Chapter 11: Gearing Up
The drive from school took about ten minutes.
George Sr. had swung by the house first to drop off Sheldon, who had spent the entire ride home delivering a detailed account of his library lunch with Marcus — the topics covered, the intellectual compatibility assessment, the mutual agreement to reconvene tomorrow with prepared discussion points on the Fermi Paradox. He delivered all of this to the back of his father's headrest with the satisfied energy of someone filing a successful mission report.
"That's great, Shelly," George said, for the third time.
"Marcus believes the Drake Equation is mathematically sound but operationally useless," Sheldon continued. "I disagreed initially, but his argument had merit. I've upgraded my assessment of him from promising to genuinely worthwhile."
"Still great."
"Dad, are you listening to me?"
"Every word, bud."
Sheldon got out at the house, still talking, and was three steps up the porch before he seemed to register that the car was leaving. He turned and called after them: "Tell Dale I said hello!"
George waved out the window and pulled back onto the road.
Georgie, riding shotgun, looked at Mike in the back seat. "He's met Dale twice."
"He remembers everything," Mike said.
"Yeah." Georgie turned back around. "It's a lot."
Deford Sports Supply sat on the corner of Elm and Route 12, sandwiched between a hardware store and a diner, with a hand-painted sign above the door that hadn't been updated since approximately 1987 and didn't need to be. The kind of store that had earned its reputation the slow way — by knowing what it was selling and not pretending otherwise.
George pulled in and killed the engine.
"Dale Gribble," he said, by way of introduction, as they climbed out. "Baseball coach over at Deford Elementary. Known him fifteen years. Good man, fair prices, knows his inventory better than anyone in the county." He pushed open the door. "Let me do the talking."
The bell above the door announced them.
Dale was behind the counter, and he was — Mike took inventory — maybe seventy-two, seventy-three, tall and lean in the way some older men stayed lean, with close-cropped white hair and the kind of posture that suggested he'd played something seriously, once, and the muscle memory had never fully let go. He was restocking a shelf of batting gloves when they came in, and he turned with the unhurried ease of a man who'd seen a lot of customers and could tell the difference between browsers and buyers inside of ten seconds.
"George Cooper," he said, with the warm flatness of a man who was genuinely glad to see someone and expressed it by not making a fuss. "Who'd you drag in this time?"
"New guy for the team." George steered Mike forward. "Mike Quinn. Just transferred in. He's a running back — good one. Ran a four-five forty this afternoon."
Dale looked at Mike with the specific attention of someone who had spent fifty years around athletic bodies and was doing his own quiet math. He nodded once, slowly, the way experienced people nod when the numbers check out.
"Dale," Mike said.
"Mike," Dale said. They shook hands. "You look like you know what to do with your legs."
"Working on it," Mike said.
Dale smiled — brief, genuine — and looked at George. "Full kit?"
"Full kit."
"Alright." Dale came around the counter. "George Jr., you know where the football section is. Take him over, let him get a feel for what's there. I'll be right with you."
George Sr. settled into the worn wooden chair in front of the counter with the ease of a man claiming his usual seat. Dale reached under the counter and produced two bottles of Shiner Bock without being asked, set one in front of George, opened the other for himself.
"Fifteen years," Georgie murmured to Mike, leading him toward the back of the store, "and Dad has never once left that store without drinking at least one of Dale's beers."
"Is that bad?"
"It's just — consistent," Georgie said.
The football equipment section occupied the back half of the store's right wall and wrapped around a corner — helmets on a high shelf, shoulder pads racked by size, gloves and accessory gear in bins below. Clean, organized, nothing dusty. Dale ran a tight inventory.
Georgie stopped in front of the entry-level section and swept an arm along it with the air of a practical man presenting practical options. "Okay so — for a first kit, this is where most guys start. Riddell Speed Icon helmet, standard Schutt pads, mid-grade cleats." He pulled a helmet off the rack and handed it over. "Nothing fancy. Gets the job done, doesn't hurt too bad if you decide football's not for you after two weeks."
Mike turned the helmet over in his hands. Looked at the padding, the facemask, the chin strap hardware.
Looked at the next section over.
"What's that?" he said.
Georgie glanced where Mike was looking. A slight pause. "That's the premium section."
"Show me."
Georgie studied him for a moment — reassessing something — then walked him over.
The difference was visible and immediate. The helmets here had a different weight to them, a different finish, the kind of construction that communicated engineering rather than manufacturing. Georgie ran through them with the knowledgeable reluctance of someone who had done his research and made his peace with not being able to afford the research.
"Riddell Axiom," he said, lifting one down. "Top-of-line impact protection, MIPS liner, custom fit padding system. This is what the NFL guys use for practice." He set it on a nearby shelf. "Xenith Shadow shoulder pads — lighter than standard, better range of motion, doesn't sacrifice the protection." He pulled a pair from the rack. "Nike Vapor Edge cleats — those are what the combine guys wear." He gestured along the remaining bins. "Cutters gloves, integrated pad pants, padded compression girdle."
Mike picked up the Riddell Axiom and put it on.
It fit like it was meant for him, which was partly the adjustable padding system and partly something else — the particular feeling of equipment that had been designed by someone who understood what it was for.
He took it off and looked at Georgie.
