North Dallas Forty

by Peter Gent

  I closed my eyes and nodded my head, letting it sink slowly to my chest.

  “Go ahead, George,” March instructed.

  The officer continued his story, carefully avoiding any particulars on the party and recognizing none of those present with the exception of myself.

  “At one point in the evening the suspect was observed in the outward physical appearances of smoking marijuana with another unidentified male companion.” He had delicately failed to recognize Seth Maxwell, the singularly most identifiable face in Texas sports history.

  “How do you mean outward physical appearances?” Clinton posed the question without raising his eyes from the table.

  “Well,” Rindquist elaborated, “the physical act of marijuana smoking differs considerably from the actions of normal cigarette smoking.”

  The unmistakable accent on normal was aggravating, but I remained unresponsive.

  “Marijuana smokers,” Rindquist pronounced the words with the same distaste he would have if discussing niggers, lepers, or meskins, “cup the cigarette, or joint, in their hands, taking short puffs and holding their breath. It makes the smoking action very jerky in appearance and easy to identify. That was the manner in which the suspect was smoking.”

  There was a short lull while everyone in the room waited for me to offer something more, a defense or an admission. I just slowly shook my head, my lips twisted into a wry smile. I could feel the world crumbling but could do nothing to stop or even slow the process.

  “Shortly after observing the suspect smoking marijuana—” Rindquist began again.

  I leaped to my feet and pointed a finger at the policeman. “Do you know it was marijuana, you fat son of a bitch? Do you have any proof? You lousy ...” My voice and energy trailed off as I was unable to conceptualize a proper insult. I fell back into my seat, exhausted.

  “Look, boy!!” the policeman yelled back at me and started toward me with his fists clenched. He caught himself and stopped, looking around the office for reassurance. Ray March came to the officer’s assistance.

  “We understand fully, Mr. Elliott,” March’s voice was authoritative and his statement was carefully and impassionately structured, “that Mr. Rindquist’s remark is merely an assumption on his part. But in all fairness you must understand that we hired Mr. Rindquist because of our immense respect for his abilities and judgments as an experienced peace officer.”

  “Why didn’t you just have him shoot me and be done with it?”

  “You can be flippant if you wish, Mr. Elliott, but the charges against you are serious. And lame attempts at humor can only be regarded in terms of consequences. Please continue, George.”

  The policeman’s eyes moved from me to Clinton Foote, who gave him a tight smile and a short affirmative nod.

  “As I said,” Rindquist looked down at his notebook, “shortly after observing the suspect smoking marijuana, I broke off surveillance for the night, picking him up again the next afternoon, Tuesday, as he left the north Dallas practice field. He proceeded downtown to the CRH Building, where he remained for approximately two hours. After leaving the CRH Building he proceeded north on Central Expressway to Loop Twelve where he turned east and proceeded to the Twin Towers Apartments, where he remained the night.”

  “Do you know in which apartment Mr. Elliott spent the night?” Clinton leaned forward and glared at me, then leaned back and crossed his legs. His foot was wagging nervously.

  “Yes sir, I do. Twenty-five forty.” Rindquist didn’t bother to check his notes. “The apartment is occupied by—”

  “There’s no need to discuss the occupancy of the apartment,” O’Malley said. The Hunter family attorney spoke for the first time. “It’s not important to the case being discussed here.”

  A look of perplexity passed across Rindquist’s face, his lips still pursed to say Joanne. His speaking pace slowed perceptibly as he stumbled on, confused by the interruption. “He spends the night there often.” Rindquist’s eyes flitted back and forth from Foote to March to O’Malley, trying to determine if he had made a mistake.

  “You are really a bunch of sleazy cocksuckers,” I said, feeling appreciably better as the insult rebounded around the room and seemed to fit everyone perfectly, including me.

  “At about midnight,” Rindquist continued, ignoring my anger, and picking up his old rhythm, “—I left the Twin Towers and drove to the suspect’s house where I effected a search of the premises, finding several pill bottles and a quantity of obscene literature.”

  “And twenty bucks,” I added

  I was again ignored.

  The number and variety of officials present was a pretty good indicator of impending doom and I realized the folly of any attempted defense and began to build an ending, a climax. I swallowed hard and laid a hand on my chest trying to calm my heart. When I leaned back in my seat I could see it pounding against the shirt tightly drawn over my chest.

  “The following night ...” Rindquist was boiling on to the conclusion, proud that he had done his part before I turned to ax murders. The assumptions were already drawn, inferences already allowed, and punishment already decided, I knew that now. All that remained was animation to make it plausible. “... I again picked up the suspect as he left the practice field and followed him to the house of one Harvey Le Roi Belding, a suspected user and dealer in narcotics and a known campus agitator and political revolutionary.”

  “A real Che Guevara,” I muttered.

  “While the suspect was inside I searched his car. In the glove compartment I found and photographed two marijuana cigarettes. You have the photographs.”

  Clinton Foote held up two Polaroid prints for the assembled officials to verify. His hand shook noticeably.

