and curiosity gets the better of her. She leans to look past him at the pair of figures traipsing into the room, heavy footfalls punctuated by quick, nervous steps. A henchman, and someone else.

“Meet,” the villain says with a smug glint in his eye, “your new nemesis.”

The hero’s eyes fall on someone familiar. Someone small, young, easily drawn to the wrong side.

“[Sidekick]?” She can’t help the name coming out a little incensed. Her sidekick cringes at her tone. “I swear to god, [Villain], you’re going to—”

“He came to us,” he interrupts, and the hero shuts up in disbelief. “He wanted to share some really pivotal stuff with us. Didn’t you?”

The sidekick nods and smiles pleasantly when the villain ruffles his hair. The hero can’t believe what she’s seeing. “[Sidekick],” she says again, softer. “He’s tricking you. They’re the bad guys.”

“We didn’t trick anyone,” the villain says shortly, as if her judgement offended him. “We told him the truth, and he picked his side.”

“You weren’t very nice to me,” the sidekick adds quietly.

“Yeah, and that.” The villain looks positively delighted at the hero’s disgraced expression. “You weren’t very nice to him. So he came and told us exactly where we could find you and when.”

The hero barely holds back her blanch. The sidekick gives her one last glance, mildly disinterested, before reaching back for the henchman, and they take his hand like a parent. They throw a glance to the villain, and with a short nod of confirmation they steer the sidekick back to the door.

“[Sidekick]!” the hero calls desperately, but he ignores her. The door clanks shut again, and the villain sighs.

“He’s a good kid,” he comments idly. “You missed out.”

The hero’s barely containing her seething. “You poisoned his mind.”

“God, no, [Hero], what do you take me for? A monster?” He barks a mocking laugh. “No, I opened his eyes. He’s the first of many.”

The hero can only glare. She doesn’t trust herself to speak, but the villain seems more than happy to fill the space for her. “Now” — He settles on an upturned bucket that’s seen god knows what liquids — “let me tell you all about how great he’s doing without you.”

[journeysintowebcomics]

Homestuck Liveblog #186

UPDATE 186: Political Assassination

Last time John finally got that tooth off his chest, and Jake agreed to give his endorsement to Karkaroni. Now what will happen? Let’s see.

Has it been days since Jade has been sitting on that couch, levitating and with her eyes completely black? Given everything that has happened in the meantime it sure feels like it has. Roxy’s getting worried, she tried to call Rose but she didn’t respond, so instead he goes for the next option she has: Dave. Who immediately brags about working to stop Jane from screwing up everything. The words ‘neoliberal austerity measures’ are unsaid but they’re like an echo when Dave talks about the presidential campaign, I bet. He’s busy handling Jake’s endorsement speech.

ROXY: i guess in the grand scheme of things

ROXY: shes just takin a sort of nap

ROXY: but its one HELL of a nap bro

‘one hell of a nap, davey, shes been blacked out for, like, a week’

It seems the troll candidate is more popular with the trolls and the carapacians than with the humans and consorts. How don’t they have more consort supporters? Hopefully Jake’s endorsement will change that.

ROXY: lmao dirk just texted me about this

ROXY: somehow he found out about jade did u tell him

DAVE: uh no

ROXY: he just said make sure she gets lotsa daylight

ROXY: that itll help with the “exorcism she needs”.....

ROXY: and also to say hi to calliope for some fuckin reason??

DAVE: thats weird

Well that makes clear what the best course of action is: don’t open the windows nor place her anywhere in the daylight. If Dirk’s advice will help with the exorcism she needs – to get Dead Calliope out – then it’s a bad idea. I’m enjoying this epilogue much more with Dead Calliope controlling the narrative, thanks.

It’s alarming Kanaya isn’t picking up either. Could Dirk have gotten rid of her? I sure hope not! Kanaya has done nothing wrong and deserves to stay alive, what with being the professional when it’s about troll reproduction. She better still be fine and kicking!

DAVE: i gotta give karkat some emotional support

DAVE: since gettin jake on our side was a pretty huge fucking bonanza for us

DAVE: which has almost equal probability of winning us the election as it does blowing up in our faces depending on this speech he gives

DAVE: so we gotta like

DAVE: concentrate here?????

DAVE: instead of jerking each other off all god damned day for the rest of our lives

DAVE: (im just joking we dont actually do that)

ROXY: oh

They don’t do that, much to Jade’s disappointment, I bet. Either way, it’s speech time!

The struggle to take control of the narrative is a petty squabble, says Dirk, taking the high ground by offering Dead Calliope a way out. Buddy, pal, friend, you can’t take the high ground and then insinuate Calliope is ugly as sin. That is petty.

Apparently everybody thinks Dave loves Karkaroni, and although I believe that too, it’s fine if Dave never comes to terms to that. The guy marches at the beat of his own drum, he’ll be fine. This kind of thing can’t be forced on him. Speaking of things that can’t be forced, Roxy wants to know how Dave came out to everyone else as not straight. Oh dear, Roxy, I don’t think Dave ever did that. You’re asking the wrong person – unless you want the answer to be ‘deny it for like eight years now’.

He’s not really denying it right now, though. Maybe he did come out to the others and I didn’t find out until now. He’s not comfortable enough with rapping about ‘boning dudes’ in middle of a stadium where so many people can see him, but he’s not running away from the question. Way to go, Dave! I approve character growth!

Somehow Dave has this entire spiel about all the steps of admitting not being straight. On what phase are you, Dave? Inquiring minds want to know. I’d paste the entire thing here, because it’s pretty good stuff, but it’d feel like I’m applying filler for the sake of applying filler, so I won’t.

Dirk really doesn’t want a conversation about gender. Personally I have to agree because, even though this is great for development and I appreciate all of Dave’s steps, this is kind of a random place to shove this in. Pretty bad place, really. It’d have been great at a different moment.

Horrendously invasive of Roxy’s deepest personal thoughts.

...uh, Dirk, you know what else is horrendously invasive? Taking over the narration and manipulating people around. Also the assimilation plan, that’s more than horrendously invasive.

Okay, this is going for long enough.

DIRK: Do you even know where I am right now?

DIRK: Do you have the slightest idea what I’m up to?

the prince is laboring under the delusion that he has been the least bit subtle in his intentions. he currently stands beneath the carapacian bell tower, poised to climb to the top. he holds the long, red sniper rifle that once belonged to roxy, brandishing it openly and boldly. he seems mysteriously oblivious to the fact that holding a long rifle in broad daylight somewhat tips one to the fact that he soon intends to shoot someone from a great distance. he also seems unaware of the fact that i know perfectly well that the top of this tower has a clear, long-range view of the stadium, allowing any competent sniper a clear shot of whoever happens to be standing at the podium as they give a speech. as jake english is about to do.

he also doesn’t seem to realize i have anticipated his attempt to assassinate his own friend in order to advance his political goals, and that i am prepared to take measures which make this impossible.

It really sounds like Dirk’s getting ready to shoot, he’s up at the right place and has a view of the stadium where Jake will be, but...I don’t know, ever since Roxy said Dirk messaged her about keeping Jade in the sunlight for ‘an exorcism’ I have been feeling uneasy, and now that this all was said just now, well, I kind of suspect Dirk may try to shoot and kill Jade. It sure would free her of Dead Calliope’s control and possibly give him back the control of the narrative. It’s a possibility, no?

Somehow the next few paragraphs resembles a schoolyard roleplaying fight. ‘You can’t reach the top of the stairs because...your feet feel really heavy’ ‘really? Then I can fly’ ‘and then the bell came crashing down on you!’ ‘I cut that stupid bell with my sword!’ ‘not fair!’ ‘yes fair!’.  It’s endearing in its own way.

