North Dallas Forty (7 page)

“We’re just hybrid freaks hired to do a specific job of putting more numbers on a scoreboard. We’re like those chickens they shoot full of hormones so they’ll be all white meat.”

“What are you talkin’ about?” Maxwell growled.

“I was wonderin’ how I got so high and ...” I pointed to the waterlogged girl climbing out of the pool, “... if Jo Bob is gonna kill that woman.”

The girl snuck up and hit Jo Bob with a piece of lawn furniture. He grabbed her, slapped her twice, and tried to push her face into his crotch. Then he threw her back into the pool. Maxwell hadn’t taken his eyes off me.

“What is botherin’ you?” Maxwell pressed.

I turned to see if he wanted a serious answer. He did.

“Wonderin’ how I’m gonna make tomorrow, I guess. You know, the usual paranoid shit.”

“What are you afraid of now?” He was more incredulous than inquisitive.

“The same thing you are, Seth. I don’t buy that high school varsity confidence-in-the-face-of-all-things. This goddam incredible competition frightens me.”

“Shit, man. I thrive on competition.”

“So do I, but that don’t mean I like it.”

Maxwell frowned but remained silent

“Fear, man,” I continued. “It’s fear and hatred that supply us with our energy. They’re what keep us up.”

He shook his head, stretched out in the chair, and stared at his feet. After a long while he said, “I’m not afraid.”

“Not afraid of what?”

“Just ... not afraid.”

“Bullshit. You’re so scared of losing ...” I couldn’t think of how to end the sentence. I started again. “The hopelessness of it all, man, having to win. It’s just a flashy treadmill with no way off but failure. I know guys who are still trying to explain why they didn’t make it in high school. Telling me how the hand of God intervened to keep them from fulfilling a sixth grade potential that would have impressed the great Red Grange himself. It all finally boils down to circumstance and a matter of opinion. Ten thousand degrees of failure and only one champion.”

“What are you complainin’ about? You’re doin’ okay.”

“Things could be a lot better.”

“They could be a helluva lot worse.”

“My point exactly. They could be a helluva lot worse.”

Maxwell slid down in his chair, rested his neck against the seat back, and stared at the canvas roof. I assumed approximately the same pose and we didn’t speak.

“I wonder why we do it?” I sighed absently, tired of silence.

“The only way to find that out is to stop.”

He was right. But I wasn’t prepared to stop. I gazed vacantly across the water. The girl was gone. She either had escaped from Jo Bob or was at the bottom of the pool.

I was trying to decide whether Seth Maxwell had fallen asleep or was just waiting for my eyes to close so he could strangle me. Judging by the stiffness in my back and legs, I had drifted confused for some time.

I looked over at Maxwell; he looked asleep.

“Seth.” There was no answer.

I got up, walked around the pool and back into the apartment. Inside, Bob Dylan was finishing up Side 1 of
Blonde on Blonde
on the unattended stereo. Everyone had vanished. I was sorry I had missed Charlotte Caulder. Muffled sounds indicated something was in progress in Andy’s sleeping quarters. I shuffled down the hall, trying to clear my narcotized mind.

“Shhh,” Crawford signaled, as I stuck my head in the door.

He was wearing red silk boxer shorts with a large A.C. embroidered in white on the right thigh. A long, nude blonde lay on the bed to Andy’s right. At the foot of the bed two of the three stewardesses from Lubbock sat cross-legged. Everyone was facing across the room, to my left, where Alan Claridge perched atop the dresser, clothed only in a baseball hat. Standing between his legs was a girl I had not seen before. She was sucking him off.

“We’re timing him,” Crawford said, holding up a stopwatch.

I recognized the watch as the same one B.A. used to time quarterback setups.

“He’s been going three minutes and forty seconds,” the long blonde said, without taking her eyes from Claridge’s face, which was beginning to contort.

“I think he’s hitting the tape,” I offered.

The cocksucker turned her head slightly and strained out of the corners of her eyes to see who I was. I held up my hand, palm out.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” I said.

“Hon’t horry hou hon’t,” she replied, in perfect cadence.

“Says she’s gonna suck off every guy in professional football,” Crawford volunteered. “Claims she’s already done all the important Rams and 49ers.”

