Bleachers (3 page)

“Fifty thousand bucks in cash.”

“No.”

“Yep. State offered forty, A&M offered thirty-five, a few others were willing to pay twenty.”

“You never told me that.”

“I never told anyone until now. It’s such a sleazy business.”

“You took fifty thousand dollars in cash from Tech?” Paul asked slowly.

“Five hundred one-hundred-dollar bills, stuffed in an unmarked red canvas bag and placed in the trunk of my car one night while I was at the movies with Screamer. Next morning, I committed to Tech.”

“Did your parents know?”

“Are you crazy? My father would’ve called the NCAA.”

“Why’d you take it?”

“Every school offered cash, Paul, don’t be naïve. It was part of the game.”

“I’m not naïve, I’m just surprised at you.”

“Why? I could’ve signed with Tech for nothing, or I could’ve taken the money. Fifty thousand bucks to an eighteen-year-old idiot is like winning the lottery.”

“But still—”

“Every recruiter offered cash, Paul. There wasn’t a single exception. I figured it was just part of the business.”

“How’d you hide the money?”

“Stuffed it here and there. When I got to Tech, I paid cash for a new car. It didn’t last long.”

“And your parents weren’t suspicious?”

“They were, but I was away at college and they couldn’t keep up with everything.”

“You saved none of it?”

“Why save money when you’re on the payroll?”

“What payroll?”

Neely reshifted his weight and gave an indulging smile.

“Don’t patronize me, asshole,” Paul said. “Oddly enough most of us didn’t play football at the Division One level.”

“Remember the Gator Bowl my freshman year?”

“Sure. Everyone here watched it.”

“I came off the bench in the second half, threw three touchdowns, ran for a hundred yards, won the game on a last-second pass. A star is born, I’m the greatest freshman in the country, blah, blah, blah. Well, when I got back to school there was a small package in my P.O. box. Five thousand bucks in cash. The note said: ‘Nice game. Keep it up.’ It was anonymous. The message was clear—keep winning and the money
will keep coming. So I wasn’t interested in saving money.”

Silo’s pickup had a custom paint job that was an odd mix between gold and red. The wheels glistened with silver and the windows were pitch black. “There he is,” Paul said as the truck rolled to a stop near the gate.

“What kind of truck is that?” Neely asked.

“Stolen I’m sure.”

Silo himself had been customized—a leather WWII bomber jacket, black denim pants, black boots. He hadn’t lost weight, hadn’t gained any either, and still looked like a nose tackle as he walked slowly around the edge of the field. It was the walk of a Messina Spartan, almost a strut, almost a challenge to anyone to utter a careless word. Silo could still put on the pads, snap the ball, and draw blood.

Instead he gazed at something in the middle of the field, perhaps it was himself a long time ago, perhaps he heard Rake barking at him. Whatever Silo heard or saw stopped him on the sideline for a moment, then he climbed the steps with his hands stuck deep in the pockets of his jacket. He was breathing hard when he got to Neely. He
bearhugged his quarterback and asked him where he’d been for the past fifteen years. Greetings were exchanged, insults swapped. There was so much ground to cover that neither wanted to begin.

They sat three in a row and watched another jogger limp by. Silo was subdued, and when he spoke it was almost in a whisper. “So where are you living these days?”

“The Orlando area,” Neely said.

“What kind of work you in?”

“Real estate.”

“You got a family?”

“No, just one divorce. You?”

“Oh, I’m sure I got lots of kids, I just don’t know about ’em. Never married. You makin’ money?”

“Getting by. I’m not on the Forbes list.”

“I’ll probably crack it next year,” Silo said.

“What kind of business?” Neely asked, glancing down at Paul.

“Automotive parts,” Silo said. “I stopped by Rake’s this afternoon. Miss Lila and the girls are there, along with the grandkids and neighbors. House is full of folks, all sittin’ around, just waitin’ for Rake to die.”

“Did you see him?” Paul asked.

“No. He’s somewhere in the back, with a nurse. Miss Lila said he didn’t want anybody to see him in his last days. Said he’s just a skeleton.”

