Coach laughs to himself. “Aw, Kurt, I knew I picked the right boy,” he says, then tugs me closer and lowers his voice. “Look, son, between you and me, I’m not too keen on giving the fans all the sights and sounds from the field, especially since most our players cuss like sailors on shore leave. But we’re still paying off that big ol’ TV and those potato chip folks are writing us a nice fat check. So you’re the safest bet I got. You keep doing what you always do. Hit ’em hard and don’t say a word. Or at least don’t cuss up a blue streak. Keep your mouth shut and put your hand over the mic anytime Studblatz starts teeing off near you. Think you can handle that?”

I nod to him that I can. Coach smiles at me and grabs my shoulder, then squeezes it.

“You’re a fast learner, my boy. You keep it up.” He jogs out to the field for the pep rally festivities while I climb up into the stands. Homecoming royalty on homemade floats wave from the backseats of convertibles chauffeured by white-haired old duffers.

No surprise, I guess, that Scott and Chrissy are homecoming king and queen. It’s a snooze-fest except for the troupe of gymnasts backflipping down a whole length of sideline grass like human Slinkies. They’re pretty fun to watch; funner than the marching band and way funner than studying Mike Studblatz’s connect-the-dots face as he and Charline are chauffeured past the stands. Wish I could do those gymnastic tricks. Wish I could whip off a string of backflips in the end zone after scoring a touchdown. How cool would that be?

Homemade floats dawdle by us. One says HUNT THE BUCKS in big cardboard letters built on the flatbed of a red pickup with a real dear carcass dragging behind from a rope attached to its neck. Another says BLITZ THE BUCKS with the same type of cardboard letters on a blue pickup truck and two girls in football pads standing in the flatbed, throwing candy into the stands. In the cold, the candy hits us like rocks. The aluminum bleachers might as well be blocks of ice, numbing the backs of my thighs and butt.

Finally they get to the good part and the PA system announces the varsity starters for the game. As each name is called, the new Jumbotron spells it out in flashing letters with digital fireworks popping off around the player’s jersey number. When my name comes over the loudspeaker and the Jumbotron flashes it big as the side of an office building, the students in the stands around me start whistling and stomping their feet. For me. The pom-pom girls even do a cheer using my last name. It feels like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It feels good. I walk out onto the field to stand alongside my teammates in front of the marching band. We line up in the center of the field, far enough from the bleachers that I don’t feel like I need to hide my face. Scott and Studblatz leave their thrones to join us, Scott still wearing his red velvet cape and gold crown. I am a part of this, I tell myself, a part of their circle.

Ceremony finished, we head back to our seats. Scott and Mike go back to their royal court and wait for the convertibles to pick them up and take them for a victory lap. The marching band starts up again, playing loud and off-key, while the bass and snare drums chase a beat the horns don’t hear. Doesn’t sound like an actual song. Sounds pretty crappy, but who cares. I got my name spelled out on a Jumbotron. People clapped and whistled when they called my name.

I’m climbing back up into the stands when students around me point out on the field. I turn around and see two guys on a motocross bike racing over the football field behind the marching band. The bike’s speeding for the homecoming court. The driver and passenger both wear rubber masks of ... George Bush? The driver is wearing a backpack. Ten feet from crashing into the homecoming court, the driver does a wicked one-eighty skid that sprays a fan of dirt and grass across the king and queen. Passenger Bush hops off the bike and stuffs his hands in the driver’s backpack. Passenger Bush pulls out . . . what looks like ... water balloons and starts pelting Scott and Mike, rapid-firing them, the balloons bursting on Scott’s face and Mike’s chest. One hits Chrissy on the back as she turns away. The former president gets off three more pitches, hitting Scott and Mike again, before the last balloon sails out onto the grass. It takes Scott and Mike a second to get past the shock but now they’re raging—and soaked—and they sprint for their attackers, but it’s too late. Both Bushes are back on the motorbike. The rear wheel shreds a thick divot of grass and spits up a shower of dirt as the bike races off the way it came, leaving Scott and Mike wet, dirt-streaked, and grass-stained. The stands are howling again. Studblatz gets down on all fours and I see him punch the turf before grabbing clumps of it and hurling them toward the disappearing motorbike that’s leaving an oily purple exhaust in its wake.

“How about an instant replay up on the Jumbotron?” someone shouts.

“First time George Bush got anything right!” someone else yells.

Guys near me start hollering: “Re-Play. Re-Play. RePlay.” By the time the teachers start dismissing us, the whole field rings with the chant.