The Game Player (2 page)

“Aw shit!” Dan screamed and he slammed the football on the ground. “Where the fuck were you?” he demanded of me.

“Sorry,” I said in a humiliated whisper.

“Jesus Christ!”

“Are you gonna punt or start praying?” Brian asked.

We kicked the ball to them and I was surprised that Brian wasn't quarterbacking the team. He seemed to be calling the plays in the huddle but their quarterback was a blond boy, not much taller than I, with large, wondering blue eyes. They ran two running plays, first around their left side and then their right side—and had enough for a first down. They stayed on the ground for two more plays, the last one up the middle (which didn't do as well), so that they needed three or four yards on third down. They threw their first pass—a high, slow lob that wobbled awkwardly in the air—to Brian, who was only five yards up the field, closely covered by Dan. Only Brian's astonishing reach, his thin arms aloft, made it a successful pass and a first down.

They moved three quarters of the way up the field in this fashion: short passes, all of them to Brian, and modest running plays. One had the feeling that they could be stopped at any moment—indeed, if Brian had dropped any of the four third down passes thrown to him, we would have stopped them. But he caught them casually without any gestures of triumph and none of my teammates seemed surprised, either, at the leaping grabs it took to catch them.

I was covering Frankie, of course, and though both of us were totally uninvolved by the plays, he hustled on all of them. He ran his pass patterns studiously and did his best to shove me to the ground on running plays, even if the action was taking place on the other end of the field. By the time they had reached deep into our territory I was worn out by him and by their boring offense. I was convinced that they were unstoppable and I was really past caring.

They snapped the ball after one of Brian's miracle catches for a first down and I halfheartedly ran after Frankie, who rushed at top speed to our end zone. I stopped following him when I heard a commotion and turned to see Brian running with the ball. Two of my teammates, one on each side, were right behind him and he was coming directly at me. There was nothing between him and a touchdown but me and my two hands. The sight of me standing in his way had no effect on his speed or determination. His dark face was flushed with effort and anger. I put my hands out, expecting that he would try to dodge them, and he did take a step, just before reaching me, to his left. I leaned in that direction instinctively and had no time to react when he cut back and bore straight at me. I moved aside, twisted my body, but left my two hands out there, at the ends of my rigidly locked arms. He banged into them and went past me.

I can still hear it. Snap. Just like breaking a stick in two. I dropped to my knees and held my left arm by the wrist across my stomach. I felt nauseated and the world, its sound and lights, were compressed into a small circle in front of me. Everything suddenly seemed slower and more frightening. I was very far away from the kids who quickly gathered around me; and my hurt at hearing Danny's remark that I was a punk for falling to my knees was something very distant from my center. I suddenly felt weaker and more real, so I stood up to say, “It's broken. Call somebody.” I realized I was almost crying.

“It's not broken,” Danny said.

Brian was at my side and he looked warmly into my eyes. “What happened?”

“I heard it crack. I know it's broken. I can feel the bone move.” I said that as I felt it for the first time. I had lifted my left wrist with my right hand only a fraction of an inch and I felt the immediate pain and strange movement of something sharp in my arm.

Brian nodded and said to the blond boy, “Adam, get my first-aid kit and tell my mother to call his house. Is somebody there?” he asked me.

“I think so.”

The other boys were watching me with a mixture of curiosity and terror, except for Dan, who said, “It can't be broken.”

“Dan, please be quiet,” Brian said firmly. He pointed to a bench at the edge of the trees. “Let's move there so I can put a splint on it,” he said to me. We moved slowly towards the bench, Brian supporting me by putting his arm across my shoulders. He motioned Adam, returning with a red cross-emblazoned kit, to the bench. While he removed a splint from the kit and a cloth to be used as a sling, I watched a woman approach us from the house.

Brian was carefully adjusting the splint when she arrived. “How are you feeling?” she asked me sweetly. “I called your mother. She'll be right over and I gave her the name of a good doctor.”

Brian put the sling under the splint and around my neck, saying, “Try not to move it, okay?”

