Monday

WHEN THE PHONE RANG at 10 A.M. I thought I was still in New York and let it ring several times before I even opened my eyes.

“Coach Quinlan would like to see you in his office at eleven this morning.” It was Ruth, B.A.’s secretary.

“Is this a recording?” I asked sleepily.

“What?”

“Nothing, Ruth, tell him I’ll be there as soon as I get my heart started.”

“What?”

“Never mind, Ruth. I’ll be there.” I hung up and made a mental note to have the phone ripped out and melted down for sunglass frames.

I had some difficulty getting out of bed. My shoulder had stiffened during the night and coupled with my other aches and pains made sitting upright a test of concentration and desire. My knee had filled with fluid and I had trouble straightening it. Finally I got to my feet by rolling off the mattress and onto the floor.

I shuffled into the bathroom amazed, as I was every Monday, by how much pain I was feeling. By the time I had soaked sufficiently, being careful to keep my knee elevated and out of the hot water to avoid further swelling, cleared my sinuses of dried blood and mucus, and otherwise effected enough of a recovery to walk upright, it was a quarter to eleven. I made the twenty-minute drive in fifteen and was standing anxiously at the reception desk at eleven exactly. B.A. made me wait another twenty minutes and, after thumbing through the only magazine, A Guide to High School Coaches in Idaho, I struck up a conversation with the new receptionist, a pretty, proper, black girl (not too dark).

“How are you?” I said, cleverly using my standard opening.

“Fine,” she said, keeping her face buried in the book she was reading, Mandingo, the story of a slave-breeding farm in the 1800s.

“Have you gotten to the part where the master boils the high-yellow buck down to soup and bones for screwing his wife?”

There was no answer. I am strangely encouraged by people who ignore or discount me. I plunged right on with the lopsided conversation. I had difficulty disguising my eagerness. “How about the scene where the master catches his daughter in carnal knowledge of a Kikuyu in a cornfield and cuts the cheek of his ass off with a hoe? ... Wait a minute, that was another book.”

The phone rang. She picked it up, listened a moment, and then replaced the receiver.

“You can go in now.” She never looked up.

As I walked down the hallway toward B.A.’s office, I noticed all the other offices were either empty or had their doors closed. I encountered no one in the halls and on reaching my destination had decided, as many Hollywood Indian scouts did just before they took an arrow in the throat, that it was just too quiet. Ruth solemnly opened the door to the head coach’s inner sanctum and I fell among a war party of pinstriped Apaches.

B.A. sat regally at one end of his oval desk. Arranged around the desk and in various parts of the large room were an alarming number of club and league officials. There was an empty seat opposite B.A. and he motioned for me to take it. As I moved slowly toward him I looked into the several faces that just stared blankly, and grimly, back at me. I seated myself. I recognized all of the assembly with the exception of a stocky man with close-cropped, thinning hair. He appeared to be in his midforties and, in contrast to the other men, was dressed quite gaudily in an ill-fitting brown-and-yellow-checked wool sport coat.

In an effort to assess what was happening, I studied the faces at the desk. The head coach was flanked by Conrad Hunter on his right and Clinton Foote on his left. In the awkward silence, I could hear the distinctive tapping of Clinton’s foot. He was loaded on amphetamines for a long day. On Foote’s left sat Ray March, who was in charge of internal affairs and security for the league. March was a ten-year veteran of the FBI. All were also ex-FBI agents. Their primary responsibilities consisted of surveillance of player personnel and investigations of improper conduct.

B.A. shuffled noisily and awkwardly through several stacks of paper arrayed on his desk. Finally he selected one and held it out with both hands, studying it intently. His face was deeply furrowed and he licked his lips several times before trying to speak.

“Phil,” he said, his eyes riveted to the paper, “where were you last Tuesday until approximately eight A.M. Wednesday morning?” He never raised his eyes.

“What?” I would be an outstanding witness.

“On Tuesday night of this past week,” B.A. repeated. The paper was still in his hands but his eyes wandered absently down to the table top. He still hadn’t looked at me. “Where were you?”

I continued to survey the room, noticing the conspicuous absence of Emmett Hunter. His place had been taken by a fellow named O’Malley, the team attorney and long-time family friend of the Hunters. He was an odious, fat, red-faced man, who always appeared to be holding his breath. His round cheeks, pink from alcohol-shattered blood vessels, and his heavy eyebrows all but concealed his eyes.

“I don’t remember where I was,” I said, half-truthfully, though I was pretty sure. One thing for certain, they knew where I had been and they weren’t happy about it. “Why do you want to know?”

“Answer the question,” Clinton Foote interjected with a glare, exercising the general manager’s universal preemptive rights. I hoped the trainers hadn’t given him a big Dexamyl Spansule; it would make him difficult, if not impossible, to deal with.

“What’s this all about?” I asked, looking from face to face. “What am I supposed to have done?”

“You better answer, young fella.” Ray March sounded like my high school principal when he discovered I had written fuck on the door to the girls’ washroom. I grinned at the comparison, further heightening the tension.

“You obviously have the answers,” I said. “Why else would I be here?”

“They want to hear your side before they make any decisions,” B.A. offered. He had attempted compassion and impartiality. He landed somewhere near irony.

“Yeah,” I observed, “that’s why we’re all here looking so grim.”

“You’d best answer.” Clinton Foote tried to make cooperation sound like a wise business decision. The thumping of his foot was deafening. I knew I was in big trouble.

I lowered my eyes to the table and shook my head, taking the only remaining refuge—insentience. The room was silent.

