Safety Net (30 page)

In the grand scheme of things, a
broken finger shouldn’t have caused much panic, but this was Erick West, and it
was the ring finger of his right hand, and the news even reached the sports
blogs. One unofficial ranking site lowered Crocker’s standing by three slots.
It was slightly insane, and Erick himself, dealing with the cumbersome finger
splint and constant icing, didn’t seem worried. If Lowell fussed over him,
there were no witnesses. The only moment Dale observed was when they were
having dinner together in Hopkins, and Erick said musingly, “I’ve thought about
trying throws with my left hand. I have a lot of strength in my left.” And
Lowell looked at him with an absolutely peculiar mix of awe, dismay, and lust.

It figured that of the three of
them, Lowell would be the one to get through camp unscathed, Dale thought
sourly as he clenched his teeth through grueling physical therapy sessions. But
he’d thought too soon. The final week of camp Lowell took a hard hit and
suffered a minor concussion.

When the season opened, only Erick
got out on the field, and only for half the game. They played San Jose State,
and when Crocker’s lead nudged up to 48-0, Coach Miller sent Christiansen out
to finish the win.

The next week was Duke, and Lowell
was cleared for play but didn’t get sent in until late in the third quarter
when Lee took a wrong fall on his ankle and limped off to get iced. Erick
gripped the ball as if he’d never had a broken finger, and Crocker gained forty-one
points primarily off a running game with LeShawn Wells living up to his
reputation. Crocker’s defense kept Duke’s final score to a comfortable
twenty-one.

Their third game was the dreaded
Oregon, their first away game, but Erick was confident going in. The Ducks had
lost their terror of a wide receiver, and Erick had managed to outwit their
defense twice before. Dale, who was mobile again but not cleared for play,
actually feared Erick was getting cocky before remembering this was Erick. Dale
had to sit tensely on the sideline and watch the back-and-forth, neck-and-neck
game, itching to get out on the field and do his part. Tied at 35-35, the game
went into overtime, but the victory was Crocker’s with Anson Dempsey’s
touchdown.

When they met Oregon State the
following weekend, Wotoa, Dempsey, and Benton were all sporting new tattoos.
Benton and Dempsey tried cajoling Lowell into getting one, but Lowell declined,
saying he’d better keep his skin unadorned.

“What’s the matter? Your girlfriend
won’t like it?” Benton asked.

They were lounging around the
Hopkins dining commons the Sunday after beating Oregon State 37-14. Erick was
off doing a media thing, and Dale had been texting Andy, trying to lure him out
of the library. His knee injury had put a damper on their sex life; now that he
was recovering, Dale wanted to make up for lost time.

“Who is your girlfriend?” Anson
asked.

“I’m between girlfriends,” Lowell
said coolly.

“Do you want me to set you up?” Benton
asked, pulling his phone out and scrolling through a list of contacts.

Dale put in, “I’ve heard about your
cast-offs, Benton.”

Benton shrugged. “They’re not all
bad. Hey, this one’s good. She’s really pretty, very sweet.”

Lowell arched an eyebrow. “Then
what’s wrong with her? Why did you dump her?”

“She didn’t like to party, wasn’t
social enough for me,” Benton said. “That shouldn’t be a problem with you.”

Lowell clasped his hands behind his
head. “Just because some of us are actually getting an education...”

“Yo, I’m getting my fucking master’s
degree,” Benton said good-naturedly.

“I think what Menacker’s trying to
tell you,” Wotoa said evenly, “Is that he doesn’t trust your taste in women and
frankly, I don’t blame him.”

Benton tucked his phone away. “Just
trying to be helpful. Don’t come crying to me on those lonely nights when you’re
tired of your own hand.”

Lowell smiled smugly. “I said I
didn’t have a girlfriend. I didn’t say I wasn’t getting laid.”

Dale stared at him, his stomach
flopping. But Wotoa, Dempsey, and Benton laughed knowingly, and Benton clapped
Lowell’s shoulder and said, “A man after my own heart.”

Afterwards, as they were walking
back to Poitier, Dale said, “You fucking terrify me sometimes, Menacker. I can’t
believe you said that. And got away with it.”