“Can I give you something?” his mother asked.

“No, Mom, he's probably nauseous.” Brian looked at me for confirmation and I nodded.

“I'm all right,” I said weakly.

“You're very brave,” she said so simply that I was not embarrassed.

They slowly walked me to the house. I would feel faint for a moment and then suddenly exhilarated. The variations made the walk long and oddly beautiful. Brian seemed to know exactly how I felt. He would stop just when I couldn't go on and start just as I felt better. By the time we reached the driveway my mother's car pulled in wildly and she rushed out, obviously hysterical. She kissed me much too possessively and then settled down to watch Brian help me into the car while she got instructions from Brian's mother about how to get to the doctor, turning down her offer of driving us there.

It took a while to have the arm X-rayed and to go to the specialist who fitted me for the cast. I had discussed how it happened several times but it was only when we were home having tea and cookies and I felt very protected and happy that I mentioned what bothered me. After another telling of how Brian's movements got me into such an awkward position, Mom said, “So it was a freak accident.”

“They way he came at me, Mom, it was unnecessary. It wasn't exactly”—I searched for the word—“premeditated. But, somehow, he meant to hurt me.”

2

The rent of land is established through the struggle between tenant and landlord. Throughout political economy we find that the hostile opposition of interests, struggle, and war are acknowledged as the basis of social organization.

—Karl Marx

I
DIDN'T MIND
having the cast except when I had to sleep. The only comfortable way to lie down was on my back and I had never slept in that position. Even that had its pleasures: I was not harassed about being awake late at night and I enjoyed sitting up until two or three in the morning, drinking tea and reading after the late movie on television. The broken arm also excused me from playing athletic games and that was a relief.

My only concern was how far back this would set me in terms of making friends in the neighborhood. And the unpleasantness of the football game made me wonder if I cared to fit in, though I don't think my rejecting the suburb kids was a luxury I thought I could afford. After a few days, whatever pain the arm would occasionally give me disappeared and I was left with the constant itch the cast caused. I was shifting back and forth, somehow thinking this would relieve the irritation, while reading a particularly exciting passage in a mystery, when I heard our doorbell ring; and shortly after, the sound of Brian's voice asking if he could see me.

I quickly put away the mystery (a literary snob even then) and looked around the room hurriedly to see if there were any other embarrassing items. Mom had cleaned it up, luckily, so I tried to look casual. Mom and he appeared at the door. “Hello,” he said.

“I'll leave you two to your own devices,” my mother said. “Unless you'd like a snack or something.”

“Nothing for me, Mrs. Cohen.”

I nearly forgot to answer my mother because I was so astonished by Brian's competent refusal of her offer. “I'm okay, Ma.”

“How's the arm?” Brian asked.

I listened for my mother's steps on the staircase before I answered. “It's fine except that the cast makes my skin itch.”

He nodded and slowly walked around the room, looking carefully at the books. “It's a nice room.”

I waited respectfully while Brian methodically checked the items in my room, picking up one of the books from my father's Dickens set, and unselfconsciously reading a page. I was amazed by the concentration he brought to every act; and by his lack of worry about speaking to me. At last he settled on my bed and looked at me pleasantly. “You seem kind of happy to have a cast and be sitting reading.”

“How did you know I was reading?”

He laughed. “Don't tell me you've been sitting in that chair doing nothing.”

“No. But how did you know what I
was
doing?”

“The TV is unplugged and tucked away under the bookshelves and there are a lot of books here. I figure that's what you'd be doing.”

“I was.”

“Were you reading him?” He pointed toward the Dickens set.

I nodded yes, unable to speak the lie.

“Which one?”

“Great Expectations.”

He smiled and said without any pause, “I'm sorry I broke your arm, but at least you're getting an education out of it.”

It wasn't an apology in any real sense but his tone was appealing and I wasn't offended. “Not your fault.”

