The Franchise (25 page)

In practice Taylor had seen R.D. cover a hotshot All-American receiver from Clemson. At twelve yards downfield the rookie started his move, which remained forever unfinished. Anticipating the break, R.D. Locke planted both feet and lunged, smashing the kid’s face with a thick forearm. The rookie crumpled in a heap. He never again beat Locke on a pass route and was released early in camp.

“I said get the fuck off my bed, white boy!” R.D. walked over, took Taylor’s arm and jerked him to his feet.

Speedo stopped laughing.

“Hey, R.D.,” Speedo said, “calm down, man. I ...”

R.D. turned on his roommate. “Shut up, nigger, ’less you want to wake up dead in the morning.”

Taylor Rusk wrenched his arm free. “Okay, okay, R.D., I’m sorry I sat on your bed.” Taylor, not yet afraid, started for the door. “Ill-mannered son of a bitch.”

R.D. yelled after the quarterback, who was now out in the hall.

“Your momma!” Taylor yelled back.

Locke’s face contorted in black fury, and he started after the quarterback. Then he stopped, turned to his dresser and jerked open the top drawer.

Taylor continued on down the hall, scuffing his moccasins, angry and confused. He had gotten about three doors down the hall when he heard Speedo Smith yell.

“R.D., you crazy nigger! Stop! Taylor, look out!”

Taylor Rusk looked back just as R.D. Locke stepped out into the hall with a .38 Detective Special in his hand. Time slowed as the angry black man brought the small, lethal pistol up to firing position and squeezed off a shot.

Boom!

Taylor ducked and felt the breeze from the slug ruffle his hair. The barrel of the snub-nose looked bigger and bigger.

R.D. leveled the gun with both hands. Taylor backed away but was afraid to turn and run. Taylor couldn’t take his eyes off of the pistol, as if he could dodge the bullets by watching for them. R.D. sighted down the short barrel at the center of the big quarterback’s chest and began to squeeze off another round. There would be no missing this time. The hammer was already raked back. R.D. grinned crazily and squeezed.

A blur lunged out the doorway and tackled the insane defensive back.

Boom!

The shot went wide of Taylor, blowing a wad of plaster out of the wall. Speedo Smith drove R.D. Locke across the hallway with the force of his tackle. R.D.’s head and right elbow hit the door molding. He dropped the gun and Speedo kicked it toward Taylor. R.D. slid to the floor, dazed.

The hall quickly filled up with players emptying out of their rooms. Simon D’Hanis, Meg Brinkley and Ox Wood helped Speedo keep Locke on the floor. R.D. was foaming at the mouth. Taylor Rusk stood paralyzed, staring at the pistol in his hand. Then he began to shake.

One of the assistant backfield coaches came running down the hall.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded, looking at the three men holding Locke on the floor. “I thought I heard shots.”

“You did, man,” Speedo said, his breathing shallow and rapid. “You did.”

Taylor held up the pistol.

“Oh, my God!” The coach’s eyes grew. “Whose is that?”

Taylor looked down at R.D., who was rolling his eyes, still foaming and struggling futilely against the mass of Simon D’Hanis, Meg Brinkley and Ox Wood. Speedo Smith got up and walked over to Taylor.

“Thanks,” Taylor finally said. He looked glassy-eyed at Speedo and then back down at Locke.

Speedo’s breathing had begun to slow. He nodded and walked back toward his room without looking back.

The backfield coach’s mouth hung open. Finally he said, “Okay, nobody move. I gotta go see Red.” He took the gun from Taylor. “Was he shooting at you?”

Taylor nodded, his legs rubbery. He thought he was going to be sick.

“Okay, okay! Jesus Christ! Goddam! Hell!” The coach looked at the gun in his hand. “Nobody do or say anything until I get back here with Red. That’s an order.”

The coach looked at the men holding R.D. Locke. “Don’t let
that
son of a bitch up.” The coach ran off, carrying the pistol. He had to push his way through the crowd of players gathered to see what all the noise was about.

On his way to Red’s room the assistant stopped at the dormitory office. He had the telephone switchboard shut down and ordered all the outside doors locked.

“You’re doing this to me ’cause I’m black,” R.D. yelled, struggling vainly in the grip of the three mammoth men.

