by Peter Gent
“You ain’t lettin’ the Man get you down?”
I shook my head, a silent lie.
“Just settle down.” Huddle smiled but his eyes remained serious. “How’s the leg?”
“Feeling better,” I reported, squeezing the quadricep of my right leg absently. “Gets to feeling too good they’ll want to cut it off.”
Huddle laughed again in his peculiar high-pitched giggle.
A heavyset waitress in a dirty white smock set a plate of scrambled eggs and steaks in the middle of our table. The traditional pregame meal was precooked steak and powdered eggs, proven to be among the worst foods a man can put in his stomach before extensive physical activity. They just lie there and putrefy, pregame fear having shifted the blood from the stomach to other parts of the body.
“Look at that, Bubba,” Huddle said, pointing to a plate of food. The scrambled eggs were a light green. Hotel kitchens put food coloring in the powdered eggs to make them look yellow. Green isn’t too far removed on the color spectrum. In Pittsburgh, the hotel dyed our eggs so yellow that Huddle donned sunglasses to eat them.
The sweating waitress delivered the green eggs to each table, receiving treatment at the hands of Jo Bob and others similar to the harassing served up to the bus driver on the way in from the airport.
“Hey, lady,” Jo Bob yelled, “was the chicken ready to lay these or did you go in after ’em? They don’t look ripe to me.”
The waitress kept her jaws clenched but moved her lips silently. Every so often she paused to wipe rivulets of sweat from her nose and forehead.
“Don’t sweat in the scrambled eggs. Momma,” Jo Bob sang out, stringing the words together like a song title. Several people across the room laughed.
When the last plate of eggs was deposited, there were murmurs and grumblings, but shortly the emerald eggs were consumed. They would lie quietly until the body could get around to digesting them. Or they would sit uneasily waiting for that incredibly tense moment just before game time when they would spout all over the locker room floor and any bystanders.
It was 9 A.M. I took the first of my day’s dosage of codeine. I would take another at eleven and a third just before game time. Huddle watched me swallow the pills.
“Codeine?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Doesn’t it make you sleepy?” Huddle asked, his eyes fixed on my face.
“No. Actually I feel pretty alert, just numb.”
“You remember Jake?” Huddle asked.
I nodded again. Jacob Jacobs was a black running back who had come to Dallas in the middle sixties. When we got him he had been around nine years and was pretty beat up, but he still played hard if not too well.
“Jake used to take codeine and hearts,” Huddle confided. “It made him feel nineteen and untouchable. He’d take five of each. He said it put ten panes of glass between him and everything else. The only thing was it made his eyes burn.”
“Jesus, how strong were the hearts?” Hearts were Dexedrine or Dexamyl tablets.
“He didn’t say. I think they were greenies, but I dunno. I don’ mess with that shit, man.”
“You were born perfect,” I pointed out. “Some of us need to constantly make alterations or we don’t make it.” I smiled and threw my shoulders back. “I guess I’ll have to try Jake’s formula. I may have ten more years in me if I can just master the chemistry of this game.”
“You shore are weird, Bubba.”
“Hey,” I said, the time just registering. “I thought we were meeting at nine.”
“The Man has a special speaker for the devotional,” Huddle explained, “and he can’t get here till nine for breakfast.”
“Who is it?”
Huddle’s face opened into a ridiculous smile.
“Oh shit,” I groaned. “Doctor Tom?”
Huddle toasted me with his coffee cup and nodded.
Doctor Tom Bennett was an enigmatic figure who had materialized in our training camp three years ago and had been haunting me ever since. Nattily dressed in cardigan sweaters and duck-billed golf hats he wandered around the dorm and was everybody’s pal. He was a Doctor of Divinity and B.A. had invited him to address a team meeting on the miracles of God, Christ, salvation, and faith.
