by Jackson Kane
I snapped up my phone.
“Hello?”
“Gloria, I need your help. I have the biggest favor, to end all favors, to ask you.”
“Okay….” Gloria’s curious smile came through in the sound of her voice. Her newborn baby cried in the background as if she already knew why I called. “What’s the favor?”
“You’re not going to believe this,” I started. “Are you sitting down?”
Thirty
Garrett
Paul blew the whistle, ending the play. He and my teammates rushed to get all the other players off me. I was at the bottom of a tackle pile in the other team’s end zone. Last play before the half, and I was smashed into the fucking bedrock.
At least I’m warm. I would’ve laughed, but I was pretty sure one of my ribs was broken.
I’d snuck through a hole in their defensive line and snagged us a touchdown, but that wasn’t going to be enough. We still trailed by fourteen points, and the hits just kept on coming. Every time I turned around, there was three hundred pounds of angry asshole looking to cave my skull in.
The only thing that kept me from passing out was the agonizing pain in my left arm. We held our own and made them fight for every yard, but at the cost of getting the shit kicked out of us. Being outnumbered was a lot harder than I thought.
I impressed myself at how fast and tricky I was after all these years, but the other team was just fucking everywhere, especially number fifty-three. All the skill in the world couldn’t change the hard truth that this kid was just younger and faster than I was. The fact that he had my old number wasn’t an accident.
What I wouldn’t give to have Cole out here guarding my ass right now.
On his way up, number fifty-three put his knee into my side hard enough to knock the wind out of me. “Coach Miller sends his regards.”
Nate shoved the kid off me with the might of a man who could easily flip cars onto their sides. If it were anyone else, they would’ve been eating dirt, but fifty-three jumped into a back roll and popped right up unfazed. Nate couldn’t hide his surprise at the kid’s agility.
We were in serious trouble.
“You all right?” Nate asked, helping me up. His voice was nearly drowned out by the crowd’s lingering ooooohhhs at the last play’s especially hard impact. A few more hits like that one, and it wouldn’t matter how many Advil I popped like Skittles; soon I just wouldn’t be able to get back up.
Only a quarter of the seats were finished enough for the public to use, but they were packed, the occupants energetic enough to fill the whole stadium with noise. There was no advertising done for the event. That didn’t stop word of mouth from bringing several thousand people together last minute to watch what was being called a practice game.
I was reminded just how much of a draw this stadium was going to be when it was finished. Caldwell Hope had a lot of potential, if it was handled correctly. This town really could be something great.
“This whole thing… went differently in my head… on the way over,” I said, in between sucking in air.
“No shit.” Nate grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. My head spun with the sudden motion. Now that I was standing up, I could see how exhausted he was. Nate was damn good at what he did, but he was only one guy. Aaron took advantage of his superior numbers and put two guys on him and two on me.
My teammates jumped up all around and hugged me. After the game we’d been playing, our morale seriously needed that touchdown.
“How’s the arm?” Nate asked after the celebration had died down. He was still catching his breath from the last play.
“Still there, I think.” That last tackle loosened the mount enough that I could wiggle my arm, which sent searing pain shooting into my shoulder. Despite countless objections, the doctor’s armored it up as much as they could and pinned it to my chest.
“C’mon, boss man,” Nate said, leading me off the field to the locker room with all the other guys. “You can sleep when you’re dead, and it ain't past your bedtime yet.”
Judy sat in the first row of seats by the southeast corner near the player’s entrance tunnel. She was wearing a white puffer because of the bitter cold, and it reminded me of how overdressed she was when I took her to the coffee shop on that first date. The memory brought a smile to my face. This was the right thing to do. It was hard, and it was painful, but seeing her there cheering for me made me feel warm deep down. Seeing her took the chill out of my soul.
I waved at her on my way past. It took everything out of me to pretend I wasn’t as hurt as I was, but it felt like someone threw me in a drying machine with a bunch of rocks and broken glass.
Inside the locker room, a battery of doctors and physical trainers looked us over and patched everyone back up as best they could. Aside from reaffixing the hard and soft bandages that pinned my arm to my chest, my doctor mostly shook his head and tried to dissuade me from continuing. “You can add three cracked ribs to your growing list of injuries, Garrett.”
“That explains why it hurts to breathe.” I gritted my teeth and pushed through the pain. I made it clear that come hell or high water, I was going to finish the game.
“Don’t you have a daughter?” Doc was trying to use psychological warfare on me. The unspoken question was really, “What would she think of the needless risk you’re taking?” I didn’t answer. Eventually he sighed and placed a bottle of Vicodin on the bench beside me.
Drugs: The second-best thing to good advice.
“If you keep playing like this, you won’t need me. You’ll need a mortician.” Doc shook his head, grabbed his medical bag, and moved on to the next player.
I took the bottle, rolling it around in my hands, and stared down at the smiley face Jackie had drawn on my cast before we left. I was teaching Jackie every day, whether I liked it or not. What would today’s lesson be?
If you’re stubborn enough, you might just get yourself killed?
What was the alternative? To give up when things got hard?