The image of Eddie Rake lying in a dark bed with a nurse nearby counting the minutes chilled the conversation for a long time. Until the day he was fired he coached in cleats and shorts and never hesitated to demonstrate the proper blocking mechanics or the finer points of a stiff arm. Rake relished physical contact with his players, but not the slap on the back for a job well done. Rake liked to hit, and no practice session was complete until he angrily threw down his clipboard and grabbed someone by the shoulder pads. The bigger the better. In blocking drills, when things were not going to suit him, he would crouch in a perfect three-point stance then fire off the ball and crash into a defensive tackle, one with forty more pounds and the full complement of pads and gear. Every Messina player had seen Rake, on a particularly bad day, throw his body at a running back and take him down with a vicious hit. He loved the violence of football and demanded it from every player.

In thirty-four years as head Coach, Rake had struck only two players off the field. The first had been a famous fistfight in the late sixties between the Coach and a hothead who had quit the team and was looking for trouble, of which he found plenty with Rake. The second had been a cheap shot that landed in the face of Neely Crenshaw.

It was incomprehensible that he was now a shriveled old man gasping for his last breath.

“I was in the Philippines,” Silo said at low volume, but his voice was coarse and carried through the clear air. “I was guardin’ toilets for the officers, hatin’ every minute of it, and I never saw you play in college.”

“You didn’t miss much,” Neely said.

“I heard later that you were great, then you got hurt.”

“I had some nice games.”

“He was the national player of the week when he was a sophomore,” Paul said. “Threw for six touchdowns against Purdue.”

“It was a knee, right?” Silo asked.

“Yes.”

“How’d it happen?”

“I rolled out, into the flat, saw an opening,
tucked the ball and ran, didn’t see a linebacker.” Neely delivered the narrative as if he’d done it a thousand times and preferred not to do it again.

Silo had torn an ACL in spring football and survived it. He knew something about the knee. “Surgery and all that?” he asked.

“Four of them,” Neely said. “Completely ruptured the ligament, busted the kneecap.”

“So the helmet got you?”

“The linebacker went for the knee as Neely was stepping out of bounds,” Paul said. “They showed it a dozen times on television. One of the announcers had the guts to call it a cheap shot. It was A&M, what can I say?”

“Must’ve hurt like hell.”

“It did.”

“He was carried off in an ambulance and they wept in the streets of Messina.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” Silo said. “But it doesn’t take much to get this town upset. Rehab didn’t work?”

“It was what they sadly refer to as a career-ending injury,” Neely said. “Therapy made things worse. I was toast from the second I tucked
the ball and ran. Should’ve stayed in the pocket like I’d been coached.”

“Rake never told you to stay in the pocket.”

“It’s a different game up there, Silo.”

“Yeah, they’re a bunch of dumbasses. They never recruited me. I could’ve been great, probably the first nose tackle to win the Heisman.”

“No doubt about it,” Paul said.

“Everybody knew it at Tech,” Neely said. “All the players kept asking me, ‘Where’s the great Silo Mooney? Why didn’t we sign him?’ ”

“What a waste,” Paul said. “You’d still be in the NFL.”

“Probably with the Packers,” Silo said. “Making the big bucks. Chicks bangin’ on my door. The life.”

“Didn’t Rake want you to go to a junior college?” Neely asked.

“Yeah, I was headed there, but they wouldn’t let me finish school here.”

“How’d you get in the Army?”

“I lied.”

And there was no doubt that Silo had lied to get in the Army, and probably lied to get out. “I need a beer,” he said. “You guys want a beer?”

“I’ll pass,” Paul said. “I need to be heading home soon.”

“What about you?”

“A beer would be nice,” Neely said.

“You gonna stay here for a while?” Silo asked.

“Maybe.”

“Me too. It just seems like the place to be right now.”

______________

The Spartan Marathon was an annual torture run created by Rake to inaugurate each season. It was held the first day of August practice, always at noon, for maximum heat. Every varsity hopeful reported to the track in gym shorts and running shoes, and when Rake blew his whistle the laps began.

The format was simple—you ran until you dropped. Twelve laps were the minimum. Any player unable to complete twelve laps would get the chance to repeat the marathon the next day, and if he failed twice then he was unfit to become a Messina Spartan. Any high school football
player who could not run three miles had no business putting on the pads.

