Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (22 page)

“Actually I let her do most of the talking.”

“Brilliant. Smart man. I think you’re gonna get laid a lot in your life, Billy.”

“Thanks. But what I wanted to ask you . . . well, the reason I wanted to talk . . .”

Dime eyes him patiently.

“Well, I don’t wanna lose her, Sergeant. How do I keep from losing her?”

“
What?
Jesus Christ, lose
what,
Billy, how long were you with her, ten minutes? You guys mugged down, great, excellent, I’m really happy for you, but I don’t think you’ve got anything to lose. She was being
nice,
all right? You’re a hero, she was doing something
nice
for the troops. And we’re on post as of twenty-two hundred tonight, so I don’t know when you think you’re gonna see her again. Tell you what, see if you can get her e-mail, maybe that way yall can e-fuck once we’re back in Iraq.”

Billy feels sick. Of course Dime is right, it is absurd to hope for any kind of future with Faison, but then he thinks about how tenderly she cupped his cheek, how knowingly her hips absorbed his thrusts. Her wide-mouthed kisses. Her tearful eyes. Her bone-crushing climax. Not to be a shallow bastard, but how much realer does it get?

One of the equipment managers notices them standing there and asks would they like a tour of the equipment room. We’d love it, Dime says. Ennis, the man says, holding out his hand. He is a wiry sixty-year-old with a starter paunch and the tumbleweed twang of the native Texan. “We sure are proud to have you boys with us today,” he says, leading them past the dispensary counter to a side door. “Everybody treating you right?”

“Everyone’s been excellent.”

“Glad to hear it. We sure try to take care of our special guests.” Inside the door they’re hit with a stiff blast of plastic and leather smells.

“Whoa. How do you not get high in here?”

“Listen, open up on a Tuesday morning when it’s been locked up for a day, man, you
will
get high.”

The equipment room is the size and dimensions of a small airplane hangar, with row upon farther receding row of cabinets, shelves, scaffoldings for bins and crates, steam tables, work benches, stepladders on wheels, and every fixture from carpet to doorknobs coordinated in team colors of blue and silver-gray, a very narrow palette. “Now, you can’t field a world-class football team without a world-class equipment operation,” Ennis declaims, and Billy suspects they’re at the top of a well-honed tourist spiel. “Football is an equipment-centric sport, and when you’re talking about the four or five tons of materials we deal with here, inventory and organization are a must. You gotta have it to find it, right? And you gotta find it to use it, the best gear in the world won’t do you any good if it’s pulling down dust in a closet somewhere. And we’re talking over six hundred categories of items here.”

“That sounds like a lot,” says Billy.

“It is, young man, you should see our travel list. It takes a team of detail-oriented individuals to work an operation like this. Zero tolerance for error, that’s our standard.” They pause at the neatly racked jerseys in home and away colors. Ennis points out the spandex panels to ensure tight fit, the extra-long tails with spandex hems, the moisture-wicking qualities of the space-age fabric. Billy pulls out number 78 and holds it up by the hanger; they share a chuckle over its impossible size, enough fabric to clothe an average family of four. Then it’s on to the shoes, an entire section of wall shelved floor to ceiling with shoes, shoes, shoes, shoes, and nothing but more shoes.

“Wow,” says Dime. “Look at all the shoes.”

“Impressive, hunh. And we’ll use ’em. We burn through close to three thousand pair a season, and that number goes up every year. Listen, at training camp? I’ve seen it so hot out there the shoes just fall apart, and these are top-quality product, not your Wal-Mart knockoffs.” Each player, Ennis continues, requires three kinds of Astroturf treads, one for dry, one for damp, and one for wet conditions, plus a molded-form shoe with fixed cleats for grass, plus another grass shoe with interchangeable cleats, four kinds of cleat styles for all different weathers. Then to the shoulder pads stacked on steam tables, stack upon stack and row upon row like bones in an Old World catacomb. Twelve styles, which is to say a style for each position, four sizes per style plus flak-jacket extensions plus infinite customizations possible. Now, your helmet. Most important piece of gear we have. The helmet is a world unto itself, a high-tech engineering marvel born of the latest in orthopedic and impact science. Outer shell made up of cutting-edge polymers, resins, and epoxies that can take a hit like
this,
WHAM,
both soldiers jump back as Ennis slams the helmet to the floor with astounding violence. See, look here. Nothing. Impressive, hunh. Not quite your Kevlars, but then again my guys aren’t dodging bullets. Inside, just as important, you can build an individual-type matrix of jaw pads, foam inserts, and air bladders to ensure perfect fit and maximum protection. Here, air pumps to inflate the bladders, there’s your nipples right there along the edge of the shell. Even then we get concussions, lots of ’em. Those guys can hit. Here you’ve got your face masks, fifteen different styles, chin straps in six distinct configurations, mouth guards in a multiplicity of styles and colors. Quarterback helmets come equipped with wireless radio for instant coach-to-QB communication. Every week we strip off the helmet decals and put on new ones, clean the shells with SOS pads, polish them up with Future floor wax.

