Page 7 of Base Block

“I’ll just stay for the night,” I agreed. “Then I’ll get on the bus and go.”

He nodded but he seemed unsure. Even so, he let me come with him and I shuffled along in the slippers, only putting a little weight on my foot since the cut still hurt. I was very happy to see his green car again and to sit in the same seat. It felt familiar, which was nice.

He didn’t say much else as we drove away from the downtown and back toward the place where he lived. I had learned when to talk and when to stay silent with Damian, but of course I didn’t have that knowledge yet with this new guy. I tested the waters.

“Did you have a good day in the lumber department?” I asked him.

“It was my last day. I gave them notice a week ago and this was my final shift.”

“Why did you quit?”

“I told you,” he said. “I’m going to Michigan.”

“To work in another home improvement store?”

“No, to play football.”

I digested all that. I had thought that the story about moving was just an excuse to kick me out, and I hadn’t believed him about playing football, either. “Why Michigan? What’s there?”

When I’d asked him about sports before, he hadn’t shared a lot. He explained more now, mostly about one of the teams in the northern part of the state. He had an opportunity to go to their summer training and try out, and if he made it, then he would get to play for them. It was one of the oldest organizations in the football league and they had a fierce fanbase. And the best part was that if he made that team, then he would get paid. A ton.

“Even if I sat my ass on the bench for the entire season, I’d earn more than I would in the lumber department in about a hundred years.” He paused. “I should figure that out. How many times would my old salary go into the league minimum?” He specified two numbers.

“You’d be making twenty-three times more. Twenty-three point four,” I said. “Football players get paid pretty well.”

“You did that math in your head? Yeah, professional football players do great. But first, I have to make the roster. I’m paying my way up there and I’ll pay to stay someplace and to eat. Then, if it doesn’t work and they don’t sign me, I’m stuck with no job and probably some debt.”

“How much is it going to cost?”

He had vague ideas about motel rates in northern Michigan and what he might spend on food, so I put them together in my mind. It was going to be around three thousand dollars.

“That much?” He looked bleak when I told him. “I hadn’t wanted to think about it.”

“Do you have a good chance of making their team?”

He seemed to consider it briefly. “I’m not sure. Shane, the guy who was scouting me, thought so. He never gave me a guarantee or anything, but he told me that I had a chance. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have let me go up to the tryout. You can’t just walk in,” he explained. “You get invited. But there’s a lot going against me.”

Callum told me some of those things, like that he had injured his ankle years before and it could act up. He had also never played against top-tier guys like he would see in Michigan. Who knew how he would stack up against that level of competition?

“The road that most players take to the Football Confederation starts in high school, when they go to special camps and get attention from college coaches,” he told me. “Next, they go to a university with a good program and spend a few years honing their game. After that, they get drafted or play in a league in another country. Or they can stay here, but play for a lower-level team and hope to move up. I didn’t do any of that.”

“What did you do instead?” I wondered.

“I screwed around in high school and blew my chances,” he stated. “I played well enough to get attention and scholarship offers from college coaches, but then I didn’t graduate. Not that I could have made it at college, for a bunch of reasons.”

“Like what?”

“Academics, for one. I probably wouldn’t have been able to deal with even their remedial classes and back then, I wasn’t interested in trying. I also had a temper and if anyone looked at me wrong, I would have fought him.”

That was good information for me, as someone who would be alone with him in a house. I nodded.

“My high school coach tried to work with me but I wouldn’t toe the line. I didn’t toe any lines,” he said. “More like, I would see a line and purposely step over it, just to cause a problem. He cut me from the team and I dropped out. I messed around for a few years until I finally decided that I didn’t want to live like that for the rest of my life, and I didn’t imagine that I’d make it much past age thirty. So, I got a job and my GED. I started training again and I made it onto a junior college roster. We call it JUCO,” Callum explained. “Some guys will do a season or two at a JUCO for more experience, or to be noticed by a four-year school. Then they’ll transfer and try to get drafted.”

“You don’t want to do that?”

“I had thought about it,” he said. “But that scout who came to look at me had a different idea. I’m old already. If I spent more time playing collegiately, then I’d be even older when I put my name in for the draft. Nobody’s going to choose a grandpa for their team.”

“How old are you?” I asked. “Thirty-six? Forty-one?”