DIRK: He wonders out loud, “what is this, amateur hour”?

DIRK: The Dead Cherub then humorlessly narrates, “why, yes. yes mr. strider, it IS amateur hour. and i’m the amateur here, for throwing a huge bell at you. i would like to humbly apologize for my amateurism.”

no i don’t.

DIRK: Sure you do.

I’m having fun with this part, guys, I really am! This is great.

This is over when Dead Calliope, trying to stop the focus on Dirk and his increasingly petty narration, turns the attention back to Dave who must still be explaining to Roxy the intricacies of coming out to their friends. I see keeping a show in a standstill is a Strider family trait.

DAVE: well lets just say internalized whatevers are kind of like an onion

DAVE: theres lots of layers

DAVE: they suck on pizza

DAVE: and trolls have to get their stomach pumped if they eat them

That has got to be the most contrived simile Dave has said in recent history.

Dirk continues saying very clearly he’s about to shoot Jake, and the more he states that so bluntly the more I suspect there’s something else going on.

‘Xenophobe’ and related words are starting to stop looking like a real word. It just has been said so many times.

Everything is making Dave feel like something’s wrong – undoubtedly Dead Calliope’s influence – so he gets in the path of any potential bullets, protecting Jake with his own body.

and despite dave’s quick and well-justified action, what is also unbeknownst to him is that the sniper no longer poses a threat of pulling that trigger. because everyone knows that for all of the prince’s shortcomings, he would never expose his beloved brother and son to the risk of a heroic death.

DIRK: You’re absolutely right.

DIRK: I would never do that.

DIRK: I’d never kill Dave, no matter what I felt the stakes were. I’d never hurt him either.

I’m pretty willing to bet taking over Dave’s self doesn’t count as killing or hurting him, therefore it’s fair game. Dave would be pretty unhappy to know what Dirk’s doing, anyway. The narrative reveals what’s in the sniper rifle are not bullets, they’re tranquilizers. It’d be a non-fatal way of keeping someone out of the way for a while. The second thing Dead Calliope got wrong, though...

DIRK: Yes. You’re right about the tranquilizer.

DIRK: But there’s one more fact you’re not aware of.

DIRK: Which is that I never intended to aim for Jake at all.

Well then! Turns out I may have been right about that he intends to shoot Jade. He must feel really confident about it if he can announce it aloud after aaaall the charades he did to fool Dead Calliope. Is it Jade, Dirk? Will you tranquilize Jade and pretty much put her to sleep – non-fatally?

Dirk spins in what must be the tiniest bell tower ever, given he only has to spin to change direction and be able to aim somewhere else, and gets ready to shoot. All Dead Calliope can do is freeze Dirk’s finger on the trigger, but he thought ahead and made the rifle to be voice-operated. All he has to do is say ‘fire’. Which he does! Game over for Dead Calliope?

Pretty good aim, hitting a vein from all this distance. Jade indeed has gotten tranquilized, and I’m pretty sure given this isn’t the first time Dirk uses tranquilizers – he uses them in TV – it shouldn’t be too hard for anyone to realize this is Dirk’s orangey shady hand making the moves.

The insult against Jade is uncalled for, Dirk. But yeah, the result of all this is that Dirk is once again back in control of the narrative, which makes me sigh with exasperation. I really liked Dead Calliope’s narration more than Dirk’s, so I’m not looking forward to this change.

Roxy drops to her knees by the couch, pulls the dart out of Jade’s neck, and tries to shake her awake. But it’s no use. That’s a heavy dose I gave her. Could be out for weeks. Maybe months? Can’t have any cherubs messing with my business on this planet. At least not until I’ve taken my leave. But Jade’s gonna be fine. Don’t worry about that.

So...she’s pretty much in a coma. Could be worse, could be worse. She could be dead. This is barely better.

Cherubs are fuckin’ weird, I’ll totally concede. Still not sure what makes them tick. What they idealize, what they really want. It all comes across to me as a little cloying. Perfection to them is a sweetness beyond comprehension. Sugar so potent it’s poison to us. To our bodies, to our souls. Like the place she was operating from was a realm of self-construction. A bubble of pure, phantasmal confection.

Well, I for one have had enough of that goddamn toothache. I’m back in the protein saddle, motherfuckers. I’m clacking my tongs, and the charcoal is hot.

Now who’s hungry for meat?

Does that mean the candy epilogue is all Dead Calliope’s influence seeping through instead of Dirk’s? It could be interesting to see what kind of thing she does to the world. Although...given the effects of the trickster lollipop and how ‘sweetness beyond comprehension’ is perfection to them, it’s bound to be nightmarish. I’m actually looking forward to that!

Speaking of meat, holy shit. You just look more fucked up every time we come back to you, don’t you, John?

You’re a disgraceful mess right now. Covered in blood, mysteriously sticky, bruised all over your arms, legs, and neck. Terezi practically raked rows into your back. You catch sight of yourself in the rearview mirror. You’re kind of embarrassed by what a postcoital train wreck you look like when all she’s got is mussed hair. And you should be embarrassed. Seriously, it’s like you were mauled by a wild animal. Jesus, don’t either of you have any shame?

Ah. Okay then, good for them, although I’m pretty concerned. Such a physically intensive activity can’t be good for the guy with a gaping hole in the chest and the troll who still must be half-starved. I won’t be surprised if these two just pass out and die anytime soon. I’m not entirely sure, but it seems things are awkward now between these two. Maybe it was all a spur-of-the-moment move.

You sit together on the hatch, like when you first met up days ago. Terezi crawls into your arms, and nuzzles right up against your chest so you have no choice but to hold on to her. You would have done it anyway if she asked, because you’re a total sap. The kind of guy who no doubt thinks banging a girl in a car is some deep, soul-shattering experience that bonds you for life. Yeah, John, you do think that. You think that you and Terezi are basically married now.

I can’t tell if he really thinks that or if Dirk’s funneling those thoughts into him. The line between what the character feels and what Dirk wants them to feel is pretty blurry by now.

After all this, Terezi gives up on looking for Vriska, so this is a prime moment for her to fly by and find them. She doesn’t, though, and John proposes Terezi to go home with him. Can they even go home? John is so tired it’s possible they can’t – which he really should have thought about before doing said physically intensive activity. Nobody to blame but yourself, John. Seriously, you have an open wound and bled like four liters of blood. You’re as good as dead.

He feels the urge to lie down and sleep, which is a pretty bad idea given the situation. Terezi rouses him up, so instead he decides to give this a try and zap back home. Hmmmm...if he’s so tired right now, it’s possible the act of zapping home will drain whatever energy he has left, so I’m not...very optimistic about John’s chances of survival. Would this count as a heroic death? Can you die from a heroic death if you die like two weeks after the offending injury is made? If he dies from exertion after having sex with Terezi that doesn’t count as a death because having sex with Terezi is neither heroic nor just, no? Oh well.

Back in the stadium, the inexistent assassination attempt may have given Karkaroni a push in the polls, and Dirk spends quite a while brandishing Jake like a piece of meat. Really, can he be treated as more than a flat character whose only non-flat trait is his posterior? Jake’s nervous and fidgets around, so much Dave and Karkaroni show concern and offer to cancel the speech and/or the campaign. It seems our favorite presidential troll still doesn’t like the idea of having leadership, he’s ready to throw the towel anytime. Jake insists he can do it, so he starts!

