Chapter 18: [18] "Make It Ugly"
The temperature of the ice bath was precisely 34° F.
Luc went as far as he could go, until he was up to his neck, his jaw tight enough to break a molar. It wasn’t just the cold, it was like little, burning needles through his bones. He paused, his breath, it came out in white, jagged clouds of vapor.
A few feet away, Juliette sat on a metal folding chair, unsympathetic even. She had a stopwatch in one hand and a clipboard in the other.
Not lifting her eyes from her notes, she said, "Three more minutes. Relax your shoulders, this may not work if you go about lifting them up."
"Easy for you to say," Luc ground out, his teeth literally chattering. "You’re wearing a parka."
Juliette replied, "Also, I did not have a Bastille center-back run his knee down my back." Finally she lifted her green eyes. "Lyon played a good match and Fontaine nearly blanked yesterday, scoring only a scrappy tap-in though after 90 minutes."
Luc closed his eyes, working on his heart rate in the freezing water. "I saw."
"He was panicking, Luc. He’s rushing his touches." Juliette touched her pen. "But Paris Royal’s team is playing a low-grade team on Sunday, only three days after their last match, and if he scores, he’ll have a five-to-two lead. You’re playing Union Aquitaine away from home tonight. You need a goal or else the gap widens."
"There’s a tight schedule now, we played Wednesday and we play again on Saturday. I will find it, the back of the net, I have to."
---
Ten hours later, Luc was in Bordeaux in the middle of a torrential downpour.
Union Aquitaine’s stadium was a rather old structure. The pitch was a soggy and muddy mess. Each step was like stepping into thick oatmeal.
SC Valois wore their away uniforms, dark bruised purple, clinging to them in the freezing rain. In the middle of the circle, the players from Aquitaine appeared to be lumberjacks. They were a mid-table team, renowned for the lack of anything pretty about their games, for beating the shit out of their opponents on ugly low-scoring draws.
The whistle blew. It was a dog fight from the offset.
Luc’s new style of play on dry ground; dropping deep, playing the angles and exploiting the midfield, was terrific but... It was almost like a death wish in this ankle-deep mud pit. Each time he brought himself back to collect a pass from Hugo, an Aquitaine defender was always there, sliding into him with raised studs then enhancing their speed into his ankles with the wet pitch. Not much TES’ boost to his core strength could do if they’re attacking his ankles.
Minute 18. Hugo attempted to make a pass through the middle.
Luc approached the ball, and he pivoted his body around to protect the ball. A player from Aquitaine came up and basically pushed Luc against his ribs with a hard shoulder while he was completely oblivious to the them. He was focused solely on Luc, not the ball.
Luc was laid on his back and he was sliding through the mud 3 feet down.
While lying on the damp grass Luc thought dangerously, "if this challenge came in without the boost... I would surely pick up an injury."
No foul called. Home fans were ecstatic.
Luc crawled up to his feet, spitting the dirty rain water out of his mouth. He felt dull and heavy aches in his ribs.
Mateo ran past him, with his bald head soaking wet. "Not today Yankee, they’re not playing chess, they’re fighting like we’re in a bar, you have to duel them back."
Luc rubbed the mud away from his eyes. Mateo was right. You can’t outsmart a group who wanted to bleed you.
"Fine," Luc muttered. "Let’s make it ugly. Guys let’s make it fucking ugly."
---
Minute 34. Aquitaine had forced their defensive line impressively up the field, attempting to force SC Valois into their half. It was raining very heavily.
Luc stopped his newfound habit of straying too far into the midfield. He tiptoed right up to the biggest Aquitaine center-back, a guy whose nose was broken and his wrists were taped up. The shoulders were touching, Luc stood so close.
The defender shoved him. "Back off, American."
Luc didn’t move. He pushed back, trying to get his cleats into the mud for more stability. He fixed his gaze on Mateo, who was in a deep position in the Valois area.
Well, just kick it, Luc thought. Anywhere.
Mateo didn’t look for a pass. He didn’t work out a lovely curve in the shot. He simply swung his massive right leg and just fired the soggy, heavy ball off blindly into the gray sky, targeting more or less the penalty box.
The Aquitaine center-back lifted his head, following the ball.
