North Dallas Forty (18 page)

“... All of these awful things that I have heard.

I don’t want to believe them.

All I want is your word ...”

“Listen, there’s no reason to get nervous.” She noticed my panic. “I’m not in mourning or anything. He was a nice guy and we might have been happy together. But, I mean, how do you know? He was a soldier when I met him and the war was hanging over our heads all the time. I knew him three months before he went over and everything we did and felt was related to the war. He wanted to get it out of the way and settle down. It was a business decision. But when he got over there it really brought him down. It was tragic and I cried a lot. But it’s not to be done over, is it, and whether I’m happy or sad right now depends on me, not something that happened ten thousand miles away and two years ago.” She smiled at me. “I choose to be happy.”

“Good.” I smiled back at her. “Life is choice. I heard that somewhere. Or I made it up. I don’t remember which.” A row of mailboxes transformed into a marauding motorcycle gang and back to a row of mailboxes. I concentrated on the road. The faster we went, the better I felt. I was overtaking my speeding brain. Loaded on mescaline is no time to be fainthearted. I gave the Buick a little more gas and resumed the conversation. “I guess I heard it somewhere. Probably from a coach. The major guiding forces in my life have been coaches. Can you imagine what little tidbits of insanity I’ve got tucked away up here?”

“I can’t imagine how you’ve lived this long. Slow down, will you?”

“Sure.” I eased off the gas and turned up the tape deck.

“The first major choice in my life was deciding how successful I wanted to be.” I flinched slightly as a huge hole suddenly opened in the road and, just as suddenly, closed again. Charlotte didn’t seem to notice. “The old frog-in-the-pond paradox I mentioned earlier. I did mention it earlier, didn’t I?”

“I’m certain you did. Please keep your eyes on the road.”

“Sure. Sure.” I turned back to the road in time to catch a glimpse of a large spotted bird disappearing over the top of the car. I flinched again. “I learned in high school that once a man chooses a goal he must never quit or be satisfied with less. Similar situation to your late husband’s—no offense intended. There is great social value to stubbornness; it implies character and a sense of destiny.”

“I don’t know about destiny—” Charlotte shifted uneasily in her seat, “—but riding with you gives me a real sense of fate.”

“That’s good enough.” I lifted my foot and watched the needle drop below seventy. “As long as you’re moving. You don’t really have to know where. Just act like you do.”

“Turn the wipers off.”

“What?”

“The windshield wipers. Turn them off.”

The rubber blades were squeaking across the windshield glass, spreading the smashed bugs into greasy yellow streaks.

“How did that happen?”

“I’m not sure, but I hope this car is enchanted. It’s my only chance to get home alive.”

“Sorry.” I slowed way down and kept my eyes on the road. “Now like I was saying it may seem presumptuous for a seventeen-year-old boy to decide never to fail but I should point out that optimism abounded in those times. My braces had just been removed after six long years, I had beaten back the ravages of acne, a girl had jacked me off on the beach, I had scored in the ninety-seventh percentile on the SAT tests. And I had received scholarship offers from five Big Ten schools. Besides it was the late fifties, everybody had decided to succeed at everything.”

“Not everybody.”

“Oh? What were you doing while the rest of us fought for our chances to make fools of ourselves?”

“I was a long-haired fourteen-year-old sneaking around the San Fernando Valley trying to have fun without getting busted.”

“Did you?”

“Yes and no. Yes, I got busted and no I didn’t have any fun. I got pregnant.” She turned to look at me. “Are you shocked?”

“Naw. I used to jack off to Betty Furness Westinghouse commercials. Are you shocked?”

“Not as long as you don’t do it while I’m in the room.”

“Same here. In fact I sorta wish you were fourteen now.”

“I was more fun then. Getting pregnant calmed me down a little. You learn a lot about yourself lying awake all night trying to stop the unstoppable. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

“ ’Cause I’m the kind of man that can look with compassion upon your incredibly degenerate childhood. C’mon, tell me about it.”

