North Dallas Forty (25 page)

“I won’t, man. Jesus I won’t. Goddam. Too much.”

I walked to the tape counter in the training room and grabbed a roll of flesh-colored half-inch tape to change the splint on the two fingers I had dislocated.

The adrenaline, triggered by the news about Sunday, mixed with the chemicals already washing around inside my body. It was more than I could comfortably handle. I tried splinting my fingers, getting the tape tangled and succeeding only in pulling all the hair off my knuckles.

B.A.’s decision to use me more on Sunday was easy to understand. I would play Sunday because we could cinch the division title, and New York at home was always tough. For his need to win B.A. was willing to risk slight damage to discipline. I was an optical accessory to his winning machine. Last week I had been hot; if I cooled off one degree I’d be out on my ass again.

At this point it didn’t matter to me. I had known these things and had somehow managed to survive, powerless to control my own fate. It seemed that something like this happened every year, giving me just enough power to stay alive professionally.

And even if all the reasons for playing were a mass of fictions and personal contradictions, the thrill of playing was no less real and that thrill is indescribable. Doing something better than anyone else in front of millions of people. It is the highest I have ever been.

We were going through a last-minute polish of our goal line short yardage offense when the fight broke out. I had been standing behind the offensive huddle and had watched it building for several plays. Jo Bob was working at right offensive tackle against Monroe White at left defensive end. Monroe, I’m sure, was still simmering over finding the toad in his helmet. The drill was supposed to be three-quarter speed for offensive polish but Monroe was moving that extra step faster, causing Jo Bob to be late for his blocks.

Maxwell called a straight dive wedge, a good play to get a yard, not much more. On the snap Monroe submarined on Jo Bob and the startled tackle fell sprawling on top of the rooting black man. The hole was plugged and Crawford got nowhere.

“Goddammit, Jo Bob,” Jim Johnson screamed at the tired, sweating man as he scrambled to his feet, “you gonna let that guy push you all over this field. Maybe we oughta move him into your spot and let you be the wedge buster on the kick returns.”

Jo Bob walked back to the huddle with his head down, swearing softly between tightly clenched teeth. It was late in the practice and tired, worn nerves were stretched to the breaking point.

“Okay, Jo Bob,” Maxwell soothed in the huddle. “We’ll get that sandbagger this time. Green right dive forty-three on two.”

It was a straight handoff and dive into the gap between guard and tackle. The tight end would block down on White to make him play pressure and fight away from the play. Jo Bob would drive him straight back or outside. On the snap Monroe drove straight into the gap and grabbed the ball carrier as soon as he got the ball. Jo Bob, anticipating an outside move, struck out into thin air and flopped helplessly on the ground.

“Jo Bob,” Johnson’s tone was painfully patronizing, “if you don’t think you can do this drill, maybe we ought to go full speed.”

Jo Bob’s eyes were glazed. His nostrils flared as his body shook from almost uncontrollable fury. While Maxwell called the next play, Jo Bob stood straight up in the huddle and watched Monroe White, who glared back. Jo Bob clenched and unclenched his fists. I knew a fight was coming.

On the snap Jo Bob jumped up and hit Monroe on the side of the head with his forearm and the fight was on. Everyone stood shocked at the sights and sounds of these two giant, heavily padded men, flailing away at each other. The sounds of fists and forearms against helmets and face masks was almost deafening. It sounded like somebody hitting telephone poles with baseball bats. Johnson and B.A. exchanged grins, delighted at what they felt was an indication of the team’s readiness to play.

After several moments B.A. nodded at Johnson and he moved toward the two men.

“Okay, you guys.” The defensive coach stepped forward with the assurance of a drill instructor. “Let’s break it up.” He was smiling as he came between the two men. Jo Bob hit Johnson flush in the chest with a fist and he sat down, his eyes wide, gasping for breath. A cheer went up from the men assembled watching the fight.

Jo Bob jerked off his headgear and started swinging at White, who took the blows rather neatly on his forearm pads. He kicked at Jo Bob with his cleats, knocking out a hunk of flesh the size of a half dollar from Jo Bob’s shin. Jo Bob threw his headgear at the black man. The helmet flew by White’s ear and struck O.W. Meadows in the hand.