Lowell shrugged. “It’s easier to
make people believe something they want to believe. Isn’t that why religion is
so successful?”

Dale rubbed a hand over his hair. “I’m
too bushed to get into a philosophical discussion with you. Is Erick coming
over after his interview?”

“He was planning to. Is it okay?
Are you and Andy...?” Lowell gestured vaguely, and Dale said, “Yeah, we’re
good, but apparently I have to prove I’m not an invalid anymore.”

Lowell chuckled a little. “Oh, bro.
I know what you mean.”

Dale glanced at him. “No way.”

Lowell rolled his eyes. “I didn’t
know I’d have to keep Erick from googling ‘concussion, blood vessels, and
strenuous activity.’ Freakin’ mother hen.”

“How strenuous?” Dale asked
curiously before he could stop himself.

“Um. Pretty strenuous.”

“Really.”
So that was why Erick
asked
. Dale watched him. “You’re blushing, homeboy.”

Lowell looked shy and after a
moment asked, “Did you ever think about us doing it? When we were fooling
around.”

Dale wasn’t sure why this
conversation wasn’t completely creeping him out yet. He supposed it had
something to do with seeing Andy within the next hour and his plans to disabuse
Andy of the idea that he needed to take it easy.

“No,” Dale said. “To tell you the
truth, my experiences in that department up until then hadn’t been great.”

“Oh.” Lowell frowned. “Sorry to
hear it.”

“It was a relief to me that you
never brought it up, that you were never interested in that.”

Lowell hesitated. “Um. I sorta was.
I just never said anything.”

He looked faintly embarrassed. For
a brief moment Dale imagined fucking Lowell. Fucking him the slow, incredible,
intense way Andy had shown him. And damn, he could imagine Lowell completely
loving it, basking in the attention and sensation. Lucky Erick.

Dale patted Lowell’s back. “I’m
glad you never said anything. Things went the way they were supposed to.”

Lowell smiled a little. “Yeah, they
did.”

That evening Dale successfully
proved to Andy they didn’t have to take it easy anymore, and the following week
he got the good news that he was cleared to play against their next opponent,
UCLA.

-----

Dear Candace,

Hi! Thank you for the e-mail. I’m
glad you’re doing all right. It was great to hear from you. Thanks for sending
me your phone number. I thought about calling but wasn’t sure if I should. Let
me know if it’s really okay with you.

You may have seen some of the media
this season. It’s a little crazy! I’m managing to find private time, but it’s
not easy. At the Arizona State game, there were so many reporters around the
stadium (because we haven’t lost a game since Rockridge last season) that they
brought in security guards to escort me into the locker room. Like I said, it’s
crazy!

Thank you for explaining about stuff
that happened in England and what’s been going on with you. I’m really sorry to
hear about your grandmother. I never knew one of my grandmothers, but I love my
Meemaw and don’t like to think about her not being around. I managed to visit
her this summer before training camp started. Trisha was there with the kids so
I met my niece and nephew finally. They are so cute! I was surprised. And they
don’t cry a lot. I thought it would be much worse. They must take after their
father. :)

There’s a lot of stuff going on with
me right now, too. Not just all the stuff about the team and the media. There’s
some personal stuff, too. I’d love to talk to you sometime. I don’t know if I’m
growing up or trying not to grow up. It’s confusing sometimes. Football is what
I’ve loved to do since I was a kid. It’s getting closer and more real that I’m
going to do this for a living. How can that be growing up? But it’s what I want
so much, I can’t imagine doing anything else. Isn’t that scary?

I’m talking about me too much! I
want to know about you. Please, let me know if it’s okay to call you.

Love,

Erick

-----

When Erick reached the fourth floor
of Poitier after his Business Principles in Design class, he stopped abruptly
and stared at the men standing in front of his room. One of them wore a suit
and the other one carried a laptop case. Erick drew back and lingered by the
stairwell until he heard Andy say firmly, “I said no, and if you don’t leave, I’m
calling campus security. This is university property and a private residence.
Unless you have the university’s permission to be here, you’re trespassing.”

The men said something else and
left. Erick waited until they’d gone off in the elevator.

“Shit,” he said, coming into the
dorm. “I’m sorry about that. Who were they?”

