by Peter Gent
“How old?” I asked. I was sitting upright on the floor with my legs pulled up, wrapped in my arms, my chin resting on my knees. I was in a state of semierection.
“About thirty-five.”
“A regular Methuselah.”
“It was incredible. I had a hard on a cat couldn’t scratch. He sat at the foot of the bed watching and telling her what to do, pointing and telling her to lick this and suck that. It was like being in surgery. I ate her pussy for a solid hour.”
“Did Drake just watch?” I pressed. Maxwell seemed confused by my question. He eyed me curiously, then continued.
“Oh he crawled in and rubbed against both of us for a while. But most of the time he would sit and watch, or pop amyl nitrite in our noses.
“After we’d fucked for hours, we took a shower and then she got out some of those fake dicks—”
“Dildoes.” I smiled at Seth’s unfamiliarity with the vocabulary of perversion. Maxwell was a master of execution, not abstract theory; he had no need for the jargon except when recounting a particular adventure, at which time I would supply the technical gaps with a knowledge gleaned of much vicarious research and little actual practice.
“Yeah—whatever.” Maxwell was anxious to get on with the story. It was as if the experience hadn’t really happened and he couldn’t really feel it until he recounted it to someone and watched and listened to their reaction. Until he talked about it, it wasn’t real. He did it and I enjoyed it, another aspect of this peculiar symbiotic-parasitic relationship we called friendship.
“Well,” he continued, “one was about this big.” He held his hands a foot apart and then made a circle with his index fingers and thumbs. They just barely touched. “It had all sorts of teeth and bumps on it. The end of the other one looked like a miniature pickax. She went totally crazy when I fucked her with that one.” He smiled and squeezed down his eyes. His voice slipped again into the whiskey rasp. “I give her a real good fuckin’ ... she won’t forget ol’ John Henry for a long time.” He wrapped his fingers around his cock and shook it gently.
“Then,” Maxwell said, his excitement showing, “she sucked me off ’till John Henry was achin’, while Jerry fucked her with the fake dick. God what a night! She passed out with ol’ John Henry in her mouth.” He pointed his penis toward his face, dropped his head, and stared into the solitary eye. “Didn’t she, boy?”
Maxwell pulled John Henry’s foreskin back and inspected the little red, raw patches on the underside of the head.
“Shit. The son of a bitch is really sore.”
“What time did you leave?”
“That is chapter two. Why do I punish myself like this?” A note of exhaustion crept into his voice.
The heat and excitement of the story, combined with the sauna, were a little too much. I got up to go to the showers and cool down. In the shower, I began to feel the effects of my earlier prescriptions; I would make it through another day.
Rufus Brown, the forty-year-old black “clubhouse boy,” walked to the entrance of the showers.
“How’d you get in?”
“Hey, Rufus, how you doin’?”
“Fine, Phil, how’d you get in?”
“Maxwell broke a window in the back. Cover for us, will you?”
“Okay,” he said, frowning. “But if I have to pay for the window you’ll have to give me the money. They don’t give me nothin’ without reason.”
That was certainly true. The team scouts spilled more in liquor than Rufus got in salary, but Clinton Foote, in true general-manager style, bitched at him for every extra dime he needed to run the clubhouse. Last year, after winning the division, we voted Rufus a $2,100 share of the purse, but Clinton overruled it and reduced it to $500 because “the vote was not unanimous and we can’t give that colored boy a larger share than the office personnel.”
“Okay, Rufus,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” He smiled and returned to the locker room to finish picking up yesterday’s dirty socks and jockstraps. I picked up some Q-TIPS and tried to force a breathing canal through my omnidirectional nose. I got a lot of blood from the left nostril and a clear, watery fluid from the right. My left ear had been plugged for several days and ached violently when I worked my jaw. As a result, I hadn’t eaten much in the past few days. The speed was activating my mind, but the stiffness continued returning to my legs and back; the codeine seemed to be working slower or not at all. The skin on my lower back and left hip burned, referred pain from the nerves and muscles crushed by the linebacker’s knee in the back. I rubbed my hip absently, noticing the alternating areas of deadness and extreme sensitivity.