“Mr. Rindquist.” Clinton Foote finally broke the silence.

The stocky stranger moved quickly across the room and took a standing position directly behind B.A. From where I sat the two men appeared in tandem, B.A.’s perfectly tanned and manicured head centered in Rindquist’s overhanging, slightly untidy belly. Rindquist had a craggy, corrugated face and thick, heavy hands. His narrow, furtive eyes barely revealed their color, light magenta. He was a violent-looking man.

“My name is George Rindquist. I’m a vice officer with the Dallas police. During my off-duty hours I work for Mr. March here, checking out reports of player misconduct.”

I watched Clinton Foote’s head bobbing rhythmically with the modulations of Rindquist’s gravelly voice. The speech was rehearsed.

“Several weeks ago I was requested by Mr. March here to take up investigative surveillance of one Phillip Elliott, an employee of the Dallas franchise.”

I suddenly remembered Rindquist’s face and grating voice. He had called, months back, and convinced me to make a gratis appearance at a fund-raising banquet for the families of two patrolmen killed in an automobile accident. I met him and sat next to him during the banquet. So much for community service.

“... I followed the suspect from the time I was contacted by Mr. March’s office up to and including Friday morning last when the suspect boarded a plane allegedly bound for New York.”

“Anything to say?” Clinton Foote inquired.

“The plane did arrive in New York,” I offered. The general manager’s eyes blazed and there was a momentary uneasiness as he fought to control his temper.

“Please continue, Mr. Rindquist,” Clinton said. Picking up a pencil, he began drumming on his yellow note pad. I dropped my eyes from his gaze and shook my head.

“I will read from my log of the past week.” Rindquist spoke with the careful diction of an experienced witness. Pulling a stenographer’s notebook from his coat pocket, he began reading. “On Monday at eight o’clock in the morning I picked up the suspect and followed him to Fort Worth via the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike. Arriving in FW—that’s Fort Worth—the suspect proceeded across town to a Big Boy Restaurant near the old Weatherford Highway where he met several other adult males—”

“Excuse me,” I interrupted, automatically raising my hand. “Did you happen to recognize any of the other adult males?”

“I did not.”

“Well,” I pressed, “was there anything distinctive about those men? You know, size, weight, color.”

“No,” Rindquist answered quickly, his eyes jumping nervously from me to Clinton Foote.

“What’s this all about?” Clinton angrily asked.

“I was just trying to establish the reliability of the witness,” I answered, snatching the phrase from an old Perry Mason show.

“This isn’t a court of law,” Foote announced. “Go on, George.”

“The three adult males and the suspect transferred several shotguns and various types of hunting equipment into the back of a pickup truck. When the truck was loaded the suspect climbed into the back and the remaining men climbed into the cab and headed out west on the old Weatherford Highway. I assumed they were going hunting and didn’t follow for fear of being discovered.”

“We wouldn’t want you to be discovered, would we,” I said.

“Shut up,” Clinton Foote shouted, slamming the flat of his hand on the table, his face puffed and red.

“I waited in the parking lot of the restaurant until they returned later that afternoon.” Rindquist paused and looked from March to Clinton, both of whom glanced at each other and then at me. I shrugged my shoulders.

“After leaving FW—that’s Fort Worth—the suspect returned to Dallas and drove directly to The Apartments on Maple Avenue, where a party was in progress. I again kept my distance—”

“What apartment was the party in?” I asked.

“You oughta know,” the cop shot back, “you were there.” His retort brought a murmur of laughter.

“Yeah,” I said, “but you got it all written down. You’re paid to know.”

“Well, I don’t,” he replied angrily.

“Mr. Elliott,” Ray March interrupted, placing his hand gently on Clinton Foote’s arm as the general manager was about to leap to his feet in rage. “Must we remind you again, this is not a court of law. Mr. Rindquist is giving us the information he thinks is important to your case.”

I closed my eyes and nodded my head, letting it sink slowly to my chest.

“Go ahead, George,” March instructed.

The officer continued his story, carefully avoiding any particulars on the party and recognizing none of those present with the exception of myself.

“At one point in the evening the suspect was observed in the outward physical appearances of smoking marijuana with another unidentified male companion.” He had delicately failed to recognize Seth Maxwell, the singularly most identifiable face in Texas sports history.

“How do you mean outward physical appearances?” Clinton posed the question without raising his eyes from the table.

“Well,” Rindquist elaborated, “the physical act of marijuana smoking differs considerably from the actions of normal cigarette smoking.”

The unmistakable accent on normal was aggravating, but I remained unresponsive.

“Marijuana smokers,” Rindquist pronounced the words with the same distaste he would have if discussing niggers, lepers, or meskins, “cup the cigarette, or joint, in their hands, taking short puffs and holding their breath. It makes the smoking action very jerky in appearance and easy to identify. That was the manner in which the suspect was smoking.”

There was a short lull while everyone in the room waited for me to offer something more, a defense or an admission. I just slowly shook my head, my lips twisted into a wry smile. I could feel the world crumbling but could do nothing to stop or even slow the process.

“Shortly after observing the suspect smoking marijuana—” Rindquist began again.

I leaped to my feet and pointed a finger at the policeman. “Do you know it was marijuana, you fat son of a bitch? Do you have any proof? You lousy ...” My voice and energy trailed off as I was unable to conceptualize a proper insult. I fell back into my seat, exhausted.

“Look, boy!!” the policeman yelled back at me and started toward me with his fists clenched. He caught himself and stopped, looking around the office for reassurance. Ray March came to the officer’s assistance.