I don’t remember Dirk being so outright antagonistic in Homestuck. It’s making me pretty uncomfortable, I have to admit. It feels kind of out of nowhere, just like Jane’s sudden xenophobic inclinations are. What was Hussie thinking when he wrote all this? What was his intention?

Jake’s getting pretty nervous and I can’t tell if he’s getting stage fright or if Dirk’s influencing him to be nervous. The latter is a possibility, no? Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what’s going on.

Why don’t you have a good, long think about that, Jake.

Is this really the time for a good, long think? Jake muses to himself, actually putting a finger to his chin like some public domain clip art picture of a befuddled guy. If the crowd is confused by his rapid-cycle mood changes, they don’t show it. Jake’s got a bit of a day-drinking problem, which has been slavishly documented in the global tabloids. That’s how you avoid responsibility, isn’t it, Jake? You can fool your fans, but not yourself. The truth is that there’s a canniness to the act. It’s partially cultivated. You’re stupid, but you’re not nearly as stupid as you pretend to be.

JAKE: What in the devil was i thinking coming here?

JAKE: Why did I...?

JAKE: I came here to...

... slide the biggest knife any motherfucker ever wielded directly into your friend Jane Crocker’s back?

She loves you, Jake, more than anything, and you toyed with her heart. And you would have guiltlessly toyed with her “kettle drums” too had it not been for a bit of divine intervention, let’s decide to call it.

Sigh. That’s...that’s all I can do with all this. Sigh and keep reading. Third time I’m scrolling through the epilogue a tad faster than I should. It’s pretty much an entire page of gaslighting. Nothing really worth delving into, mainly because it’s pretty uncomfortable to read such a thing. Dirk’s being the abusive ex, pretty much. Nothing really worthwhile.

JAKE: I love dirk!

JAKE: IM IN *LOVE* WITH DIRK!!!

 And to love Dirk is to obey him.

You know, there are a few reasons why I’m thinking of liveblogging these epilogues. I’ll explain them later, but right now I may as well say a word of two: the epilogue is competently written. The events in it are interesting, and the interactions are raw and full of emotion. It’s all pretty unpleasant to read, which makes it a bit novel, like swallowing bitter medicine. It’s pretty good, in a technical way.

But it simply doesn’t work with Homestuck characters. It just doesn’t.

Anyway, let’s continue scrolling down to the end of the page and go to the next.

I was right in that zapping back to Earth C would take what was left of John’s energy. He barely can give three steps before he falls down, so it’s all up to Terezi now. She wants to bring John to Jane, so she can revive him. I don’t think she has revived him before, so it should be a good idea. It’d be better to bring Jane to John, though.

It doesn’t matter. This isn’t a wound you can recover from. It’s Game Over this time: no healing, no afterlife, no cosmic clock proclaiming your sacrifice as Heroic. The poison needling through you is antithetical to narrative relevance. You’re not dying, John. You’re being erased. Cherubs don’t fuck around. We’ve both been learning that the hard way.

Oh, nevermind, it’s something not even Jane with her life powers can fix. I wonder if, once John is erased, nobody will remember him. That’s what happens when there’s no place for you in a narrative, no? Hmmm...

John already know he’s irreversibly going to die, and tells Terezi not to waste her time, that he was dead the moment Lord English bit him. Which is true, given this poison. Then he says he was dead the moment he woke up that morning, which...I suppose is the depression talking.

You died the moment you made the decision to go meet your destiny. You would have lived if you made the other decision, under a certain definition of the word “living.” You might have even lived until the end of your immortal life span, as shitty as that sounds.

So he’d have lived for the rest of his life if he had decided to do nothing. Makes sense. This may have been for the better, given Lord English needed to be defeated, so it’s time well-spent. It’s rather unfortunate it involves John’s death, but...in a way I saw this coming. Pretty tragic outcome, and given this epilogue has been chock-filled with a lot of tragedy and pessimistic scenarios, it only made sense this would happen.

It’s dying words time! Terezi is really affected because she really cares for John, and also they had a ‘emotionally significant sexual encounter’, so she’s even willing to listen to all the sappy stuff John will say in his deathbed. This is bound to be rather emotional! And the fact he can’t even think of something appropriate to say in his final moments is what makes it emotional because this isn’t how he imagined this would go. He can’t even think of quotes from his movies. Terezi offers to tell everyone John Egbert said some cool stuff in his final moments and make everybody believe it somehow, so instead John goes straight towards the sappy and tragic. There he goes!

JOHN: i think... i really lo—

TEREZI: DONT YOU D4R3

JOHN: i... r-really lov—

TEREZI: DONT YOU D4R3 FUCK1NG D13 ON M3 1N TH3 M1DDL3 OF 4 LOV3 CONF3SS1ON!

TEREZI: 1 FORB1D 1T!!!

JOHN: but... i...

JOHN: i...

Then John dies in the middle of a love confession.

Love confession on the deathbed! It’s like this truly came from a movie, haha. Terezi is devastated, so much she can’t even bring herself to cry properly. Once she confirms he’s dead, she ponders what she should do now, alone in the world John wanted to bring her to. She doesn’t have anything else to do, so after a moment – and at Dirk’s behest – she takes John’s corpse in Dad Egbert’s wallet and starts walking.

It has been a month already. Jane won the election after what I figure was Jake’s endorsement speech for her, so that’s that. Terezi has been rather lost this whole month, and nobody has seen John Egbert – instead of saying he’s dead -- so I suppose she hasn’t told anyone he’s dead. Rose has been missing the entire time and Kanaya has been pushed around by Dirk’s machinations to keep him distracted while he keeps Rose locked away somewhere, both mentally and physically, I figure. All in all, it’s a pretty grim outlook for everybody in Homestuck. Also, Jade is still in coma. Terezi goes to visit her, perhaps to tell her what happened to John?

Dirk continues being so salty Roxy’s experimenting with her gender, apparently. Aren’t there a million other things to deal with, pal?

Roxy is very glad to see Terezi, and she takes Terezi thinking she’s Dave as a compliment. She also compliments Terezi, giving her some heartache because it makes her remember the time she spent with John. It may have been a few hours, apparently. Time works in mysterious ways up there in paradox space!

The reason Terezi is here is because she feels John would come here, and she’s right, I bet. John would want to check on Jade as much as he can, so now that she’s carrying John’s cadaver around, she feels she should handle this all herself. It’s also confirmed she hasn’t told anyone John is dead.

ROXY: back when jade first got all effed up callie saw somethin and it made them freak out

ROXY: it took me weeks to convince them that it was safe to come home

ROXY: but now we got the opposite problem and they arent leavin the house at all

ROXY: they stay home all day with the blinds drawn paintin some weird ass shit on the walls

TEREZI: WH4T?

ROXY: its not as bad as it sounds i promise

ROXY: some of it is like

ROXY: weird and violent??

ROXY: like lotsa nasty purple blood and um

ROXY: nudity????

TEREZI: >:?

ROXY: yeah yikes

ROXY: but MOST of it is cute stuff like... various combos of all of us being happy and gettin married and shit

ROXY: anyway thats kept callie kinda busy

ROXY: so it was hard as hell to convince them to let me come see jade at all

ROXY: its like theyre traumatized

ROXY: and they think ill drag whatever possessed jade back into our home with me

So the end result for Calliope is that she’s traumatized. Seeing a dead version of herself possessing Jade must have really rattled her. As I said, this is all pretty grim for everyone in Homestuck, goodness. Although...part of me wonders if her current state is partly because of Dirk’s influence. He’s petty enough to mess with the living Calliope’s head as a ‘take that’ for Dead Calliope.