  The detective rounded out the remainder of my week, covering the fight at Rock City, again unable to identify anyone else present with the exception of Charlotte. He followed us to Lacota and then picked me up again after Thursday’s practice and tailed me back to Charlotte’s. He was careful to point out “her peculiar relationship with a nigra boy.”

  “Well,” I said, breaking into a short, bursting laugh, “I’m sure glad you’re all doing this to me. For a while there I thought I was getting paranoid.”

  Clinton Foote took his eyes momentarily from Rindquist to glare at me. Nobody else seemed to have heard.

  Rindquist wrapped up with my boarding the 727 “allegedly bound for New York” and quickly returned to his seat. Clinton looked at Rindquist and gestured toward the door with his eyes. The policeman bounded out the door.

  “Thank you, George,” Clinton said to the closing door and then turned his attention to me. “Anything to say?”

  “Well,” I started slowly, clearing my throat, “I’d like to thank all the little people who made this possible.”

  Clinton Foote exploded. I can’t say that I blamed him.

  “Who in Great God’s Hell do you think you are?” Clinton screamed. He jumped to his feet. His face was purple with rage. “A goddam broken-down football player. You guys are a dime a dozen. Do you think you’re here because by some divine intervention you deserve to be here? Do you? Huh?”

  I was stunned by his passion and pulled back into my chair. I said nothing.

  “You’re here because we let you on,” he continued to bluster, pointing around the room at the assembled officials. “We let you on, no other reason. We don’t owe you, you owe us, and there are sixty million fans out there who agree with me.” He pointed out the window at the Dallas skyline.

  “That’s something you’ll have to work out with them,” I said. I had calmed some after his first outburst and tried to argue.

  “What?” His head swiveled back from the window, his face a mixture of surprise and fury. A thin smile controlled his lips. “Okay. You’re so goddam cocky. We gave you a good job, paid you,” he looked down and dug through a sheaf of papers on the desk and pulled out a Standard Player’s Contract, apparently mine, “good money. Go out and try and
earn as much out there.” He pointed back to the window. “You’ll find nobody gives a fat rat’s ass who you were or how many zig outs you can run.”

  I just looked up at the fuming man and smiled.

  He held the contract up for my inspection. “Well, if you could read this, which I doubt,” he had me there, I never could read a whole contract, that was why they made them so long and involved, “you would see that we own you and you check with us when you want to do something, we don’t check with you.” He shook the contract in my face. “That’s why we pay you all the money. It ain’t for your good looks and charm.”

  Ray March reached up and grabbed Clinton’s arm. Clinton pulled away, then looked at March, who signaled him to calm down and be seated. Clinton stared back at me for a moment

  “Oh, all right,” he said, and sat down.

  “Do you have anything to say that is pertinent?” March asked me.

  I shook my head.

  B.A. nodded and began digging through the papers in front of him. He selected one and stared at it blankly. It was the same disarming technique that Clinton used when negotiating contracts, acting as if there were information on the paper that diminished his opponent’s position.

  “Phil,” the coach began slowly, “you’ve been up here for conferences with me several times in the years you’ve been with the club, haven’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “What did we talk about those times?”

  “Different things, mostly your reasons for benching me. You benched me three times, or so, a year.”

  “Did I tell you why I was benching you?”

  “Well, you usually said it was maturity. I either lacked it or had too much, I don’t recall.”

  “Maturity,” B.A. mouthed the word carefully. He remained silent for several seconds, gazing at the piece of paper. “I think you’re a good receiver, Phil,” he began again. “You probably have the best hands in football today. You’re a good football player, but so is everybody else on the club. That’s why you’re all here. And football is other things besides ability. It’s dedication and it’s discipline. You must give something back to the sport, you can’t always be taking.”

  “B.A.,” I said, “I can barely stand up, can’t breathe through my nose, and haven’t slept more than three hours at a stretch in over two years, all from leaving pieces of me scattered on playing fields from here to Cleveland. Isn’t that giving something back?”

  “That’s not what I mean,” he protested. “You must live by the rules that have been built up over the years by people who love the game and sacrificed for it. You just can’t come in here and disregard those traditions and change what you want.”

  “That’s really funny, B.A.,” I interrupted. “You people change everything, a game becomes a corporate enterprise for one thing—money. Look at you all,” I pointed around the room, “pinstripe suits, hundred-dollar shoes, and razor cuts. And now you tell me I’ve got to be Bronko Nagurski.”

  B.A. frowned and shook his head. He scanned the paper, his forehead furrowed in thought. Finally he looked up.

  “You think you’re so smart,” he said. “I’ve heard all those tired arguments about professional football corrupting and I don’t believe ’em. And furthermore, I know about you.” He dug into the stacks of papers and came up with several sheets of psychological tests that had been administered to me and the rest of the team. He held up one of the papers and read from it.

  “You’re a high achiever who is totally self-reliant. You have no close friends or loved ones. You need nothing but yourself. You are dangerous to organization for the same reason you are desirable. As a high achiever you tend to be violently frustrated and will, if not controlled, destroy that which frustrates you.” He put down the paper. “Don’t you see? We must have a way to control people like you.”

  “How about a frontal lobotomy?”