“She seems to be moving east,” I observed.

“Looks like it.” Crawford nodded. “Come on, help her realize her dream.” He pointed to the slumped shoulders and erotically bobbing head. “Send this girl to camp.”

It all seemed rather bizarre and tempting. I looked back to the blonde on the bed for a little encouragement but she looked right through me.

“No thanks,” I decided. “I guess I’ll go on home and jack off. I’ll send in Seth, he’s sleeping by the pool.” The girl increased her pace on Claridge. I could hear him as I closed the door.

“How long has it been,” he groaned, “not counting the next second?”

I was considering going back when Maxwell came in, stumbling and coughing.

“Where’s the party?” he moaned sleepily.

“The survivors are in the bedroom, trying for a league record.”

“Guess I’ll go back and show ’em what made me a star. You comin’?”

“No, but that’s what it’s all about.”

He eyed me curiously.

“I’m afraid I’d end up with a guy and like it,” I explained.

“Well,” he said, “different strokes for different folks.”

“Yeah,” I said, already sorry I had declined. I locked the front door behind me and hummed along with Dylan, who was doomed to spin the night through on Andy’s turntable.

“... and then you told me later

As I apologized

That you were just kiddin’ me

You weren’t really from the farm ...”

T
HE SUN WOKE ME.
It was 8:30
A.M.
and I felt like shit. My legs ached, my back was so stiff I couldn’t roll over, and my sinuses were full of plaster of paris. I slid out of bed slowly, hobbled bent over to the bathroom, and sat down on the commode. The only advice from my father that I ever followed was to shit first thing every morning. It was supposed to improve my health. I wondered what kind of shape I would be in if I weren’t regular.

Trying to blow a breathing hole through my shattered nose resulted in lots of blood but not much relief. My nose had been broken several times and the cartilage was now lodged at peculiar angles across the nasal passages. It made breathing difficult and uncomfortable.

I shoved a Q-tip deeply into the recesses of my sinus and dislodged several hunks of bloody effluence; breathing was easier for a while. The first hours of the morning were always the most miserable. Getting arthritic joints, torn muscles, and traumatized ligaments warm took at least an hour. In addition, large quantities of blood and mucus had to be emptied from my head.

The shower was hot, and I let it pound my neck and lower back. The chills signaled some easing of the general tightness.

The phone rang.

My knees were unusually sore this morning, and it made stepping out of the tub awkward. Wrapped in a towel, I shuffled on my heels, careful not to bend the knees.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Phillip.” It was Joanne. “I missed you last night.”

“I missed me last night, too. I’m sorry, I got hung up with Maxwell and ended up at Andy’s until about five.”

“Did I wake you?”

“I was already up.”

“Oh. Will I see you tonight?”

“Yes,” I promised. “Is he in town?”

“No, still in Chicago. He just called to say he can’t get back until tomorrow.”

“Then I’ll see you about eight.”

“Great!”

The kitchen was the usual mess. The sink was full of dirty dishes and the smell from the unemptied garbage was sickening. I could hear the distinctive scratching of cockroaches scurrying into hiding along the countertop. The wall above the stove was spotted brown from overperked coffee.

A bottle of Number Four codeine pills sat on the window-sill over the sink. I took a couple to temper my suffering. Codeine helped deaden the pain in my back and legs and allowed me the larger range of movements I needed to loosen my body for football. Codeine was sufficient for practice and most games, but frequently I needed stronger medication—Novocain or Demerol. And I noticed, recently, that even my doses of codeine were increasing markedly. It had become a heavy, daily medication.

If I left now I would have just enough time to make my ten o’clock meeting with B.A. I decided to smoke a joint. Puffing on it slowly, I got dressed, left the front door unlocked for Johnny my maid, jumped in the car, and headed for the North Dallas Towers and the team offices on the tenth floor.

The week before, B.A. had called me in because I had attended the week’s practice sessions in a false beard, a wig, and a top hat. By the end of the week several other players were attending practice in costume.

Jim Johnson, the defensive coach, went nuts. Johnson had cornered me at the weight stations while I was wearing the beard. “I don’t know who you think you are, but if I was the head coach here, your ass would be gone!”