“We understand fully, Mr. Elliott,” March’s voice was authoritative and his statement was carefully and impassionately structured, “that Mr. Rindquist’s remark is merely an assumption on his part. But in all fairness you must understand that we hired Mr. Rindquist because of our immense respect for his abilities and judgments as an experienced peace officer.”

“Why didn’t you just have him shoot me and be done with it?”

“You can be flippant if you wish, Mr. Elliott, but the charges against you are serious. And lame attempts at humor can only be regarded in terms of consequences. Please continue, George.”

The policeman’s eyes moved from me to Clinton Foote, who gave him a tight smile and a short affirmative nod.

“As I said,” Rindquist looked down at his notebook, “shortly after observing the suspect smoking marijuana, I broke off surveillance for the night, picking him up again the next afternoon, Tuesday, as he left the north Dallas practice field. He proceeded downtown to the CRH Building, where he remained for approximately two hours. After leaving the CRH Building he proceeded north on Central Expressway to Loop Twelve where he turned east and proceeded to the Twin Towers Apartments, where he remained the night.”

“Do you know in which apartment Mr. Elliott spent the night?” Clinton leaned forward and glared at me, then leaned back and crossed his legs. His foot was wagging nervously.

“Yes sir, I do. Twenty-five forty.” Rindquist didn’t bother to check his notes. “The apartment is occupied by—”

“There’s no need to discuss the occupancy of the apartment,” O’Malley said. The Hunter family attorney spoke for the first time. “It’s not important to the case being discussed here.”

A look of perplexity passed across Rindquist’s face, his lips still pursed to say Joanne. His speaking pace slowed perceptibly as he stumbled on, confused by the interruption. “He spends the night there often.” Rindquist’s eyes flitted back and forth from Foote to March to O’Malley, trying to determine if he had made a mistake.

“You are really a bunch of sleazy cocksuckers,” I said, feeling appreciably better as the insult rebounded around the room and seemed to fit everyone perfectly, including me.

“At about midnight,” Rindquist continued, ignoring my anger, and picking up his old rhythm, “—I left the Twin Towers and drove to the suspect’s house where I effected a search of the premises, finding several pill bottles and a quantity of obscene literature.”

“And twenty bucks,” I added

I was again ignored.

The number and variety of officials present was a pretty good indicator of impending doom and I realized the folly of any attempted defense and began to build an ending, a climax. I swallowed hard and laid a hand on my chest trying to calm my heart. When I leaned back in my seat I could see it pounding against the shirt tightly drawn over my chest.

“The following night ...” Rindquist was boiling on to the conclusion, proud that he had done his part before I turned to ax murders. The assumptions were already drawn, inferences already allowed, and punishment already decided, I knew that now. All that remained was animation to make it plausible. “... I again picked up the suspect as he left the practice field and followed him to the house of one Harvey Le Roi Belding, a suspected user and dealer in narcotics and a known campus agitator and political revolutionary.”

“A real Che Guevara,” I muttered.

“While the suspect was inside I searched his car. In the glove compartment I found and photographed two marijuana cigarettes. You have the photographs.”

Clinton Foote held up two Polaroid prints for the assembled officials to verify. His hand shook noticeably.

The detective rounded out the remainder of my week, covering the fight at Rock City, again unable to identify anyone else present with the exception of Charlotte. He followed us to Lacota and then picked me up again after Thursday’s practice and tailed me back to Charlotte’s. He was careful to point out “her peculiar relationship with a nigra boy.”

“Well,” I said, breaking into a short, bursting laugh, “I’m sure glad you’re all doing this to me. For a while there I thought I was getting paranoid.”

Clinton Foote took his eyes momentarily from Rindquist to glare at me. Nobody else seemed to have heard.

Rindquist wrapped up with my boarding the 727 “allegedly bound for New York” and quickly returned to his seat. Clinton looked at Rindquist and gestured toward the door with his eyes. The policeman bounded out the door.

“Thank you, George,” Clinton said to the closing door and then turned his attention to me. “Anything to say?”

“Well,” I started slowly, clearing my throat, “I’d like to thank all the little people who made this possible.”

Clinton Foote exploded. I can’t say that I blamed him.

“Who in Great God’s Hell do you think you are?” Clinton screamed. He jumped to his feet. His face was purple with rage. “A goddam broken-down football player. You guys are a dime a dozen. Do you think you’re here because by some divine intervention you deserve to be here? Do you? Huh?”

I was stunned by his passion and pulled back into my chair. I said nothing.

“You’re here because we let you on,” he continued to bluster, pointing around the room at the assembled officials. “We let you on, no other reason. We don’t owe you, you owe us, and there are sixty million fans out there who agree with me.” He pointed out the window at the Dallas skyline.

“That’s something you’ll have to work out with them,” I said. I had calmed some after his first outburst and tried to argue.

“What?” His head swiveled back from the window, his face a mixture of surprise and fury. A thin smile controlled his lips. “Okay. You’re so goddam cocky. We gave you a good job, paid you,” he looked down and dug through a sheaf of papers on the desk and pulled out a Standard Player’s Contract, apparently mine, “good money. Go out and try and earn as much out there.” He pointed back to the window. “You’ll find nobody gives a fat rat’s ass who you were or how many zig outs you can run.”

I just looked up at the fuming man and smiled.

He held the contract up for my inspection. “Well, if you could read this, which I doubt,” he had me there, I never could read a whole contract, that was why they made them so long and involved, “you would see that we own you and you check with us when you want to do something, we don’t check with you.” He shook the contract in my face. “That’s why we pay you all the money. It ain’t for your good looks and charm.”

