Before the Ever After
Also by Jacqueline Woodson
After Tupac and D Foster
Behind You
Beneath a Meth Moon
Between Madison and Palmetto
Brown Girl Dreaming
The Dear One
Feathers
From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun
Harbor Me
The House You Pass on the Way
Hush
If You Come Softly
I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This
Last Summer with Maizon
Lena
Locomotion
Maizon at Blue Hill
Miracle’s Boys
Peace, Locomotion
NANCY PAULSEN BOOKS
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York
Copyright © 2020 by Jacqueline Woodson
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Woodson, Jacqueline, author.
Title: Before the ever after / Jacqueline Woodson.
Description: New York: Nancy Paulsen Books, [2020] | Summary: ZJ’s friends Ollie, Darry and Daniel help him cope when his father, a beloved professional football player, suffers severe headaches and memory loss that spell the end of his career.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020018310 | ISBN 9780399545436 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780399545450 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Novels in verse. | Brain—Diseases—Fiction. | Best friends—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Fathers and sons—Fiction. | Memory—Fiction. | Football—Fiction. | African Americans—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.5.W67 Bc 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020018310
Ebook ISBN 9780399545450
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
AUTHOR PHOTO BY TIFFANY A. BLOOMFIELD
ILLUSTRATION BY STEPHANIE SINGLETON
DESIGN BY THERESA EVANGELISTA
pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0
for Toshi Reagon and everyone else
who ever once loved
the game
CONTENTS
Cover
Also by Jacqueline Woodson
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part 1: 1999
Memory like a Movie
Everybody’s Looking for a Hero
Day after the Game
Before the Ever After
Daniel
ZJ
You Love a Thing?
Who We Are & What We Love
Ollie
Rap Song
Unbelievable
On My Daddy’s Shoulders
The First Time, Again
Tears
Real Fiction
Race Day
Tackle
Maplewood, 2000
January 1, 2000
Like We Used to Do on Fridays
Deep Water
Thanks, Bruh
Two-Hand Touch
From Outside
Migraine
Repetition
Tests
The Trees
Daydreams
Middle of the Night
And Then There’s the Morning
Prayer
Driving
Call Me Little Man
The Whole Truth
A Different Kind of Sunday
Waterboy
Wishes
Too Many of Them
Over Breakfast
Playing Something Pretty
E String
How to Write a Song for My Daddy
Used to Be
Bird
When It Feels like the Whole World Is Screaming
Part 2: The Ever After
Visit
Friends
Pigskin Dreams
Some Days
Back Then
The Broken Thing
Haiku for Daddy
Before Tupac and Biggie
Our Songs
Skate Park
New Normal
Memory like a Song
Darry Dancing
The Trail
Snow Day
Dream
Down the Hall from My Room
A Future with Me in It
Audition
Good Days
Apple from the Tree
Birthday
Invite List
The Party
After Midnight
Football
Everett
Waiting
Jazz
Maplewood Blues Song
Pigskin Dreams 2
The Partridge Family
It’s All Gonna Be Right in the Morning
Ways to Disappear
Company
Music
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Part 1
1999
Memory like a Movie
The memory goes like this:
Ollie’s got the ball and he’s running across my yard when
Dad comes out of nowhere,
soft tackles him to the ground.
Then everyone is cheering and laughing because
we didn’t even know my dad was home.
I thought you had a game, I say, grabbing him.
It’s a half hug, half tackle, but
the other guys—Darry and Daniel—hop on too
and Ollie’s escaped, so he jumps
on top of all of us jumping on my dad.
Yeah, Mr. J., Darry says. I thought we’d be watching you on TV tonight.
Coach giving me a break, my daddy says. He climbs out from under,
shaking us off like we’re feathers, not boys.
Ah man! Darry says.
Yeah, we all say. Ah man!
Sometimes a player needs to rest, Daddy says.
He looks at each of us for a long time.
A strange look. Like he’s just now seeing us.
Then he tosses the ball so far, we can’t even see it anymore.
And my boys say Ah man, you threw it too far!
while I go back behind the garage where
we have a whole bunch of footballs
waiting and ready
for when my daddy sends one into the
abyss.
Everybody’s Looking for a Hero
Once, when I was a little kid,
this newscaster guy asked me if
my dad was my biggest hero.
No, I said. My dad’s just my dad.
There was a crowd of newscasters circling around me,
all of them with their microphones aimed
at my face. Maybe I was nervous, I don’t remember now.
Maybe it was after his first Super Bowl win, his ring
new and shining on his finger. Me just a little kid,
so the ring was this whole glittering world,
gold and black and diamonds against
my daddy’s brown hand.
I remember hearing the reporter say
Listen to those fans! Looks like everybody’s
found their next great hero.
And now I’m thinking back to those times
when the cold wind whipped around me and Mom
as we sat wrapped in blankets, yelling Dad’s name,
spraying from the other team’s coach’s lips.
So close, we could see the sweat on my daddy’s neck.
And all the people around us cheering,
all the people going around calling out his number,
calling out his name.
Zachariah 44! Zachariah 44!
Is your daddy your hero? the newscaster had asked me.
And all these years later, just like that day, I know
he’s not my hero,
he’s my dad, which means
he’s my every single thing.
Day after the Game
Day after the game
and Daddy gets out of bed slow.