“It was about midnight,” Maxwell said, diving right back into the story as soon as I opened the door to the sauna. He was obviously feeling his medication, too. “When his wife passed out, we went to the kitchen to get a beer and he made a phone call to some doctor’s wife in Lakewood. She told us to come on over. The doc was out of town. Jerry said she was a nymphomaniac and was in therapy. Her husband didn’t care who she fucked as long as he met them.” His lips curled into a wicked sneer and he fell into the obscene rasp. “She made an exception in my case ... me bein’ a star and all.”
“Amazing.” It was all I could think to say.
“It was the same shit all over again. Although Drake did eat her pussy after I’d fucked her.”
“Puke,” I said. “Do you think the guy’s a football fan or what?”
“I dunno, man. But she was great-lookin’—in her twenties.”
“Please,” I said, holding up my hands, “no more.”
“Lemme tell you the weird part.” He was pleading.
“Weird part?” I yelled. “Weird part?”
Maxwell just raised his eyebrows and shrugged, holding his open palms out in front, in a gesture of noncommitment.
“Anyway,” Maxwell proceeded, “after we’d fucked me and John Henry ’bout to death, she opens the drawer by her bed and shows me a syringe full of morphine—”
“Morphine?”
“That’s what she said.” Maxwell’s face was blank. “She said her husband left it for her. It scared the shit outta me. Man, she was perverted. I left a little later.”
“What makes you think she was perverted?” I asked, smiling slightly, clasping my hands behind my head and leaning back against the hot cedar wall. “Maybe she’s just precocious.”
“Whatever.” Maxwell lay back down and after a few minutes silence he began to hum the verses of “The Mansion You Stole.”
The door jerked open and Eddie Rand, the trainer, stuck his head inside, glaring down at me on the floor.
“Okay,” he yelled, “who did it?”
I immediately pointed at Maxwell.
“He did,” I said.
“That right, Seth?” Rand asked, his tone softening noticeably.
“Do what?” Maxwell asked calmly, making no outward movement, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
“The medicine cabinet,” Rand answered. “If B.A. finds out, it’s somebody’s ass.”
“Don’t tell him then,” I said. “Give the kid a break, man. I was there. I saw it all. The man was desperate. Think of it as an emergency.”
“I suppose you just stood there and watched?” Rand shot back.
“He held me down and massaged my throat to make me swallow ’em.” I was lying on my back on the floor, my hands behind my head. “But I don’t hold a grudge, so why should you?”
“No more of that shit,” Rand said, feebly. “You guys understand?”
“Sure, Eddie, you bet,” I said, rolling onto my side and turning my back to the angry man in white duck pants. “I suppose you’re gonna be pissed about the beer, too.”
“You cocksuckers,” Rand screamed. “You took my beer?”
His crepe-soled foot kicked me hard in the ass. The door slammed shut.
“Goddam,” I said, rubbing the bruised cheek, “that hurt.”
“What did you do last night?”<
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I jumped at the sound of Maxwell’s voice; I had fallen asleep.
“Huh?”
“What did you do last night?” he asked again. He was on his back pushing his toes against the wall, making the whole room shake. The tiny time pills were going off like time bombs.
I moaned, turning over to sit up. “Nothing. Got pulled over and raped by a girls’ basketball team from Corsicana. You know, the usual Wednesday night shit.”
Actually, the evening had slipped from my mind and I was having difficulty recalling the details. It seemed years ago.
“I was really high. Took a shitpot full of Harvey’s Grade A cactus and got a good look at the real me. I’m a real asshole, as near as I can tell.” I sighed and tried to relax, realizing that what I had just said was mainly truth.
“You better cut that shit out, man,” Maxwell warned. “It can fuck up your mind. You’re getting a little too far out.”
“Oh, Christ,” I said. The evening began to trickle back. “I forgot. Crawford and Claridge had another fight.”
“With each other?”
“No. Everybody else. Claridge took his clothes off again, this time on stage at Rock City. Then he and Crawford beat up their dates. When the fight started, I grabbed Bob Beaudreau’s girl and split.”
