The Legend of Jesse Smoke

by Robert Bausch

  “I’m having fun,” she said.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I said I was having fun.” But the look in her eyes was as dead calm as a bank robber’s. And the cut on her nose, I saw, had started bleeding again. She took her helmet off and one of the medical staff put a better bandage on it.

  As she was putting her helmet back on, Engram said, “Run what’s called.”

  She shook her head a little I think, so he said it louder.

  “We’re hot,” she said.

  “I know it’s working,” Engram said. “But run what’s called. That’ll work too.”

  “I want those people good and embarrassed,” she said.

  I’d never heard such vehemence in her tone before and it surprised me. “You are hurt, aren’t you. They hurt your knees.”

  “I’m all right.” She wouldn’t look at me. It was noisy as always, but it seemed like we were the only ones making noise; like the only conversation was between me and Jesse and Coach Engram.

  “You’re acting like Spivey,” I said.

  She looked at me.

  “Don’t lose your cool.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. She couldn’t see the fire in her eyes, but I could.

  Coach Engram said, “Stick with the game plan, Jesse.” It was an order.

  I told her to run Mickens at the corners. “Take it at both of them, one after another. It embarrasses them just as much to get flattened on running plays.”

  She nodded, then trotted back onto the field. On the very next play, she faked a handoff to Mickens and threw it 30 yards to Anders on a quick post. The ball went on a flat, straight line to him—like a rocket—and he caught it in stride and kept running up the seam for a 55-yard touchdown.

  When she came back to the bench after kicking the extra point, she stayed away from Engram and me. I wasn’t really angry, and probably Engram wasn’t either, but it was a problem both of us didn’t want to have. This was not the kind of discipline that either one of us liked. It was one thing to have her calling plays when it was clear to her that what we’d called wouldn’t work, but she was just doing whatever she wanted out there, calling her own plays like she was one of the old-time quarterbacks; like a real field general.

  Coach Engram didn’t like field generals.

  I know it sounds kind of petulant and adolescent—the coach wants his own plays called and not somebody else’s—but the truth is, a football game in those days was a fully practiced and rehearsed series of perfect performances. You prepared for every contingency, but you also made sure what you designed was employed to its fullest potential; it’s the coach’s plan put into action in the exact sequence that the coach has scripted it. There’s always a little wiggle room, but if the quarterback takes the plan away, the coach ends up standing on the sideline not knowing what is going to happen or what is called on the field. He gets to be like the guy playing a video game who sets the game so the CPU plays itself, and then stands back and lets it unfold without using the controls. He just watches the game do what it’s going to do. Nobody likes that. Least of all a head coach in the National Football League.

  And once Jesse started calling her own game, a lot of things broke down. We should have won that game going away—we could have scored 50 points—but we started getting a lot of penalties on offense. Five false starts in the second half alone. The offense started milling around on the field and didn’t always know what was happening. I realized Jesse had started calling plays from the playbook that were not in the game plan and that we hadn’t practiced. I liked it that everybody tried to execute, though—they were listening to her. That’s a very good thing. The problem was she wasn’t listening to Coach Engram or me. And that’s a big problem.

  At the end of the game, as we were walking off the field, Coach Engram looked at me with real concern and sadness on his face. “We need to have a serious talk with Jesse.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll talk to her.”

  “She keeps that up, I don’t care how famous she gets or how good she is, I’ll sit her right down.”

  He’d do it, too. Football is teamwork to the highest degree humanly possible. Everybody has to be disciplined; they have to move exactly as planned, with absolutely unerring precision at exactly the same time. It’s a clockwork human community that explodes into action and struggles against itself for brief moments of gorgeous fight and flight, and you can’t have one maverick deciding to change the pattern or direction of the flight seconds before takeoff. Not all the time.

  You just can’t have that.

  Twenty-Six

  The Monday after the game, I told Jesse I wanted to take her out to dinner and celebrate her continued success. What I really wanted was to talk to her with no other person around. I wasn’t just going to address the problem at hand either. We hadn’t talked about anything but football since the big meeting, and I didn’t know if she’d accepted the insurance policy or what was going on with her mother or how she was managing her time now that she was an international celebrity.

  We agreed to meet at a place in Herndon, Virginia, called Rally Round that served steaks and good beer. I met her outside the place, expecting she’d show up in her usual jeans and sweatshirt. She came up the street wearing low-heeled black shoes and a long low cut black dress. She was wearing a deep auburn shoulder-length wig. It looked like she had a great mane of hair, curled just right down both sides of her face and down her back. She wore deep-blue sapphire earrings that almost matched the color of her eyes and a necklace with blue stones in it. I didn’t recognize her until she walked up and held out her hand. She was wearing eye makeup, which she didn’t need, and some sort of foundation that covered the brown freckles across her broad face. I could still see the dark line of what was left of the cut on her nose. Dark red lipstick made her teeth look as white as pearls.

