The Franchise

by Peter Gent

  Red Kilroy, with the fine survival sense developed as a major-college football coach, knew he had finally met his match in Dick Conly. But when Cyrus dangled the hope of percentage or stock options if they got to the Super Bowl, Red Kilroy had what he needed. The hope that he would own his own franchise.

  Red Kilroy took the job.

  They kept it secret until after the big alumni catfish fry and beer bust, when the “boosters” showed up with cash and catfish, coleslaw and Pearl beer.

  There Red announced he was leaving the University to coach the Franchise.

  The athletic director, T. J. “Armadillo” Talbott, gave him a plaque and launched into a rambling speech about commies infiltrating the Cotton Bowl committee and the NCAA.

  Red Kilroy left the fish fry late that night, opened the safe in his office and took the whole football slush fund with him in a duffel bag.

  He got away with close to $300,000.

  How could the University report the theft of something that wasn’t supposed to exist?

  Hardball, Red called it.

  The University had many lean years after Red Kilroy left; the fans were certain it was because the great Red Kilroy had gone to the Franchise, and in a way they were right.

  One Red Kilroy Era ended and another one began.

  Once at the Franchise, Kilroy determined priorities.

  Red’s goal of Super Bowl was servant to his desire to become Franchise owner. Think win! Every day, all day.

  Red’s system was simple. Offense and defense were based on the same primary concept: the control of territory.

  Many had broken the game down into various concepts of controlling territory. Lombardi did it at Green Bay based on excellent personnel and an infectious desire to excel under pressure, causing dams of emotion to burst forth into winning efforts; crazed men momentarily became superhuman, made no mistakes, executed. Lombardi was power and execution. Landry, a defensive expert at New York, had borne the 4–3, created the flex defense and adapted the multiple-formation offense to answer the questions of controlling territory. He perfected the scanning, retention and recall methods of the computer to construct models of future battles for turf. Landry was the general of the electronic battlefield. The prediction and adjustment capabilities were phenomenal. There was little or no need for emotion, but rather exquisite technical control.

  Red Kilroy combined both, with an evangelist’s ability to convert or kill.

  “Never be afraid to be human and make mistakes,” Red told his players. “Just don’t ever do it on a football field.”

  DOC WEBSTER’S RANCH

  “THERE’S NO PHONE here,” Wendy announced. “That’s what I love about it. People really have to want to find you.” They were at the ranch, missing Water Carnival. Taylor had the fire burning when Wendy returned from the south bedroom of the stone house. She had changed into loose-fitting corduroy pants, a Peruvian wool poncho and rabbit-fur-lined buckskin squaw boots.

  The stone house was cold, and the sputtering fire was making slow progress against the chill radiating from the cold rock. The roof was tin. The floor and walls were of thick odd-shaped limestone blocks in beige and pink hues. It was the native stone. The country was littered with it and it lay two miles thick below the thin topsoil.

  It was the plateau. Old sea bottom. Skeletons and sea shells forty million years old.

  The house was four rooms with a long porch running the length of the south side, facing the creek. The kitchen in the northwest corner had an ancient white enamel sink with a hand pump on the west wall with accompanying drain and butcher boards. A four-paned window was punched into the rock over the sink. The only light in the kitchen was a bare bulb hung from the center of the ceiling. The north wall was covered with white-painted metal cabinets surrounding an old white electric stove and a Coldspot refrigerator with the round motor humming and vibrating on the top. Next to the refrigerator, a door opened directly outside to the oak motte. A full rain barrel stood next to the outside door. It had rained heavily in the hills all week.

  The kitchen table was heavy plank and set in the middle of the room. None of the eight chairs matched; two were handmade wooden captain’s chairs, three were from different Formica dinette sets and three were stolen from the University cafeteria. There was also an old tall wooden stool in the corner. The south wall was all pantry shelves filled with foodstuffs and kitchen equipment; on the top shelf sat a big box of D-Con.

  A heavy post-and-lintel archway led through the south wall into a living area, twenty-five feet square, with Indian rugs hung on the rock walls and laid on the rough stone floor.

