The Legend of Jesse Smoke (24 page)

We whipped Kansas City without too much trouble, 35 to 10. Jesse ran the shuttle pass behind the center twice in the first half. Mickens gained 18 yards the first time we ran it—he was dragged down inside the 1-yard line. The second time, right before the end of the second quarter, he went 16 yards for a touchdown. Jesse was cheered like a rock star every time she ran onto the field, every time she completed a pass, as loud as anything I ever heard in that stadium. She completed 18 passes out of 23, for 257 yards and 2 touchdowns. She got knocked down a few times, after she’d released the ball.
There was one really bad sack in the first half—she got hit so hard I worried if she’d get back up again. But she jumped up a moment later and handed the ball to the referee, who had thrown his flag and charged the defense with roughing the passer. (The guy who got charged with the penalty—a pretty good linebacker named Renaldo Kane—complained to the press after the game that it was a bad call. “Those refs feel sorry for her because she’s a girl, so we can’t even bump her a little bit. I barely touched her.” But let’s be clear: He hit her in the neck with the crown of his helmet, which is roughing the passer, whether the passer is male or female.) Jesse ended up with a bloody gash across her nose that bled for most of the rest of the half. It was all over the front of her jersey, but the men seemed to rally around her when they saw the blood and the way she herself seemed to ignore it, blocking that much harder. Those men were ready to kill for Jesse. The second half, she did much better. I think she only got knocked down once.

Jesse’s most spectacular touchdown pass was to Anders. She dropped back and held her ground for a bit, looking downfield, then she sensed a blitz coming from her right. She drifted a bit to her left, then rolled that way, looking downfield. Anders had run from wide on the left side, a deep post, so he was running across the field, deep to the right, away from where Jesse was going. Just before anyone got to her, while she was still moving those quick, beautifully positioned feet, she threw a 40-yard bomb that dropped over Anders’s right shoulder as he raced to the corner. It was a perfect pass, and the crowd could see it coming while the ball was in flight—could see it even before Anders looked back for it. You could
hear
their anticipation. The sound of that—of an entire crowd just beginning the intake of breath ahead of a scream, while the ball makes its arching way to a certain touchdown—it’s got to be one of the most wonderful sounds on earth. You have to be in the stadium to hear it. It’s as though the ball draws any noise into itself as it spins through the air toward the man running under it, his hands not yet outstretched for it. And
when the ball comes down into the man’s hands so that he doesn’t even have to reach for it—when he takes it as though it’s been dropped off a shelf two feet above his head—the noise reaches its crescendo and the place erupts. It’s maybe the most beautiful thing in athletics. It beats an ace in tennis, a home run in baseball, a dunk or spectacular three-point shot in basketball. There’s nothing close to it.

After the Kansas City game, Jesse wore a Band-Aid across her nose. She was self-conscious about it, but I thought she looked cute. So did the media. The fashion world caught on to her all over again. There was still talk about Jesse really being a man, but now there was a large enough contingent of adults and people with half a brain who ignored that talk. Even the press stopped talking overmuch about it, although Roddy always wanted to know how it made her feel. To which she always answered that she didn’t feel anything. “I can’t control what people think,” she said.

Nate and Andy kept calling her and trying to set up photo shoots and meetings with every kind of commercial venture. The team public relations director—a guy named Harold Moody—bombarded her with requests for interviews from the press, from magazine writers, sports commentators, and talk show hosts. She didn’t have enough time in a day to take everything that came her way.

More people knew who Jesse Smoke was than any other human being on the planet. Hell, folks who couldn’t remember who the president of the United States was, they knew Jesse Smoke.

It was frightening.

Finally we had a meeting with Andy and Nate and Jesse. We also included Justin Peck, her football agent; Harold Moody; and Coach Engram. The meeting was Engram’s idea, but I agreed to it. Something had to be done to stem the tide of demand on Jesse’s time. We planned to meet on the Monday after the Kansas City game—an off day for the players.

What we couldn’t have predicted was Edgar Flores showing up just as we were all sitting down at the table in the coaches’ meeting room.