“Goddam you, Jo Bob, you dumb cocksucker,” Meadows screamed, and pounced on the exhausted Jo Bob. They both fell in a heap on the ground. Johnson had regained his feet and breath and was trying to hold off White, who wanted to kick Jo Bob now that he was down.

“Come on, Monroe, come on now,” Johnson tried to pacify the raging black man.

The giant defensive tackle tried to move around Johnson and the coach parried his move by stepping in front of him again and grabbing his arms. White shook free and turned on Johnson.

“Leave me alone, mothahfuckah,” he screamed at the ex-marine. Johnson blanched white but stood his ground.

The whole team, most of whom were grinning at Johnson’s predicament, were gathered around the struggling men. Meadows was sitting on Jo Bob’s chest, cussing. Johnson had placed a hand in the middle of Monroe White’s chest and was standing between him and the prostrate Jo Bob.

“Get yo’ han’s off me, mothahfuckah.” Monroe tried again to move around the coach who courageously stood his ground.

“Just cool off, Monroe, I—” Johnson started to talk when suddenly the huge black man turned on him and grabbed his throat. Johnson looked like a doomed chicken, with his eyes bulging and his feet dangling in the air. The coach wrenched free and ran terrified through the crowd. The sight of a coach running for his life broke the tension and the field rocked with laughter. Johnson stopped running and looked back at the men. He turned red and walked on into the clubhouse. B.A. called practice and all of us went to shower, still giggling at the memory of the frightened coach, his shirt in tatters around his neck, running like a bandit from Monroe White.

In a codeine-inspired optimism I skipped the full ritual of my treatment, taking only ten minutes to soak the length of my legs in ice water. It hurt like a bitch but kept down any chance swelling.

“Do you wanna go for a beer?” Maxwell stood in front of the tub of ice water, naked except for his traditional towel over the shoulder. “Hartman and I are goin’. I thought I’d break the kid into the full responsibilities of quarterback.” His voice dropped into the whiskey rasp.

“Have to pass, man,” I said, moving my legs around in the water, the bone-deep ache occupying most of my consciousness. “But lemme use that towel.” I stepped out of the tub.

“Okay,” Maxwell said, “see you in the morning.”

By 3:20
P.M.
I was driving through the South Dallas ghetto, smoking a joint. I would be in Lacota by 4:00.

South Dallas blacks aren’t a deprived ethnic group, they’re a different civilization living in captivity. Just blocks from the phenomenal wealth of Elm and Commerce streets, South Dallas was a hyperbole. A grim joke on those who still believe we are all created equal. There isn’t even a real struggle for equality. Equality with what? The white man? No, he’s crazy. The blacks seemed to be waiting, watching, knowing they would always be getting fucked. They took solace in the dependability.

I pulled off the expressway at Forest Avenue and glided into a service station. A middle-aged black man with protruding front teeth walked up to my open window.

“Fill ’er up?” he asked. I nodded and he eyed me suspiciously, then walked to the back of the car. After a suitable interval I heard the musical ding as the gas pumped into the car.

The attendant walked up beside me again, still peering into my face. I handed him my credit card. He studied it. “Ah knowed it. Ah knowed it was you,” he said, his face shattering into a smile and his teeth seeming to move farther out of his mouth. “How you doin’ Mistah El-yut?” He stuck his hand in through the window and we shook.

“Fine, fine,” I said, grinning, caught up in his enthusiasm.

“I been watchin’ you play fo’ years,” he said. “You sho’ look a lot bigger than you do on the fiel’!”

“I am a lot bigger than I am on the field.”

He laughed hard and stuck out his hand to be slapped. I responded rather clumsily.

“Hey, man,” his voice softened and his eyes became serious, “can’t you do nothin’ ’bout that new stadium they’s gonna build? I can’t ’ford no one-thousand-dollar bond.” He pronounced the last words carefully.

“Me an’ Gerald over there,” he pointed to another black man sweating over a truck tire and several assorted tire tools, “an’ a couple other cats been gettin’ together every Sunday since you guys been here. We got just ’nuf money fo’ fo’ tickets in the end zone and chip in a quota’ fo’ gas. If they build that new stadium, I ain’t gonna get to go.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, man. I feel like you do, but I just work for ’em. They don’t listen to me.”