Using himself as an example, Doctor Tom explained the pitfalls of a lack of faith in the power of the Lord. He recounted how during his early ministry his modicum of faith caused him to be saddled with a tiny worthless congregation in northern Washington. Doctor Tom soon realized that to make it big he needed greater faith. He immediately got some. Rewards weren’t long in coming. Soon our Doctor Tom commanded a large, wealthy congregation in Florida where he successfully led his flock in their struggle for salvation and security in the face of universal cynicism and ever-spiraling inflation. In return Doctor Tom received great personal satisfaction and a small percentage of a large ocean-front real estate deal.
Once a wealthy man, Doctor Tom set out to fulfill the bargain he had made with the Lord. In an even swap with God for salvation and its Puritan ethic ramifications Doctor Tom swore an oath to the Lord Almighty on the blood of the crucified Christ that he would carry the mantle of Christianity without recompense to a congregation that desperately needed his divine guidance. He chose the National Football League.
B.A. and Doctor Tom became fast friends, Doctor Tom wanting to hang around football players and B.A. wanting to hang around God. B.A. took to wearing cardigan sweaters and golf hats and inviting Doctor Tom to give inspirational messages before important contests.
The Doc had tried several times to get me to attend the devotionals. In the first categorical rebuff, I explained there were other places God was needed more than in a hotel in Minneapolis, listening to some pompous fool refer to him as The Big Coach in the Sky. After that Doctor Tom took a chummier approach, directing the talk to young girls and drinking.
I always made it a point to talk as profanely as possible around the Doc. I would raise my eyebrows and wink at him, after making loud senseless denials of anything resembling a God, and I would always point out what a sucker Jesus was.
But in all fairness I must admit the Doc was a pretty good sport and quite fast on his feet. He had rescued me more than once when I was set upon in the middle of my mindless tirade by one or more of the larger and more pious members of the team.
B.A. stood up at the head table, a fragment of green egg in the corner of his mouth, and announced that Doctor Tom’s schedule had required a slight shuffling on our part and that the meeting would begin at nine-thirty-five with the devotional at ten.
I looked over at Maxwell, obviously struggling over the merits of Doctor Tom and the devotional versus the eternal verities of Bullwinkle and His Friends.
At ten o’clock, as the meeting ended, I walked out in my usual negative response to B.A.’s invitation “to those who would like to stay and hear the message.” I gave the Doc a smile and a short wave as I crossed in front of the portable podium. Maxwell fell into step next to me.
“Jesus,” Maxwell moaned, once we were in the hallway, “he really looked pissed.”
“He’ll probably let Art Hartman lead the Lord’s Prayer. First, loss of grace, next, loss of position. It’s a universal pattern, that’s why the Commies are doomed.”
Seth Maxwell walked to the elevator, his head down. “Why do I punish myself like this?” he asked himself over and over.
After “The Bullwinkle Show” I packed up, grabbed my record player, and caught a cab to the stadium. Maxwell stayed in the room and read the Sunday paper. He would ride out on the team bus at eleven thirty.
Because of serious injuries and the complexity of their treatment, nine players, myself included, were required to arrive at the stadium early so the trainers and team doctors could have enough time to effect repairs. A tenth player, Gino Machado, recently acquired from the Rams, came out early just to take his amphetamines and “get ready to kick ass.” Machado would sit by his locker, his legs shaking un
controllably from the speed surging through his brain, and talk like a top-forty disc jockey to anyone within earshot. I spent hours listening to him describe sex acts fist fights, and ball games. His lips were white from constant nervous licking, his mouth stretched open from time to time in a grotesque, compulsive yawn, and his eyes rolled while he clenched and unclenched his fists. Every now and then, gripping his shoulder with his hands, he would hug himself and bend double as if trying to slow himself down. In the early season Texas heat the trainers often had to pack Machado in ice after a game to cool down his incredibly overheated body.