“You ain’t the head coach.” I had stroked the beard thoughtfully.

“You son of a bitch!” Johnson choked and reached for my throat.

Just then the whistle blew, signaling the start of exercises. I dodged his outstretched hands and raced to the other end of the field, the beard trailing over my shoulder.

The steel and black-glass building, housing the team offices, loomed up on my right. I turned off the expressway, pulled in front, and parked in the fire lane. My brain was short-circuited by the day’s first joint and my body was beginning to feel the delicious numbing effects of the full grain of codeine.

The elevator doors opened at the tenth floor. The walls were covered with giant action photos, larger than life, halftone screens of fear and pain, stained brilliant magentas and cyans. I had been delivered to football land, where your wildest dreams had an option clause.

“Tell the coach I’m here.” I was standing at the reception desk.

The receptionist dialed B.A.’s office. “Phil Elliott is here to see the coach.” There was a pause. “Ruth wants to know,” the receptionist looked at me, “do you have an appointment?”

“No,” I lied. “But tell her I have an item in my briefcase no American home should be without.”

It was marvelous how they ran the front office. Forty men on the team, and at least one secretary and a receptionist stood between you and the head coach.

I danced a clumsy soft-shoe to the Muzak from the overhead speaker, my boots rasping against the short-pile blue carpeting. The codeine numbness had flooded my body, and my mind, released from pain, darted gleefully from thought to thought.

Bill Needham, the business manager, came out of the back offices.

“Hey, Phil,” he said, holding up a finger as he waddled toward me. “I need to talk to you. I got a bill from the hotel in Philly. You charged fifteen beers and ten chicken salad sandwiches to your room.”

“I know,” I said, frowning.

“You can’t do that.”

“I already did.”

“You get per diem. You’re supposed to eat off that and besides,” Needham paused for a breath, his huge stomach heaving with excitement, “fifteen beers and ten sandwiches. Did you eat that much?”

“Gotta keep my weight up.” I smiled and did a short dance.

“Clinton will have your ass.”

Clinton Foote was the general manager and director of player personnel.

“Tell Clinton,” I said, “that the chicken salad tasted like shit and not to pay the bill. Goddam city slickers, figured a hick like me couldn’t tell good chicken salad.”

Actually, Maxwell had ordered the food for a card game he had organized in our room and had forged my name on the bill. No sense telling management the truth. Ultimately, they would deduct the charge from my paycheck.

The reception phone rang.

“You can go in now, Phil.”

“Thanks.”

“You’d better get this straightened—” the door closed, cutting off Needham in midsentence.

I walked past the square little offices, full of razor-cut executives and action pictures of NFL stars on the walls. Each office was identically furnished, with stainless steel and an outside window. Business. Public relations. Player personnel. Assistant general manager. General manager. The next office was B.A.’s. Beyond, the hall opened into a large bullpen with small cubicles for the assistant coaches. At the back was the film room.

“Hi, Ruth. Should I just go in?” I did a quick tap step, ending on one knee with my arms extended toward her.

“Just have a seat.”

I sat in one of the two straight-back chairs. On the low table there was reading material to ease the wait.
The Care and Treatment of the Outside Sprain, Vol. 1, No. 11
and
The History of the Forward Pass.

“Fantastic,” I said.

“What?” Ruth looked up.

“The reading material.” I held up the piece about ankle nerves and ligaments. “It’s fascinating.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

The door to B.A.’s office opened and out walked Clinton Foote, general manager and director of player personnel.

“B.A. said to go on in,” Foote said, without looking at me.

Clinton Foote was an incredibly ugly man. His face, corrupted with pimples, pits, and blackheads, was indicative of his pride in his personal appearance. Clinton’s whole countenance looked rotted and it was a point of continuous conjecture why he seemingly cultivated his gruesomeness. The popular theory held that he didn’t want anyone looking in his eyes when he made contract promises.

Part of Clinton Foote’s job was to oversee the scouting and signing of draft choices and free agents. He was totally without honor or integrity, and stories comparing what Clinton promised with what he actually delivered rivaled fuck stories as training-camp time passers. He supplied the one true rallying point of the club. He was unanimously hated.