Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile (16 page)

We are very happy to be in Vegas. We splash around in the water and make friends.

—What do you guys do?

—You play for the Broncos?

—
What?!
Honestly, like, the Broncos are
literally
like, my favorite teeeeeeam!

—Oh, my
Gawd
! Let’s take a picture!

Our cocktail waitress is pretty and easy to talk to. I like the way she keeps her bottle opener tucked into the side of her red bikini bottoms. As the sun arcs above us, we become best friends. She likes me for me, I tell myself, not for the excessive bottles and shots I’m ordering.

We meet a bachelorette party in the pool. The bachelorette considers Charlie for the “random football player she’ll cheat on her fiancé with” item on her list.

The sun is almost down. The pool is almost closed. We’re the last group. The cocktail waitress sits down next to me as we close out our bill.

—What are you guys doing tonight?

—I think we’re going to Tryst. Do you want to come?

—Maybe!

—Maybe?

—Yes, maybe. Give me your number and I’ll text you later if I can come.

We all go up to our respective rooms for some quiet time before the evening. The rooms at the Wynn are nice and spacious. I throw my board shorts on the couch and walk to the floor-to-ceiling window. Las Vegas: so beautiful, so ugly. I plan the evening in my head, lie back on the bed, and doze off.

A knock at the door from room service wakes me up. Pepperoni pizza, chicken fingers, fruit, side salad, water, six beers, service charge, delivery charge, casino charge, resort fees, utensil rental, tip: $112.67. Whatever. It’s just my signature.

We meet downstairs and play blackjack. We look for the cocktail waitress. Where is that lovely woman? I can’t wait to meet her. Oh there she is.

—Hello, Edna. A Tanqueray and tonic, please.

I win nine hundred dollars in thirty minutes. Give forty to the dealer, forty to Edna. The cocktail waitress from the pool texts me.

—Hey! Me and my girlfriend are coming. You boys better be nice!

Just before midnight we go to Tryst. We spot Ryan, our VIP host. We all shake hands, then he pulls up the velvet rope and we walk in, past legions of random dudes waiting. I lock eyes with myself, seven years younger. I look restless.

—We have you guys at a great table. You’re going to like it.

I put down my credit card. Ryan ushers us past a few more ropes and lines and we walk down the staircase and into the long hallway of the club, where the lighting changes from paltry to sultry. Ryan was right. It is an excellent table: near the dance floor but not too close. Charlie slips Ryan a few large bills. He leaves us, and I turn to my brethren.

—Fellas, what do we want to drink? It’s a three-bottle minimum.

—Three bottles? Dawg, are we gonna drink all that?

—We have no choice!

—Vodka.

—Vodka.

—Vodka.

—Tequila?

—Yeah, tequila is good, too. We’ll start with those two and worry about our third bottle later.

Grey Goose and Patrón: bottle-service booze brilliantly marketed to the tune of $475 apiece. It’s the price of having your own table and couch: your own private island in a sea of sleaze.

Our waitress introduces herself. She’s a typical Vegas industry girl: hypersexual, overproduced, worn-out. I give her our order.

—What mixers do you guys want? OJ, tonic, soda, Red Bull, cranberry?

—All of the above.

—Okay. Do you want some water?

—Yeah, six.

While she’s gone the bouncer in our area introduces himself.

—Fellas, you look like you don’t need any help but if you do, let me know. Anything you need, I got you.

Handshakes and hugs all around. These people really love us.

Our waitress from the pool arrives with her friend. She looks much different done up and dressed to go out. No bottle opener and no bikini but she looks very good. I pour them vodka and Red Bulls. We yell into each other’s ears from inches away. I ask questions. She gives answers. We chuckle with tight lips.

After the arbitrary get-to-know-you conversation, I push through the haze of smoke and bad decisions and go to the bathroom. When I return, women have emerged from the fog, pulled toward us by our oversized pituitaries and our caveman libidos, vibrating the floorboards like a Dr. Dre bass line. The music pulses through the high-octane speaker system and into my bones. I lean back on the cushy couch and watch. Who are all of these girls? I don’t think they actually exist. The paper in our pockets has conjured them out of thin air. And now everything is open wide: arms, doors, and legs. We are young, physically powerful men with money. Big money usually doesn’t come quickly. When it does, it’s rarely because of physical prowess. We are temporarily rich
because
we are bigger and stronger than you. This unnerves people constantly. Well, it unnerves men. It nerves women.