The assistant coaches sat in the air-conditioned press box and counted laps. Rake prowled from one end zone to the other watching the runners, barking if necessary, disqualifying those who moved too slow. Speed was not an issue, unless a player’s pace became a walk, at which point Rake would pull him off the track. Once a player quit or passed out or was otherwise disqualified, he was forced to sit at midfield and bake under the sun until there was no one left standing. There were very few rules, one of which called for automatic ejection if a runner vomited on the track. Vomiting was allowed and there was plenty of it, but once it was completed, somewhere off the track, the sick player was expected to rejoin the run.

Of Rake’s vast repertoire of harsh conditioning methods, the marathon was by far the most dreaded. Over the years it had led some young men in Messina to pursue other sports, or to leave athletics altogether. Mention it to a player around town in July and he suddenly had a thick knot in his stomach and a dry mouth. By early August,
most players were running at least five miles a day in anticipation.

Because of the marathon, every Spartan reported in superb condition. It was not unusual for a hefty lineman to lose twenty or thirty pounds over the summer, not for his girlfriend and not for his physique. The weight was shed to survive the Spartan Marathon. Once it was over, the eating could start again, though weight was difficult to gain when you spent three hours a day on the practice field.

Coach Rake didn’t like big linemen anyway. He preferred the nasty types like Silo Mooney.

Neely’s senior year he completed thirty-one laps, almost eight miles, and when he fell onto the grass with the dry heaves he could hear Rake cursing him from across the field. Paul ran nine and a half miles that year, thirty-eight laps, and won the race. Every Spartan remembered two numbers—the one on his jersey, and the number of laps he finished in the Spartan Marathon.

After the knee injury had abruptly reduced him to the status of being just another student at Tech, Neely was in a bar when a coed from Messina spotted him. “Heard the news from
home?” she said. “What news?” Neely asked, not the least bit interested in news from his hometown.

“Got a new record in the Spartan Marathon.”

“Oh really.”

“Yeah, eighty-three laps.”

Neely repeated what she’d said, did the math, then said, “That’s almost twenty-one miles.”

“Yep.”

“Who did it?”

“Some kid named Jaeger.”

Only in Messina would the gossip include the latest stats from the August workouts.

Randy Jaeger was now climbing up the bleachers, wearing his green game jersey with the number 5 in white with silver trim, tucked tightly into his jeans. He was small, very thin at the waist, no doubt a wide receiver with quick feet and an impressive time in the forty. He first recognized Paul, and as he drew closer he saw Neely. He stopped three rows down and said, “Neely Crenshaw.”

“That’s me,” Neely said. They shook hands. Paul knew Jaeger well because, as was
established quickly in the conversation, Randy’s family owned a shopping center north of town, and, like everybody else in Messina, they banked with Paul.

“Any word on Rake?” Jaeger asked, settling onto the row behind and leaning forward between them.

“Not much. He’s still hanging on,” Paul said gravely.

“When did you finish?” Neely asked.

“Ninety-three.”

“And they fired him in—”

“Ninety-two, my senior year. I was one of the captains.”

There was a heavy pause as the story of Rake’s termination came and went without comment. Neely had been drifting through western Canada, in a post-college funk that lasted almost five years, and had missed the drama. Over time, he had heard some of the details, though he had tried to convince himself he didn’t care what happened to Eddie Rake.

“You ran the eighty-three laps?” Neely asked.

“Yep, in 1990, when I was a sophomore.”

“Still the record?”

“Yep. You?”

“Thirty-one, my senior year. Eighty-three is hard to believe.”

“I got lucky. It was cloudy and cool.”

“How about the guy who came in second?”

“Forty-five, I think.”

“Doesn’t sound like luck to me. Did you play in college?”

“No, I weighed one-thirty with pads on.”

“He was all-state for two years,” Paul said. “And still holds the record for return yardage. His momma just couldn’t fatten him up.”

“I got a question,” Neely said. “I ran thirty-one laps and collapsed in pain. Then Rake cussed me like a dog. What, exactly, did he say when you finished with eighty-three?”

Paul grunted and grinned because he’d heard the story. Jaeger shook his head and smiled. “Typical Rake,” he said. “When I finished, he walked by me and said, in a loud voice, ‘I thought you could do a hundred.’ Of course, this was for the benefit of the other players. Later, in the locker room, he said, very quietly, that it was a gutsy performance.”