Empire Falls

time the policeman flinched. He was almost certain Miles knew that, in which case his chain was being pulled.
    “Which one is he?” Cindy wanted to know, as innocent as her companion was pretending to be and far more interested.
    Jimmy Minty put a hand on her shoulder and leaned close so they could both sight along his extended arm and out past his index finger, all the way across the field to number fifty-six, now on the bench while the Empire Falls offense tried to figure out what to do with the ball.
    “What position does he play?”
    “He plays linebacker, Miss Whiting,” he explained, his hand still resting between her shoulder blades. “That’s on the defense. Which is why he’s setting over there on the bench just now. It’s his job to patrol the line of scrimmage. Make tackles on running plays. Rush the quarterback when he throws. You have to be pretty smart to play linebacker, and I expect there’ll be some interest in him if he keeps on like he’s going. From colleges, I mean. He doesn’t have the size to play pro, and I won’t have him eating steroids. I told him, I ever catch you swallowing anything you can’t buy at the mall, I’ll bust your ass as quick as a kid with a kilo of crack cocaine.”
    “I didn’t know they sold crack by the kilo,” Miles said.
    “However it’s sold,” Jimmy Minty allowed. “Zero tolerance is what I’m saying.”
    “How come you’re not working the game today?”
    “In uniform, you mean? Well, Miles, I don’t work crowd control anymore. Most of the guys you see at the gates and out in the parking lot are rent-a-cops.” He took a slender walkie-talkie out of his sport coat pocket and showed it to them. “I am on duty, though. Nothing like the Empire Falls/Fairhaven game to spark a rumble.”
    A rumble? Miles smiled, trying to recall the last time he’d heard the term. If you could control the urge to kill Jimmy Minty, he was entertaining enough, unless you liked your humor intentional.
    “This section seems pretty law-abiding,” Miles said, “but I promise to come find you if a fight breaks out.”
    Jimmy Minty chuckled unpleasantly, confident now that he was being made fun of. “Either that or you could just quell the disturbance yourself.” He nudged Cindy with his elbow to include her in the joke. “I wouldn’t mind seeing that, would you Miss Whiting? Ol’ Miles here, quelling a disturbance?”
    Below them, the Empire Falls punter was again trotting onto the field.
    “Damn,” Minty said. “Another three and out. Our defense is going to be plum tuckered out by halftime.”
    It was indicative of Empire Falls’s team that the thing it did best was punt, and the boy who did all the kicking took this moment to launch one that traveled about sixty yards in the air. Unfortunately, it settled securely into the arms of Fairhaven’s punt returner before the first Empire Falls players got more than twenty yards downfield, and before they had a chance to make much more progress in the direction of the ball carrier it became necessary to turn around again because he’d sprinted past while they were trying to shed their blocks. It was the punter himself who finally pushed the returner out of bounds at the Empire Falls thirty, and once again the tired defense trucked onto the field, Zack Minty trying to buck up his teammates by cuffing them on the back of their helmets and barking his signals as Fairhaven’s offense broke huddle and approached the line of scrimmage.
    Jimmy Minty again put his hand on Cindy Whiting’s back and pointed down at the field. “That’s my Zack there,” he said. “Now we’re on defense. They got the ball.”
    No doubt smelling blood, the Fairhaven quarterback took the snap, drifted back into the pocket and spotted a receiver streaking down the sideline. The pass he threw was a beautiful, arcing spiral, and virtually everyone, including the officials, turned to follow its flight. Miles, however, saw what Jimmy Minty saw. Number 56 for Empire Falls, a full two beats after the ball left the quarterback’s hand, put first his helmet and then his shoulder pad into his kidney. Locking his arms around the quarterback’s thighs, he lifted the boy off the ground and drove him into the turf so hard his head bounced twice.
    The elder Minty leapt to his feet. “Yeah!” he cried, shaking his fist in the air. “Oh, yeah! Did you see that hit?” He was pointing excitedly. Cindy, however, as Miles had good cause to