“Well,” Flores said. He wore a white sports jacket, a black shirt, gray slacks, and black-and-white wingtip shoes. His dark hair piled a little higher than normal on his head. He looked tan—as if he’d just walked off a beach or a golf course. He was carrying a manila folder. “Just the folks I wanted to see,” he said.

Coach Engram got up and offered the seat at the head of the table, but Flores waved his hand and sat down next to Jesse. She looked at him, her chin a little tucked in and her eyes kind of quizzical, but he smiled and held out a cigar. “I don’t suppose you’d want one of these, but would you mind if I had one?”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” she said. “The smoke makes me cough.” She looked like a college student in her large blue turtleneck sweater, black slacks, and sneakers. Sweet and smart and feminine. She reached up and touched the Band-Aid across her freckled nose, and then she turned to face the table. There followed a very long pause while Flores stared rather forlornly at his cigar before putting it back in his pocket.

“Here’s the thing,” Flores said, leaning forward with the folder in front of him and both arms on the table.

We all sat there in silence.

“Jesse’s mom has written me a letter. She’s also written the commissioner, the head of the players’ union, and Coach Engram here.”

I looked at Engram. Jesse was staring at the desk in front of her.

“I think she’s written Jesse, too.”

She nodded, without meeting his gaze.

“She’s expressed concern over Jesse’s health.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“And her contract. She read in the paper that Jesse is making the minimum salary.”

Justin Peck said, “I’ve communicated with Jesse’s mother as well, and I’ve worked out what I think is a very reasonable—”

But Flores went on, without even acknowledging that sound was coming from Peck’s position at the table. “What I’ve got here is a very handsome insurance policy, in Jesse’s name.”

“Insurance,” both Coach Engram and I said at the same time.

“Health insurance
and
life insurance. I’ve also got a considerable proposal for a contract extension.”

“Really,” Coach Engram said.

“Wait a minute,” Justin Peck said. “I’m her agent in these matters …” He was a curt little man, who always paired gray suits with brightly colored shirts and ties, always neat and pressed and positively glistening. “If
there’s
a new contract being proposed—”

Nate, who sat on the other side of Jesse, suddenly raised his hand to silence the agent. “Who does the insurance protect?”

Flores said, “Jesse, of course.”

“How?”

“Any injury, permanent or otherwise, will be fully covered by the team. This policy will insure her well-being in perpetuity—until, of course, she dies.”

“Insurance won’t
prevent
an injury,” Nate said.

“No. No, it won’t, young man. Nothing will do that.” Flores suddenly turned to Coach Engram. “Who is this fellow?”

“He’s my friend,” Jesse said.

“What about the life insurance?” I asked.

“Goes to her mother.”

Jesse looked at him now. “I don’t
have
a mother.”

This surprised Flores.

“Look, I haven’t seen her or spoken to her since I was eleven years old,” Jesse said. “As far as I’m concerned, we’ve never met. I don’t even remember my mother, if you want to know the truth.”

“You don’t have pictures?”

“Just a collection of letters. That’s all.”

Nate said, “It might be in your interest to let her back in your life.”

“Why?” she said.

“Might put to rest all those rumors about you really being a man who’s just had a sex change operation.”

She turned away from him. I met her gaze briefly and was ashamed that she must have seen the agreement on my face. I didn’t say anything, though.

“I don’t care about that,” she said. “Anyway, I haven’t made up my mind about her. I don’t know
what
I want to do.”

Flores didn’t seem bothered by this. He pushed the folder a bit in her direction. “Well, you can just look these over and decide for yourself about the beneficiary for the life insurance.”

“Why does she have to
have
life insurance?” Nate said. There was a silence. Everybody looked at him as though he was asking the most obvious question, but he persisted. “No, really. You know what I mean. Do the other players have life insurance policies paid for by the team?”

“Good point, actually,” Peck said. “The team may be paying for this insurance, but that does not count as part of her compensation.”

“Excuse me,” Flores said. “My general manager is not here. We cannot discuss Jesse’s compensation without him in the room. So would you kindly shut up?”