  “Well, look at you,” I said.

  She nodded slightly and I took her arm and escorted her into the restaurant. I was proud to have somebody so beautiful and tall and young on my arm. I’m pretty tall too. We were a very big couple so of course we garnered a lot of attention as we made our way to our table. When we were seated I said, “What’s the occasion?”

  “No occasion,” she said.

  “Why the getup?”

  “It’s not a getup. It’s a disguise.” The paparazzi had been following her everywhere she went. “I get chased no matter where I go, so I went to a hotel not far from here. Then I showered, changed, put on this costume—how do you like it, my wig?” She turned her head to side and modeled it for me.

  “It’s nice,” I said.

  “I walked out the front door like anybody else. Nobody noticed.”

  “Come on. How could they not notice you? I mean …”

  “I walked right by ’em. Nobody’s interested in a long tall Sally like me.”

  “You have no idea, Jess.”

  She sat back, and the way the light shone on her collarbone and neck, I thought right then she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

  “You really do look beautiful, though,” I said. “Something I never thought I’d say to an NFL quarterback.”

  A young man came to the table. I thought he was the waiter, but before I could ask him for a wine list he said to Jesse, loud and with no small amount of wonder, “You’re Jesse Smoke.”

  Jesse nodded.

  Immediately other people seated around us began to pay attention. I could hear them whispering. Somebody said, “And that’s Skip Granger.”

  “Are you Skip Granger?” the young man said.

  “Are you the waiter?”

  “No, sir.” Then he turned back to Jesse. “Can I have your autograph?”

  “Sure,” she said, smiling. Even without the freckles and with the eye makeup, it was a winning smile. She just looked darker, and—I hate to say this, but—downright sexy. She did not look innocent, I can tell you.

  I watched her sign a dozen autographs. The
entire waitstaff of the restaurant also got autographs. Only two of them were actual football fans. But they all knew who Jesse was, that was for sure. One guy said, “Great game Sunday.”

  “You’re, like, just the most amazing athlete in history,” another said.

  Jesse shook her head modestly.

  “Certainly the most famous athlete in a long, long time,” I said, after the man had gone off.

  “I guess,” she said.

  Eventually we got to eating and people left us alone, although I could still feel their eyes on us. To have any sort of normal conversation we had to whisper, which wasn’t easy or fun. But people will listen to what you say—they’ll try very hard to hear every word, and they don’t try to hide it either.

  The place was dimly lit, and in the candlelight, Jesse’s eyes and the jewelry sparkled. I ordered a steak and Jesse had the salmon. I ordered a bourbon and water with my steak, and she had a glass of white wine. We ate pretty much in silence and then she started talking about Darius Exley’s action figures.

  “I just think it’s so cute he has so many of them, you know? And that he keeps buying them.”

  “You don’t think it’s kind of … childish?”

  “It’s just him.”

  “You see much of him?”

  “No. Not outside practice.”

  “So when did you see his collection?”

  “After the Los Angeles game.”

  “Really. That long ago.”

  She pushed her plate back and wiped her lips gently with a napkin. She took a sip of her wine, looking at me with something that might have been suspicion. She waited to see what I would say next.

  “Dan Wilber teaches yoga,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “You’ve seen that, too?”

  “No. But I heard about it.” She put her glass down and smiled. “He’s famous for it.”

  “You think that’s cute, too?”

  “I think it’s weird. But listen, I’ve come to depend on him. He’s my damn Rock of Gibraltar.”

  “He’s a real gentleman is what he is. You can bet the players wouldn’t have warmed to you so quickly if it hadn’t been for him. That and the football you threw into Delbert Coleman’s face mask,” I added, chuckling.

  “I think it’s when I cut my nose that I won them over.”

  “You do?”

  “Dan told me the guys really admired the way I didn’t, you know, let it bother me. They liked the way I kept going with blood all down the front of me.”

  “Hitting Darius with that winning touchdown against the Raiders helped, too.”

  We ate in silence for a while, then I said, “So, heard any more from your mother?”

  Her eyes sank a little. “She sent another letter.” She started pushing the remaining salmon around the plate with her fork.

  I watched her, waiting for her to go on. When she didn’t I said, “You going to tell me about it?”

  “She’s afraid I’ll get hurt.”

  “We’re all afraid of that.”

  “Edgar said I should—”

  “Edgar,” I interrupted her. “You call him Edgar?”

  She nodded.

  I shook my head.

  “He insisted.”

  “He doesn’t let anybody call him that. He makes us all call him Mr. Flores.”

  “Guess I’m prettier than the rest of you.”

  I didn’t laugh.