Taylor looked down at R.D. Locke. The black man’s eyes blazed with a hatred that was generations in creation. Taylor turned, walked to his room and lay down. As he listened to the buzz of activity in the hall, he suddenly felt strangely calm. Twenty minutes later he heard Red Kilroy and Dick Conly arrive.

“All right, the rest of you back to your rooms. Simon, Margene and Ox bring R.D.”

Taylor listened as the players returned to their rooms. Several of them looked in on Taylor. He waved them off.

Two hours later Simon came by the room. Taylor was still staring at the ceiling.

“Well,” Simon said, “he’s gone.”

“The police come and get him?” Taylor asked. His voice cracked; his throat and mouth were still dry from fear.

“No, Red said it was just a case of cabin fever.” Simon went into the bathroom and splashed water on his face. “We just put him on a plane. Red traded him to Denver.”

Taylor nodded his head slowly. “Cabin fever, huh?”

“Yup,” Simon said. “Worse goddam case I ever saw.”

“C
ALL
R
OBBIE
B
URDEN,”
Cyrus said “and tell him I want a spot in his office for Lem Three.”

“Why?” Conly said. “He isn’t bothering anybody here. He just sits there, drinking whiskey in his coffee cup, and tries to think of catchy things to write on banners and bumper stickers.”

“I want him to get an idea of how the League office operates and get firsthand experience dealing in broadcast from production to advertising. There’s a revolution coming.”

“I know, Cyrus. I told you about it.”

So Lem Carleton III and his pregnant wife, Wendy Cy Chandler Carleton, moved to New York City, where Lem worked as assistant to Commissioner Robbie Burden for telecommunications and special projects. He spent his time at the League office, trying to comprehend the size and velocity of change in broadcast technology, regulations and profitability. He learned how to market football. He saw them building the barricades for the communications revolution that Dick Conly said was coming.

It failed to stir him, but it fascinated his wife.

Wendy Chandler Carleton was exhilarated by the struggle for control of the telecommunications industry. She had an interest in the software. One in particular.

“Software is my life,” Taylor had told her.

Dick Conly’s plan for the software was a football-league network broadcast direct by satellite to a football-league decoder. The viewer would be able to watch any league game on a twenty-five-dollar pay-per-view basis, plus the cost of the dish antenna (six hundred dollars) and the League decoder (five hundred dollars).

Chandler Communications Research and Development had already perfected “addressibility” capabilities for the Direct Broadcast Satellite project. Chandler Aerospace was test-firing satellite launch rockets and had space reserved on the shuttle. They planned to be kicking satellites out of the shuttle like hay bales, and by the mid-eighties approximately forty million homes would be connected—with $1.25 billion potential each of twenty weekends, not counting doubleheaders, Thanksgiving, the playoffs, or Super Bowl.

Dick Conly figured the Super Bowl broadcast would gross $2.5 billion.

$2.5 billion.

One game.

Dick Conly thought like that, betting millions against billions. Chandler Communications subscription television would gross eight million dollars per game on local pay telecasts of Pistols home games that were blacked out in Park City and a 150-mile radius. Eighty million a season for the Franchise before one ticket was sold.

The stakes were going up fast.

H
ENDRIX WAS COMPLAINING
about the Union.

Kimball was needling him out of boredom.

Taylor was resting on his back with the playbook over his face. He was thinking pass routes while his receiver ranted.

“The pension plan promised lots but guaranteed little. We don’t even control or have access to the money. Owners’ pension contributions are voluntary and teams are just not paying. Stillman keeps saying it’s a great deal, but he gave the owners control of the pension in return for dues checkoff.”

Spurred by his anger at Charlie Stillman, plus his eternal war against Commissioner Burden, Bobby Hendrix had generated a fair amount of resistance among older players throughout the League against signing the bottle-cap licensing agreement.

Robbie Burden found himself in legal jeopardy and pressured Charlie Stillman to get the Union in line.

In Bobby Hendrix’s room the phone rang, and the redheaded man answered.

“We’ve got to be reasonable, Bobby,” Stillman was pleading over the phone. “The Union could look bad. This could hurt a lot of people.”

“Name two, besides you and the commissioner?”

“We need not get personal,” Robbie Burden interrupted. It was a conference call. “This is business and we’re merely trying to rectify an oversight.”

“Fire Stillman and make that ex-basketball player, Terry Dudley, the new Union director,” Hendrix demanded.