  The fireplace took up the west wall of the living room; on the hearth was an umbrella stand full of old hand-whittied canes and a Confederate cavalry sword and scabbard once carried by a captain in Hood’s Texas Brigade.

  Four tall eight-pane glass windows in the south wall overlooked the porch. Two hammocks hung from the smooth cedar posts that held up the tin roof. There was a nice view of the crest of the hill, dropping straight to the creek. Nestled into the south side of the ancient protective grove of live oaks, the cabin commanded the high ground north of Dead Man Creek.

  Two doorways off the living room led to separate bedrooms. The brass double beds were piled high with down comforters and hand-sewn quilts. The walls were hung with blue-and-gray paintings, black-and-white photographs and bookcases; books were scattered everywhere. The main subject of almost every book was the War of Rebellion. Doc was an antisecessionist-Sam Houston-Jacksonian-Democrat native Texan.

  Wendy Chandler crept over to the fire silently and knelt on the red and black Indian rug, holding out her hands to the flame.

  “You build a great fire,” she said.

  “They offer a course in this at the University.” Taylor tossed on the twisted piece of oak. “It’s for jocks. Helps us with hand-eye coordination, keeps our grade points up and we get warm.” He stopped talking and watched Wendy for a moment as she looked into the fire and nodded slowly, lost in the flames.

  Taylor felt a chill.

  “These damn rock houses are cold. It’s colder in here than outside. Let’s go outside and warm up, give the fire a chance to get burning.”

  Taylor held the door onto the porch open. Keeping her eyes on the fire, Wendy backed outside under a clear night sky.

  “You have a girl at the University?”

  “I had one, sorta. Turned out she was a person who forgot but never forgave. She ended up mad at me for all sorts of things she couldn’t recall. We broke off after she”—Taylor hesitated—“pulled a knife on me.”

  “Pulled a knife on you!” Wendy was startled.

  “Yeah, well, she carried a Buck knife. She was afraid of men, she told me. I knew she had the knife but there was just something about the way she snapped it open, that”—Taylor paused—“scary sound when the blade clicked, locked open. She was a pretty girl too. Somebody must have scared the shit out of her.... Maybe I made a sudden movement. It is sort of like why you carry the nickel-plated thirty-eight in your purse.” It became a direct question.

  “I carry it to shoot anybody I think needs shooting,” Wendy said. “So don’t press your luck and stay out of my purse. My mother gave the pistol to me when I left for the University.” that was all the explanation Wendy volunteered.

  “Do you sleep with it?”

  “If I have to.”

  “Maybe tonight you’ll get lucky and won’t have to sleep with the big iron.”

  “Maybe tonight I’ll get lucky and hit what I shoot.”

  JUNIE INTERRUPTS INVENTORY

  “CYRUS!” JUNIE STEPPED down into the sunken work area of the mammoth den.

  The walls were covered with trophy heads ranging upward from the tiny dik-dik to second largest water buffalo ever recorded killed by a rich man. There were around fifty head-and-shoulder mounts, four types of big game cat fully stuffed, an upright Kodiak bear and two elephant tusks crossed above the marble fireplace mant
el.

  Cyrus Chandler, Dick Conly and Red Kilroy were down in “the Pit,” the sunken center of the huge room. They were studying the teletype lists of the unprotected players that the other franchises were tossing into the For Sale pot known as the player pool.

  “Cyrus!” Junie was insistent as she handed her coat to the maid, Isabelle, who disappeared down a long hallway. “Listen to me!”

  “Goddammit, Junie, what the hell do you want now?” Cyrus glared at her for a moment, but then his eyes began creeping back toward the player list.

  “Wendy wasn’t on her throne.”

  Cyrus let out a long, slow sigh. “What throne?”

  “At Water Carnival on the Pi Phi float. She’s president of the sorority, you know.”

  “I know, Junie, just like her mother before her,” Cyrus said. “You two are a grand tradition. Now, what am I supposed to do about Wendy not being on her throne? Is there a usurper that I can squeeze out economically? Maybe ruin her father with incriminating financial or sexual innuendos—questions of paternity?”

