The Franchise (28 page)

The word got around the League quickly that Ox was protecting Kimball Adams.

Swift, sure punishment—that was the protection. Deterrence theory in action. Only the purely crazy or the heavily drugged continued to try and punish Kimball Adams. Unfortunately the League was filled with plenty of both. Ox and Margene and the rest stayed busy all season, breaking jaws and ribs, rupturing spleens and kidneys, tearing up knees and ankles.

It was slight satisfaction to the devastated Kimball Adams to hear Ox constantly repeating, “We’ll get that cocksucker for that, Kimball.”

“Get him
before
he gets me, Ox,” Kimball said, waiting for the cobwebs to clear. “
Before
.... Now, get me up.”

“They’ll be stopped,” Ox promised.

They
were
stopped, but not soon enough, and Kimball Adams was hammered all season, taking his beating like a quarterback, standing up in the rapidly collapsing pocket.

Against Pittsburgh, after a six-foot-seven-inch, 270-pound rookie tackle missed his man, Kimball got up off his back, walked slowly to the huddle and kicked the rookie right in the crotch. He then called time out for the trainers to come haul the tackle off the field.

“The name of the game is pain,” Red said. “It’s the only test of manhood our country offers, short of war.”

“What about a big killing on the commodities exchange?” Taylor asked.

It was one of many agonizing Monday meetings, and Red ignored the remark.

“Pain. Pain. Hit. Bleed. Pain. Do you want to take it or inflict it?”

“You act like I got a choice,” Kimball replied, his eyes black, his nose ajar, nostrils packed with bloody gauze.

“They do!” Red pointed around the room. “They can
inflict
it. I want guys who hit, hit, hit,
hit, hit, hit
. That’s how you win football games, not with fancy plays or computers or elaborate scouting systems. You take the guy across from you on Sunday afternoon and you kick his ass all over that field for three solid hours. If each of you does that, nobody is going to beat us.”

Red paused strategically and looked around the room for someone foolish enough to ask a question or look dubious. Red had cut guys in meetings for not looking attentive.

“We hit. We are hitters and will not be denied.”

“It sounds great in the meeting.” Bobby Hendrix was sitting by his locker, rubbing analgesic balm all over his bony, freckled body.

“Unfortunately”—Kimball pulled on his rib pads—“lots of teams got fancy plays, computers, elaborate systems, plus bigger, better, faster, meaner guys who love to hit and inflict pain while they win.”

“It’s sort of a hobby with them,” Taylor added. “Testing Kimball Adams’s manhood.”

Taylor developed a peculiar respect for a quarterback so courageous with so little to gain.

He loves the game
, Taylor decided.
And wants the control, the power
.

So did Taylor Rusk.

Years later, as time did one thing possible with pain and dulled it, forgot it, confused it, the Texas Pistols’ debut seemed funnier. The stories definitely gained in the telling. It had been embarrassing, humiliating misery. Maybe it was fun.

Mostly it was painful.

I
T WAS BEFORE
the Cleveland game that Red Kilroy knelt and offered this prayer:

          
We thank thee Lord for the world so sweet

          
We thank thee Lord for the food we eat

          
We thank thee Lord for the birds that sing

          
We thank thee Lord for everything.

“That was a strange prayer, Red,” Taylor said as he followed Adams and the head coach to the field. “It was a little early, too, don’t you think? Before warm-ups?”

“I got a few things on my mind, Taylor, do you mind?”

Taylor shook his head.

“How about asking for fewer birdies next time,” Kimball said as they walked the tunnel, “and get me a fucking center and a couple of tackles?”

“Get your own, asshole.” Red walked off.

“Red always wanted to be a quarterback,” Taylor said, “but he can’t call a game. It’s making him crazy. Now he wants to be an owner.”

“Being an owner
is
crazy,” Adams said. “Ranching hard dicks to show your friends.”

“In college Red started a pregame prayer with ‘Now I lay me down to sleep ...’ ” Taylor said. “He’s at his worst on game day.”

“ ‘Now I lay me down to sleep’?” Adams repeated softly and stared down a moment. “What a way to live.” He looked over at the strong young quarterback he was grooming for the New League. The New Age.

“What about the turf here?” Taylor asked.