“Well, I went through all the fights with my parents and his parents and him. They all wanted me to have an abortion. I didn’t want to have the baby particularly, but I sure as shit didn’t want to have any abortion. I finally decided to keep the baby and told them all to fuck off; it was a great feeling. A month later I miscarried.”

“I’m sorry.” I turned and smiled at her. “And I’m not just being polite. I’m being cunningly obsequious.”

“It’s refreshing to meet someone so openly devious. I hope my confessions haven’t upset you.”

“Sounds like a normal childhood to me. I guess it was inevitable that you should end up with a professional football star racing across Texas and listening to Bob Dylan.”

The road suddenly ended at the edge of a cliff. There was no time to stop. The general alarm reaction flooded my bloodstream with adrenaline; I felt as though I’d been electrocuted. My body stiffened in panic. My mind clung to one hope: in the long history of monumental fuckups in Texas there was no known case of the highway department’s building a farm-to-market road over a cliff. I held my breath as the car bore on.

“It could be worse, I guess.” Charlotte smiled. “You could be drunk.”

“You mean I’m not.” The cliff mysteriously vanished and the road stretched out long and straight toward a bridge that looked about half the width of the car.

“... Why wait any longer for the world to begin

You can have your cake and eat it too ...”

About six miles past Lacota, Charlotte spoke. “Turn right at the next gravel road.”

It was her driveway and I followed it to a white wooden gate. A small frame bungalow stood outside the gate.

A young black man in a western shirt and Levi’s and a battered brown Resistol had come out of the bungalow.

“Is that you, Charlotte?”

“Yes,” she called out the window. “I have a friend with me. Do you want to come to the house with us?”

“Sure.”

Charlotte slid over. The black man opened the gate and then got into the car, reaching in front of Charlotte to shake my hand.

“Hello. I’m David Clarke.”

“Phillip Elliott,” I said, grasping his hand firmly. It was a warm greeting and it surprised me.

“The football player?” The inquiry was enthusiastic.

“It’s becoming a matter of opinion.”

“I enjoy watching you play.”

“You must have long stretches between thrills.”

He laughed. I was flattered.

The lights of the Buick caught the outline of a two-story frame house and several large outbuildings. It was a big farm. Two white Alsatians trotted out of one side of a two-car garage. The other side housed a white Mercedes 220 SL with blue California plates. The plates were two years old. An old red Chevrolet pickup was parked next to the garage. The white gravel road continued past the house, through another white wooden gate, and into the darkness of a back pasture. I stopped next to the house.

“Lemme get the dogs,” David said, jumping from the car and calling them to him.

I shut off the engine and got out. Charlotte slid out behind me and I followed her through a back door into the kitchen. David entered a few seconds later.

“David, take Phillip into the den, “I’ll fix some coffee.”

The den was gigantic. The far wall was an expanse of glass spreading some twenty feet across and reaching from the rough-beamed ceiling to the stone floor. The inside walls were covered with books. Two large sofas flanked a massive stone fireplace and a large Indian rug was spread on the floor between them.

David walked to the gigantic hearth and began building a fire.

He held a long fireplace match against the wood and turned a small key in the hearth. The fire exploded to life with a roar. “Have you lived here long?”

“A little over two years. I knew Charlotte in college and moved here with her when John went over. She didn’t want to live alone and he didn’t have any family worth knowing. They showed up the first week we were here, took one look at me and split. We ain’t heard from ’em since. They didn’t even come to the funeral.” David shook his head and smiled into the fire. “I told ’em I was Mexican. It didn’t seem to help.”

“Terrific. Next time tell ’em you’re a Reconstruction Republican. They’ll love that.”

“No thanks.” David’s voice was deep and resonant and he pronounced his words distinctly. “If they ever show up again, I’m hiding in the woodpile.” He tossed another log on the fire.

I stared at the hypnotic ripple of the flames. The mescaline was still working and the changing shapes and colors of the fire painted pictures from the past and future on my brain. I felt incredibly alive. I wanted to stick my hand into the fire and feel the flames wash against my skin like water.

“How do you like playing football? Professionally, I mean?” David turned from the fire to face me. His heavy brow was dotted with perspiration. A moderate Afro surrounded his face, making it seem small. A broad flat nose dominated his features.

