I wanted to get my hands on Scoop and strangle the little shit. All everybody in the lunch room talked about was how creepy it would be if the statue had really caused that coach's death, if someone had stuck a pin in Mumbo Jumbo's chest.

I don't know if Coach Hayes wanted to strangle Scoop, but for sure he wanted Scoop expelled. Every kid at school soon heard about the argument Coach Hayes had in the principal's office, his shouts booming down the hall, "Irresponsible! Libelous!" Scoop was smart enough to stay home sick all week.

By next Friday's game, though, Scoop was the least of our problems. The churches in town got worked up over Mumbo Jumbo. I read in the local paper how the school had received at least a dozen letters from local ministers, priests, and rabbis. One of the letters was quoted: "… superstition… unwholesome atmosphere… Satanism… counterproductive to education." My parents were so upset that they didn't want me to play in the game that night. I told them I couldn't let the other guys down, and as far as education was concerned, what about the B's and A's I'd been bringing home? If anything, the team had been good for me.

But this superstition crap was beginning to get to me, maybe because I still felt bothered by the weird things I'd been seeing on the field, things that seemed to happen before they happened. Could the statue really…? Or was Joey right, and I was only caught up in the speed and excitement of the game?

Enough already, I thought. Mumbo Jumbo. That describes it all right. It's a lot of bullshit. I had no way to know, of course, that this would be the last time Coach Hayes was allowed to bring out the statue. I did know this – I was sick of touching that creepy thing, and if I needed it to make me a good football player, I didn't belong in the game.

So after we dressed in the locker room and Coach Hayes insulted us and brought out the statue, I didn't touch it as the other guys did when we went out to play.

My right arm still aches when the temperature drops below freezing. The cast stayed on for almost three months. I hadn't been on the field more than thirty seconds, my first play of the game. I got the ball and pulled my arm back to throw, but I couldn't find an opening. And I never saw the four guys who hit me, all together at once, really plowing into me, knocking my wind out, taking me down, my arm cocked behind my shoulder, all that weight on it. I fainted. But not before I heard the cracks.

Saturday morning, Joey came to visit me in the hospital. He'd scored three touchdowns, he said. Through a swirl of pain, I tried to seem excited for him.

"Did we win?" I asked.

"Does the Pope live in Italy?" His grin dissolved. "About your arm…"

He said he was really sorry. I told him thanks.

He fidgeted. "How long are they going to keep you here?"

"Till tomorrow afternoon."

"Well, look, I'll visit you at home."

I nodded, feeling sleepy from the painkiller a nurse had given me. Rebecca came in, and Joey left.

He and I drifted farther apart after that. He had the team, and I had my broken arm. After the football season, he got a big role in a murder mystery the drama club put on, Ten Little Indians. Everybody said he was wonderful in it. I have to admit he was.

And me? I guess I let things slide. I couldn't take notes or do class assignments with my writing arm in a cast. Rebecca helped as much as she could, but she had to do her own work, too. I started getting C's again. I also got back in the habit of going down to the Chicken Nest, with Rebecca this time instead of Joey. Those cherry Cokes and fries with ketchup can really put weight on you, especially if you're not exercising.

The city newspaper reported on the meeting between the school board and Coach Hayes. They asked him to explain. He found the statue at a rummage sale, he said. Its owner claimed it was a fertility symbol that the Mayans or the Polynesians or whoever (the name of the tribe kept changing) had used in secret rituals. Coach Hayes said he hadn't believed that – not when its price was fifteen dollars. But he'd been looking for a gimmick, he said, something to work up team spirit, especially after two horrible seasons. A kind of mascot. If the team believed the statue brought them good luck, if the statue gave them confidence, so what? No harm was done. Besides, he said, he sometimes didn't bring the statue out – to teach the players to depend on themselves. The team had lost on those occasions, true, but as a consequence they'd tried harder next time. There was nothing mysterious about it. A dramatic gimmick, that's all. The point was, it had worked. The team had been winning championships ever since. School spirit had never been better.

"What about the statue's name?" a school board member asked.

"That came later. In the third winning season. One of the players made a joke. I forget what it was. Something about good luck and all that mumbo jumbo. The phrase sort of stuck."

The school board heard him out. They held up the stacks of letters from angry parents and clergy. Their decision was final.

To show that they were willing to compromise, they let him put the statue in the glass case with the trophies the team had won in the school's front lobby.

The rest of the season was brutal. We lost every game. Sitting with Rebecca on the sidelines, trying to show enthusiasm for the team, I felt terrible for Joey. You could see how depressed he was, not being a winner.

West High won the championship. Monday, the big news was that over the weekend somebody had smashed the glass in the trophy case and stolen Mumbo Jumbo. Nobody knew who had it, although all of us suspected Coach Hayes. He resigned that spring. I'm told he teaches now in upstate New York. I think about him often.

Joey's grades were good enough that Yale accepted him on a scholarship. With my C's, I won't even tell you what college accepted me. I didn't go anyhow. Rebecca got pregnant that summer. In those days, abortions weren't easy to arrange. I'm not sure I'd have wanted her to have one anyhow. The child, a daughter, breaks my heart with love every time I look at her. Rebecca and I got married that Halloween. Both sets of parents were good about it. We couldn't have made a go without their help.

We have three children now, two girls and a boy. It's tough to pay the rent and feed and dress and give them everything we want to. Both Rebecca and I have jobs. She's a secretary at our high school. I work at the chemical plant in town.

And Joey? You know him as Joseph "Footwork" Summers. He played receiver for Yale and was picked up by the NFL. You saw him play twice in the Superbowl. For sure, you saw him in plenty of beer commercials. The one where he beats up five motorcycle guys, then walks to the bar and demands a beer is famous.

"What kind?" the bartender asks. "What those guys were drinking?"

And Joey says, "That stuff's for losers. When I say I want a beer, I mean the best."

And you know what brand he means. The commercial got him into the movies. I saw DEAD HEAT last week and loved it. The action was great. His acting gets better and better.

But a part of me…

I'll try to explain. Three years ago, Joey came back to town to see his folks. Imagine how surprised I was when he called me up. I mean he hadn't exactly been keeping in touch. He asked me over to his parents' house for a beer, he really drinks the brand he advertises, and while I was there, he took me up to his old bedroom. A lot of good memories. He gestured toward his battered dresser. I was so busy looking at him (hell, he's a movie star, after all) that I didn't know what he meant at first.