Ray March reached up and grabbed Clinton’s arm. Clinton pulled away, then looked at March, who signaled him to calm down and be seated. Clinton stared back at me for a moment

“Oh, all right,” he said, and sat down.

“Do you have anything to say that is pertinent?” March asked me.

I shook my head.

B.A. nodded and began digging through the papers in front of him. He selected one and stared at it blankly. It was the same disarming technique that Clinton used when negotiating contracts, acting as if there were information on the paper that diminished his opponent’s position.

“Phil,” the coach began slowly, “you’ve been up here for conferences with me several times in the years you’ve been with the club, haven’t you?”

I nodded.

“What did we talk about those times?”

“Different things, mostly your reasons for benching me. You benched me three times, or so, a year.”

“Did I tell you why I was benching you?”

“Well, you usually said it was maturity. I either lacked it or had too much, I don’t recall.”

“Maturity,” B.A. mouthed the word carefully. He remained silent for several seconds, gazing at the piece of paper. “I think you’re a good receiver, Phil,” he began again. “You probably have the best hands in football today. You’re a good football player, but so is everybody else on the club. That’s why you’re all here. And football is other things besides ability. It’s dedication and it’s discipline. You must give something back to the sport, you can’t always be taking.”

“B.A.,” I said, “I can barely stand up, can’t breathe through my nose, and haven’t slept more than three hours at a stretch in over two years, all from leaving pieces of me scattered on playing fields from here to Cleveland. Isn’t that giving something back?”

“That’s not what I mean,” he protested. “You must live by the rules that have been built up over the years by people who love the game and sacrificed for it. You just can’t come in here and disregard those traditions and change what you want.”

“That’s really funny, B.A.,” I interrupted. “You people change everything, a game becomes a corporate enterprise for one thing—money. Look at you all,” I pointed around the room, “pinstripe suits, hundred-dollar shoes, and razor cuts. And now you tell me I’ve got to be Bronko Nagurski.”

B.A. frowned and shook his head. He scanned the paper, his forehead furrowed in thought. Finally he looked up.

“You think you’re so smart,” he said. “I’ve heard all those tired arguments about professional football corrupting and I don’t believe ’em. And furthermore, I know about you.” He dug into the stacks of papers and came up with several sheets of psychological tests that had been administered to me and the rest of the team. He held up one of the papers and read from it.

“You’re a high achiever who is totally self-reliant. You have no close friends or loved ones. You need nothing but yourself. You are dangerous to organization for the same reason you are desirable. As a high achiever you tend to be violently frustrated and will, if not controlled, destroy that which frustrates you.” He put down the paper. “Don’t you see? We must have a way to control people like you.”

“How about a frontal lobotomy?”

“You refuse to understand,” he continued. “You resent my coldness, my logical approach to problems. Well, I have a job to do and I can do it best without my personal feelings being involved. But you can’t. You refuse to submit to the rules.”

“Don’t you see?” I was beginning to crack. I saw no escape from the inevitable. “You control my life, but don’t feel any need to become involved with me as a person. Don’t you understand how frightening that is for me? To have absolutely no human rapport with the people who, as he said,” I pointed at Clinton Foote, “own me. You own me but you don’t want to get involved with me. What the fuck does that mean?”

B.A.’s face remained unresponsive.

“I fully understand your objections to the way I run this team,” he said dispassionately. “I just don’t agree with you. You have a job to do and you should do it. Your personal life is something else. We have a difference of opinion and you refuse to keep it out of your work. Well, I’m in the business of winning football games, not clearing troubled consciences. I can’t have you constantly questioning my authority. I don’t care if you like me, but I insist you respect me.”

“B.A., you can’t order people to respect you. As a man who wins football games you don’t have a peer, but you seem to think that qualifies you as an exceptional human being full of personal and Godly grace.” I stopped for a moment to catch my breath and control my voice, which had been rising markedly as I spoke.

“You think that there is something wrong with winning and I won’t tolerate that.” B.A. pointed a finger at me, his face masking the emotion that was obvious in his voice. “Winning is the most important thing. The sacrifice and responsibility that must be shouldered in order to win are what make men. It’s what makes this country the greatest in the world. Feared and respected. Sticking to the rules and winning. You’re just not willing to pay the price.”

“If the price is thinking like you, then I won’t pay it. But if you think it’s merely a difference of opinion you’re a very silly man.” I sank back in my seat, suddenly worn out from a battle that hadn’t even taken place. I knew it was hopeless to argue, but I had to do something.

“Well,” B.A. answered, his voice calm and his eyes frosted, “you make your existential quests on somebody else’s time. The issue is simple. People must, and I mean must, submit to control at some level. You refuse. So, you must leave.” He looked down and began sorting and stacking the piles of papers in front of him. He placed the papers in a manila file folder and laid them back on the desk. He kept his eyes down and leaned back in his chair. Nobody moved until he finished.

Ray March pulled a folded paper from his inside coat pocket. He studied the paper carefully, then looked at me.

“When the commissioner was first made aware of the charges against you—”

“Charges?” I interrupted. “I haven’t heard any charges. Just the week’s calendar of a fat voyeur.”

“Mr. Elliott, you continually seem to think this is some sort of court proceeding. We are not concerned with semantics or strict interpretation of the law. There is no record being kept. What we are concerned with is conduct unbecoming professional football. That is what you stand accused of, and I might add, pretty well convicted of.”

“You still haven’t said what the conduct was,” I insisted.