His whole body, he says,
is 223 pounds of pain
from toes to knees, from knees to ribs,
every single hit he took yesterday
remembered in the morning.
Before the Ever After
Before the ever after, there was Daddy driving
to Village Ice Cream
on a Saturday night in July before preseason training.
Before the ever after, there was Mom in the back seat
letting me ride up front, me and Daddy
having Man Time together
waving to everyone
who pointed at our car and said That’s him!
Before the ever after, the way people said
That’s him! sounded like a cheer.
Before the ever after, the people pointing
were always smiling.
Before the ever after, Daddy’s hands didn’t always tremble
and his voice didn’t shake
and his head didn’t hurt all the time.
Before the ever after, there were picnics
on Sunday afternoons in Central Park
driving through the tunnel to get to the city
me and Daddy making up songs.
Before the ever after, there were sandwiches
on the grass near Strawberry Fields
chicken salad and barbecue beef
and ham with apples and Brie
there were dark chocolates with almonds and
milk chocolates with coconut
and fruit and us just laughing and laughing.
Before the ever after, there was the three of us
and we lived happily
before the ever after.
Daniel
In second grade, Daniel walked over to me, Ollie and Darry,
said You guys want to race from here to the tree?
When he lost, he laughed and didn’t even care,
just high-fived Darry, who always wins
every race every time and said
You got feet like wings, bruh.
Then he got on his bike and we knew
he wasn’t regular. He was fearless.
Even back then, he could already
do things on a bike that a bike wasn’t made for doing—
popping wheelies and spinning and standing up on the seat
while holding on to the handlebars and speeding
down the steepest hills in town.
Me, Darry and Ollie used to call ourselves Tripod
cuz the three us came together like that.
But when we met Daniel, we became the Fantastic Four.
And even after he broke his arm
when he jumped a skate park ramp right into a wall,
he didn’t stop riding.
He said My cast is like a second helmet,
held it high in the air
with the unbroken arm holding the handlebars
and then not holding them and Daniel flying
around the park like some kid
gravity couldn’t mess with.
While me and Darry and Ollie watched him amazed.
And terrified.
ZJ
I used to wonder who I’d be if “Zachariah 44” Johnson wasn’t my daddy.
First time people who know
even a little bit about football meet me,
it’s like they know him, not me. To them,
I’m Zachariah’s son.
The tight end guy’s kid.
I’m Zachariah Johnson Jr. ZJ. I’m the one
whose daddy plays pro ball. I’m the tall kid
with my daddy’s same broad shoulders. I’m the one
who doesn’t dream of going pro.
Music maybe.
But not football.
Still, even at school, feels like my dad’s in two places
at once—dropping me off out front, saying
Learn lots, little man, then
I mean, not him but
his shadow. And me almost invisible
inside it.
Except to my boys
who see me walking into the classroom and say
What’s up, ZJ?
Your mom throw any cookies in your lunch?
Then all three of them open their hands
beneath their desks so that when
the teacher’s back is turned
I can sneak them one.
You Love a Thing?
Ever since I was a little kid,
I’ve loved football, my daddy told me.
Through every broken toe and cracked rib
and jammed finger
and slam to the shoulder
and slam to the head, I still
loved it.
You got something you love, little man?
Then you good.
You love food? You cook.
You love clothes? You design.
You love the wind and water? You sail.
Me, my daddy said,
I love everything about the game.
Even the smell of the ball.
Then he laughed, said
Imagine loving something so much, you love
the smell of it?
It smells like leather and dirt and sweat and new snow.
I love football with all
of my senses. Love the taste and feel
of the air in my mouth
running with the ball on a cold day. Love the smell
of the ball when I press it to my face
and the smell of the field right after it rains.
I love the way the sky looks as we stare up at it
while some celebrity sings “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Love the sound of the crowd cheering us on.
When you love a thing, little man, my dad said,
you gotta love it with everything you got.
Till you can’t even tell where that thing you love begins
and where you end.
Who We Are & What We Love
Ollie divides fractions in his head,
can multiply them too—gives you the answer while
you’re still trying to write down the problem, knows
so much about so much but doesn’t show off
about knowing.
Darry—besides running fast, he can dance. Get the music
going and my boy moves like water flowing.
All smooth like that.
Daniel’s super chill, says stuff like
You okay, my man? You need to talk?
And really means it. And really listens.
Calls his bike a Magic Broom, spins it in so many circles
we all get dizzy, but not Daniel,
who bounces the front tire back to earth
without even blinking,
says That was for all of y’all who are stuck on the ground.
Me, I play the guitar. Mostly songs
that come into my head. Music
is always circling my brain. Hard to explain
how songs do that.
But when I play them, everything
makes some kind of strange sense like
my guitar has all the answers.
When I sing, the songs feel
as magic as Daniel’s bike
as brilliant as Ollie’s numbers
as smooth as Darry’s moves
as good as the four of us hanging out
on a bright cold Saturday afternoon.
It feels right
and clear
and always.
Ollie
Ollie says he doesn’t really remember the beginning
of his story.
Says he’s glad about that.
It was a tragedy, he says.
And when things like that happen, your mind blanks out.
It’s like your mind knows, he says, how to take care of itself.
Before he was one of my best friends, he was a baby
with green eyes and a bright red Afro
left outside a Texas church in a basket
with a note pinned to his blanket
Please take care of this baby. And love him like crazy too.
He used to take the note out of his pocket all the time.