“I can ’member,” he began again, “when I could go to the Cotton Bowl on Sunday an’ buy a ticket fo’ a dolla’ an’ sit in the end zone. Now they wants six dolla’ and I have to go all the way to the no’th side of town to get my ticket. Ev’ry year the price go up. Now they wants one thousand dollars befo’ they even let me stand in line to buy a ticket.”

“It’s sorta like a dope habit, ain’t it?” I offered. “They lower the price at first to get you interested, then once they got you hooked, boom, it’s six bucks and risin’.”

“You right, man,” the black man replied. “Dat’s jus’ what they do. Boy, I don’t know what we gonna do on Sunday, now. They won’ even let us watch it on TV. Cain’t you do nothin’?”

I shook my head.

A loud clunk signaled my tank was full. The attendant took my credit card to the small office, stopped to talk to Gerald, and pointed to my car. Gerald came over and extended his hand through the window.

“Jes’ wanna say I met ya,” Gerald said, sweat droplets running along the gouges the frown made in his face. He was a good-looking man.

“Hey, how are you?” I responded as we shook hands.

“You guys gonna play in that new stadium?” he asked.

“Ain’t got no choice,” I answered. “That is, if we want to play at all.”

“It’s a bitch, ain’t it?” He frowned deeply and wiped the sweat off his face.

“Yeah, it’s a bitch,” I said, feeling quite foolish.

The buck-toothed fellow returned with my credit card and I signed the ticket. We all shook hands again and they wished me luck in New York.

Once through south Dallas I turned east and wound through the bucking, twisting hills that rolled toward the pine-tree country and Louisiana beyond. I always enjoyed the country outside Dallas. One minute you were crawling from light to light in a grimy ghetto and the next you were speeding through the rolling hills of north central Texas, watching cattle grazing or cotton growing. An expectant buzzard circled the black ribbon of asphalt. He was watching intently for a skunk or an armadillo to misstep and be served up on the roadside by the noisy steel monsters that raced back and forth.

A house cat stood in an open field and watched a cottontail flee across the road, the cat too smart to follow.

The horizon was clearly etched as the rolling black land met the clear blue sky; old abandoned farm buildings and an occasional naked oak or elm, its branches outlined against the blue like giant nerve endings, gave a forsaken feel to the landscape.

In the last few years it began to take more time to get to the farm country. Land that had been used to raise cattle and cotton was being changed to grow people. Huge signs announced young dream in orange Day-Glo and three-to-nine-acre ranchettes that could be financed for twenty years. House trailers and modular homes set on treeless plots, bordered by white Kentucky fences, could with a little imagination, $1,550 down, and a house trailer become a nine-acre Ponderosas. Everybody could be Ben Cartright.

But the land was still out there and not that hard to reach. Sometimes I felt that knowledge was what kept me from going totally crazy in Dallas. Maybe. Someday. But lately that fantasy didn’t seem to hold. How could I return to the land? I had never been there in the first place.

The tires of the Riviera began to hum as the car crossed an Army Corps of Engineers bridge. A manmade lake glimmered silver in the afternoon sun. One of the many government built lakes that had turned farmers into resort developers.

The steeple of the Lacota courthouse glowed an earth-red. I noticed three county sheriff cars parked on the square. I put out the joint I was smoking, and ate it.

A group of high school boys in faded Levi’s and plaid shirts stood around a maroon GTO parked in front of the Rexall drugstore. Two of them wore new black Resistol hats with the Long Cattleman crease, dipped in front and back. They turned as I approached and then watched motionless as I stopped the brand-new Riviera at the corner. I could feel their eyes and felt like an intruder, strangely out of time and place. I turned slowly to the left, continuing around the square. As the car straightened out I pushed the accelerator enough to make the stock mufflers bubble and the low-profile tires squeak.

When I reached the gate leading to Charlotte’s house, I noticed an orange Continental Mark III was blocking the drive. Red-and-white personalized license plates read:
M FUNDS
. The car belonged to Bob Beaudreau, and he was standing at the gate arguing with David Clarke.

“Just open the goddam gate.” Beaudreau’s raging face matched his red sport coat and slacks. White tassel-loafers cased his feet; his torso was bisected by a wide white belt.

“I told you, man, she don’t want you up there.” David’s lips curled back in a mixture of fear and anger. Pushing his worn cowboy hat down over his forehead, he leaned back against the gate.