“Same old Fightin’ Phil Elliott,” Maxwell said, a slight touch of disgust edging his voice. The nickname was a reference to a game in the distant past when a fight had broken out and our bench had emptied into the field to join in the fray. The following Tuesday, viewing the game films, the camera panned the deserted bench, where only two figures remained: standing at the sidelines shaking his fist toward the field was B.A. and huddled near the phone table, wrapped in a parka, was me.
“I wonder if they got arrested?” I had been so intent on escaping with Charlotte, I hadn’t fully considered my teammates’ possible fate.
“Probably not, unless they hurt somebody.”
“Some woman got kicked in the head.”
“That could mean trouble, unless she was a fan. Then she’d probably like it.”
We both laughed.
The door to the sauna opened and Art Hartman, our number two quarterback, stepped inside.
“Hey, guys,” Art grimaced against the heat. “Foot guys, how hot is it in here?”
“How ya doin’, Art?” Maxwell greeted him.
“Tired as shit,” Hartman answered, gingerly stepping over me and reaching up to shake hands with Maxwell. “The kid kept me up half the night. How ’bout yourself?”
“Never felt better.”
Art Hartman was in his second year, having graduated as the top NCAA passer from Maryland. He was Seth’s heir apparent, physically outstripping Maxwell in every department and seemingly needing only seasoning to become a top NFL quarterback.
“Did you guys hear about Claridge?” Hartman asked, sitting his six-foot-four frame on the bottom bench and pulling absently on his cock.
“Yeah,” I answered, “how did you know?”
“Saw John this morning at the office. He said he was there.”
Art Hartman and John Wilson, the strong safety, both lived in Lake Highlands, a nice middle-class suburb, and both worked for the same real estate agent. Hartman had made over twenty-six thousand dollars the previous spring on two industrial property deals. During the season he went to the office every morning before practice and every afternoon after.
“Anybody get arrested?” Maxwell asked.
“No. I don’t think so.” Art scratched his head. “But Wilson got his ass in a crack. His wife spent half the night at our house. She found lipstick on his shorts, can you believe that?”
“I didn’t think he wore shorts.”
“How you feelin’, Seth?” Hartman looked back up at Seth, who was still on his back with his arm over his face.
“I tol’ you once, kid, I feel fine,” Maxwell replied without moving. “But all you young strong studs are beginnin’ to make me feel my age.”
“Which is sixty-one this morning,” I piped in.
“You’ll still be around long after I’m gone, chief,” Hartman said, smiling.
“An’ don’t you ever forget it, kid.” Maxwell sat up and smiled down at him.
There were those who were of the opinion that Hartman should have replaced Maxwell the start of the year and most certainly the next year. I didn’t necessarily agree. I had a lot of confidence in Maxwell’s head but it was hard to argue with Hartman’s physical ability. He could throw farther, run faster, hit harder, and he never got hurt. He was the prototype of a professional football quarterback. Big, strong, and good-looking, his wife was his college sweetheart, his child came seven months after the wedding and weighed in at ten pounds. He had a three-bedroom brick home, two cars, and he belonged to the Society of Christian Athletes and the Oakridge Methodist Church. B.A. belonged to the Oakridge Methodist Church.
“How many times is that for Claridge?” Maxwell asked.
“Three or four, I think,” Hartman interjected, being specific. “If you’re counting totally naked. Partially naked I don’t know.” He smiled and shrugged.
“What else happened?” I asked Hartman.
“I dunno, I had to leave the office to show some property to a customer.”
“Goddam, man,” Maxwell responded. “What time do you get to the office?”
“Around six.”
“Jeeeeesus,” Maxwell and I said in unison. Maxwell fell back on the bench. “Mr. Businessman,” he said.
Seth and I had both had enough heat and headed for the showers for a final cool-down.
“How’s an old man like me s’posed to keep up with a kid like Hartman?” Maxwell asked.
“Just like everything else, man,” I offered. “You gotta cheat.”
Maxwell looked up from picking at an ingrown hair on his chest.
We finished our showers and stepped outside to dry off. Maxwell climbed onto the scales. The pointer moved to 217.
“Fuck,” he moaned, shaking his head. “Explain that, will ya? I gained two pounds in the sauna.”