On the first day of camp Machado took twenty milligrams of Dexamyl to run “B.A.’s Mile.” The linemen had to finish the four laps around the track in six minutes and thirty seconds to prove they had come to camp in condition. Gino took four hearts before he left the locker room. He went blind on the third lap and fell down six times before he crossed the finish line. It took him over eight minutes but he finished. He lay in the dummy shack while everyone else went to lunch. He was still there when we returned for the afternoon workout.
The cab to the stadium took me through Central Park.
“You afraid you ain’t gonna get a seat?” the driver asked. “You’re goin’ to the stadium pretty early.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I know.”
“I went to see them bums last week, when the Colts was here,” he continued, alternating his attention between the road and the back seat. “The Giants stink. They ain’t hadda good team since they got rid of Huff an’ all them guys—remember? How can they run a football team and be so stupid?”
“The same way they run everything else, I guess.”
“Well, them Texas boys’ll kick their ass, I’ll tell ya. I got twenty bucks on it.”
“Invest your winnings in real estate,” I advised.
Two cabs, doors open and trunk lids up, were parked at the players’ entrance to Yankee Stadium. The trainers were unloading bags of tape and medication.
“Phil, grab a couple of these bags,” Eddie Rand ordered as I stepped away from my cab.
“Sure.” I shifted my flight bag to my left hand, tucked my record player up under my arm, and crabbed two black medical kits from the cluster stacked behind the cabs.
I started down the ramp toward the uniformed guard defending the entrance. As the distance closed between us he began to eye me nervously for some identification.
“Player,” I said casually, looking him straight in the eye. He waved me past.
Just act like you belong. It was the advice my older brother had given me to get me into bars before my twenty-first birthday. It was the only thing he ever said that made sense. An All-American in high school and college, he graduated with honors and became a successful high school coach. Last spring he quit his job, left his wife and three girls, and ran off with the senior-class valedictorian. She came back after three weeks. No one has heard from him since.
Instead of heading down the tunnel to the locker room, I turned up one of the ramps leading into the stadium seats. I walked down ten rows and sat. The ground crew was removing the tarpaulin covering the patches of green and brown that made up the playing field.
In a far corner of the stadium a high school band was countermarching to the shallow sounds of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” done in march time. The band members were in full uniform but wore coats and sweaters against the damp morning chill. A row of shiny silver sousaphones executed the gyrations of a routine that seemed to combine the techniques of a marine close-order drill team with the intricate moves of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
Several rows in front of me a television-camera crew was setting up. The camera operator was talking into his headset to the director in the mobile van, discussing just what America was going to see today.
Near the New York bench three men stood in a semicircle, chatting and pointing to different parts of the playing field. One of the men was Frank Gifford. I didn’t recognize the other two.
I sat for several minutes trying to imagine how I would look and feel down there on the field in a few short hours.
Two concessionaires in aprons and tricornered paper hats walked up and stood two rows in front of me. They surveyed the field.
“Hey—” the shorter of the two, a man in his forties, nudged his companion, “—that’s Frank Gifford over there.”
“Where?”
“There, the guy in the trench coat.” The shorter man leaned over and let his friend sight down his arm and out his pointing finger.
“Oh yeah,” the taller responded. “Hey—hey—Frank ... Frank Gifford!” Both men waved and called frantically.
Gifford heard his name and turned toward the sound.
“Hey, Frank,” the shorter man shouted, “we need you out there today. Whattaya say? Huh?”
The man who for more than a decade had lived this city’s football fantasies waved back and returned to his conversation.
“What a great guy,” the tall man said, as they turned back toward the tunnel entrance. “Just a great guy.”
His partner seemed equally excited but a serious look chilled his eyes as the two passed me.
“You know,” the taller huckster began, “somebody told me that he wears a hairpiece. Do you believe that?”
“Frank Gifford? Are you kidding?”
“I didn’t believe it either.”
“Not Frank Gifford.”
They disappeared down the ramp.