I looked around. It wasn’t just Nate and me. Everyone was pretty beat up. The players bitched and moaned about us getting our asses handed to us, looking generally miserable as they did it. In my entire career, I’d never seen morale lower than it was right now.
I shook my head. I refused to teach my daughter that the things you loved weren’t worth fighting for. I’d much rather finish what I started and be in danger than not be able to look her in the eyes when I safely ran away.
This was something I had to do. All I could do is pray Jackie and Judy forgave me for it.
“Hey!” I shouted. With great difficulty, I climbed up on the bench to speak to my team.
“Listen up!” Nate boomed, backing me up.
“Someone once told me you can’t take a championship with a bad team,” I started, despite not having everyone’s the full attention. “We haven’t played together in a long-ass time, but I’ve bled with each and every one of you at one time or another. Just because we’ve had our balls kicked in, doesn’t make us a bad team.”
“Yo, Garrett, man.” Marcos, our tight end spoke up. He wore a black eye from an elbow that knocked his helmet clean off earlier in the game. “I appreciate what you tryin’ to do here, man, but this is some fuckin’ bullshit! These guys are fuckin’ animals. They ain’t playin’ the same game we playin’, man.”
There was a general murmur of agreement with him. Marcos was right. I didn’t know where Aaron got these guys, but most of them had to be college athletes, because I didn’t recognize many of them. They weren’t as skilled as us, but they were fast, strong, and had endless endurance.
And Aaron trained them to be extra violent.
“Do any of you know what we’re even doing here?” I asked.
“Yeah, we’re gettin’ our asses beat,” someone chimed in.
“This is more than just playing a game or making a paycheck.” I walked down the length of the bench. Fuck, I was sore. “This is more than even bea
ting that piece-of-shit Aaron Miller. You see all those people out there in the freezing cold? This is for them!”
I hadn’t won them over, but at least that quieted the room. They were at least listening to me, which meant they hadn’t given up completely yet.
“This is about every fan that ever paid to see you play.” I grabbed the jersey of the closest player. “This is for every little boy or girl who wears your numbers religiously. They watch you play, and it gives them hope for what they can achieve in their future. They look up to us, especially those that don’t have much else.
“Most of you have worked under Aaron Miller in the past. You know he’s ruthless, single-minded, and will do anything it takes to win. How many of you has he fucked over in that process?” I looked around, seeing more than a few heads lower. That last remark hit close to home for a lot of the guys here. “Championships come and go. I’ve got four rings, and I would trade them all in a heartbeat to know my daughter had a safe place to grow up.
“Caldwell Hope is a town of three hundred thousand people. Good people. They’re on the brink of bankruptcy, and Aaron Miller running things is only going to make life worse for them. We all saw what happened to Detroit. Well, the same thing’s going to happen here.”
I let the implication breathe as I walked around the room. There were a few players here that grew up in Detroit and knew how hard of a city that was to grow up in.
“Tomorrow you all get to go home, but for these people, this town is all they have. They can’t run away and hide in their mansions. We’re just football players, but today… right now, we get to be more than that. We can be heroes!”
The mood had begun to shift. It was slow, but I could see energy returning to the room. Chests started to puff up and postures straightened as they slowly began to stand up. These were all good men who just needed to understand what they were really fighting for.
“This game doesn’t mean a goddamned thing for us, but winning it today for them out there means everything! You want to give back to the people who made your dream possible? Really give back?” I looked around. Everyone was on their feet. All eyes were glued on me. I’d finally pushed past their wounded pride; I could see the fire of defiance in them.
It was savage and hungry and wasn’t going to take shit from anyone.
We weren’t football players in that moment. We were warriors.
“Well this is how we fucking do it!” I screamed, pounding my bandaged-up shoulder. The adrenaline that coursed through me was better than any drug. I was going to save Judy’s town like I promised her. It didn’t matter that we were outnumbered. For her, I’d play ten-to-one if I had to.
A wave of roars rang out in the locker room as the team went nuts. They punched walls and smashed into each other. The testosterone and killer instinct were so thick that it made the air steam. My guys were frenzied, angry, and ready to go out there and make Aaron Miller’s team bleed.
Nate led the charge back onto the field. I picked up the rear, psyching up as many of my guys individually as I could. I had to double back for my Vicodin when we got out of the locker room. It didn’t matter how amped up I was from the speech and excitement, there was no way in hell I was leaving that behind.
By the time I made it back out into the tunnel, I found Aaron Miller waiting for me. He wasn’t stupid enough to let my team see him when they were practically frothing at the mouth; he must have entered from a maintenance door.
Thirty-One
Garrett
“Nice speech, son. Really…” Aaron waved his hands in a circular motion as if reeling the words out of his head on a silk thread. “…really rousing.”
“Don’t you have your own team to harass?” I crunched a Vicodin in my teeth to deal with a sharp surge of pain at seeing the man.
“You know I don’t make speeches, son.” Aaron lit up his cigar, drawing in air with puffs to get the cherry end bright and red. He smirked through great billowing exhales. “I’ve got one of you on my team to do that for me.”