  “It was empty,” Junie moaned. “No one sat on the throne. I asked some of the girls when I went over to take pictures; they hadn’t seen her since Tuesday’s rehearsal. She had a fight with Lem.” Junie was anxious and unhappy. “I saw Lem.” Now Junie’s voice quivered. “They have broken their engagement. She threw that perfectly lovely five-carat diamond away.”

  Conly laughed and caught Red’s eye; both grinned and continued to scan the lists of available players.

  “It’s not funny, Dick,” Junie moaned. “The poor boy spent all night in the riverbottom, looking for it.” Junie sighed. “Luckily he found it.”

  “Wait until he tries to sell it,” Dick Conly said. “That’ll really break his heart.”

  Wanda June Chandler looked around the room at all the dead animals and shuddered involuntarily. She hated the mounts; that was one reason why Cyrus filled his den with dead animals. Junie would not stay long in a room with glass-eyed and sawdust-filled carcasses. This revulsion did not carry over to the cedar closet where she kept her dozen or so fur coats. Questioned once about the contradiction, Junie didn’t see any connection.

  “They don’t have faces on them, darlin’,” Junie explained.

  “I’m worried, Cyrus,” Junie whined. “She’s never done anything like this before.”

  “She does it all the time.” Cyrus’s eyes moved back to the Chicago list and he made a mark next to a wide receiver. “Have you forgotten the time she went to Paris on my American Express card because she got pissed off at Lem?” Cyrus looked at Conly. “She brought back that frog clothes designer. I had to throw the fag bastard out.”

  “As I recall”—Junie turned snotty—“Dick threw him out.” She glanced at Conly, who kept his eyes on the player list, and she continued with urgency, “But that wasn’t during Water Carnival.” Junie’s eyes welled with tears. “The president of the Pi Phi house just doesn’t do that. I’m so embarrassed. I’m going to call Lem’s mother and see what she knows.”

  “That’s fine, dear.” Cyrus looked over at a name that Red Kilroy had circled on the Cleveland list. “Tell her to have young Lem call me. We have business. Tell him to call anytime; we’ll be up here all night. He might as well start earning a living. His father never did.”

  Junie nodded and disappeared down the hall to the master bedroom. Dick Conly watched her go, her forty-year-old-plus body still firm and supple. Cyrus watched Dick watch Junie. It pleased him to have things Dick Conly wanted.

  Red Kilroy tapped his pencil on the name that he had circled on the Cleveland list. “This Bobby Hendrix son of a bitch is trouble, a regular clubhouse lawyer. But he can catch a football. I swear his peripheral vision is so good, he can see his goddam ears.”

  “Do you want him?” Conly asked.

  “As a receiver, you bet, but he’s a Union man, a real pain in the ass. The commissioner wants to blacklist him. He was one of the ones who threatened the antitrust suit, and now he’s after Charlie Stillman.”

  “Can he play football?” Conly asked.

  “He and Speedo Smith are about the best there are around,” Red said. “But Smith’s on the Blacklist too. He was Dallas’s player representative. Hendrix got to him at all the Pro Bowl games, I figure. They say he was a lot of trouble.”

  “Do you want them?” Conly watched his head coach’s eyes.

  “I sure do.” Red didn’t pause. “Team them with Taylor Rusk in a couple years ...” Red whistled and grinned. “These guys are player’s players. They know how to play and win and they can teach the young guys. We could make a big move here ... cheap.” Red glanced at Cyrus.

  “Don’t worry about finance,” Conly warned. “Do you want them as players?”

  Red nodded, his eyes cutting from Conly to Chandler.

  “Hold on, now, do we want troublemakers on our team?” Cyrus interrupted, directing the question to Conly.

  “Cyrus,” Dick Conly said patiently, softly, “you will cause more trouble before dawn than these two niggers will in their whole careers.”

  That seemed to satisfy Cyrus momentarily.

  “Hendrix is a white guy,” Red Kilroy said.

  “They are all niggers, Red,” Conly replied. “Fuck their blacklist, we’ll get them both.”

  “It’ll make Cleveland and Dallas mad,” Cyrus warned.

  “I’ll worry about Dallas,” Dick Conly said. “Nobody worries about Cleveland.”