“What?” Director Stillman lost control momentarily. “You little cocksucker ...”

“Shut up, Charlie!” the commissioner ordered. “Just shut up!” Robbie Burden’s tone softened for Hendrix. “Listen, Bobby, it’s
your
union—”

“Don’t give me that shit,” Hendrix cut the commissioner off. “You go tell your owners to tell their reps to fire Stillman and hire Terry Dudley or you are going to have Dr Pepper’s legal department all over your ass.” Bobby hung up.

Charlie Stillman was fired.

Terry Dudley was hired and the Union took control of their own pension and health funds.

The bottle-cap war ended.

The revolution had begun.

D
URING EXHIBITION SEASON
Taylor Rusk worked hard to improve and develop his skills at quarterback. Taylor planned on being the Franchise. He planned to control the players, to deal with Red as he had done at the University. Then start learning to deal with Cyrus and Conly. Cyrus proved to be merely willful and spoiled, but Dick Conly was a lifelong hired gun. Power struggles were Dick Conly’s business; smelling out an ambush was his unique talent. Taylor would build his power base between the white lines on the field. They couldn’t reach him there.

Red pushed Kimball Adams to spend extra time teaching Taylor to play major-league quarterback. What took Adams years he taught Taylor in months. How to read defenses, when and where to expect them and what to do, how to take his keys from the linebackers and the weak and strong safety. How to call a game, probing for weakness and strength; how to play the field like a chessboard and basketball court. When to audible and why. How to use the clock. How to control his offense. “The best information comes from your teammates on the field, not some asshole on the sideline.

“Keep control,” Adams said. “That’s the bottom line.”

Taylor had a good feel for sensing a blitz and continued developing the skill with the sting system of automatics. All backs, ends and linemen had to learn to key without any call. They expanded it eventually to automatic adjustments for every defense. Pass patterns changed in midroute. The angles on the field. Kimball taught Taylor the geometry of the game to combine it with Rusk’s strong arm and touch, the exquisite patterns and fingertip catching of Bobby Hendrix and the devastating threat of Speedo Smith.

The weak offensive line tried to protect the quarterback, and Ox Wood harangued the lineman about pride and courage, the savage man-on-man wars between the tackles, the shame of a quarterback sack.

“These boys represent all that is good.” Ox had his arms draped over Taylor and Kimball. “Womanhood, motherhood. And we must protect them. We must win the war in the trenches. Goodness needs time to flower, and it is up to us to bite, kick, slug, cut-block and trap-block for our offense to blossom. It can be a beautiful spiritual feeling. We must stand.
They shall not pass
.”

Tears streamed down Simon D’Hanis’s face. “Goodness shall triumph over evil! They shall not pass!”

About all that
didn’t
pass was Kimball Adams’s kidney stones.

But they never quit. Humiliated. Beaten. Exhausted. They never quit.

“You’re fifty percent of the way,” Red said after a disappointing loss. “You’re
not
quitters.”

It was that particular night exhibition game when Simon D’Hanis developed his raging hatred for combination football-baseball stadiums.

The pregame ritual included a flag ceremony with the stadium lights out. Old Glory was led by a single spotlight to center field. Everyone sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” except Red, who forgot the words.

The stadium remained dark as the starting lineups were introduced. From inside the tunnel each player ran out in the spotlight—alone. The stadium was a dark, roaring maw.

“Just follow the spotlight, men,” the guy with the walkie-talkie said. He slapped Ox Wood on the shoulder and the big All-Pro lumbered out into the stadium. The crowd howled and roared out of the dark. Ox just thumped his way through the tunnel, out the dugout and into the spotlight. The brilliant beam seemed to carry Ox over the warm-up circle, past the pitcher’s mound, across the infield and out to the football field. The darkness yowled. Unaffected, fearless, steady, gliding in the spotlight, his short legs skating the yellow circle of light, Ox Wood stopped at midfield and waited. He stood alone in the swirling, dusty stream of light.

Simon D’Hanis was terrified, frightened, confused and lost. His legs felt rubbery. Could he make the run? Suddenly darkness swallowed the great hulk of Ox Wood and the crowd squalled like some wounded animal as the smoke-filled, swirling, filthy stream of light crawled toward Simon. An electronic voice was calling him out into the void. “Number Sixty-three, Simon D’Hanis.”