  She looked away. I had the feeling I was making her uncomfortable. I raised my glass. “Anyway, this is supposed to be a celebration.”

  She lifted hers as well.

  “To you,” I said. I took a good swallow of my bourbon and water, and she took a small sip of her wine. “Jesse,” I said. Did you ever dream we’d actually be doing this? You know, what we’re doing?”

  Now she smiled. “I dreamed it a lot. But … It was only ever a dream. I never actually thought it would happen.”

  I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “I know I’ve said this to you before, but I have to say, I’m worried about all the men pursuing you.”

  “All the men?”

  “You are not just really smart, Jesse, you’re attractive. You know that.”

  She said nothing.

  “I mean, you just joked about being prettier than the rest of us.”

  “I can take care of myself, Coach.”

  “It’s not you I’m worried about,” I said. “I’m worried about the men around you.”

  She looked truly puzzled.

  “Think about it, Jess. This is a team, right? And I just worry that some of the men pursuing you will begin to see each other as rivals. That kind of thing can be truly destructive.”

  She looked sullen as she forked up some salmon and chewed, staring down at the food on her plate.

  “You have to guard against forming attachments. That’s all I’m saying.”

  She did not like that I used that word. “I’m not attaching to anybody, all right?” She glared at me, straight into my eyes, and I felt as though I’d just tried to seduce her myself. “You make me feel like a mollusk,” she continued. “You know? I mean, I understand you don’t like the idea of me dating anybody on the team, but …”

  “I’m not just trying to protect the team,” I said.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  She looked at me blankly.

  “I just … don’t want you to think I’m jealous myself, or something.”

  Now she really seemed puzzled. “You don’t have to protect me, Skip. And, really, I don’t care if you’re jealous.”

  “I’m just interested in keeping you safe,” I said. It was the truest thing I could think to say.

  She ate some more of her salmon, and I decided to quit while I was ahead. I was wondering how to change the subject to her play calling when she took things in her own direction (it was becoming a signature). “My mother wants to come out here.”

  “I thought that was already arranged.”

  “No. I don’t want it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Edgar says he’ll fly her out here and give her the royal treatment. All I have to do is give the word.”

  “So why don’t you want her to come?”

  “I don’t know.” She put her fork down and laid her hands flat on the table. “It’s just—what does she want now? She walked away from us—my father and me.”

  “And you haven’t seen or heard from her since?”

  “I told you she wrote to me a lot after she left. E-mails. Letters. Sent me gifts for Christmas. My birthday. Things like that.”

  “And you ever answer her.”

  “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  “I hated her for leaving my father. For leaving me.”

  “Did you keep the gifts she sent you?”

  She wouldn’t look at me directly, but she slowly nodded her head.

  “You kept them?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you never answered any of her letters.”

  “I hated her.”

  “You might have communicated that if you’d sent back those gifts, don’t you think?”

  “I never used any of them.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, not right away at least.”

  I took a sip of my bourbon. I forgot that I was supposed to broach the subject of play calling, but at a time like that it would have taken a pretty awful breach of decorum to start talking about football.

  “What would you have done if your mother did call you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You think you would have hung up on her, or maybe talked to her? What do you think?”

  “I said I don’t know.”

  “What was she to think? You never responded to any of her letters, or her e-mails. She probably knew you hated her.”

  “What does it take to write an e-mail?”

  “About as much as it takes
to make a phone call.”

  “She could have called.”

  “Maybe she was waiting for you to respond to the e-mails first. She might have called you if …” I didn’t finish the sentence, though, because of the hard-boned and steely look she gave me right then. I went back to my steak. “Look, it’s none of my business, Jesse,” I said as I cut a piece off the corner of it. “But I think if she’s family, you have to give her a little bit of the benefit of the doubt.”

  “She still hasn’t called, though—there’s the thing.”

  “Did you save any of the letters?”

  “I have some of them.”

  “Someday, you may be glad that you do.” I took the last gulp of my bourbon and water just as the waiter came back with a drink on the house. He had the manager of the restaurant with him, who wanted to shake both my hand and Jesse’s. They sat around the table and we talked football with them a bit. I drank the bourbon the waiter had brought, and then another. Jesse had two glasses of wine. We were all laughing after a while—as if we were old friends. We heard tales of the other celebrities who ate at the Rally Round; of deadbeats and drunks, wives and lovers; people who gave fantastic tips. Then the owner had one of the waitresses take a picture of both of us, then one with Jesse and him. Jesse was a full head taller than he was, but he wanted the picture with his arm around her shoulders. She leaned down and the waitress took the picture. I was feeling slightly sick from all the food and the bourbon and my nerves. I didn’t like the light in that room, or all the eyes on us. And the truth was, I was worried about Jesse.