He was a junior. He had not tried out as a freshman, because as a freshman he had been working mornings at his aunt's food truck and could not make the six a.m. summer sessions, and he had not tried out as a sophomore because the sophomore year had been the year his aunt's truck had the transmission go and they had needed every hour he could give her. This year the truck was running. This year Rosalba had looked at him across the kitchen table in July and said, "Go. I'll get Bartolo's nephew for the mornings. Go and play," in a voice that made it clear she had been thinking about it for a long time and was not going to be argued with.
So he was a junior who had never played organized soccer at Merrimon or anywhere else, coming up the hill alone, and he knew how that looked, and he was trying not to let it matter.
He found a spot near the east goal and sat down to stretch. Next to him, a big kid in a gray Delta Valley SC goalkeeper top was taping his fingers. He was Tongan, or Samoan, broad as a door, with a soft face and a mop of black hair held back with a headband, and he was taping each finger with great care, like a man wrapping presents. Tavo recognized him from the halls. Tuli Folau. Senior. Starting keeper for two years. People said he had a visit set up at Sacramento State.
Tuli glanced over, and his eyes went down to Tavo's feet, and stayed there for a second.
He did not say anything. He went back to taping.
It was the kid behind him who said something.
"Bro," the kid said. "Bro. Are those from the Smithsonian?"
There was a laugh, a small one, from three or four guys standing around a ball near the corner flag. The kid who had said it came over, dribbling lazily. He was a junior too, Tavo knew that much; they had had chemistry together freshman year, though they had never spoken. Torin Brackett. Sandy hair cut short at the sides, good calves, a Delta Valley training shirt with his name printed small on the sleeve. He played center mid on the varsity as a sophomore. His father was on the boosters board and could be seen most Friday nights in the fall at the top of the bleachers with a stopwatch, timing things nobody else was timing.
Torin stopped the ball under his foot a few feet from Tavo and looked down at the Copa Mundials with an expression of exaggerated scientific interest.
"No, for real," he said. "Those are classics. My grandpa had those. I think he was buried in them."
Another laugh, bigger. One of the guys by the corner flag, a thin senior named Pim Yanez, said, "Torin, leave it," but he was smiling when he said it.
"I'm complimenting him," Torin said. "I'm saying they're vintage. Vintage is in." He tipped his head. "What's with the red thread? Did your mom do that?"
Tavo looked up at him. "No," he said.
"Somebody did. Looks like surgery." Torin crouched down, actually crouched, the way you would to look at a bug on a sidewalk, and his face was close to the left cleat now, close to the red stitches, nineteen X's in a row.