A few tables away a group of Englishmen start throwing money in the air. Dead presidents are pinwheeling around us in the current of the high-powered air conditioners. The Brits are jumping up and down on their couches yelling. They are spraying champagne.

A table of Persians is not to be outdone. They start throwing money in the air, too: but they use larger bills. The whole club stops to honor the moment. One of our new friends walks over and scoops up a handful of cash and comes back to us. She drops the money on our table next to several nearly empty bottles of booze.

—That’s for later.

Girl from the Pool and I look at each other and laugh. Her red lips and white teeth shine in the blue-black backdrop. I want to kiss her. Our hypersexual waitress has started drinking with us. Now she’s dancing with us. Now she’s giving Kyle her number.

—You better call me! What are you guys doing tomorrow? There’s this cool bar off the Strip that we should go check out if we have a chance.

It is 3:30 a.m. We have been through five bottles. Our bill is over three thousand dollars. I tip the waitress five hundred. Fifteen percent really shouldn’t apply to bills like this but who cares. I will collect the money from the boys later if I remember. We skip into the casino with ten new friends.

—What’s the plan? Is anyone tired?

A sweet harmony of “No!”

Cab line is too long again. We find a limo and we get in. A hundred dollars for a half-mile trip to Drai’s at Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall. More free water. Turn up the music. Sing songs of the damned. Pull up to the curb. Tip our driver an extra twenty. He gives me his card. There’s a small mob in front of the entrance to Drai’s. We walk to the front of the line. Ryan is a host there, too. He opens the rope.

—You guys want a table? It’s just a one-bottle minimum. Otherwise it’s pretty crowded down there.

—Yeah, let’s do it.

Another credit card changes hands, another sacred gate unlocked. We descend the stairs to the vampire dungeon. Googly-eyed bobblehead dolls float across the sticky dance floor, pause to light cigarettes, can’t steady the flame, close one eye, finally get it lit. The bathroom attendant broods over a glass vase full of bills. He squirts soap into my hand. Dries my hands off. Zips up my fly. I drop a five-spot into the vase. We bump fists: best friends forever.

I walk around and engage in one-liner small talk with approachable vampires. I feel the wad of cash in my pocket. It wants to be spent and I want to spend it. I want to feel the bills peeling off one at a time, slowly lightening the stack. I want to pass them along and keep the Vegas food chain strong. I want to help the economy. I want to spend my money to remind myself that I have it, to remind myself that I am special, that I am desirable, that I am somebody.

The rest of the night dives into the gutter.

W
e fly back to Denver when we’ve had enough. The taste on my lips makes the self-loathing easier to swallow. The paper in my pocket is gone.

After a few hard days of working out, the Vegas fog is lifted and only the beautiful memories remain. I have been texting Girl from the Pool since I got back to Denver. One day, after having spoken the previous day, she texts me and tells me she is having phone problems and will be using a different phone until she gets it fixed. Later that day, she amps up the flirting and asks if I’ll send her a picture. “You first,” I say. She sends me a couple of innocuous pictures of her: one at a table with a “Happy New Year” hat on, one posing outside near a bush. So I send her a few innocuous ones of my own.

The next day I wake from a nap to a very long voice-mail message from her. She says that she is married. Well, she’s separated. It’s a long story. But her husband has gone through her phone and discovered our flirty texting. He then texted
me
, pretending to be her, and gave me the broken phone story. The number that he redirected me to was his own. I sent pictures of myself to her husband, after he sent pictures of his wife to me. Oh, she was sorry, so sorry about this; so, so sorry. I soak my phone in bleach and get back to work lifting heavy pieces of metal.