"I'll take this one," he said.
Georgie looked at him. "Mike, that helmet alone is—"
"I know," Mike said. "I'm good."
Georgie did a brief recalculation — the same one, Mike could see, that people did when they updated their assessment of someone's situation — and then nodded. "Alright." He handed Mike the Xenith pads. "Try these on for size."
They went through it methodically. Shoulder pads — tried two sizes, went with the medium-large for mobility. Cleats — Mike's foot measured out to an eleven, the Nike Vapor Edges fit clean. Padded compression pants. Receiver gloves in an XL. A padded waist protector. Knee and wrist protection.
On the way to the counter, Mike stopped at a display of accessories and picked up a brass coaching whistle — the heavy-duty kind, the sort that carried across a full practice field — and added it to the pile.
Georgie looked at the whistle. "What's that for?"
"Don't know yet," Mike said. "Feels useful."
At the counter, Dale and George Sr. were two-thirds through their beers and somewhere in the middle of a story about a Little League playoff game from 2001 that apparently still had unresolved feelings attached to it. George saw the gear coming and straightened up.
He looked at the pile. Looked at Mike. Looked at the pile again.
"Mike," he said carefully.
"I'm going to use it," Mike said.
George turned to Dale. "Dale. Last time I brought players in here — Homecoming week, three kids — you gave me fifteen percent off."
"That was a volume situation," Dale said.
"This kid's buying more than all three of them combined."
Dale looked at the gear on his counter. Looked at Mike. Did the quiet arithmetic of a man who had been doing retail math for forty years and could read a profit margin at fifty paces.
"Twenty percent," Dale said.
"Twenty-five," George said.
"Twenty percent is already me being charitable, George."
"Twenty-two and I'll tell every parent on the team their kids need new gear before playoffs."
Dale picked up his beer. Set it down. "Twenty-two. Final."
George clinked his bottle against Dale's. "Deal."
Dale produced a yellow legal pad and a ballpoint pen and began adding up the items with the focused deliberation of a man who trusted his own arithmetic more than any machine's. He wrote each item, its price, and its discounted amount in a column, checking his work twice per line.
The full retail came to: Riddell Axiom helmet — $849. Xenith Shadow pads — $679. Nike Vapor Edge cleats — $465. Cutters gloves — $95. Integrated pad pants — $210. Waist protector — $155. Knee and wrist protection — $270. Brass whistle — $80.
Total retail: $2,803.
Dale capped his pen, looked at his legal pad, moved his lips slightly, and wrote the discounted total at the bottom.
"Two thousand, one hundred eighty-seven dollars," he said. "After the twenty-two percent."
Georgie made a sound that was not quite a word.
George Sr. had gone quiet in the way people go quiet when a number is larger than the one they'd been doing mental math around. He looked at Mike with the specific expression of a man who had just been reminded that he didn't actually know everything about this kid's situation.
"Mike," he said, in a low voice. "You sure about this?"
"I told you I was going to use it," Mike said.
"That's not what I asked."
Mike looked at him. "I'm sure."
George held his gaze for a moment — doing the thing he did, Mike had noticed, where he tried to figure out if someone was telling him the truth or telling him what he wanted to hear. Apparently satisfied, he turned back to Dale.
"Round it," he said. "Two thousand, one-fifty."
"George—"
"You're making money on this, Dale. You know you are."
Dale picked up his beer. Set it down again. Looked at his legal pad. "Two thousand, one seventy-five. And I never want to hear about this again."
"Two-sixty," Mike said.
Both men looked at him.
"Split the difference," Mike said. "Two thousand, two hundred sixty. Everybody goes home happy."
A pause.
Dale looked at George.
George looked at Dale.
Dale picked up his pen and wrote $2,260 on the legal pad, circled it twice, and turned the pad around to face Mike.
"You've got a future in something," Dale said. It wasn't quite clear what he meant, but it sounded like a compliment.
Mike handed over his debit card.
They loaded the gear into the back of George's pickup. The evening had come down fully now — the particular Texas dusk that went from orange to purple in about twenty minutes — and the parking lot was quiet.
Georgie set the equipment bag down and looked at the haul. "That's a serious kit," he said.
"Yeah," Mike agreed.
"You're really going to use all of it."
It wasn't a question anymore.
"Yeah," Mike said again.
Georgie was quiet for a moment. Then: "You know Sam Gaffney's going to make your life difficult."
"I figured."
"He's been starting running back since sophomore year. He's good."
"I know."
"Dad's going to play you both until one of you pulls ahead." Georgie leaned against the tailgate. "That's just how he does it."
Mike picked up the Riddell Axiom and looked at it in the last of the light. The helmet was good. Everything in the bag was good. The right tool made a difference — not the whole difference, but the part of the difference you could control in advance.
"Then I'll pull ahead," Mike said simply.
Georgie looked at him.
"Okay," he said, after a moment. "Yeah. Okay."
George Sr. came out of the store, shaking his head and smiling, Dale's voice following him through the door: "— and tell Mary I said hello, and tell her she's too good for you—"
"Goodbye, Dale," George called back, and pulled the door shut.
He looked at his son. Looked at Mike. Looked at the gear in the truck bed.
"Alright," he said, and clapped his hands once. "Let's go home."
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