Someone tries to contact Terezi through her phone, she’s not sure who it’d be. Perhaps Dirk? He did show a preference to sending messages to his former friends and acquaintances. As if things weren’t awkward enough for Terezi, she’s asked if she knows what happened to John. Terezi, you can’t keep this under wraps forever. Sooner or later you have to tell everyone John died because of injuries in Lord English’s fight.

It seems Terezi can hear Dirk perfectly even when he’s talking in the narration, I suppose it’s because of her aspect. Oh, be careful with the stuff you say, Dirk! She’s also willing to whisper stuff to address Dirk, even if it gets odd looks from other people. On the other hand, this kind of leaves her more vulnerable to Dirk’s machinations, no? Part of manipulating people is responding to what they say, so with some luck this won’t go belly-up.

Once the conversation is over Roxy leaves and Dirk exposits Terezi still feels guilty about hiding John’s death from everyone, and she can’t even confide in Dave because of mistakes she did as a teenager in another timeline. It’s the curse of having the Mind aspect, isn’t it? Knowing what the choices cause. All of Dirk’s exposition bothers Terezi enough for her to tell him to scram, and he refuses to do so.

Come on, Terezi. You don’t belong here. You know you don’t belong here.

Do you feel threatened by Terezi, Dirk? Is that why you’re trying to push her away? I don’t think Terezi has anything that could be particularly useful against Dirk’s plans, so I’m not sure why he’s bothering to mess with her like this. She even points out they barely have crossed words.

Okay, I believe he feels threatened by her in some manner because he tries to convince her to join him in...some place. More like he wants her out of Earth C. He even offers to let her take John with her, which is why I’m sure he made her pick up the corpse, so he could manipulate her by using John. He finally leaves her alone with her thoughts, sure he managed to convince her enough. We’ll see.

Stopping for now!

Next time: next update

[epacer]

Story You May Have Missed

Crawford High football team coach jacked up

Go smash face

Late August: On this muggy morning, the air hangs thick under a gray, un-comforting sky. In a small hollow among small hills m East San Diego, several-score teenage boys and a few men gather at Colts Field, home to Crawford High School’s football team, for two-a-days, practice sessions held every weekday morning and afternoon in the last few weeks before school starts.

A handful of spectators, including some boys too young to be in high school and two teenage girls with babies in strollers, dot the rickety bleachers on the field’s south side and observe the practice as quietly as if they were watching lawn bowling. Their passive demeanor belies the barely contained mayhem erupting a few yards away.

"RUN! RUN! I NEED SOME HELP! LET'S HUSTLE, GENTLEMEN!" Echoing off the banks of ice plant, across the field into the bleachers, comes the screechy, house-on-fire voice of one of the men. "MAN TO MAN! PICK ONE MAN AND STAY WITH HIM!" The field is loosely divvied up, each sector occupied by a different squad — varsity in red jerseys and junior varsity in blue — each running a different set of drills. The loudest exhortations come from the area where players are being run through intrasquad scrimmages — rehearsals of offensive and defensive plays. The offensive squad tries various pass patterns and running plays, and the defense tries to read them and react.

The piercing voice belongs to the defensive coordinator for the junior varsity. He screams at his players almost nonstop, not angrily, but just because everything on the field is at a level where adrenalin counts more than words. His own intensity would no doubt consume his lean frame if it weren't allowed to escape in this way. "HEY. WAY TO WRESTLE IM TO THE GROUND OVER THERE! HEY. WAY TO HOLD ON. MAN!" The players are learning the particulars of the game, to be sure, but they are also being initiated into a rock-hard world where muscle and animal urgency mean the difference between prevailing and submitting, between elation and despair. "HARD HARD! HARDHARD HARDHARDHARDHARD, COME ON. GO!"

"GO BALLS OUT! COME ON. GET ANGRY!"

The offense tries a run. The ball earner slips a tackle and picks up speed on his way down the side of the field. Short, powerfully built, he swivels his hips as he easily shifts his weight to change course and elude more pursuers. Finally one defender draws a bead on him. The bodies fly at each other in the open field and meet with a trebly, plastic thwaack that echoes through the neighborhood. A herd suddenly thunders up; other bodies soar into the heap; pads helmets arms cleats, a rapid succession of muffled thwaacks, a crowd of unhhs, grass and dirt spraying over the pile, a momentary stillness and quiet, during which the sounds from other squads can be heard.

"NICE TACKLE!" The coach exchanges a few hand slaps as the bodies untangle.

"WAY TO GO, DEFENSE! GOOD JOB, D! HELLUVA JOB ... DEFENSE. YOU GUYS ARE DOIN' A HECK OF A JOB OUT HERE! GETTIN' BURNED A LITTLE BIT, BUT YOU'RE PLAYIN' SOME BALL!"

But the offense is playin' some ball too. A pass: The receiver streaks down the sideline The ball is underthrown. The receiver holds up, leaps a little into the air. The defender dives to knock the ball away. The receiver snatches it, spins, and prances the few steps into the end zone. He slows and turns around and jogs back. His smile visible the length of the field, he says simply, "Touch... down." They are the words of a victorious man. but they are uttered in the gentle, high-pitched voice of a boy.

On a run up the middle, one ball carrier is about to break free, when from the mass of thwaackmg bodies rises a pair of hands. They reach for him from behind, grasp him by the neck, and snap him backwards to the ground. He does not get up at once. He does rise after a few minutes, while the tackier is made to do 20 push-ups as penance.

The scrimmages wind down. All players now race through punishing drills designed to forge their bodies and reprogram then: reflexes. Several groups are made to run repeated 40-yard sprints, nearly halfway up V the field, full-out, to a specified yard line, then wheel and sprint back. If any one of them gives less than his all or stops short of (or overruns) the line, it doesn't count. The first sprints are run with spirit; the players shoot by. By the fourth or fifth circuit, there is little air in those lungs and the coaches must provide the motivation.

"SOMEBODY'S NOT RUNNING! YOU'RE GONNA COST THIS GROUP 20 SPRINTS!"

A little more effort on the next sprint. By the tenth time around, there is no more horsepower to be gotten out of their straining muscles. "THAT ONE DIDN'T COUNT!" A player lets out. "Shit."

The head coach alerts an assistant. "COACH. IF ONE GUY DOESN'T GO A MILLION MILES AN HOUR. IT DOESN'T COUNT." (Coaches address each other as "Coach,” the mutual recognition of a priestly order, as one senator might call another "Senator.”) The assistant replies quietly, as if receiving a sacrament — "Got it." The sprinters grunt, and cry out, and stagger, and sprint some more.

Finally, the practice ends. As the coaches offer a few last pointers and reminders — which may or may not be heard — the players collapse on the grass and strip their helmets, jersey, cleats, shoulder pads. Their faces are sweaty. Their uniforms are bruised with grass stains and caked with mud. Their breathing is heavy — almost desperate. Eventually, one by one. they find their feet and begin to file across the street to the gym, where they will dress and head home for lunch They will do it all over in a few hours and again tomorrow morning.

"To tell you the truth, I’d sell my soul to be able to go through it again. I still miss playing." Dan Armstrong is not kidding. He loves football, and it is an informed love. Now 36. Armstrong played fullback and linebacker at Kearny High School, Mesa Junior College, and San Diego State and has coached high school teams in San Diego and in Akron, Ohio, for a total of 11 years. He has coached at Crawford for the past 7 years, as head coach since last year He leans his chair back in the coaches' office, just off the locker room in the Crawford gym. In his tank top and gym shorts, he looks the part of a lifelong jock. His broad shoulders and powerful legs, though softening a little, clearly belong to someone who has spent many years in rigorous training. He carries himself with an easy, confident gait, sits relaxed, alert, and is content now to wax philosophical about this head-banging game. This is a man in his element.