  PRACTICE

  “MY FIRST COUPLE of years at the University, I used to schedule my classes two hours apart. Then I could walk back to my apartment and be alone for at least one hour.” Taylor watched Wendy Chandler’s face. They were back inside; the fire had knocked the chill out of the rock house. “I was in culture shock, but I knew I’d make it.”

  “What made you so sure?” she asked.

  “No choice,” Taylor said. “I’m an athlete.”

  “And you can’t fail?” Wendy was not being inquisitive.

  “No.” Taylor tossed a chunk of mesquite on the fire. “Failure is inevitable, but an athlete can’t quit.”

  “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  “The difference is academic. The General Rule of Life says anyone can get whatever he wants out of life if he is willing to work unceasingly with discipline and dedication. If he refuses to accept defeat, he will achieve his goal.”

  “Sounds frighteningly familiar,” Wendy said. “Very American. It certainly supports the Protestant work ethic. Dreadfully middle-class.”

  “It is.” Taylor nodded. “More dreadful for those of us in the lower classes. What’s worse is The Specific Rule of Life.”

  The mesquite chunks began to pop and burn in blues and greens, he stared at the fire.

  “Well?” Wendy was impatient. “What’s the Specific Rule say?”

  “That ...” Taylor nodded; his face vacant, enchanted by the varieties of color that consumed the mesquite. “Everybody is an exception to the General Rule.”

  “That’s it?” Wendy was slightly astonished. “That’s all? But you said ...”

  “That I knew I would make it at the University,” Taylor interrupted, “because I was an athlete.”

  “Yeah.” Wendy’s sarcasm changed to confusion. “I believe this is an exercise in sophistry.”

  “Everything is an exercise in something. Just don’t quit,” Taylor said. “But I should point out that I did make it ... just like I knew I would.”

  “Because you’re an athlete.” Scorn tinged Wendy’s voice.

  “I’m a poor white agnostic American post-industrial border warrior ... just waiting on the broadsword and family crest. I am an athlete, I do not quit, that’s all I know. Everything else I work out daily.”

  “I’m glad you told me.”

  “You should know before we get too deeply involved.” Taylor’s voice was soft, strangely distant. He kept his eyes on the blue-green flames and the mesquite, and he spoke as if by rote. “My life is
intense, boring, violent, temperate, creative, destructive, vital and irrelevant ... and I am indestructible, frail, competitive, cooperative, selfish and generous.” Taylor paused for breath and Wendy’s comments, but she only stared at him silently, her face enigmatic.

  “My fate is determined by meticulous planning and heedless happenstance,” he went on, “ingenious strategies and wild swings of the pendulum. I flip for both sides of the coin and get the edge.”

  The mesquite popped and snapped, crumbling to glowing coals. Taylor was rambling, entranced.

  “Every day I confront unlimited contradictions with limited skills. I must succeed, though failure is inevitable. I keep on, each day expecting victory in the face of insurmountable problems, ever-increasing humiliations. I accept pain, fear, defeat as due. I do not expect any luck but bad and know that if gods or spirits exist, they are arrayed against me. But each time I’m beaten down I get up and start over, reinforced only by my ignorance.”

  Wendy was stunned by his passionate words, spoken in a passionless monotone like a pubescent Boy Scout reciting the Gettysburg Address.

  “I refuse to quit the hopeless battle against chaos and darkness. My commitment is to life and man’s place in an endless war with death. I never quit and will die hard.”

  He looked up from the fire and saw her watching him. His face was drawn but calm, his eyes black.

  “I’m an athlete.” He spoke with the resignation of a man facing the gallows. “It’s my curse, my hope, my dream, my nightmare ... my excuse.”

  His eyes, black holes in his face, radiated intensity from a spectrum beyond the visible. Wendy could feel his energy converging on her, exhilarating, electrifying, galvanizing, full of life and power. Terrifying.

  “I thought you should know,” Taylor said, “I’m just waiting for my broadsword.”

  “Thanks.” Wendy’s voice was weak, cracked, dry.

  “I’ll tell you one thing.” Taylor watched her profile against the stone. “If that sword does show up? I don’t have a thing to wear with it. The damn cleaners lost my chain mail.”