Deadly, Unna?

Blacky’s friend Pickles asks Blacky if he wants to hang out after school. Blacky declines because he has practice with Arks. Arks picks up Blacky in his rundown car. He asks Blacky if he is nervous about the big game. Blacky says only a little bit. Arks recounts how he panicked before the biggest game of his own football career, back when he played in front of fifty thousand people. Blacky can’t even imagine playing in front of that many people.

Arks remarks how as both a player and a coach, he never won the grand final, the final game of the season. Blacky senses Arks wants him to say they’ll win the game this time. But Blacky cannot bring himself to promise that, even though he knows football is supposed to encourage optimism.

Blacky and Arks begin practicing on the football oval, which stinks of the nearby pig farm. Even though Blacky knows all the technical theory about goal scoring, he cannot seem to connect that knowledge to his body’s actions. Blacky recalls how at a recent game, a spectator mocked his skills, causing all the other townspeople to laugh and Blacky to miss a goal.

Blacky and Arks switch from practicing goal-scoring to practicing rucking. Blacky struggles at first, but then manages to “thump” the ball into the goal. He feels accomplished. Arks makes Blacky continue practicing until Blacky is exhausted and the sky is too dark for him to score. Arks says they can finish for the night, but Blacky can tell he is disappointed. Blacky feels sorry for Arks, knowing all the disappoints in Arks’s past. Blacky feels worse knowing the upcoming grand final may be Arks’s last chance at winning the league, and thinks it’s unfortunate that Arks has only a player like Blacky to depend on.