“Smoking marijuana for one,” March said.

“What else?”

“The girl,” March replied, looking apologetically down the table at Conrad Hunter.

Hunter never looked up from the pencil he was twirling between his thumb and forefinger.

“The girl? She’s not even married.” I knew it was hopeless.

A long pause followed, as the officials exchanged weary glances; tired to the bone with the charade, they wanted it ended. The chilling realization of what was to come crashed down on me. My chest constricted and I lost control of my breathing.

“Listen,” I pleaded, inhaling deeply and trying to collect myself, “listen, there has got to be more to it than this. I’m truly sorry if I caused anyone any difficulty. But goddam, the girl wasn’t even engaged until last week. And the marijuana, I mean, Christ, I take stronger shit than that just to get on the field. You people give it to me. We all know marijuana is hardly—”

“Marijuana is against the law,” Clinton Foote interrupted.

“Oh come on,” I moaned. “You know plenty of guys in this league who use it, and LSD and mescaline.” I was pleading. “That kid in Boston said he played a game on it. And the girl. You got guys on this team screwing each other’s wives. And each other—”

“We’re not concerned with other people’s behavior,” March interjected, “only yours has come to light.” His face was drawn into a frown. I was becoming tiresome.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I begged. “It’s not what you say. I know. And you know I know. What is it? You could be wrong.”

“We’re not wrong!” Clinton Foote leaped to his feet. My contract was crumpled in his hand. He had lost patience with his own charade and was anxious to have it ended. “You were seen doing these things and according to the Standard Player’s Contract the commissioner has the right to suspend you, which he has already done as of eight o’clock this morning.” He tore the contract into pieces and wadded them into a ball. He dropped it in front of him on the table. His voice turned soft and a smile contradicted the look in his eyes.

“You’re on the street, fella.” The general manager sat down and looked around the room, pleased with his performance.

O’Malley the lawyer unwadded the crumpled, shredded contract and sorted the pieces, then he slid a legal-sized paper across the table to me.

“Sign this if you would, Mr. Elliott. It’s a release absolving us from any further responsibility for you. We would like to get this all done as quietly as possible for all concerned.” The fat lawyer smiled slightly. “You wouldn’t want all this to become public.”

“Clinton, you can’t do that,” I protested.

“It’s already done.” Clinton tapped his pencil lightly against the edge of the desk, then he stopped and pointed the eraser end at me. “And I would advise you that Mr. Rindquist already has an extensive police file on you. If I were you I’d vanish.”

“Goddammit, I haven’t done anything that half the guys, management included, haven’t done and you know it. It’s my legs, isn’t it? You don’t want to pay my contract.”

“Mr. Elliott,” March’s indifference was agonizing, “I’m sorry that you feel that you have been treated unfairly, but you should have considered your actions more carefully.” His eyes fell back to the paper.

“When the commissioner was first made aware of the charges against you, the first concern of his office was to make sure your rights were protected. When the commissioner was satisfied that your protection was guaranteed, he authorized an investigation and collection of facts ...”

March droned on, but I shut him out, squeezing my eyes closed and fighting the flood of emotion that surged behind my eyelids. I sank submissively in my seat and exhaled loudly, regaining control and beginning to think clearly again.

“... the commissioner has asked me to make a statement on his behalf.”

The ex-FBI man began reading.

“As commissioner it is my duty to preside over and guarantee the integrity of the league from attacks from inside as well as outside our structure. This case, as all cases, has been judged solely on its merits. It is not the position of the commissioner’s office that criminal action by legal authorities be initiated before we consider a person’s behavior detrimental to the well-being of the game. It is, in fact, desirable from the standpoint of the good name of professional football that undesirables be weeded out and removed from out of our midst with as little public notice ...”

I quit fighting and accepted the insanity of the situation. The whole affair seemed morosely funny. Sitting there trying to talk to men who purposely deceived themselves. Like so many people, they weren’t concerned with the truth. They wanted an arrangement of facts that coincided with their present needs and wishes. And because they were powerful, it was relatively easy for them to rearrange the stuff of daily experience to correspond with their current views and desires. Once they rearranged it all, they attacked the situation with a moral zeal and believed they were doing the right and just thing. And maybe they were. They wanted me out of football with no legal claims and this meeting had been arranged to convince me of the futility of a legal fight. I signed the release and pushed it back to O’Malley. The fat man smiled and nodded.

“You may feel that your personal rights have been abridged since judgment was passed before you were allowed to speak in your own defense. As commissioner, I must point out that you are in a position of privilege, giving you certain responsibilities to your employers and the public. You violated this privilege and cannot expect the same rights and protections as an ordinary citizen. It is my considered opinion that your insidious behavior is detrimental to professional football and all those principles and values that we hold inviolable... .”

Suddenly a great weight lifted from my mind, a mental tightness releasing, a runaway concentration relaxing. I felt myself opening and I saw this room as if for the first time. I was no longer fighting, trying to control these things and people around me. I was just observing them. The game was finally over. I would no longer fear defeat and failure. I had been trapped on a technicality that explained the ultimate pointlessness of the life I had been living. The game wasn’t on the field, it never had been. It was here. I hadn’t been beaten and I hadn’t quit. I had been disqualified. I had forgotten to sign my scorecard, but that still didn’t mean I hadn’t shot a sixty-seven and broken the course record. It just meant that if I did they wouldn’t accept it and ultimately that was their problem. Because the only part of the game that is real is me and only I can judge. It was over. I didn’t have to compete for the right to exist. From now on I would just be. I would leave this office, ride down the elevator, and walk to the parking lot and crank up my car. I would race to Lacota and see if Charlotte wanted to be with me. I was free.