Luc didn’t. He was not particularly interested in the ball’s location at this point. He took the center of gravity of the defender into consideration.
As the defender moved his center of gravity to his back foot to jump and send the ball flying back, Luc butted straight into the man’s thigh. It wasn’t a dirty play, it was a brutal and well-timed charge... the classic shoulder barge.
The defender fell over in the mud and swore as he fell.
The ball fell out of the air. There was someone who was already moving and that person was Luc. The heavy and slick ball was precisely dropped into the penalty area.
The goalkeeper of the Aquitaine team charged in rushing from his goal, his whole body shot forward to block the shot.
Finesse was not an option. There’s no time to pick out a corner.
Luc just withdrew his boot from the mud and whacked the ball with raw, violent force, poking his toes into the mud.
It was ugly. The ball skidded across the puddles, hydroplaned under the keeper’s diving arm and died in the mud, just after rolling over the white line.
1-0.
Luc didn’t celebrate. He simply looked around, his chest rising and falling as he watched the defender lifting his foot off the ground, and raised a muddy finger towards him.
He had come very close to evening the wager now. Four to three.
---
The second half was played as a rattling war of attrition. Aquitaine battered them. Hugo had to be replaced after he was punched in the temple with an elbow. Mateo was issued a yellow card for almost bringing a guy to his knees with a neck tackle. However, SC Valois was holding up. The bus they parked was stuck in the mud and they would not budge.
Finally, when the final whistle blew in the rain, Luc just lay in the centre circle, face up. All the way down to his skin the whole body was bruised.
He sat there, staring at the black sky, as his teammates’ guttural grunts could be heard, as the rain poured down. They had won. Three points, it was dirty and it was painful.
More important still, he was nearly equal to the king.
---
Luc was sitting on the team bus, wrapped in a thick wool blanket. The heater was blowing, but he still didn’t feel his toes. The other guys were sleeping, they were physically exhausted from the match.
Luc’s cell phone rang in his coat pocket.
He pulled it out. It wasn’t a text from Valérie or Juliette. An unsaved number.
He looked into the screen for a while. The bus cruised down the wet highway.
He pressed accept and picked up the phone to his ear. He didn’t say hello. He just listened.
For five seconds, the only sound was the gentle breathing and some background noise, perhaps the sound of a glass clinking against a marble table.
"You got lucky."
The voice was as smooth as silk, as arrogant as a king, as unmistakable as a raven’s. Olivier Fontaine.
Luc placed his head against the cold glass in the bus window. His face was bruised and his smile was slow and dark.
Luc asked quietly, as not to wake Mateo who was sitting in the seat across the aisle, "I was just thinking of how long it’ll take you to crack and call me?"
The slight tightness in his voice gave away the fact that he was cracking, Fontaine scoffed "American. I’m calling you to give you a reality check, you scored with a muddy toe-poke through a group of farmers in Aquitaine, I’m playing for Paris and you are a sideshow. You think you’re only a goal behind? I’ll dust you if you count my penalties, I’ll play tomorrow, I will score twice and I will always be ahead of you."
"So why have you called if you weren’t worried?" Luc asked simply.
No sound at the receiving end of the telephone.
"You called because you saw my game tonight," Luc continued, his voice becoming cold and relentless. "You saw me take a beating for ninety minutes, and you saw me score anyway. You knew that I don’t need 100-million-euro midfield to make my luck."
"You’re crazy," Fontaine snapped.
"Maybe," Luc said in a soothing tone. "But Chloé seemed to be in a very poor state mentally at L’Arc on Wednesday and she looked like a girl who knew she had backed the wrong horse."
There was a loud yelling noise and shattering sound in the phone, like glass breaking against a wall.
Luc’s smile became quite feral. He had got the courage and he was pushing it.
"Have fun with the game tomorrow, Olivier," Luc whispered. "Tick-tock."
He hung up the phone, turned it off, and put it in his pocket.
[System Notification]
[Reward +5 General points]
[Balance: 10 General points, 5 Skill points]
[Access the store to utilise points]
He wrapped the wool blanket more tightly around his shoulders, then shut his eyes. The pain in his ribs was overshadowed by the ecstasy of victory. Absolute ecstasy.
"TES, access store."
