Santiago's Grand Stand

"He's a big one, no doubt about it," the coach said.

"Yes sir." I was nervous. The coach was an old man, and I was sure he could hear my heart pounding in my chest.

"He seems to have good instincts, too. Better than most."

"Well, I'm not sure if..." I began.

"Hm?" The old man looked up at me from his clipboard.

"What is it?" he said, rubbing his chin. He took off his glasses and cleaned them with a rag from his pocket.

I gulped nervously, but pressed on anyway. "I'm not sure if he wants to play football." I said this as softly as I could manage while pointing over at the boy sitting stoically in front of the TV with his arms crossed. He had been watching a football game on television when we arrived, and had barely acknowledged either of us since we sat down on the couch next to him to talk.

The boy turned to look at us with a bored expression on his face that seemed out of place for a teenaged boy. He had dark hair and light brown eyes that matched his skin complexion perfectly; he was clearly of Hispanic descent like me, but unlike me his hair was cut short and well groomed. His suit jacket and tie were impeccably pressed and folded neatly over the armrest of the couch where he sat, and he held himself as stiff as a board despite being slumped in a position that wasn't particularly comfortable for anyone who wasn't made of wood.

After a moment of silence he finally spoke up: "Coach," he said with authority, "I am not playing football."

The old man nodded slowly and put his glasses back on. "All right then," he said with a sigh, "we'll just be getting going then." He stood up from the couch and returned the clipboard to his bag before walking towards the door.

As I started to rise from my seat next to him, the boy reached out to grab my arm and motioned for me to sit back down again. He waited until the old man had left the room before speaking again: "You can stay here," he whispered quietly into my ear with a tone that would probably sound intimidating coming from anyone else; however, it felt less so coming from him because the voice was unmistakably high-pitched like that of a child's. "But listen closely," Another pause as he leaned closer towards me, "I want you to feed me grapes." As soon as these words left his mouth, he leaned back away from me again without waiting for a response or giving me any time to react in any way whatsoever and resumed staring blankly at the TV screen above our heads.

Now that both men were gone from the room, I couldn't help but feel violated by what had just happened between us; however, that feeling quickly faded away as the realization dawned upon me that this must have been some sort of test of loyalty or something else along those lines. Regardless of why it happened though, I knew what my answer needed to be before even thinking about it: "Yes sir! Right away!" My voice cracked slightly as I spoke up in an attempt to mask my embarrassment; however, instead of laughing at how badly I sounded like an idiot like I'd expected him to do earlier when asking him questions about whether or not he wanted to play football or if he liked grapes (which apparently is what all people enjoy), Santiago simply nodded his head once more without looking at me before turning back around once more towards the TV without another word between us for several minutes until both men returned with two bowls full of grapes which we ate together while watching golf on TV until someone thought it was time for bed again and decided we should go upstairs together so Santiago could get ready for bed early tomorrow morning before leaving for school...