I ran my eyes up and down the field, trying to fathom its condition. It looked soft, but I couldn’t really tell anything until I got on it. I considered mud cleats, deciding to wait until after the pregame warmup before making up my mind. Combination baseball and football fields like Yankee Stadium were difficult to gauge during wet weather, some parts being wet and soggy, others dry and quite hard. It had something to do with the drainage being set up for baseball.
Mud cleats, helpful on wet, loose ground because of their excessive length, were a danger in dry areas for the same reason. In Cleveland I sprained an ankle by hitting the dry clay of the infield at full speed wearing mud cleats. Suddenly the consideration of which cleats to wear struck me as foolish. I wasn’t even sure I would get into the game, let alone cover all areas of the field.
Standing up, I felt a stitch in my back. I remained in the aisle for several minutes, rotating my trunk and rubbing my back, trying to work out the muscle spasm.
They say you should quit when you still hurt on Sunday from last Sunday. I wasn’t sure I wasn’t still hurting from exhibition season. I entered the tunnel and began winding my way through the catacombs to the dressing room.
Clusters of men in paper hats and chance aprons stood around talking and laughing. Rubbing their hands together against the morning chill, some of the men nodded hello, but most just stopped what they were doing and stared at me as I passed.
“Where the hell have you been?” Eddie Rand screamed as I entered the dressing room. “You’ve got all the flesh-colored tape.”
“Sorry, Eddie,” I said, tossing the medical bags on top of a blue equipment trunk. I walked to my locker and sat down.
My nervous system was beginning to take over, trying to get my body and mind into the right chemical balance to survive the afternoon with a minimal amount of damage, whether it was to be a physical beating on the field or mental degeneration on the bench. I was becoming extremely tired and wanted to lie down and pull a blanket over my head. Stretching and yawning, I stood up and began to undress.
Hopping from foot to foot because of the cold concrete against my bare feet, I checked around to see who else had arrived. Tony Douglas stood naked on one of the wooden tables, the trainer tightly strapping the inside of the linebacker’s right knee. The knee was missing both inside and outside cartilage, and the medial ligament had been totally reconstructed with tissue from his thigh. Without elastic tape, Tony wouldn’t be able to set foot on the field. It was a great invention. I have been making i
t on elastic tape—and codeine—for years.
Gino Machado was sitting on a towel, leaning back against an equipment trunk. By the look of his eyes and his tapping feet, he was already well into his day’s dosage of Dexamyl. We exchanged silent waves, though we were not more than twenty feet apart.
I walked to my locker to sort my equipment, already neatly arrayed according to tradition by the equipment manager. Shoulder pads turned upside-down on the top shelf of the metal cage, with my newly polished helmet sitting in the neck hole. Hanging from hooks inside the locker were my game pants and jersey.
On the floor of the locker were neatly shined and newly laced game shoes and a tidy stack of miscellaneous knee, thigh, forearm, elbow, and hip pads. The hip and knee pads were squares of half-inch sponge rubber. The thigh pads were quarter-inch thicknesses of molded white plastic. I made the pads myself and if I was injured in a spot protected by my homemade pads I could be fined as much as five hundred dollars. But they were lighter, more maneuverable pieces of equipment. As injuries slowed me, I made it up by cutting down on the weight of my pads, either paring them down or discarding them altogether. If things kept up as they had been, I would soon be hitting the old gridiron stark naked.
“Phil,” Eddie Rand yelled, “you ready?”
“Yeah.”
With practiced efficiency he quickly taped my ankles, locking my left and leaving my right free. He used a base of elastic tape to allow more flexibility, then put the final straps on with white adhesive tape for extra support. He finished the second ankle and slapped the bottom of my foot. I rolled over on my stomach and he began spreading analgesic on the backs of my legs. Lifting my shirt, he rubbed the hot cinnamon into my back. At the end of the rubdown he slapped my ass and I immediately stood up on the table while he wrapped both thighs with Ace Bandages to retain heat and give additional bracing. When he finished, I stepped down, pulled a new elastic knee brace over my right knee, grabbed a roll of white tape and walked to my locker.