Everyone at the table took in a bit of air at that. Coach Engram made a very slight clicking noise in the back of his throat. As for Justin Peck, he got up, picked up his legal pad and pen, and quietly left the room. He didn’t even look at Jesse, but she got up and moved to follow him.

“Where are
you
going?” Flores said.

“I’m going with my agent.”

“You don’t have to.” He looked at me. “Skip? Explain to her how this works?”

“Jesse,” I said, before even knowing what else I might say to her.

“Look,
I’m
paying for your insurance,” Flores said. “All right? Nothing comes out of your pay. Your contract extension is for another year, at double your salary, and a substantial signing bonus. You get every penny of it.”

She was standing over him now, looking down, while he was turned around, looking up at her, his hands still on the table. It had the appearance at least of a very odd reversal of power.

“Every penny of it is guaranteed,” he said.

“Except, if my agent is right,” she said. “Double my current salary is not nearly what an average starting quarterback in the NFL makes.”

“Come on, the signing bonus puts you well in that range,” Flores said. “And let’s face it, we can’t commit to you like we can to a man.”

“Why not?”

He seemed exasperated. “You might want to play football now, Jesse. But you got this clock ticking, you know what I mean?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t know.” She wanted him to say it.

“I don’t want to use an old cliché, but you won’t
always
want to play football. I need to plan for that.”

“This is about her being a woman,” Nate said.

Flores looked at him for a second, as if not even quite believing the notion of sound coming from Nate’s place at the table. Then he said, “Of course.”

“I’m not trying to be difficult, Mr. Flores,” Jesse said. “But you’ll have to negotiate a new contract with my agent.”

“Okay, then—go get him. We’ll all sit down and—”

“This meeting isn’t about the contract,” Nate said. “We have to work everything else out.”

“Work what out?” Flores asked.

“About the demands on Jesse’s time, for one thing.” He pointed to the folder on the table. “This business about insurance.”

I think it was at that moment that Jesse may have begun working out in her mind who really cared about her. It was probably not anything she had ever considered before. She looked at me, and I said, “You do what you think is best.”

Then she looked at Engram. He stared at her, thinking. Flores turned back to the table and slowly placed the folder where Jesse had been sitting.

“What we were
going
to talk about here,” said Harold Moody, “was how to manage the demands on Jesse’s time. She can’t be in more than one place at a time.”

“I want her concentrating on her job,” Coach Engram said.

As Jesse moved back to her chair, I got up and went outside to find Justin Peck. Whatever we talked about, I wanted him there for it. Not that I was being that much of a gentleman. In future negotiations, I knew, he would remember that I’d looked out for him that way.

As the meeting went on with all parties at the table, it finally became clear what Nate meant by his question about the insurance. He was worried about what life insurance for Jesse would say to the rest of the team, and what that meant for Jesse’s future. What he wanted to know was: How expensive was that insurance? Did anybody really think that she might
die
? Was that somehow truer of her than the other players?

Flores assured him that he was only trying to think of everything with Jesse; most players had the same kind of insurance, although it was true, not everybody had it through the team. If Jesse’s policy was so lucrative, it was because she was, after all, and according to the insurance underwriters, “of the slighter sex” and might incur an injury that would be, well, worse than a man might suffer under the same circumstances.

“Are my bones more fragile than yours?” Jesse said.

“They’re smaller,” Flores said.

She wrinkled her face. “No they’re not.”

“Look, you possess a reproductive apparatus that may be vulnerable. That’s what the underwriters are telling me. Okay? And that insurance happens to cost more for you than it does for any man.”

Jesse let a wry smile cross her face, but she said nothing more.

After that the meeting went pretty smoothly. It became fairly clear that one of the reasons Edgar Flores had upped Jesse’s contract and provided such an expensive insurance policy was that in return he
expected her to be available to the media as much as possible—preferably wearing a Redskins sweatshirt or hat. He wanted that logo everywhere in her ads and commercials. He’d even approved two ESPN camerapeople and a film crew from NFL Films—both of which would follow Jesse around just about anywhere she went at the compound and even to her apartment. Both crews were making documentaries. They wanted her to wear a mike in one of her games, too, but we wouldn’t allow it. “She’s got to call signals, for Christ’s sake,” Engram said.