What is it about this game that engages him so deeply? He smiles, his warmth and openness contrasting sharply with the roughneck tone of his sport. "Probably the controlled violence. It's a physical game, and there’s a lot of hard contact, hard hitting. But there's also a lot of strategy involved. It's very stimulating to sit down and scout somebody and break down film" — Armstrong and his colleagues spend every Sunday reviewing game films of upcoming opponents — "and try to find a weakness and exploit it." And then there is the aesthetics of pure athleticism "You can see some kid go down the field'and jump above everybody and catch a ball, and it’s like watching Baryshnikov When we're out there, and we see stuff like that." he adds, laughing, "we say, 'Great coaching.' "

For Armstrong, there are three indelible things football gives its devotees. "First of all. you establish lifelong friendships that you never forget. My high school football buddies are still my best friends. When you go through what these kids go through and what we went through, day after day with these guys, it's like going through the service together. And you form bonds that'll never be broken. Second of all. you learn the team concept and how to work together with a group of guys for one common goal. And thirdly, you learn that you get out of life what you put into it. If you absolutely refuse to lose, that only leaves one option. you have to win. But if you do lose, and you don't learn something from it, then you've lost twice."

Because it is played in a fever of teeth-grinding ferocity from start to finish, football can be seen as a fundamentally more emotional — Armstrong calls it "inspirational" — game than most. It both requires and produces a mindset that can only be called Fired Up. The player succeeds to the extent that he is aroused beyond himself, beyond his normal state of consciousness. "That's what they always say about guys who ‘play over their heads,' " Armstrong agrees. "That's because they get so pumped up. And that's what we try and do. We believe that if we are more inspired and more fired up, we're gonna win more ball games."

The largest part of the coach’s job is generating that arousal in his charges. In Armstrong's case, it often means providing motivation where none exists in a player's life; some Crawford students, he says, come from single-parent homes and are often unsupervised or otherwise left with little to deflect the temptation to hang out with local gangs. And for some of these same students, Armstrong says, football represents the only genuine chance to escape a life full of dead ends, the only potential ticket to a college education and a prayer of earning a decent living, in or out of sports.

In 1986, UCSD student Lorimel Arabe studied Crawford football players and their counterparts at University High School and found the predominantly white and more affluent University team less intent on football as a long-term career or short-term means of getting an education than was the Crawford team. So while Armstrong and his fellow coaches may have to spend a good part of their time cajoling players to keep up their grades or attendance, once the players are on the field and getting positive reinforcement for their efforts, they take to it with an abandon suggesting they have found a productive outlet for the violent urges experienced daily on the streets of the inner city.

Armstrong doesn’t shrink from this; in fact, it fits nicely into his program — he wants his players to go all-out. Asked whether this doesn't encourage injuries, he answers that the opposite is true: "When you get hurt is when you don't go all-out. You get someone going half-speed and someone going full-speed, and someone gets hurt." Beyond that, the team has, and wants to maintain, a reputation for being a "pretty physical football team." Eavesdropping offensive line coach Roger Engle nods approvingly. "We feel like we gotta out-hit a team to beat 'em."

Crawford's streetwise players take to this approach, continues Armstrong. "When you get a tough kid like that, it's easy to preach that mentality to 'im and get that pride developed that says, 'Hey, I'm gonna knock someone’s head off. and I’m gonna physically intimidate people.' I tell these guys something they can relate to. I say. ‘It's a goddang war with rules. It's a street fight with rules.’ " As the summer practices began, the coaches were frankly disappointed that the workouts weren't physical enough, but by this afternoon, "there were some big-league collisions and guys likin' it. We always kid 'em, we tell 'em, ‘If you're not half-dinged with snot runnin’ down your nose, you're not hitting anybody.' They like that, and they joke around; they'll get up and do this” — he wipes his nose on an imaginary sleeve with an exaggerated motion — "and see if there’s any snot running out of their noses. They're a good group of kids."

What they get for throwing themselves so wholeheartedly into the fray — for managing to. as Armstrong exhorts them to before every game, "go out and fly around and knock some butt out there" — is the evanescent joy of winning, of having prevailed, of being recognized by the tribe as an alpha male. Armstrong has been at both extremes, both as player and coach. "Winning is the greatest feeling in the world And so consequently, when you lose that one on the last second ... I mean, I’ve gotten sick to my stomach after a loss." But oh, those wins. The thrill never pales. "Probably the closest feeling you can get to it is when you have a kid. You actually think to yourself, 'It doesn't get any better than this. I'm as happy as I can be.' "

Late September: The Colts are preparing for their third game. They will play the Sweetwater High Red Devils at Sweetwater, having lost the opener to Patrick Henry High, 14-12, and won the second game, against Madison. 5-0 (a score more likely in a baseball game; "We pitched a six-hitter," jokes Armstrong).

In the cramped team room, under a sign that says "Dedication," eleven players are in various stages of dress. They don most of their uniforms here but carry the shoulder pads and jerseys with them on the bus to the site of the game and finish dressing minutes before taking the field. So a dozen or so shoulder pad sets, wearing their respective jerseys, now sit on the cement floor, like headless behemoths buried up to their chests, the jersey numbers half-visible. A player takes some aspirin, perhaps in anticipation of the pounding he will shortly receive.

The coaches enter for a few words before boarding the bus. Jeff Olivero, the defensive coordinator, speaks first. "All week long I been hearin' about ‘They got 11 guys comin' back,' " he begins, referring to Sweetwater's many returning seniors. Crawford's young team could be intimidated by this. "So what? They also got a quarterback who averages 232 yards a game — but he ain't gonna if we put pressure on him." He goes over a few defensive configurations and specific assignments and urges the team to “fly around and have fun out there."

Coach Armstrong has the last word. His voice starts out loud and gets even louder. "We been slidin' on offense," he admonishes the silent team. "There’ve been times when it seemed the best we could do was tie 0-0. But I'll tell you what. I know that no team in the county can go around us." The Colts' strength this year has been defense, and he wants them to maintain their stinginess with opponents while revving up their offense. Sweetwater has lost its first two games; tonight’s game is a perfect opportunity, he says, for Crawford to assert itself and all aspects of its game. And he doesn't want to have to tell the team twice. "We're not gonna have a half-time talk about smash-face football. We're gonna come out, we’re gonna stomp the shit out of 'em from the opening whistle. This is their back yard, and it's a pivotal game for us. Awright, let's go down and have a good game and knock the snot out of 'em. Any questions?"

"NO, COACH!"

Above the concrete bleacher stands on the home-team side of Sweetwater's stadium is a modest press box. Mounted above the press box is an aging .wooden sign. It depicts an endless chain of autos riding into infinity. Flanking the cars are the legends "National City Mile of Cars... is RED DEVIL COUNTRY." Added below, for good measure, is another legend, offering the simple, hyperactive ejaculation, "RED DEVILS!"

The Devils and Colts each take half the field for pregame calisthenics. Stretching. Jumping jacks Pivots. Players call and respond across the field, everyone gradually turning up his own and his teammates’ internal amps. Eventually, a few taunts cross the invisible border between the two teams. The Red Devils look big and sound mean, their voices low and gruff compared to the Colts'. "Num-buh 56, you a cry-baby!" shouts someone from Sweetwater. Before anyone from Crawford can reply. Armstrong forbids it: "Let those pads do the talking."