“You are as of nine A.M. eastern standard time suspended indefinitely from performing as a professional football player. Your Standard Player’s Contract is hereby declared null and void and you are advised that this office rules that no further disbursements of contractual monies or benefits accrued will be made by the Dallas club.”

Actually it wasn’t me they were after in the first place. It was my three-year contract that had to be dealt with. I was just a necessary prop. They had no further need of my presence. Once the commission had ruled and the appropriate officials were convened to notify me, I ceased to exist. There was little chance to reincarnate myself through the courts. The meeting was designed to point that out clearly to me. I wondered why they went to all the trouble; if anybody in the world knew how really worthless the Standard Player’s Contract was to the standard player it was this group of men. They could terminate a player for anything and just say not good enough. Who was going to argue? My only choice was acceptance. I wouldn’t cut much of a figure in court and only a true believer would file a civil suit in Texas against a government-protected monopoly.

Ray March finished reading and looked up as I pushed my chair back and started for the door without saying a word. I pulled the door open and turned back to look at this room full of men who lived their lives manipulating other men like cattle and who hoped someday to be able to dictate a directive like the one just delivered to me. I smiled at them, shook my head, and stepped through the door.

“It’s signed by the commissioner,” March yelled after me.

There was a low-pressure area somewhere in the Panhandle near Amarillo and the air was rushing out of Dallas west at about thirty-five miles an hour. The wind blew my jacket open as I stepped out into the parking lot of the North Dallas Towers.

The cold December wind was startling, but its omnipotent violence was reassuring as it roared around the concrete building. There was a change coming, I could feel it in the air.

I put my head down and headed into the bluster and toward my car. I was leaning to unlock the car door when Maxwell’s blue convertible pulled next to me.

“Hey, Seth.”

He rolled down the electric window on the passenger side without moving from his position behind the wheel. His right arm was draped across the wheel, his hand hanging limp from the wrist. His eyes were hidden behind wraparound sunglasses. He stared straight out the windshield and said nothing.

“You recovered from last night?” I asked, not sure how to begin the conversation.

He looked over at me and nodded. I walked over, leaned against the right-hand door, and looked through the open window. We were silent while I ran my eyes absently over the blue and white leather interior. Maxwell turned back to stare out the windshield again.

“What happened?” he finally asked, still looking straight ahead. “I heard you met with B.A. this morning.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to decide what he was doing at the office on Monday. “He didn’t make me a starter.”

“I know that. What did you say?” He seemed irritated.

“About what?”

“You know. About everything.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “You don’t know what happened up there this morning.”

“Did you say anything about me?”

“What about you? Christ man, Hunter and B.A. and Foote and that guy March from the commissioner’s gestapo. They were all up there. They suspended me for good.” I paused to wait for a reaction from Maxwell. There was none.

“How did you know I’d be here?”

He ignored the question and continued to look straight ahead. He frowned and scratched the back of his neck. “Thanks for not saying anything about me.”

He put the big Cadillac in gear. The transmission clunked and the car started to ease away.

“Hey,” I yelled, stepping back as he pulled out, “how did you know I’d be here? Seth! How did you know?”

The big convertible roared onto the access road and quickly slipped into the northbound stream of traffic.

“Son of a bitch,” I said softly, as the huge automobile disappeared.

I started my car and pulled onto Mockingbird, leaving the North Dallas Towers behind, and aimed toward home, my mind a jumble of thoughts. I was saddened and guilt-ridden but also lighthearted, almost excited, and felt nowhere near the great pain I would have expected over my sudden fall from grace. I guess it’s like B.A. said, football teaches you to overcome adversity. I must be cranking up to overcome.

Football had been my refuge from the fear of loneliness and worthlessness. But now I was beginning to see what Charlotte meant. I must have a value to myself and that has to come from inside, not from achievements in the world.

I turned off Mockingbird and cruised through the wealthy and highly restricted township of Highland Park. On the street and in the driveways I passed parked cars that cost my whole salary. It was reassuring to think of Mr. Businessman’s Rolls Royce or Mercedes in terms of how many bone-shattering blows I would have had to endure to earn it. In terms of ripped ligaments, shredded muscles, and lacerated skin, it put in perspective where I had really been and what an imaginary ephemeral thing I had just lost. I wasn’t their equal. I was merely their entertainment.

The reverend’s Cadillac was idling roughly in the drive when I reached home. Johnny would be inside singing hymns and emptying ash trays. Ash trays were all she cleaned on Mondays. It didn’t take her long as I never smoked tobacco and I ate all my roaches.

I shut off the Riviera and headed up the walk to my house.

The front door was open slightly. It resisted my push and made a loud scratching noise against the hardwood floor of the living room. Sometimes in damp weather the door warped so badly I couldn’t get it locked. Up until the appearance of Mr. Rindquist, I had never worried about it. Now I was glad to be moving.

When I walked in, Johnny was bent over the fireplace emptying an ash tray onto the hearth.

“Hidy, Mr. Phil,” she said, looking back over her shoulder. Two gum wrappers floated lazily to the concrete. “How’s you feelin’ tiday?”

“Fine, Johnny,” I replied, without thinking, “just fine.” The truthfulness of my answer surprised me. I did feel fine, I felt more than fine, I felt excited, anticipatory. It was a new game and I couldn’t deny the thrill of it.