We are done working out by noon every day. It’s a very good feeling showering after a hard workout, sitting down for a free lunch and looking up at the clock, knowing I have the rest of the day to do whatever I want. It’s the ideal stoner schedule, really. Wake up early, shake off the cobwebs of last night’s fun with some exercise and have the rest of the day to kill. But NFL stonerdom is a more calculated endeavor. The off-season months, which might be used to make ganja-induced epiphanical deposits in the bank of the soul, instead are spent abstaining in anticipation of the league’s once-a-year street drug test. By the time the draft comes around, you’d better be good and clean, because the testing starts during minicamp. Like Greek said years ago, if you can’t pass this test, you’re either stupid or you’re an addict. Either way, you need help.

They test one position group at a time. Sometimes it comes in May, sometimes in June, sometimes in July, and sometimes not until August. The August test is a real buzzkill. That means months and months of thumb-twiddling and gazing off into the distance, enticed by nothing but raging hormones. Stoners are content sitting on the couch and thinking. Nonstoners need actual action to pacify them. They need booze and sex: or God. God is usually the odd man out. The NFL should remove marijuana from their banned substances list. Don’t tell anyone about it: just stop testing for it. Pain is a big problem in the NFL. Pain management is necessary. Weed is the least harmful and least addictive of the painkillers players use to cope with the violent demands of the game. Drug use in the NFL mirrors drug use outside of the NFL. Pills reign supreme. There are more overdoses in America from prescription painkillers than from cocaine and heroin combined. And no one ever overdoses from weed. The problem is pills and booze. A joint can alleviate the need for either and plant buttocks firmly on the couch, where a
MacGyver
marathon takes on epic proportions. And no one gets hurt, except for the idiot who locked MacGyver in the bowels of a sinking ship.

The week after the draft is our first minicamp. At the urging of their position coaches, the rookies transcribe every phrase uttered during meetings, assuming they are all important. That used to be me. They’ll learn soon enough. You don’t need to write down a word. The constant drone is by design. It seeps into your brain regardless.

Out on the field, minicamp practices are fast and crisp. Coach wants us practicing at game speed. If you practice slow, the game feels too fast. If you practice fast, the game feels slow. Knowing
how
to practice is just as important as knowing
what
to practice. But the rookies are lost in both regards. Not only do they have to figure out the tempo and the nuanced contact/noncontact line that we toe every day, but they have to learn a new language extremely fast. Each offensive system is a foreign language. Its cornerstone terms have no meaning outside the system. The terminology is dictated quickly and with the assumption that it is understood, even when there is no way it will be. We install the entire playbook in the first few days, knowing full well that it will whistle through the ears of most everyone, because during the second minicamp, it will be installed again, and again during training camp, until it becomes second nature. Until then, there will be confused rookies getting yelled at for fucking up play after play, day after day. I’m happy to be done with it. My grasp on the offense is complete. No surprises and no confusion. I can just go out and practice hard, then come in and hope the Pee Man is ready for me, so I can go home and watch
MacGyver
.

I
n early June Coach Shanahan hosts his annual golf tournament. It’s a popular event, drawing wealthy and influential people from all over the country. It usually falls during the week, and Coach gives us the option of going to the tournament or working out at the facility as scheduled. If we go to the tournament we get credit for the workout.

And if you go to the tournament you don’t have to play golf. You can just ride around in a golf cart and schmooze. Those of us who play, maybe twenty of us, are put in foursomes with corporate bigwigs or local heroes or cookie-cutter rich dudes. There are gift bags at the check-in desk, sponsored holes, gourmet food, beer tents, endless prizes, video cameras, and an awards dinner at the end of it. Golf balls are stacked into pyramids at each tee on the driving range. The beer is free and fully stocked at every hole.

Cigars are lit and we tee off. It’s a scramble, or “best ball” format, so my poor golf skills are protected. I’m the “Broncos player” in the group. Although they would have preferred one of our big-name guys, they’ll take what they can get. And once their disappointment with their pairing wears off, they feel great knowing that no matter who I am, they’re probably better than me at golf. Coach Shanahan always says that if a player is really talented at golf, it’s not a good sign. I find this encouraging. We have a few decent golfers on the team, but they are always either quarterbacks, kickers, or snappers: finesse guys. For the most part, football players swing a golf club like they are trying to make a tackle. That doesn’t translate to a good golf shot. Our foursome bonds over my inability to relax and swing the club. We toast our beers and pull on our cigars. I act like I know how to smoke one. We get drunk and tease each other. Does your husband play? Ha!