“It jumps up and smacks you in the face a lot.” Kimball climbed up into the dugout and groaned, straining to make the long step up to the field. “Well, Taylor, keep your eyes on me. I might do some shit out there that only you can see.”

The aged, battered quarterback started to jog across the infield; his movements were stiff, knees and ankles hurting with each jolting step on the hard baseball infield. He
was
the elephant.

Taylor stayed in the dugout, watching Kimball Adams enter his old home stadium alone. The stands were still half empty; it was over an hour to kickoff. These were early warm-ups for punters, kickers, passers, receivers and the injured—anyone who had a specialty or problem that required extra attention before team drills.

Taylor watched Kimball Adams limp across the baseball diamond to the football field to join the eight or ten other Pistols already out there. A spattering of applause rippled through the crowd and moved around the bowl. The cheering started loudly in the near end zone, then progressively lost volume up the sideline to the fifty-yard-line seats, the high-dollar tickets. The applause picked up again going in, regaining its intensity and reached a crescendo in the far end zone. The reception died ambiguously as it moved up the far sideline. By midfield it stopped.

Kimball Adams was welcomed back by the fans. He picked up a ball and threw a few warm-ups to Speedo Smith, who had come out earlier to catch punts.

“The niggers like you here.” Speedo pointed to the end zones.

“They love me.” He tossed Speedo the ball. “A legend in my own mind.”

“Mine too.” Speedo practiced a one hand catch.

“You don’t have to say that.”

“I do if I expects the ball.”

Taylor pulled on his warm-up jacket, zipped it tightly, stepped out of the dugout and walked slowly to join Speedo and Kimball Adams. He heard Bobby Hendrix’s footsteps behind him, recognizing the receiver’s gait. Taylor slowed and they soon walked side by side.

“Well, Taylor, this here is what it’s all about.”

“
What
is all about?”

“If I knew
that
, you think I would be doing
this?
’

“Well ... at least”—Taylor pointed to the seats—“a crowd seems to be gathering.”

“Yeah, that’s all Jesus was trying to do; draw a crowd.” Bobby dug into his pants and pulled out his can of Nutty Putty and began working it with his fingers, strengthening, loosening, toughening.

“He sure did it the hard way,” Taylor said. “That still doesn’t mean it’s
about
anything.”

“You’re the complete cynic, Taylor. You have to learn to enjoy the struggle more. The fight.” The long, white, spidery freckled fingers walked and ran through the thick multicolored wad. “I had to steal this stuff from my kids; I lost mine. I took all they had—all sizes, colors. Still not enough. I stopped at two shopping malls on the way to the airport. Nothing. Electronic games everywhere. No Nutty Putty.” He handed the rainbow-hued amalgamation to the quarterback.

“Did you try room service at the hotel?” Taylor took the spongy wad and worked it with his hands and fingers. “You let your children play with this stuff?” Taylor held his fist up and squeezed; the plastic colors oozed between his fingers. “This is sick.” Taylor’s fingers dug and squeezed through the resilient blob. “Does Ginny know your children use this?”

The two men walked to join their teammates; the stadium began to fill. It was a beautiful day for football, but the League had chosen to play a night game.

It was their ball.

After Cleveland’s middle linebacker smashed Kimball’s nose on a blitz, he called a time-out to let his line collect themselves and concentrate on the game. Blood running down his throat from the broken nose, Kimball stepped back and looked at the crowd. They caterwauled and snarled, barely in control, smelling blood, wanting more. Kimball decided he would drown them in it.

Kimball sniffed back blood, stepped in his huddle and plotted not victory but revenge. Texas reduced the Cleveland defense and offense and special teams to smoking ruins in less than three hours. The Pistols lost 3–0 but Cleveland never recovered.

The battle was expensive to the players; serious casualties were inflicted. The Pistols’ offense was sometimes threatening. The defense was devastating.

The Cleveland middle linebacker speared Bobby Hendrix in the back with his headgear, sending the flanker to the hospital for X-rays and morphine shots. The skinny redhead pissed blood for three days and missed two games.

The Pistols’ team doctor called his bookie immediately with the injury report to be sure he got down before the spread changed. The X-ray technician got down for two hundred dollars against both teams for the following week, since they’d been bringing those guys in to his emergency room at such a phenomenal rate and in such bad shape.