I knew I would lament the way it had all gone, but it would be a bittersweet regret, not pit-of-the-stomach remorse. I had been a good football player and had worked hard on the field; I would rue some of my tactics but I was satisfied; I played because I was good and they couldn’t take that from me. It would be enough.

“Johnny, I won’t be needing you anymore. I’m moving.”

“Oh.” Johnny’s face wrinkled into thought for a moment, then she smiled brightly. “That’s awright. Mr. Andy and Mr. Claridge wants me to come work fo’ them in they new house. I was wantin’ to talk to you ’bout it tiday.”

“Well, that’s fine, Johnny,” I replied. “Tell them you can start today. And Johnny—” I dug some crumpled bills out of my pocket, “—here’s fifty dollars. I want to buy the center page in your church program again. But try and remember this time how my name is spelled.”

“Why, thank you, Mistah Phil. An ahm shore the rev’ren’ll be rat pleased. Thank you. Thank you.” She smiled widely and began untying her apron.

I wandered back to my bedroom to decide what to take and what to leave behind.

I sat on the bed and looked around the room, thinking about the sleepless nights I had spent there, some because the aches were too great to allow any rest, others because the fear had crept to the back of my throat and waited for me to close my eyes. I had lived in terror of its all ending, but now that it had, except for a slight melancholy ache and some momentary confusion, I felt great. It made all those fears that still floated near the ceiling and hung from the walls seem foolish, pointless; the nights I lay in bed and cried wolf to myself. I could recall few good times inside these bedroom walls; an occasional girl who passed through my life in one night looking for something I didn’t have or had misplaced. Mostly it had been a place where I would finally retreat to let my mind and body heal.

I pulled an old suitcase from beneath the bed, gathered up three pairs of Levi’s and several sweaters, and carried it to the car.

I returned to the house and unplugged the color television and placed it on the bed. I decided to leave the old Voice of Music stereo that had played everything from The Brothers Four to the Rolling Stones. I wrote a note to my landlord, enclosed a month’s rent, and told him he could have anything left in the house. I picked up the color television and walked out to the car. I stopped to attach my landlord’s letter to the mailbox.

“Mr. Phil.”

I finished loading everything into the back seat of the Riviera and turned to face Johnny, calling me from the reverend’s car as it backed from my driveway.

“Yeah, Johnny,” I answered, impatient to be on my way.

“Uncle Billy Bunk sent that tape back.”

The aged Cadillac bumped into the street.

“What tape?” I asked.

“You know,” Johnny replied, “the one me an’ mah sistah an’ the rev’ren’ here recorded about you.”

I nodded that I recalled the tape. A loud metallic clunk from beneath the car signaled the shift from reverse to drive.

“Well,” Johnny continued, leaning out the window and calling back to me as they moved off down the street, slowly picking up speed, “Uncle Billy says they couldn’t use it. He said you was ...”

The reverend had nursed the clunking, smoking car up to speed and out of earshot. The last of Johnny’s statement was lost in a cloud of blue vapor.

“I should think not,” I said aloud. “I should think not.”

I folded my arms on the car roof and rested my chin on them. I gazed vacantly at the ramshackle house across the street; the rot of age already had consumed the front steps and part of the porch. The collapsing house was occupied by a creaky old man I had seen only a couple of times as he shuffled hopefully to his mailbox only to find it empty. I stared at the house and the unkempt lawn for a long time, wishing I had been a better neighbor to the old man.

“Well, old man,” I said to the dying house, “I guess this means neither of us will get a phone call from the President.”

I climbed into the front seat, adjusted the steering wheel, pushed Sweetheart of the Rodeo onto the tape deck and pulled away from the curb. I never even looked to see if the front door was closed.

I smoked a joint, pointed the car east and smashed down on the accelerator. Once on the highway, I kept the needle on ninety. The speed was exhilarating. Combined with marijuana and the Byrds at full volume it was near hallucinogenic.

“... I don’t care how many letters they sent

The morning came and the morning went.

Pick up your money and pack up your tent

You ain’t goin’ nowhere ...”

I was on the two-lane stretch, about twenty miles from Lacota, the central Texas hills rolling by. As I roared along the concrete strip, cattle looked up lazily from their grazing and children ran down to fence lines to wave. Charlotte would be expecting me sometime today. Standing in the yard in a loose-fitting Western shirt with her breasts thrust forward and her hands jammed in the hip pockets of her jeans, she would break into that even, gentle smile that came more from her eyes than her lips. We would go right to bed. Or maybe just there on the cold grass and show that poor Brangus steer what he missed.

“... Buy me a flute

And a gun that shoots

Strap yourself to a tree with roots

Cause you ain’t goin’ nowhere ...”

That the front gate was open didn’t even register in my excitement to get to Charlotte. I reached the house and pulled up behind Bob Beaudreau’s Continental Mark III with the personalized “M FUNDS” license plates. He was probably inside pleading with her to take him back. I would beat his ass if he even looked sideways.

The door on the driver’s side had been left open and the sound of the still running engine blended eerily with the highpitched buzz that signaled the keys were in the ignition. I reached inside and switched off the motor, taking out the keys and laying them on the seat.

Instantly it was silent and I strained to hear some clue as to what was happening. My mind jumped at a masochistic flicker of finding them in bed together, but I knew it was false.

The two cats were resting lazily in the sand beneath the kitchen steps. They looked up hungrily at the sound of my foot on the bottom stair, expecting another set of calf testicles.

The house was quiet as I moved from the kitchen down the hallway toward the den. My confusion was rapidly building. Maybe they weren’t even in the house. I should have checked the barn.

