Loossers

Maybe the world needed its losers. Because winners were the ones who left. Losers were the ones who stayed—to clean up, to remember, to keep the lights on for the next bunch of kids who would try and fail and try again.

Sal smiled, revealing a missing tooth. “It is now.”

“Zero,” Sal said. “Not one. But you know who still comes back? The guys from the ‘89 team. They went three and nineteen. They meet at the diner every Tuesday. They talk about the time they lost by forty points and then set the sprinklers off in the other team’s bus.” loossers

But it wasn’t. Not to them.

“You lost?” Sal asked, leaning on his mop handle. Maybe the world needed its losers

Leo sat with that for a long moment. Then he stood up, walked to the pond, and pulled his sneaker out of the sludge. It made a sound like a kiss.

He walked to the far end of the field, where the goalpost rusted and the track was cracked. He sat on the grass and watched the lights of the gymnasium flicker off, one by one. The janitor, an old man named Sal who’d worked at the school since before Leo was born, came out with a bucket of soapy water and a mop. Sal smiled, revealing a missing tooth

Leo’s father chose the nod.