“I didn't intend it, but it was my fault.” Brian seemed almost annoyed at having to point out the distinction. “Danny said I did it because we were going to lose the game.” He laughed gladly at the thought.

“You were killing us. If anything, you did us a favor. I'm just sorry, because if I hadn't dropped that pass we would have made a first down.”

“Bullshit. That was Danny's fault. He doesn't throw passes to be caught, he throws them to kill people.”

I had thought to show my maturity by admitting incompetence gracefully but my heart, by its quick jump to greet Brian's words, belied my resignation. “It was a perfect pass, wasn't it?” I asked.

“Yeah, if you're throwing to a professional football player against a superb defensive secondary. Danny's got a hundred-thousand-dollar arm and the brain of a two-year-old. He can throw that pass just as accurately at half the speed.”

I couldn't quite absorb his idea and I must have looked it. He leaned forward, his face intent. “Don't you get it?” he asked. “It doesn't matter to Danny that no one except me can catch those passes. I think he'd be disappointed if you did. Look, Adam completes more passes than Danny—”

“Who's Adam?”

“You know, the kid who quarterbacked my team. Anyway, because Danny throws such good-looking passes, everybody thinks it's the receiver's fault when they're not caught.”

“But it is.”

Brian looked like he wanted to hit me for being so dense. “Does it make any difference how a pass is thrown if the receivers you throw it to can't catch it? He might as well miss you by ten feet if they're gonna come barreling in at ninety miles an hour. Danny doesn't really want to win, he just wants to be thought of as a great person who's being held back by mediocrity.”

This was too much for me: I didn't understand how a human being could
not want
to win and yet appear to. I guess it would be fair to say that Brian had just provided my introduction to an intellectual recognition of the unconscious. “You mean, he's intentionally losing?”

Brian smiled. Just a slow movement of the mouth, a private look of gentle contempt. “No, I don't mean that.”

He meant to allow the subject to be dropped, but I knew that if I permitted him to, I should be admitting stupidity. “Please explain,” I said. “I'm sure you're right and I want to understand.”

“You're sure I'm right and yet you don't understand what I'm saying? That's silly.”

“No, it's not,” I said in a hurt tone. “Your description of Danny's play is accurate, so your explanation of it must be right. What difference does it make if I understand it? I don't understand the A-bomb, but it exists.”

Brian opened his eyes wide in astonishment and then laughed. His laugh was a series of staccato grunts, theatrical and self-loving, but flattering because they seemed to be a kind of appreciative gesture. “Boy,” he said, letting out a few more, “that makes touch football pretty important.”

“If you can explain the A-bomb instead, then go ahead.”

He laughed again, and I knew we were friends. It was the kind of joke only friends enjoy. “Well,” Brian said, “what I meant was that Danny is considered the best passer among us because he throws that way. So people think of him as a winner even though his team loses.” He looked at me. “Got that?”

“Yeah! I got that.”

“Okay, just checking. So—he could try to win the games if he passed so that his receivers could catch the ball. But he'd have to throw less perfectly. And if he then missed—I mean throwing ordinary passes—then he would still lose the game and he would also lose everybody's respect.” Brian stopped and looked inquisitive.

“Understood.”

“Okay. He's scared to try and win because losing is so safe. See? He wins the good opinion of others by losing the game because of his teammates' faults, and he never has to risk his own skill.”

“Wow,” I said. I felt the exhilaration of true knowledge: I understood suddenly how an alien being functioned. “Wow, that's amazing.”

Brian smiled his private smile. “Isn't it?” He was pleased by my excitement. “I've always known that about Danny but nobody else has spotted it.”

I thought for a moment and then said, “So Danny
is
intentionally losing, as I said.”

“No!” Brian slammed his hand down on my bed and I heard the jangle of the creaking springs. “No, no, that's wrong. He does this without realizing it. He thinks he's doing his best. He says to himself—himself! he says it to me all the time—‘If I had decent receivers I'd beat you.' See? Deep down he's scared to put himself on the line. That's why I say he doesn't really want to win. All he really wants is for people to think he can.”