I felt excited, almost lighthearted, as my adrenal cortex reacted to the tension. I stepped around the corner and down into the den.

Bob Beaudreau was sitting on the couch, alone. He was dressed neatly in a light blue suit and a wide red-and-blue-striped tie. He watched calmly as I entered the room.

“I thought I heard somebody,” he said, crossing his legs. Large dark brown stains covered his trousers. “They’re in the bedroom,” he added, pointing down the hall and then using his finger to scratch his cheek.

Lying on a magazine atop the low coffee table in front of the couch was Beaudreau’s fat blue steel .357 Magnum. He had placed it on a magazine to keep it from scratching the tabletop.

They were just shredded pieces of brown and white flesh. Lumps of nothing. The bullets hadn’t hit solidly anywhere, just knocked off hunks of meat and bone.

Charlotte must have died instantly from a bullet that hit her in the cheek and tore off the side of her head back to her ear. Another slug had hit her breast, bursting it like a balloon, leaving a ragged, bloody flap of skin hanging from her chest.

David must have bled to death, a huge red-black path followed him to the corner where he was grotesquely huddled. One of his hands was almost blown off at the wrist and was twisted palm up in a silent gesture. Two giant trenches had been ripped out of his back and buttocks.

“I caught ’em in bed early this mornin’,” Beaudreau explained, his voice calm while his wild eyes searched my face. He started to giggle. “I’ll bet you didn’t know she was fucking the nigger.”

I walked over and picked up the gun and stood in front of him.

“You thought you’d tricked me,” he said, looking up at me and trying to control his giggle. His white tassled loafers were soaked with blood and had turned a bright auburn color. “The both of you—having a big laugh. Well, the joke’s on you.” He broke into a short high-pitched giggle, then stopped as suddenly as he started and narrowed his eyes. “I tried to be your friend,” he cried, pointing a finger at my face. “I liked you.”

I raised the gun and aimed right into his face. His expression never changed. I turned my head as I pulled the trigger, because I knew he would splatter some.

“It’s empty,” he said.

The hammer slammed into the spent cartridge with a pointless click. The frustration ripped through me like an electric shock. I lunged across the low table, lifting the gun over my head like a club. My foot caught and I fell on top of him. He began squealing like a pig and tried to crawl away from me. I swung at his head with the gun and hit him a glancing blow on the forehead with the barrel. The sight gouged a chunk out of his brow just below the hairline and the blood ran down into his right eye.

“Stop it,” he screamed, rubbing his hand over his eye and looking at the blood that came away on his fingers. He started to scramble off the couch away from me. “You’re crazy!”

I swung at him with all my strength, the weight of the gun adding a murderous velocity to the blow. I hit him just behind the right ear as he was trying to stand. Somehow my index finger had gotten between the trigger guard and his skull. I felt the finger shatter. Beaudreau went down in a heap on the floor. My hand had gone numb and the gun flew across the room when I tried to hit him again.

I started kicking him while he lay whimpering on the floor. I wanted to kick him to death, but he was too fat and had curled up in a ball.

I picked up the coffee table, but my broken finger wouldn’t hold and the table slipped to the floor. I grabbed it again and tried to crush his skull with it, but I couldn’t grip it tightly enough to get a good swing. It bounced off the side of his head and out of my hands.

“Fight, you son of a bitch!” I screamed at the huddled man. I stood over him crying and hitting him with my good fist. “Fight, goddam you.”

I ran into the kitchen to get a knife. My chest started to close and I couldn’t breathe. I started to sob uncontrollably. I sank to the kitchen floor and threw up.

I lay in the kitchen for a long time. Suddenly Beaudreau appeared in the doorway. He was straightening his tie and smoothing out his coat. Blood was still running from the cut over his eye and the shoulder of his coat was caked with blood from the wound behind his ear. The gun was stuck in his belt.

Beaudreau stared at me lying on the floor, then shook his head and walked over to the wall phone.

“Man,” he said, lifting the receiver and starting to dial, “you’re crazy.”

It was dark by the time the sheriff’s deputies had finished their investigation. Beaudreau had been led away, his face still bleeding, and the bodies had been taken to the white and colored funeral homes in Lacota.

After they had finished questioning me and one of the ambulance drivers had taped my finger, I went out and sat in the barn. I didn’t cry, I didn’t even think, I just sat there. The Brangus steer eyed me curiously from a nearby stall.

The sheriff’s car was the only one left in the yard, besides the Riviera, when I returned from the barn. The sheriff was standing, fat and brown, with his alligator-booted foot on the bumper of his Ford.

“That boy a frien’ a yern?”

“Nope.”

“Well, we found a lotta marywana in the gal’s room, and what with him findin’ her with the nigger. If he jest buy hisself a good lawyer he’ll probably be all right.” The sheriff’s face wrinkled into a thoughtful frown. “Pretty girl like that,” he said, shaking his head. “How could she do it?”

The sheriff dropped his foot from the bumper and walked around to the driver’s side of the Ford. “Be seein’ ya,” he said with a short wave.

He wadded himself behind the wheel and started the car. Instantly the night was ablaze with his red and blue flashers. He started to pull away and then stopped, reminded of something. He rolled down his window.

“Hey,” he yelled at me, “good luck next Sunday.”

He roared off down the gravel road. I heard the tires squeal as he hit the main road and stomped on the gas. The whine of his siren hung in the damp night air. When the siren faded, there was no sound at all.

I walked over and leaned against the corner of the corral. I looked out over the silent rolling pasture and waited, listening for sounds of life in the distance.