Lotta work, you bet. Chewing gum, we provide five flavors for the guys, you’re looking at twenty twenty-five-hundred-count boxes right there. Velcro strips and tags here, to keep your gear snug and tight, you don’t wanna be giving the enemy any handles to grab. Hip, thigh, and knee pads sorted by style, size, and thickness. Tact gloves for receivers, padded gloves for linemen. Orthopedic insoles, all sizes. Baseball caps. Knit caps. Electric drills for changing out cleats. Talcum powder. Sunscreen. Smelling salts. Twenty-two different kinds of medical tapes. Gels, creams, ointments, antibacterials, and antifungals. Coolers. Cartons of powdered Gatorade. Whoa ho, fellas, there’s more. For cold-weather conditions such as we face today, skullcaps, thermal underwear, mittens, muffs, chemical hand warmers, cold-weather cream, thermal socks, heating units for the benches. Water-repellent thermal overcoats, specially designed to fit over shoulder pads. Rain ponchos, same design. We go through seven hundred towels per game, double that for wet or extra-warm conditions.

“Where do you keep the steroids?” Dime asks.

“Unh-unh, that’s a dirty word around here. Now, game balls. As the home team we’re responsible for providing thirty-six brand-new balls for the game, plus an additional twelve balls that get delivered directly from the manufacturer to the refs, which they’ll mark ‘K’ for exclusive use in the kicking game.” Farther along, practice jerseys and shorts here, sweatshirts and pants there. A quick look into the industrially scaled laundry room, then on to the coaches’ gear. Notebooks, clipboards, small and large greaseboards, Magic Markers, grease pens, headphones, bullhorns. A shoebox-sized bin filled with shiny silver whistles, another full of Casio stopwatches. Wireless communication and video in there, always locked down, for obvious reasons. When we’re on the road it takes two semis to haul all our gear, we’re talking nine, ten thousand pounds of equipment.

By the end even Dime seems a little dazed. It is simply too much, these mind-numbing quantities of niche-specific goods and everything labeled, sorted, sized, collated, stowed, and stacked, a testament to the human genius for logistics and inventory control. Billy’s headache is worse, from breathing all the fumes, he guesses, and as they backtrack the length of the equipment room he feels a tightness in his chest, a stunting of breath as if his lungs have been short-sheeted somehow. Allergies, maybe; or maybe a heart attack? The thought arrives on the wings of a mental shrug; he’s too caught up in the mysteries of the equipment room to waste much time fretting over his health. How does it all come to be, that’s what he wants to know, not just the how but the why of all this
stuff
. Only in America, apparently. Only America could take such a product-intensive sport and grow it into the civic necessity it is today.

He’s not sure what he’s just seen in here, but it seems to have made him sick.

“You know,” Ennis shyly confides, “I did a couple years in the Army, back in the day. But pretty much ever-body did. We had a draft, you know.”

“Vietnam?” Dime asks.

“Just missed it. Got out in ’63 and damn glad I did. I knew guys who didn’t come back from there.”

“Lotta those,” says Dime.

“You ain’t kidding. I just want you fellas to know how much we appreciate the job you’re doing over there. If it watten for yall God knows what’d be going down here, I guess we’d all be praying to Allah and wearing towels on our heads.”

“You got anything for a headache?” Billy asks. “Advil? Aleve?”