Calisthenics finished, the team runs through drills The defensive line's chore is to drop flat, bounce up, and wiggle forward. Their coach is Dave Grissom, and his voice is right on top of them. "GET THROUGH GET THROUGH GET THROUGH! COME ON, HIT 'IM! HIT 'IM! I LOVE THIS PART!"

The offense runs a pass play. Vernon Shaver, Crawford's talented, heavily recruited wide receiver, glides along in a graceful stride, easily adjusting his gait to catch a ball thrown over his shoulder.

The Colts gather in the end zone just before the coin toss. Already, they are breathing heavily and wiping then brows on their jersey tails. Armstrong reviews the toss choices with the captains who will attend the coin toss, then has a few last admonitions for his Colts. "Remember these guys — we scrimmaged them last year — they’re cheap-shot artists. I don't wanna see you guys fightin' these guys. I will not tolerate it, it’s not joart of our program." The players nod compliantly. Fight? Us? Armstrong continues. "Were in their back yard. What does a dog do in your back yard?"

"SHIT!" yell the players. "Yeah.” a few voices add. "that's what we're gonna do, we're gonna shit in their back yard!"

"When a team comes out and does jumping jacks in my face," says Armstrong, "that pisses me off!"

"YEAH!"

"Awright. We’re gonna come out from the opemng gun and smash then face. If we hit 'em hard from the first drive, you just watch them hang their heads."

"YEAH!"

From here the playing field looks so wide, so long, and — worse — so flat, with nowhere to hide.

Crawford kicks off, and Sweetwater begins its first drive from its own 30-yard line. Two quick runs take the Red Devils to midfield. Then the earth opens under the Colts as a Sweetwater running back breaks free and romps into the end zone. Barely a minute has elapsed. The Crawford team and coaches are thunderstruck.

Redemption: The play is called back as Sweetwater is penalized for holding. The reprieve enlivens the entire Crawford sideline. Olivero screams, "PLAY THE FOOTBALL!” Grissom merely yells, "Loosen up! Loosen up!”

Sweetwater's offense stalls, gaining little. They punt and Crawford begins a long, grinding drive from its own 10-yard line. More than a dozen plays later — most of them head-down, ram-the-wall runs — Crawford is deep inside Sweetwater's territory. Colt running back Peter Ervin takes the ball at the 30 and is barely brought down by the last Sweetwater defender at the 7. He slams his fist into the ground. He gets up to try it again. This time he's tackled behind the line of scrimmage, and a Sweetwater player soars onto the pile after the whistle has blown, driving his helmet between Ervin’s shoulder blades. Ervin lies breathless.

The officials whistle the penalty, and flags fly, but Armstrong races to the pile-up and begins berating the officials. The umpire will have none of it. "You come out here and take care of your injured man," he tells Armstrong, "but don't bad-mouth the officials or I'm gonna tag you. That’s half the distance to the goal on them, but five yards on you.”

If Armstrong is called for unsportsmanlike conduct, it will cost his team more, at this position on the field, than Sweetwater's late-hit violation. But clearly the penalties are not the issue. Armstrong has prohibited his players from retaliating against cheap shots, but he must back that up by defending them himself And he, no less than his players, must assert his claim to the entire expanse of contested territory — physical and psychological .

Crawford now has the ball a yard and a half from the end zone. A running play nets nothing. Armstrong calls time out, sprints onto the field, and joins the huddle. When play resumes, Ervin roars over the line for a touchdown. The sparse Crawford crowd, studded with parents and teachers in blue Colts jackets, erupts A successful point-after kick makes it 7-0. The air is thick with adrenalin.

The rest of the first half proceeds sloppily and uneventfully Sweetwater nearly returns a kick for a touchdown. Its beefy fullback at first seems unstoppable, but the offense can't get any momentum going Shaver fumbles a punt, and Sweetwater recovers but cannot capitalize. Crawford recovers a fumble only to throw an interception. This is not precision football. But the air is thick with adrenalin.

Halftime. Both teams leave the field through a single gate On their way to the gym, a few opposing players exchange curses. The Crawford coaches hustle their team away.

What do coaches tell their teams at half-time? About what you'd expect As the players sprawl on the floor and benches for some rest, Armstrong hammers at them, "We gotta go out there and put together the same kinda drive we scored on! We gotta go up 14-0! We can't let them think they’re back in the game.

"We're not fooling anybody lining up," he continues, his voice softening for a moment. "Get your butts up! We gotta get off the ball! Come on, guys." his voice rising, "we said we gotta get better from week to week! On kickoff teams" — getting sterner — "we don't have 11 guys wanna fly downfield. We've got 4 or 5 guys flyin’, and 4 or 5 guys sayin', ‘I hope those guys in front of me make the tackle.' Lemme tell ya. that happens again, we're gonna make wholesale replacements!”

Olivero chimes in, "DO WE WANNA PLAY HARD-NOSE FOOTBALL?"

"YEAH!"

The players have a few minutes to relax. Most use it to keep hyping up themselves and each other. "Know what?" lineman-linebacker Jorge Brathwaite asks of no one in particular. “They (Sweetwater) told me the game ain't over yet — and it ain't over! We ain't scored yet! We gotta get fired up!"

"YEAH!"

Before they leave the locker room, Armstrong has one last admonition. "Awright, let's show some maturity out there — let’s ice somebody!"

"YEAH!"

The Colts do just what Armstrong wants. They score to open the second half, covering nearly 70 yards in a drive capped by a long pass to Shaver. Ervin bulls across again, from close in, for the touchdown. 14-0. Sweetwater fumbles on its next possession, and Crawford recovers; a few plays later and another obstinant run by Ervin and it's 21-0. The Crawford side of the field is happily riotous.

But the game’s physical toll is becoming evident. Legs are cramping up. Guys are "flyin' around" out there, but some are making crash landings. On one running play. Colt tailback Richie McClees is tackled at the sideline and spun backwards off his feet, his head slamming to the ground as he slides on his back. Mike Hwozdek, a short, quiet guy built like a brick wall, is looking for another helmet; his is broken.

Crawford pours it on. Sweetwater grows desperate and attempts a long sideline pass. Colt cornerback James Hester reads it perfectly, keeps himself between the ball and the intended receiver, then flings himself through the air and comes down with the interception. right in front of his jubilant teammates. He walks to the bench to catch his breath. "I saw it was overthrown, and he didn’t," he gasps.

Meanwhile Crawford is driving. Quarterback Chris Townsend scrambles and hits tight end Allah Hillie, one of Crawford’s few big players, with a pass Hillie turns into a long gain. In the space of three plays. Crawford has two touchdowns called back for penalties. The first time. Brathwaite is called for illegal motion. In the exultant atmosphere, it barely matters. "Jorge is trying to keep it even," Armstrong jokes. They settle for a field goal. 24-0.

The coaches are not interested in letting up.

"GET TO THE QUARTERBACK!" they yell at their defense. "YA GOTTA BE READY TO GO! SUCK IT UP!" It works: Crawford sacks the Sweetwater quarterback on three successive plays for losses totaling 30 yards. The Colts dominate the field. The game ends without further scoring.