Number fifty-three: Aaron’s new golden boy. Aaron gave him my old number on purpose. It was a reminder that he could always find a newer model to take my place.
“When was the last time you won a championship, old man?” I swallowed the remnants of the pill dry. Its bitterness did wonders to kill the foul taste in the back of my mouth that I always got when I spoke to Aaron.
He glowered at me but ignored my question. We both knew it was the last full season I’d played that was worth a damn for him. Hell, he’d probably have won the season after that, too, if I hadn’t broken contract the week before the big game.
It was the last championship he needed to win the most Super Bowls of any coach in history. The following year his rival surpassed him. I took that fame and glory from him by retiring the way I did.
If he were anything other than a monster, I might’ve even felt bad about it.
“You’re selfish. That was always your biggest problem.” Aaron pointed an accusing finger at me. “I listened to your big rah-rah speech in there. This is about every fan, blah blah blah. We can be heroes, blah blah blah.”
Aaron made a jerking off gesture with his hand, which made my knuckles clench. My eyes narrowed as I ran through the ever-shrinking amount of reasons why I shouldn’t bash his fucking teeth in.
“Where was all that ‘brotherly pride’ last time, when you abandoned your teammates, huh?” Aaron continued, walking a slow, wide circle around me. He was smart enough to stay well out of striking range. “A few of those fresh-out-of-college boys choked so hard under the pressure, they washed out of the league after that season. One even offed himself. Rope and note. Naaaasty business. Where was your pep talk then, Reaper?”
John Jeffers. I read about it in the news the day after it happened. We weren’t close, but I knew he looked up to me. John also suffered from depression. He didn’t take any medication, for fear of popping hot on a drug test. Still… I could never shake feeling a little responsible for what happened to him. That was the most important day of his life, and I wasn’t there.
“You talk one hell of a good game, but when push comes to shove, you’re in it only for yourself.”
“What I’m doing is bigger than me,” I spat.
“Is that what you tell yourself?” Aaron laughed uproariously. “That’s why you’re out here nearly getting yourself killed? Another good sack and sweet little Jackie will be growing up without a daddy. You doing this for her? You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, boy.”
Aaron’s chest was puffed up with the confidence of a tyrant when he walked up to me. He looked up and blew smoke in my face. My right hand snatched his collar on pure instinct.
“Don’t kid yourself, Garrett.” Aaron wheezed as I brought him up onto his tiptoes. “You’re here because you need to know, just like I do. You’re just like me. The only exception is that I’m honest about who I am.”
A sharp crack against my back staggered me forward, but my pads absorbed most of the blow. It was the bat to the outside of my left knee that brought me to the ground. After that, all I saw was the stomping of boots.
There were three of them. They wore the uniform and pads of players, but were probably reserve guys Aaron was training. It didn’t surprise me that they were his personal bodyguards, too. Aaron had a cultish way of training his guys. He made it crystal clear that if they wanted money, fame, and a career in football, they had to do whatever he said.
I looked around for help, but everyone was already on the field warming up and stretching for the second half. The entrance tunnel was dark and empty. The pads helped a little when I was on the ground and the Vicodin hadn’t kicked in yet.
I hadn’t felt the full shattering pain of every blow, but it was still bad, and if this continued much longer, I wasn’t walking away without something being broken.
“That’s enough,” Aaron Miller’s now raspy voice said, and the beating stopped. He took a knee near my head. “I want you to know tha
t this isn’t about the game. I don’t give a fuck about these people, or their stupid fucking town. I’ll burn it all to the ground and piss on the ashes if it stands in my way. I’m going to crush you for what you took from me.”
“Garrett!” Judy’s voice echoed off the concrete tunnel’s walls.
No… not her not now!
I tried to yell out to her to run, but I couldn’t take in the air to scream. I didn’t care what happened to me, but I couldn’t lose her.
“What the hell is going on here?” another voice asked. I cocked my head and through the bloody gash above my eye, I could see Judy’s father Paul step in front of her. “You get the hell off him!”
“Heya, Paul.” Aaron nervously plucked off his cap and brushed his wispy hair to the side, before replacing it again. He did his best to smile but came off like an overzealous car salesman. His rage and pride distracted him from how much time had passed. Halftime wasn’t that long; eventually someone would come looking for me. “Garrett just tripped. We were helping him back up, that’s all.”
“Bullshit!” Judy yelled. She tried to get around her father to help me, but thankfully, Paul held her back. Judy was more furious than I’d ever seen her. “We saw what you did!”
“I guess it’ll be your word against mine then, little girl.” Aaron dropped the friendly façade.
“Yeah. You, me, and everyone else who watches this video,” Judy spat, holding up her phone. “Smile, asshole.”
Clever girl. It was a good plan. I was impressed by her quick thinking, but I still hated that she was here. It was too dangerous!
I grabbed Aaron’s pant leg, stopping him from walking over to Judy and her father. Aaron’s face turned red as he glared at me. He stomped on my hand, then kicked me across the face. I still wouldn’t let go. “Get that phone.” He scowled at his guys.