“Tons of the stuff,” Ennis replies. “You hurtin’? Listen, son, I’d love to help you out, but I can’t, legal liability and all that. Every single item that goes through those windows”—he points to the dispensary counter—“gets recorded and tallied. You wouldn’t think it, but even just a couple of little pills could lose me my job.”

“That’s okay,” Billy says. “I don’t want you to lose your job.”

Ennis apologizes again. At the door to the locker room Dime asks him to autograph his ball. Ennis rears back. He’s chuckling but his eyes are wary.

“Why you want that? I’m just an old equipment hand, nobody cares about my autograph.”

“As far as I’m concerned you run the team,” Dime answers, so Ennis laughs and takes the Sharpie and signs his name to Dime’s ball, and this will be the only autograph that Dime collects today. Back in the locker room the players have almost finished suiting up. The air is a pungent casserole of plastics, b.o., farts, melon-woody colognes, and the rancid-licorice reek of petroleum liniments. Norm stands on a chair in the center of the room and calls Bravo to him, then instructs the team to circle around. Bravo has heard its quota of speeches today but here comes another, what can you do. The players dutifully approach, and as they assemble here in the middle of the room Billy tries to imagine the vast systems that support these athletes. They are among the best-cared-for creatures in the history of the planet, beneficiaries of the best nutrition, the latest technologies, the finest medical care, they live at the very pinnacle of American innovation and abundance, which inspires an extraordinary thought—send them to fight the war! Send them just as they are this moment, well rested, suited up, psyched for brutal combat, send the entire NFL! Attack with all our bears and raiders, our ferocious redskins, our jets, eagles, falcons, chiefs, patriots, cowboys—how could a bunch of skinny hajjis in man-skirts and sandals stand a chance against these all-Americans? Resistance is futile, oh Arab foes. Surrender now and save yourself a world of hurt, for our mighty football players cannot be stopped, they are so huge, so strong, so fearsomely ripped that mere bombs and bullets bounce off their bones of steel. Submit, lest our awesome NFL show you straight to the flaming gates of hell!

“Now, I just want to say,” Norm begins, but there’s some chatter at the back, and someone’s boom box is burbling Ludacris. “SHADDUP!!!!!” Coach Tuttle bellows, and for a moment they could all be back in eighth-grade gym.

“Well,” Norm resumes, “I hope everyone’s had a chance to visit with the very special guests we have with us today, the soldiers of Bravo squad. I’m sure by now everybody is familiar with their story—under fire, pinned down, large numbers of their colleagues killed or wounded, but these young men, the young soldiers of Bravo, they would, not, quit. There on the banks of the Al-Ansakar Canal they were faced with the biggest challenge of their lives, and thanks to God’s help they rose to the challenge, and they’ve made our entire country proud. I had the privilege of speaking with President Bush not long ago, and he . . .”

The players have tuned out. Billy can see it in their eyes, that flatness, the rheostatic dialing down of brains in sleep mode. Having stood in formation for countless hours, he knows the look when he sees it.

“ . . .  so maybe our challenges are different. Maybe the challenges we face aren’t as dramatic as theirs, but they’re the tests God has put in our path to mold us into the people He wants us to be. Now, I know we’ve hit a rough patch in our season. We’re struggling. Things haven’t gone exactly to plan, but it’s what we do when we’re down, after we’ve taken the hit, that determines who we are. So do we say forget it, just pack it in . . .”

A cloud of chemical wrath seems to rise off the players. A Norm lecture is just an everyday pain in the ass, but to be shown up by Bravo? Contrasted?
Compared?
This stirs the bloody reservoirs of sibling rivalry.
Why can’t you be more like him?
Not that Bravo wants anything to do with this, but it’s too late to opt out of Norm’s Sunday school lesson.

“ . . .  and so I challenge you,
all
of you, every individual on this team, from Vinny and Drew right down to Bobby”—a gurgling cry rises from somewhere behind the players, Bobby himself; Bravo met him earlier, the Cowboys’ famous, mildly retarded ball boy—“to rise to the challenge, to overcome. To be as brave and determined in facing the challenge as these young soldiers were facing theirs. It starts today, gentlemen. No time like the present. So let’s go out there and kick some Bear butt!”