I didn’t even try.
Somebody changed the radio station and “the good music sound” of KBOX-FM filled the room. The equipment man must be back in his cage; he always played KBOX because it was B.A.’s favorite station. B.A. wasn’t in the locker rooms ten minutes a day, but anytime he walked through and KBOX wasn’t wafting around the lockers he went to the equipment man and demanded the reason. I spent a lot of time sneaking around the cage, changing the radio dial. It was great fun watching B.A. ask the sweating man why the team wasn’t listening to good music. The equipment manager would nervously shift from foot to foot, shaking his head and saying it had been none of his doing.
Toweling off, I heard the front door slam and stuck my head into the locker room. It was Thomas Richardson. He was standing by the bulletin board. He saw me and waved.
“Did it get rough last night?” he asked.
“Is a pig’s ass pork?”
“I figured it would.” He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a sheet of paper, and pinned it to the board.
I walked down to read the paper.
MODERN MAN NO LONGER FEELS, HE MERELY REACTS. CREATIVITY HAS BEEN REPLACED BY CONFORMITY. LIFE HAS LOST ITS SPONTANEITY: WE ARE BEING MANIPULATED BY OUR MACHINES. THE INDIVIDUAL IS DEAD.
“Goddam. Who put that up there?” Maxwell stood behind me, drying his hair.
“Richardson.”
“He is one crazy son of a bitch, all right.”
“Don’t you feel like you’re being manipulated by a machine, Seth?” I asked, turning to face him.
“You bet, podnah,” he replied, grinning and grabbing his cock and waving it at me. “This here machine, right here.” He winced as his fingers rubbed against the wounds of the previous night’s encounter. “I’m sorry, John Henry,” he said, looking down. “I shore do treat you poorly.”
I turned back and reread the paper the angry
black man had stuck to the bulletin board just below Clinton Foote’s notice that everybody had to wear coats and ties. I stared at the two pieces of paper for a long time, then turned back to Maxwell, who was digging in the crack of his ass with the towel.
“Can you think of anybody you ever loved?” I asked.
“Huh?” Maxwell was leaning to the side with one leg slightly raised to allow him better access to his rectum. “Goddam, I think I got piles.” His eyes suddenly clicked to mine. “What did you say?”
“Loved somebody?” I asked again. “You know. Really loved. Not counting Martha and Duane.”
Martha and Duane were Maxwell’s parents. Maxwell being from west Texas, and raised a Baptist, he would automatically list his parents and two sisters as loved ones, unless I first ruled them out. He hardly liked them.
“How ’bout Billy Charlene and Norma Jean?”
I shook my head.
“Okay,” he said. “Cherry Lane Rodent?”
“Cherry Lane? Sounds like a subdivision.”
“You might call her that,” Maxwell offered. “My first piece of pussy. She took a boy to the sand hills and brought home a man.” He straightened up slightly and threw his shoulders back.
“Did you love her?”
“No. Shit no. That was a joke. I can’t think of anybody.” He paused. “I used to think I loved my first wife, but I even doubt that now. No. I can’t say I ever loved anybody.”
“Me either.”
I left Maxwell at the bulletin board, still reading and drying his hair.
There were a few pieces of mail in the top of my locker. A pencil-scrawled envelope was mixed in among the bills and nasty letters from the credit card companies.
Dear Phil Elliott
You are my favorit player and Dallas is my favorit teem. I think you are the best player in the hole world. Would you plese send me Billy Gill’s autograph and pitcher.
Your friend
David Gerald Walker
ps—my sister says hi.
“Little Commie motherfucker,” I said, putting the letter into Gill’s locker.
My bare back squeaked and pulled against the blue cushion as the trainer worked my leg, trying to stretch out the troublesome right hamstring. Rand was standing at the foot of the wooden rubbing table, holding my ankle and knee and pushing the injured leg straight up and back into my chest. He increased the pressure until I signaled that the pain was no longer bearable. Then he replaced the leg flat on the table and kneaded the damaged muscle, after which he repeated the process, trying each time to increase the flexion. The whole thing hurt like hell.