Neither noticed the hairline fracture of Bobby Hendrix’s cervical vertebrae. Not that it mattered. Bobby didn’t notice it either, his low back was hurting so much.

Ox Wood got the middle linebacker just after the final gun.

Cleveland wound up with two broken legs, a dislocated shoulder, a variety of facial injuries, nine undiagnosed concussions and two jammed necks, the result of wide receivers being pushed by strong safety A.D. Koster headlong into the goalposts. The Cleveland fans booed both receivers as they were carried off the field semiconscious, spilling blood from every orifice in the skull and complaining of burning pains in their legs. Violence spilled out of the stands onto the field a couple of times. Taylor kept his helmet on and watched the crowd.

The Cleveland doctor diagnosed one of the two broken legs, but everything else he called a strain except the head and neck injuries, who were told: “You just got your bell rung.”

If the player complained that his injury was possibly worse than the doctor diagnosed, the Cleveland doctor would agree with the player, call for nurses and aides and ask for rubber gloves; then, with meticulous procedure and surgical precision, he would mortify the injured athlete by taping one five-grain aspirin to the player’s body.

The Cleveland doctor’s practice consisted of the Cleveland team and rich widows with bad habits.

T
HE FINAL WEEK
of the season Dick Conly was alone in his office, thinking about the problem of the season and beyond. He had to find them before they found him. He studied a copy of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, then dialed the phone.

“Yeah,” Cyrus Chandler answered Dick’s call to his lake house.

“I’m looking at the CBA,” Conly said into the phone. “The next one won’t be so easy. Stillman couldn’t handle Bobby Hendrix, and if Terry Dudley starts listening to Hendrix about free agency, we could have a problem.” Conly paused. “Dudley’s a friend of Taylor Rusk, and I don’t have to tell you if Hendrix, Rusk and Dudley get to thinking ... they could end up stealing our software.”

“You worry too much,” Cyrus replied. “Terry Dudley will be okay.”

The delicate hands unbuttoned Cyrus’s shirt and the woman reached inside, scraping her fingertips across his thin chest. Cyrus covered the phone. “Stop. Jesus.” The woman continued.

“This is serious. We need to be sure.” Conly was angry; he could hear the woman’s teasing presence throwing Cyrus into confusion. Cyrus was breathing hard.

“Don’t worry,” Cyrus panted, “I’ve kept tabs on him. He’s in Spur ... oathbound to other Spur members.”

“If it ain’t the Yakuza or the Comanche, it ain’t no oath, Cyrus,” Conly said. He could hear giggling over the phone.

“You’re right,” Cyrus replied. “Better keep a closer eye on Terry Dudley. Jocks are always jocks.”

Cyrus Chandler rang off with the promise to call the next day.

“Terminal dumbass.” Conly replaced the receiver. He looked out his office window, then dialed Suzy Ballard’s number. He let it ring twenty times before he slammed the receiver down.

“Goddam whore, where are you?” He didn’t want to know. And he knew he didn’t want to know. Dick Conly was not stupid; he was just growing old and lonely, wanting to have something, someone.

He called home and Billie, the housekeeper, answered.

“Your wife and the girls has gone to the ballet,” the fat black woman said, “to watch some Russian fag defector jump around in tights and a codpiece.”

Dick laughed; he loved Billie.

Amos Chandler had found Billie in New Orleans with the Man in Louie’s Joint on Rampart Street, trying unsuccessfully to sing. A punk sailor started heckling her and Billie took out his front teeth, laying him low and cold with her bare knuckles. The Man had Louie send her to his Royal Street house; Amos hired her on the spot and brought her to Texas to run his household. When Amos died, she came to work for Dick Conly, refusing an offer from Cyrus. She never lost her punch.

“What about Luther?” Dick asked. “Is he home?”

“In his room.”

“Put him on; I got time to catch a movie.”

“He’s asleep.” Billie was stern. “He don’t need to catch no movie. He needs somebody to talk to besides the reefer man.”

“Oh, Christ. Meaning I don’t spend enough time with him?”

“You should come home more,” Billie said. “Not for your wife or me—we both know what you look like—but these kids won’t be here forever. ’Specially Luther. The girls got their momma, but him, he need a man. Hell, I need a man.”