The coaches are the last to board the bus. The team is ready to tear the roof off. Armstrong quiets them long enough to say, “On behalf of the coaching staff. I'd just like to thank you guys for one helluva effort." The players roar in self-congratulation. On the way back to Crawford, they hoot out the windows, slap each other, joke and holler and sing. Brathwaite stands in the aisle and swings a pom-pom he has gotten from somewhere. "Jorge is kind of our spiritual leader," says Armstrong. "Reverend Jorge?" he is asked. "Yeah — the Rev," he laughs, finally starting to fully enjoy himself. He turns and quiets the team once more. "Hey, Jorge, you got a new nickname: Reverend Jorge — The Rev!" Deafening cheers.

As the bus turns down the street leading into the parking lot behind the Crawford gym, a single player prompts his confederates with "One! Two! You know what to do!" With that, they burst into the school’s alma mater, the credo of all Crawford Colts, the undying pledge of fealty to all that is Crawfordian:

   All hail. Crawford High School

   Crimson, white and blue

   Loyalty and honor

   We will pledge to you — FOREVER!

   Our banners always waving

   Crowned with victory

   All hail. Crawford High School

   We will be true to thee

These guys sing it as if their lives depended on it.

Before the team files off the bus, Armstrong wants just one more moment with his players. "I just wanna say, go home, get some rest, enjoy your weekend, stay outta trouble, and Monday we go back to work."

"YEAH!"

Late October. Crawford has won its next three games, two by scores of 29-0 and 36-0. They have won five straight. Their defense has remained strong, and the offense has improved — in the parlance of the game, "gotten untracked.'" They now prepare for their homecoming game against St. Augustine High, to be played at Patrick Henry High.

The Crawford campus is clean and tidy and received a fresh coat of paint a couple of years ago, so its institutional plainness is mitigated somewhat by an undeniable cheeriness. Sandwich boards in pathways and courtyards and the senior quad are emblazoned with inspirational mottoes: Your Thoughts Today Become Your Tomorrow. Organize for Success. I Am a Success. I Deserve the Best.

Whether because of or in spite of these signs and other official entreaties, the student body files into the gym for the lunchtime pep rally. Much of the student body, anyway. Twenty years ago, Crawford had more than 3000 students, all but a handful from middle-class white families. Today, the school serves roughly 1500 students, about one-third of whom are Indochinese. There are about as many-black and almost as many white students, and a few Hispanic, South Pacific, and other minorities. Blacks and whites remain keen on football, but the Indochinese students evince little interest in the sport.

Still, the rally is well attended. But the program comes off as perfunctory. (Maybe the ritual is wearing thin.) Conducted essentially by cheerleaders and emceed by one whose words were not made more lucid by the PA. system, the rally is a short course in why and how to root for the home team. First, the assembly sings the alma mater, the words to which are painted on a large wooden sign high on the east wall. Many of the girls form a kind of V-for-victory salute with their right hands and slowly wave then: arms back and forth while singing. (This may help propagate the supernatural mystery of homecoming, for it too has no apparent meaning.) Next come a succession of cheerleader chants, formations, exercises, incantations. A cheerleader displays a handkerchief, or sock, urging all to wave same during the game. "Our goal is for everyone to have ’em so we can wave 'em and really impress whoever we're playing."

Finally, the rally climaxes with the introduction of the homecoming court — the underclass representatives and the senior couples who are candidates for homecoming queen and king. These students are preceded by two faculty couples, who take the floor arm-in-arm to raucous hoots and cheers, the mock sexuality of their momentary companionship apparently too much for the easily aroused audience. The couples all enter through a makeshift portal, festooned with sequins and the legend "Crawford Colts." The seniors rotate to different parts of the floor so all can get a good look at them. Of the four eligible couples, three of the boys are on the football team. The only one who isn't seems to have his own booster club. From high in the bleachers comes a strident cheer as several girls unfurl a banner saying simply "Jeremy/King." The 500 or more students in attendance take all this seriously, dutifully filling out ballots and depositing them in sanctioned receptacles on their way out. Within a couple of minutes the gym is empty, the student body presumably pepped to the max.

In the team room, before boarding the bus. Armstrong is revving everyone's engine. "They’re popping off," he says about St. Augustine, "but if ten guys hit 'em on the first play, they’ll stop popping off. They won’t set the pace, we will. It’s our homecoming."

"YEAH!"

In the locker room at Henry, the players finish suiting up. The mood is quiet but nonchalant. A trio of Colts eyes with scorn the posted school records for Henry’s baseball teams. "Most home runs — 7?" A smirk. "We killed all those records."

Allah Hillie is fussing with a helmet. "Had to get a new one." he deadpans. Did his get cracked? "Naw, I do the hitting." The team is loose.

In the end zone before the coin toss. Armstrong inverts the alien-canine metaphor. "We re in our own back yard. Nobody shits in our back yard!"

"THAT'S RIGHT!"

"Awright guys, let's go out there and represent your school real well and have some fun. Let's do it all on the field, fellas." And they trot off toward another shutout.

Only this time the Colts are too loose Within the first few minutes, it becomes clear that Crawford's game is in disarray. The players seem listless, on the field and on the sideline. St. Augustine’s game consists almost entirely of sending an ox-like running back (with the lawyerly name of Hunter Buckner) up the middle or around the end with the ball firmly in his grasp. Crawford is unable to contain him. It takes until the start of the second quarter for the Saints to score — their band plays "When the Saints Go Marching In" — and the wonder is why they haven't scored several times by then. Crawford is making mistakes big and small. A long pass down the sideline, intended for Vernon Shaver, is overthrown, one of many errant passes that night by Chris Townsend. Shaver and the defender collide, but nothing comes of it. When the offense comes off the field, Olivero educates him: "You gotta hit the ground, Vernon! You tnp and it's interference; you keep runnin’, the officials don't see nothin'!"

Midway through the second quarter, Armstrong is yelling at Olivero. No one seems to know why, and everyone is unnerved — unnerved at the sight of it. at the shellacking being administered to them, at the prospect of being whupped at Our Homecoming. The five straight wins and four shutouts are a vapor, a phantom. The only thing that seems real is the sight of Buckner’s meaty calves plodding through the Crawford defensive line, slowly but inexorably.

At halftime the score is still only 7-0, but looming larger is the question of what the coach can do to rally his team in the face of impending disaster. Anderson throws the score in their faces. "You guys are real good at makin' a show of how fired up you are," Armstrong begins, "and goin' out and playin' like dogshit. We should be genin' beat 21-0!

"We got a guy more concerned about his tuxedo and homecoming than he is about playin’ football! Mission Bay beat this team 29-6! It's gona get down and dirty, son!" He admonishes particular players, picks apart elements of the game plan that are not being executed, again threatens wholesale replacements in the lineup if improvement isn't quickly shown. Last, he puts the team on notice to cede bragging rights to the Saints, who. he says, have earned them for the moment. "We're gonna go out there and keep our mouths shut and take our medicine like men, and then, at the end of the game, we'll see."

But the view will not improve. Crawford seems unable to do anything right. St. Augustine's slower but bigger lineup has them stymied. Midway through the fourth quarter, the Saints take over on Crawford’s 35-yard line and throw a touchdown pass on the first play. The St. Augustine fans are the ones waving hankies. On the Crawford sideline, players offer up plaintive cries to their cohorts. "Get the ball, defense!" "Hey! Pump it up out here!" But there is no pumping up, and hope drains from the Crawford throng as the last minutes tick off the scoreboard. Several late Colt injuries show how lopsided the game is, despite the meager 14-0 final score. Vernon Shaver is tackled in midair on an incomplete pass play and is a long time getting up; when he finally does rise, he leaves the field slowly, clutching his shoulder. Peter Ervin limps off the field with a painful ankle, removes his shoe and sock, and sits grimacing on the bench. Chris Townsend, who has taken a terrible pounding tonight and braved a series of injuries throughout the season, sustains a concussion, his third to date, in the waning moments His doctor will later refuse to permit him to play again this year. Mercifully, time finally expires.

