"Alright men!" shouts Coach Righetti as the Crusaders bunch up to exit the Somerville locker room on a rainy Thanksgiving morning. "They're bigger, faster, and more talented than us, but we have one important thing that they don't."
This final game of the season is the oldest rivalry in central New Jersey, dating back to 1910. The winner often takes home top ranking for Somerset County, and even a losing season is considered a success with a turkey day victory. In this unexpected undefeated year, Bound Brook is also looking at landing their first Group 1 state championship.
Lurking beneath this competitive match up is a racial divide that no one talks about but everyone feels. Somerville is an integrated town with a large and vibrant Black community. Bound Brook is segregated with the few African American families residing in South Bound Brook across dual barriers of railroad tracks and the Raritan River.
"It's got us through this undefeated season," Righetti continues, opening the metal door to the downpour. "It's kept us in the game so far."
"Hoo-rah for Brown Brook," mutters an old black man huddled under the eave beside the door.*
The coach had decided to push their luck by having them don all white uniforms instead of the usual away game pairing of red pants and white jerseys, so uniforms are uniformly muddy for those who had played in the soggy first half.
"And it will see us through for twenty-four more minutes if you unleash it now," concludes the coach. "Now get out there and show em your heart!"
The players stomp over to Brooks Field in red rain capes with cleats clacking on the wet pavement. The coaches take up the rear in a huddle of their own until stopped by a pretty cheerleader in a clear rain cape with her arm around a little boy soaked to the bone.
"Sorry to bother you Coach," calls out Mickie Voorhees stepping in front of the group. "Little Bleeds has something to tell you."
Righetti scowls but bends down to listen as Wiley cups his hands over his mouth and whispers into the coach's ear. Then the two interlopers run off into the rain and the procession continues to the field for the start of the second half.
"Blaine, what are you doing after high school?" Karma asked while watching the pre-game bonfire blaze up behind the firehouse on the night before Thanksgiving.
"If my legs keep getting better I'll be joining the Green Berets" he answered, noticing her shiver in the cooling November dusk and pulling his varsity double B jacket around her shoulders.
"Don't believe that stupid song," she pleaded, looking up into the fire reflected in his brown eyes as she pulled the coat around her chest. "I don't want you to die in Vietnam."
"Don't worry baby, I'm not going to die."
"I'm going to Berkeley next summer," she blurted. "Why don't you come with me?"
AH-UN, UN boomed the fire whistle over their debate and it repeated three more times before pausing.
"It's the 400s," he told her. "Probably some false alarm at Smalley School again."
"I just gave Mickie some pot," she worried. "She was going to try it in their old barn while her parents were here at the bonfire."
"Let's go!" he exclaimed, stepping over her bicycle as the fire truck sped out the front of the white block building. "You peddle, I'll steer."
He climbed onto the seat, she stepped between his legs onto the pedals, and he pushed off and steered them on the sidewalk through the Codrington Apartments.
"There she is!" Blaine cried, pointing up to the back hayloft as firemen sprayed the flames through the front Dutch door.
"Up you go," he instructed, interlocking his fingers to make a stair up to the loft ladder.
Karma clambered up to find her friend frantically trying to stamp out fire all around her in the old dry hay.
"Eat shit and die!" she screamed, spreading and tossing Blaine's varsity jacket on the center of the blaze. "Now let's get out!”
"What that coach up to?" wonders the old Black man now at the back row of the Somerville bleachers. "Consulting a doctor during a game don't mean nothing good."
The Crusaders have the ball for fourth down at the Somerville 35-yard line with a long and muddy eight yards to go for a first down. They trail the Pioneers by two points with just two minutes left in the game.
"That one queer huddle," he exclaims as a half dozen red rain jackets enclose two of the Bound Brook players.
"Looky there, it that bloody boy," he observes to the other older Black men squinting into the rain. "He warn't suppose a play today."
"It the shotgun," he continues. "I ain't seed no dropkick since them Bears in 41."
"They snap it, he drop it, he boot it, there it go, end over end, up an then down, right through them posts."
"Wait, it hit the bar, it pop up, it drop like a duck."
"He done done it?" asks another old man holding a hand above his eyes to shield the rain.
The referee waves his arms across his chest and out as the Somerville side erupts in cheers and the Bound Brook bleachers sink in stunned silence.
* Words spoken by the black fans are written in African American Vernacular English to convey the local dialect during the post-war years in central New Jersey.
Box Score: Somerville 8, Bound Brook 6
Comments
Post a Comment