Andy looked up from his laptop and
said mildly, “You assume they were here for you, not me?”

Erick stopped short. “Oh. What?
They were here to see you?”

“No,” Andy chuckled. “I was
kidding. Of course they were here for you. I don’t know who they were. They
said something about recruitment but I couldn’t tell if it was the name of a
blog or their company or if it was NFL recruitment or even military
recruitment, for all I know. Maybe they were CIA.”

Erick slid his textbooks and laptop
onto his desk and sat down in the chair. He grinned and said, “Football player
by day, international spy by night. I like it.” He paused. “Sorry for the
hassle though.”

Andy shrugged, typing on his
laptop. “Comes with the territory.” He glanced up. “Things might cool down if
you could lose a game or two this season. Just a suggestion.”

Erick tsked. “And you call yourself
a Crocker student. Blasphemy. And don’t give Dale any sabotage ideas, either.”

“Yeah, like Dale would do anything
to jeopardize your and Lowell’s happiness,” Andy murmured, and there was a bite
to it.

“Dale likes to win as much as we
do,” Erick said, watching Andy carefully. “I don’t think it’s all about us.”

Andy looked at him, silent and
serious. At last he said, “If only that were true,” and went back to his work.
Erick, not knowing what to say to that, went to study in his bedroom.

Later, he mentioned the
conversation to Lowell, and Lowell’s take was that Andy was just being pissy
because he’d had to ward off some of Erick’s stalkers, as Lowell called them.
Erick had the feeling there was more to it than that, and he intended to ask
Dale about it, but he couldn’t figure out how without making it sound like he
was dissing Andy, so he let it go and forgot all about it.

-----

Western
Promise

Erick
West interviewed by Ted Frankel; photographs by Alexei Lau

For our interview, Erick West eschews the controlled
environment of the Crocker University football offices for a booth in the
bustling coffee house at the student union. Sitting so he can watch a baseball
game on the wall-mounted TV, West opens the conversation with an anecdote from
his freshman year: he met a girl who didn’t know Crocker University had a
football team.

“I think everyone knows now,” he says with a
grin. His confidence isn’t empty boasting. Since becoming Crocker’s starting
quarterback, he’s led the team through two winning seasons and to a BCS bowl
game victory. As of this writing, his record at Crocker is 26-5.

A Heisman finalist last year, his name is
already strongly connected to the Heisman Trophy this year, as the Crocker
athletic department’s PR arm will enthusiastically tell you. Crocker’s only
Heisman winner was Don Douglas in 1971, and you have to go back to 1988 to find
a previous finalist, running back Sandy Howell. Crocker, as every other
athletic department in the PWAC likes to say, is not a football school.

When asked how a Heisman-caliber quarterback
came to be at Crocker, West talks about former head coach Tom Bowman. Bowman
was an NFL quarterback with two Super Bowl victories under his belt before he
transitioned into coaching, first with a stint as offensive coordinator at
Florida International University before Crocker University offered him the head
coaching position after firing Dawson Lang. After a rocky 1-11 start, Bowman
transformed Crocker football into an offensive powerhouse, partly by recruiting
top talent such as West.

“I wanted to get a good degree,” West says. His
major is industrial engineering, and Crocker’s program consistently ranks in
the top five. It is a notoriously rigorous program, not the free ride commonly
associated with football scholarships, yet West has teammates as classmates:
kicker Bryan Boylan recently entered the program, and former wide receiver Lyle
McIlvaine graduated in May with a double major in industrial engineering and
business administration. West’s grade point average is 3.5.

“Erick is highly motivated, very ambitious,” praises
Dr. Jeremy Kirkpatrick, professor of industrial systems. “He never shies away
from the hard problems. He faces them head-on and is determined to solve them.”
A mindset West obviously brings to the football field.

“Erick came to Crocker as a very good, talented
young quarterback,” says Head Coach Donald Miller, who was offensive
coordinator under Bowman and took over when Bowman moved on to coach the Los
Angeles Stars. “It’s been exciting to watch him improve. What makes him a great
quarterback is that he doesn’t reach a new peak, doesn’t break a new record,
and stop there. He’s constantly looking for his weaknesses and how to get
beyond them.”