The mood on the bus... imagine a charter carrying souls to hell. A fight breaks out between two teammates, flares, and dies. The parking lot is jammed; the team may be trapped here in its misery forever. Weeks go by. Crowds mill about and stare at the traffic. Coaches eventually board. Armstrong gravely apologizes for his poor coaching, then blasts anyone who wants to blame a teammate. "We all got beat." he says, and that's that. Quiet prevails.

Halfway home, the mood still somber, Armstrong gets up and addresses the team again. "Hey, there's something I wanna say, and I want you to hear it from me. I did something tonight that was totally inexcusable, and I want to apologize in front of all of you to Coach Olivero for it. I don't want you guys blamin' anybody else, and I shouldn't either. I was just outcoached out there, and I had no right to take it out on Coach Olivero. So Coach, I'm sorry, and it won't happen again." Olivero gives him a brotherly jab. Hey. Coach. I'd already forgotten about it.

The street leading up to the gym is blocked off due to the homecoming dance, and the driver is instructed to park in the alley out by the baseball field. Heading down the alley, someone offers a morbid "One. Two. You. Know. What. Tb. Do." And the team responds with a dirgelike rendition of the alma mater. If their earlier version was jubilant and the students' version at the pep rally was merely rote, this one is positively funereal.

Armstrong is first off the bus, and the team follows him silently the 100 yards or so up to the gym Turning a corner and ascending a few steps right at the gym, the coach and the first few following behind him pass an apparently inconsequential scuffle involving three or four high-school-age boys. A growing crowd is milling in the parking lot just beyond. As more coaches and players pass by, the scuffle suddenly dissolves — or rather, all but one of the boys suddenly vanish. The last fellow is on his back and staggers to his feet. He emits a moan that may be an attempt at speech. His eyes look toward the unaware players passing by but settle on none of them. He cannot stand steadily. There is blood.

As Armstrong reaches the door, a few school staff members appear — a vice principal, other coaches, the head of campus security — agitated, alert. Someone says there was gang-related violence at the game... some arrests ... a stabbing... this scuffle a few feet away seems also to be gang-related ... apparently only the fellow staggering is a Crawford student, his attackers gang members...

The players are hustled into the gym, although several want to get into it. The combination of a humiliating loss and an ugly skirmish (victimizing, it is suggested, a friend of some players), right in their own back yard, is more than some can bear. But the adults are commanding, and the entire team is soon safely inside the gym.

The injured boy is carried into the coaches’ office. The police are called. A coach who has been at Crawford some 30 years allows as how "I was popped one, but I'm okay."

The vice principal is bleeding on the cheek, blood dripping in a neat line down to his jaw, but he protests that he is okay. He will later take eight stitches in his cheek. The boy is lying on a desk. His broken nose is bleeding into his throat, making his breathing difficult. Someone is tending to him, calming him. He wants to get up and leave, but a friend who has come by urges him to "lounge, man. lounge."

A dozen, two dozen people are streaming in and out of the office. A few girls, who might have been hustled inside for then: protection, sit in the men's locker room, slightly embarrassed. Outside in the parking lot and in the street beyond. 100 or more young people hang around waiting — some for the dance, some for more dangerous fun. The police arrive. A white girl and a black girl embrace just outside the coaches' office and are consumed in tears.

The vice principal and the security chief confer; the chief adamantly declares the dance canceled. They will need more police to make the decision stick. More patrol cars arrive, and an ambulance. Slowly, the parking lot empties as a crowd of seniors, some dressed casually, others more elegantly, begins to realize they will not have their homecoming dance. The band hired for the dance must now reload the equipment they had just finished unloading. The police secure the area and gradually disperse the crowd without further incident.

Mid-November. The Colts have rebounded from their loss to St. Augustine with twin 28-0 wins, against San Diego High and Christian High. They finish their regular season with an 8-2 record, 4-1 in their league, the City Central League. Tied with archrival Lincoln for best record in the league, they have captured the title on the strength of having beaten Lincoln in their October 14 game. Crawford thus enters the countywide playoffs seeded fourth out of 16 teams in the 2A division (comprising schools with medium-sized enrollments). Their first-round opponent in the single-elimination tournament is Ramona High. Whether from the clear mountain air or the fresh apples, the Ramona players have a staggering size advantage over Crawford: The offensive line averages six feet four and 240 pounds to the Crawford defensive line’s five feet eight and 140 or so pounds "But I'll tell you what." asserts Armstrong, "these street kids, they're not intimidated by a big person in a football uniform. That's not the scariest thing they've seen. They're not afraid to go smash face into that." Once again the Colts promise to fly around and have fun out there. How much and whose butt gets knocked where ... that will depend on who is more fired up.

Compounding the task for the Colts is a curious psychodrama. Vernon Shaver has inspired doubt in him among his teammates and, in the process, come close to frittering away a golden chance at a first-class education and a career in the pros. The week following the loss to St. Augustine, Shaver abruptly quit the team under mysterious circumstances. A few days later, he came to Armstrong asking to be reinstated. It's not up to me, the coach told him; it’s up to the team. If they vote you in, you're in, if not, you're out. The team voted to take him back, on one condition: that he do 400 yards of belly-busters each day of practice. This grueling regimen calls for the victim to sprint 100 yards one way and then back, with the added feature that at any moment, at the sound of a coach’s whistle he must immediately flop to his belly, push himself back up quickly, and continue his all-out sprint Shaver did his daily belly-busters without complaint and went on to score a 56-yard touchdown in the last regular game After another absence from practice, this one excused, Shaver has shown dedication at daily workouts and appears committed to his team and his future.

Sometimes motivation is a slippery thing. Armstrong calls Shaver the most talented athlete he has ever coached. But anyone in the game can tell you that talent alone does not produce greatness. Shaver has the kind of athletic ability that could lead Crawford to a championship, if he finds the desire. If he waltzes away from his team, no major college in the country will have him. But that, as they say, is what makes a ball game. For every tale of unmaximized potential, Armstrong will tell you of a tough kid, this close to ruination, who found not just a meal ticket but salvation in football — like the Crawford graduate who now starts for San Jose State and who recently visited him to say, "If it weren't for you, I'd be dead by now.”

Finally, one sees it’s not just the love of sport, the delight m seeing a body hurtle through space and not only accomplish but repeat the impossible, that keeps Dan Armstrong motivated. Through endless sweaty practices. Through budget cutbacks. Despite working without a full-time teaching contract. In the face of crowd violence, which has again forced officials to reschedule games to afternoons, and gang warfare erupting mere inches from his office door. Dan Armstrong keeps at it and hopes to spend his life at it because, in a culture all but stripped of a sound means of ritually initiating boys into manhood, of welcoming them into the tribe, of endowing them with the powers and responsibilities of being a man, he has found a way. Not the best way nor the only way, but one way to turn aimless youths from self-destruction. He does it because it is a good way to bleed off excess testosterone at less risk to bystanders than, say, a war. He does it because "it gives me a chance to compete when my eligibility's gone," but more than that, he does it for the same reason his students and colleagues and everyone who's ever thrown or caught a ball or gotten up from a blinding tackle half-dinged, with snot running out his nose does it: because of the longing to be brave and strong and true: because he's a man. *Reposted article from the SD Reader by Phil Catalfo of November 22, 1989