Bleachers

The lights on Rake Field, which have long been a symbol of the excitement of Friday night football games, take on a new meaning as Eddie Rake nears death. They are first introduced in the novel when Neely and his former teammates begin to reminisce on the bleachers. Paul informs Neely, who comments that it seems odd for the lights to be shining bright on a Tuesday, that “Rabbit leaves them on all night. His version of a vigil. When Rake dies, the lights go out” (31). Throughout the novel, the lights continue to evoke memories of the man himself, serving now as a symbol for Eddie Rake himself. When Rake dies at the end of the book, Rabbit dims the lights as he said he would. With the dimming of the lights comes a new chance at moving on for Neely and the other Spartans.

The bleachers that overlook The Field are a symbol of the duality of the shared experiences of football. When the Spartans reconvene to remember their days on The Field, the bleachers hold both good and bad memories. The bleachers are both a place that hold memories of “a crowd packed tightly together up there, in the bleachers, with the band in the center of things blaring away with its endless renditions of the Spartan fight song” (4). It was a place of worship, where the town of Messina could gather over the shared religion of football. There was one portion of the bleachers reserved where “the rowdies from the country once raised so much hell” where they would join the other fans to cheer on the team (16). However, it is also the site of “Number two on the list of dreaded tortures […] the assault on the bleachers” (52) and the place where Scotty Reardon died. At the end of the novel, the bleachers are where the crowd sits during Rake’s funeral.

Neely’s injured knee left him with a limp and long-lasting pain. It serves as a symbol for the painful past that he carries with him. Neely is described as trying to move “without a limp, without a hint that he was anything less than what they remembered” (42). He is stuck between longing for the glory days and knowing deep down he will never get them back. He can’t stop the pain he has in his knee, and it still gives way under him. However, since “it happened so often, he knew how to lift it just so and quickly shift all weight to his right leg, and to keep walking as if everything was normal” (42). Like with his knee, Neely tries to avoid the emotional baggage he has that is still deeply affecting him. He stays away from Messina for years and tries not to acknowledge the memories of Rake that gnaw at him.

This symbol becomes stronger when Neely meets up with Cameron. He tells her, “There was nothing pleasant about the injury,” and Cameron asks if that means he “became just a regular person, just like the rest of us?” (129). Neely tells her, “I guess, but with a lot of baggage. Being a forgotten hero is not easy” (129). Neely’s fall from glory is what weighs on him nearly the entirety of the novel, but the baggage involves the people he let down: Cameron, Screamer, his ex-wife, and finally, Rake.

As with most small towns, news is often spread through rumors. This recurring motif demonstrates Messina’s tendency to rely on secondhand information as truth, something that aids in creating alternate, or revised, histories of Rake and the other town heroes. The subjects of the rumors typically don’t end up setting the stories straight, but when they do, the truth is liberating.

Cameron remarks that “Rumors are like mosquitoes in this town” (135), and it proves to be true. Rumors are practically the backbone of Messina. They range from “the latest stats from the August workouts” (27) to more serious ones, such as updates on Rake’s condition started by “A man delivering a fruit basket to the Rake home [who had] heard the whispers, and before long the entire town knew that the Coach had drifted away so far that he would never return” (74).

Rumors and their sources yield a great deal of power. The characters in Bleachers use the power of rumors to their benefit, such as Rabbit being hired as the assistant coach because he “supplied Rake with all the gossip” (31). Nat describes that his business was struggling until “Rumor spread that this was Rake’s favorite place, so the town got curious” (64). He immediately saw a greater number of customers. Sometimes, however, the unreliability of rumors ends up lessening the influence they have.

During the political conflict that followed the death of Scotty Reardon, it is said of Rake that he was planning to move. Neely concedes: “but then rumors don’t mean much here” (36). Especially during this moment in time, rumors were so rampant that most of them lost their meaning. Paul says, “There was a strong rumor that Rake himself would run against Reardon. If he got elected, he would anoint himself Coach again and tell the whole world to go to hell. There was a rumor that Scotty’s father would spend a million bucks to reelect John Reardon. And so on” (58). Nothing was clear, everything was exaggerated, and the truth was lost.

Though rumors control the local news, the townspeople of Messina still long to know the real stories behind them all. Mal has wanted to know the truth behind the championship game for 15 years. When he drives Neely and Paul to see Jesse Trapp at the detention center, he finally has a chance to ask them directly. He says, “We figured somethin’ happened at halftime in the locker room, some kind of altercation between you and Rake. Never heard the real story, you know, ’cause you boys never talked about it” (110). Now that Rake is dead, the vow of silence can be broken, and the truth is finally revealed.