“It’s hard to say. It’s better than selling life insurance but not as good as being born rich. You know, like just about everything.”

“I played some in high school, but just didn’t have the size or temperament for college.” David was six feet and well muscled. “I’m glad I’m out of it. High school and college sports are the hypocrisies. Pro ball admits that it’s for money, but high schools and college still talk all that character-building bullshit. Hell, when I was trying to make it in football, I thought people were supposed to treat me like shit. You know, earn my way to equality, be a credit to my race and crap like that.

“Well, the brothers and sisters are coming together.” David turned the small key in the hearth again and the roaring fire immediately died to an orange glow. Small tongues of flame clung to the charred logs. “Things are changing.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I’ve seen it, man. I spent a lot of time on the street before I came here and I’ve talked with a lot of people who believe like I do. There has to be more to this system than achievement games set up by the people in power. Look at your man Richardson, he won a court case and rented an apartment in north Dallas.”

“I wouldn’t consider Richardson an overwhelming victory. He wanted that apartment so he could be close to the practice field and I would imagine Thomas’ll be gone before his lease is up. His pride outweighs his usefulness to the club.”

“I dunno, man.” David straightened up and stepped away from the hearth. “That all sounds pretty bigoted and diabolical. If they’re that way, why haven’t they just cut him before this?”

“Because they’re businessmen and he was a relatively valuable piece of property. After all, you wouldn’t shoot a pedigreed bull for shitting in the yard. But Richardson is reaching a point of diminishing returns, where his demands on discipline and order outweigh his value. Andy Crawford is already a great running back and watch how many running backs they draft this year.”

David shook his head. “I don’t believe it, man. If he was getting fucked around like you say, how come the other blacks aren’t screaming about it?”

“Fear. They all got too much to lose. To them being a second-class citizen on a football team is a hell of a lot better than being a first-class citizen in south Dallas. The ones that did speak up are gone.”

David stabbed at the glowing wood. He seemed irritated.

“Well, man. What you say about the team may be all well and good. But I don’t see where you possibly got the knowledge to think you know what motivates a black man.” He pointed his finger directly in my face. “ ’Cause you don’t.” He wasn’t actually angry, but I had apparently excited him some.

“Listen,” I said in subdued tones, “what I’m telling you is only my opinion and I’m pretty high besides. But I’ve been in pretty close to both sides and commitment to anything other than one’s own survival is pretty pointless.”

I stared into the fire and we fell silent. The mescaline drew me into the coals. Survival: that was what Jerry Ragen had told us at the strike committee meeting. Representatives from all the teams were there and we were about to call for professional sports’ first labor walkout. The negotiations were being held in Los Angeles at the Beverly Wilshire. Maxwell had been elected a representative by the team and had chosen me to accompany him. I was to be a part of history.

“Survival. That’s what this strike is all about,” Ragen had said. “The survival of the players association is more important than the survival of any one player. That’s why I am proud as the president of the association to take these demands to the owners.”

Jerry Ragen had been a middle linebacker for Pittsburgh for nine years and had been president of the association for the past two years. “I’m glad to see everyone here. The guys from Detroit will be in on United at noon. I think it’s very important that the champions Detroit and Dallas are very prominent in our display of strength and unity of purpose. Seth. Why don’t you give us a few words on how the boys in Dallas feel?” Ragen had peered to the back of the room to where Seth and I sat, disheveled and hung over. We had gotten in the night before and had gone out drinking with a
Life
reporter who was doing a feature on Maxwell. We had gotten incredibly stoned and then met the reporter for dinner at an old converted warehouse called The Factory. The night had ended at five thirty
A.M.
We had passed out for four hours, then had taken some Dexamyl and made the ten
A.M.
meeting. My Dexamyl was just beginning to work when Maxwell got to his feet to address the strike committee “on how the boys in Dallas” felt.

“Well ... sure ... Jerry. Ah ...” His eyes were bloodshot and he nervously scratched at the heart-shaped mole on his unshaven chin.