  “You refuse to understand,” he continued. “You resent my coldness, my logical approach to problems. Well, I have a job to do and I can do it best without my personal feelings being involved. But you can’t. You refuse to submit to the rules.”

  “Don’t you see?” I was beginning to crack. I saw no escape from the inevitable. “You control my life, but don’t feel any need to become involved with me as a person. Don’t you understand how frightening that is for me? To have absolutely no human rapport with the people who, as he said,” I pointed at Clinton Foote, “own me. You own me but you don’t want to get involved with me. What the fuck does that mean?”

  B.A.’s face remained unresponsive.

  “I fully understand your objections to the way I run this team,” he said dispassionately. “I just don’t agree with you. You have a job to do and you should do it. Your personal life is something else. We have a difference of opinion and you refuse to keep it out of your work. Well, I’m in the business of winning football games, not clearing troubled consciences. I can’t have you constantly questioning my authority. I don’t care if you like me, but I insist you respect me.”

  “B.A., you can’t order people to respect you. As a man who wins football games you don’t have a peer, but you seem to think that qualifies you as an exceptional human being full of personal and Godly grace.” I stopped for a moment to catch my breath and control my voice, which had been rising markedly as I spoke.

  “You think that there is something wrong with winning and I won’t tolerate that.” B.A. pointed a finger at me, his face masking the emotion that was obvious in his voice. “Winning is the most important thing. The sacrifice and responsibility that must be shouldered in order to win are what make men. It’s what makes this country the greatest in the world. Feared and respected. Sticking to the rules and winning. You’re just not willing to pay the price.”

  “If the price is thinking like you, then I won’t pay it. But if you think it’s merely a difference of opinion you’re a very silly man.” I sank back in my seat, suddenly worn out from a battle that hadn’t even taken place. I knew it was hopeless to argue, but I had to do something.

  “Well,” B.A. answered, his voice calm and his eyes frosted, “you make your existential quests on somebody else’s time. The issue is simple. People must, and I mean must, submit to control at some level. You refuse. So, you must leave.” He looked down and began sorting and stacking the piles of papers in front of him. He placed the papers in a manila file folder and laid them back on the desk. He kept his eyes down and leaned back in his chair. Nobody moved until he finished.

  Ray March pulled a folded paper from his inside coat pocket. He studied the paper carefully, then looked at me.

  “When the commissioner was first made aware of the charges against you—”

  “Charges?” I interrupted. “I haven’t heard any charges. Just the week’s calendar of a fat voyeur.”

  “Mr. Elliott, you continually seem to think this is some sort of court proceeding. We are not concerned with semantics or strict interpretation of the law. There is no record being kept. What we are concerned with is conduct unbecoming professional football. That is what you stand accused of, and I might add, pretty well convicted of.”

  “You still haven’t said what the conduct was,” I insisted.

  “Smoking marijuana for one,” March said.

  “What else?”

  “The girl,” March replied, looking apologetically down the table at Conrad Hunter.

  Hunter never looked up from the pencil he was twirling between his thumb and forefinger.

  “The girl? She’s not even married.” I knew it was hopeless.

  A long pause followed, as the officials exchanged weary glances; tired to the bone with the charade, they wanted it ended. The chilling realization of what was to come crashed down on me. My chest constricted and I lost control of my breathing.

  “Listen,” I pleaded, inhaling deeply and trying to collect myself, “listen, there has got to be more to it than this. I’m truly sorry if I caused anyone any difficulty. But goddam, the g
irl wasn’t even engaged until last week. And the marijuana, I mean, Christ, I take stronger shit than that just to get on the field. You people give it to me. We all know marijuana is hardly—”

  “Marijuana is against the law,” Clinton Foote interrupted.

  “Oh come on,” I moaned. “You know plenty of guys in this league who use it, and LSD and mescaline.” I was pleading. “That kid in Boston said he played a game on it. And the girl. You got guys on this team screwing each other’s wives. And each other—”

  “We’re not concerned with other people’s behavior,” March interjected, “only yours has come to light.” His face was drawn into a frown. I was becoming tiresome.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I begged. “It’s not what you say. I know. And you know I know. What is it? You could be wrong.”

  “We’re not wrong!” Clinton Foote leaped to his feet. My contract was crumpled in his hand. He had lost patience with his own charade and was anxious to have it ended. “You were seen doing these things and according to the Standard Player’s Contract the commissioner has the right to suspend you, which he has already done as of eight o’clock this morning.” He tore the contract into pieces and wadded them into a ball. He dropped it in front of him on the table. His voice turned soft and a smile contradicted the look in his eyes.

  “You’re on the street, fella.” The general manager sat down and looked around the room, pleased with his performance.

  O’Malley the lawyer unwadded the crumpled, shredded contract and sorted the pieces, then he slid a legal-sized paper across the table to me.

  “Sign this if you would, Mr. Elliott. It’s a release absolving us from any further responsibility for you. We would like to get this all done as quietly as possible for all concerned.” The fat lawyer smiled slightly. “You wouldn’t want all this to become public.”

  “Clinton, you can’t do that,” I protested.