“So how can I pay you for the tuition, Brother William?” Fulgencio searched the holy man’s eyes.
Sitting on the wooden planks of the porch, listening to the cries of the commune’s boys as they endeavored to arrange a cockfight in a corral across the dirt clearing surrounded by tiny pink wooden huts, Brother William dispensed the Virgencita’s mandate.
“You will never have to pay me for anything,” Brother William clarified, “but you can compensate the school by mowing the grass at the football field during the summer and in between football games during the season.”
“Can I play football too?” Fulgencio became agitated with excitement.
“Yes. You will play football. And you’ll win.”
“Your teams always win, Brother William!” Fulgencio exclaimed.
“Yes, they do.”
Cipriano chimed in: “It’s because he has a deal with God.”
“I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Cipriano.” The Brother tossed the boy’s dusty brown hair, his eyes landing on the child’s bare feet clad in dry mud. “You’re an old soul.”
As the sun set, they said their goodbyes. Brother William paid the extra peso so he could keep the empty Joya bottle for good luck and as a reminder of that special day. He paid for Fulgencio’s too, so he could take it with him as well. Promising to return soon, Brother William drove westward toward town, squinting into the golden sun.
Fulgencio Ramirez faced Brother William, “So I’m in?”
“You’re in, Fulgencio. I’m not sure what plan God has in store for you, but I’m glad to be a part of it.”
Fulgencio smiled and fell asleep with his head on the windowpane. When the Brother dropped him off in front of his house, they made arrangements for Fulgencio to begin mowing the field and for a return trip to El Dos de Copas the following week. Brother William said he wanted to work on his horseback riding skills. But Fulgencio would always suspect that the true motivation for the quick return was the ear-to-ear smile on Cipriano’s oval face when Brother William presented him with a giant box on the porch as they drank another round of Joyas. Inside, beneath the white tissue paper that Cipriano joyously tossed into the air, he discovered a shiny brown pair of brand-new cowboy boots.
Eight
So it was that Fulgencio Ramirez joined the football team and grew into a formidable force under Brother William’s coaching.
The first time he stepped onto the field for tryouts, he got creamed by a giant called Fat Victor. Fat Victor was a bearded boy so large that when they visited opposing teams, the children from the other schools would point and ask rhetorically how they could possibly be expected to win against San Juan del Atole when they were playing fully grown men cheered on by their wives and children in the bleachers.
Dejected by his poor performance at the try-outs, Fulgencio devoted himself to lifting weights and hauling sacks of flour across the field until he built his body into a frightening muscular force. Hours in the sweltering school gym built not only muscle, but tension. Every day he benched more weight, huffing and puffing and tasting the sweat as his chest heaved. All this time, Brother William watched, egging him on, slamming his whipping stick against the floor or the wall or anyone who got in his way as he shouted, “One more! One more! Don’t do it for me. Do it for Carolina Mendelssohn. Imagine what she’ll think when she sees you winning on that football field!”
A couple months into his first season, Fulgencio strode onto the freshly mown field without pads on, his muscles lean and tight. “Are you crazy?” his best friend Bobby Balmori cried in disbelief. “After what happened to you at tryouts? You’re gonna get killed.”
But Fulgencio marched straight out to the cluster of upperclassmen running drills in the center of the field, brushing by Brother William, clad in his robes and sporting his stick and his whistle.
Offensive and defensive players were lining up and rushing full force at each other. Fulgencio strode straight up to the biggest of them all, Fat Victor, and pushed his adversary out of the way. “You!” he snapped, Brother William–style, his pointer finger sticking into Fat Victor’s chest. Fat Victor growled with a devilish smile on his face behind the helmet’s mask.
Brother William played along. He knew Fulgencio had been toiling toward this moment. Now he would find out whether Fulgencio’s destiny included a starting spot on the line of the 1956 championship team. He blew the whistle. Fulgencio lined up on defense directly across from Fat Victor.
Fat Victor winked at his buddies. “Watch this,” he taunted with a cocky swagger to his voice.
Fulgencio fumed. His blood boiled. The quarterback called out numbers. The center snapped the ball. And all the rage blew like a volcano as Fulgencio smashed into every bone, every ounce, every cell of Fat Victor’s existence. Propelled by the combined force of his legs, torso, arms, and spirit, Fulgencio hit Fat Victor so hard they both flew through the air landing in unison on the quarterback, who snapped like a twig and flattened like a pancake on the soft turf beneath. The circle of onlookers stood around them as Fat Victor struggled to regain his consciousness. Brother William waved smelling salts beneath the pulverized lineman’s nose, struggling to control his laughter.
As Fat Victor’s eyes recovered their ability to focus, the first thing he saw was the shadowy figure of Fulgencio looming over him. Gathering himself slowly, he leaned on Brother William to get back on his feet. Embarrassed, he growled angrily at Fulgencio, “Let’s go again.”
With the sun beating down from overhead, and the crowd of onlookers growing on the field, Fulgencio was happy to oblige. His body tingled with excitement from the delivery of such a massive blow. And he wondered if he could outdo himself.
As they carried the quarterback away on a stretcher, Brother William blew his whistle and said, “This is not necessary, boys. I think Fulgencio has proven his point.”
Fat Victor glared at the Brother from his crouched stance. “Yes, but I haven’t. Let’s go.”
“But we have no quarterback now,” said Joe Lopez, the starting center.
Brother William assessed Fulgencio and Fat Victor, who were already in position and ready to clash yet again. “Very well,” he relented. “If you’re going to start on the same championship line together, you might as well work this out, here and now.” Pointing at a scrawny player on the bench, he snapped, “You, what’s your name?”
The pale boy, who looked more like he belonged in the choir than on the football team, glanced around, pointing at himself with trepidation, “Me?”
“Yes, you.”
He sprang to his feet and walked timidly toward the coach. “My name is Miguel Rodriguez Esparza, sir.”