The Legend of Jesse Smoke

by Robert Bausch

  “I didn’t say that, Colin. That’s not it at all. And, I mean, what is that, anyway? What is a ‘lifestyle?’ Would you say your ‘straight’ life is a kind of style?”

  He pretended not to hear my silly question. “I need to talk to Jesse.”

  “You don’t need to talk to her or her mother. You’re a sportswriter, why don’t you write about sports, for god’s sake.”

  My voice must have got a bit loud there because this stopped him. He studied me a moment, then smiled. “Look, I’ll do my job, Skip, and you do yours.”

  “Really? Cause you never fail to tell me how to do mine.”

  “Well then, now we’re even, I guess.”

  The week of the Browns game, the Washington Post printed an interview with Jesse’s favorite wide receiver on the Divas, Michelle Cloud. Michelle was not gay, but she said she had been approached by Jesse at a Washington hotel. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time,” she said. “Hell, a lot of the players in this league are gay.” She claimed that she never could get used to the idea and resisted Jesse’s advances. Then an “unnamed player on the Washington Redskins confirmed” that Jesse had engaged in sexual activity with at least two players. This “source” was, he said, “defending” Jesse. But of course all this news did was fan the flames about Jesse and her sexuality.

  The news that Jesse’s mother was in town, that she was a lesbian and was anything but reticent on the subject of her sexuality, well, it made things even more complicated. Suddenly Jesse was not only the most famous woman in the world; she was at once the most revered and hated woman in the world. The conservatives and the Christian right (which phrase, as a matter of fact, has always interested me; I mean, is there a Christian left? And if so, do they ever say anything to offset the stupidity of the Christian right? Why do they let the Christian right give the entire faith such a bad name?) immediately called for Jesse’s dismissal from the league. “A woman like that exerts just too much influence,” said one. Another called for her endorsements to be pulled across the board. “The very idea that this woman represents Modesty Perfume,” one commentator said, “when she, herself, is an example of sexual promiscuity and largesse, is beyond the pale.”

  Taking the other tack, Out magazine named Jesse the most admirable woman on earth.

  All the talk shows made jokes about her; innuendos, intended, one hoped, to poke fun more at the rampant disapproval of Jesse than anything else. Still, it brought her name to the fore in so many venues and in so many ways that after a while even jokes that were in support of her ended up hurtful and sad. (“Where there’s Smoke there’s a ‘flame”’—that sort of thing.) There is no such thing as “enough is enough” in the media. Only when public interest itself wanes, when the money starts to dry up, do they back away from a feeding frenzy, and that’s what this was.

  You must remember how hard it was back then to pick up a magazine or a newspaper that didn’t have a picture of Jesse and/or her mother on the cover. It would go on, I knew, for the rest of the season, and I wondered how long Jesse could withstand it before it started to wear her down. How could she or anyone keep playing through it all? Even Harold Moody, our public relations director, stopped taking calls.

  She came to practice every day with her head high, but you could tell it was all in her mind, simmering. Nate started appearing to pick her up after practice, and he, Dan Wilber, and Orlando Brown ran interference for her through the nest of reporters waiting outside the park. Those three guys formed a pretty big offensive line to block for her as she tried to make it to the parking lot and her Mercedes.

  Charley Cross of ESPN wanted to interview her just before the game in Cleveland. He was a former protégé of Bob Costas and, like Costas, about the only educated, intelligent sports reporter in the business. It also helped that, like Costas, he had a soul. He wanted to talk to Jesse about the sport, not the “scandal” concerning her sexuality and her background. She asked me what she should do, and I told her, “He’s been doing this for almost a decade. Cross is the best there is. Doesn’t play games, and he doesn’t go for anything but the truth. He’s a human being so … if you’re gonna talk to anybody, talk to him.”

  She promised him an interview after the Browns game.

  That Sunday morning the Washington Times speculated that Jesse had been brutalized by her father, which was what drove her to “lesbianism.” He’d forced her to be “the son” he always wanted; forced her to learn football, and made her into the “anomaly” or, “in some circles,” the “freak” she was. She was described as a “tortured, driven woman” so confused about her own sexuality that she was almost predatory toward other women, and probably “fairly promiscuous with men” as well. The Times worried about the “unity” of the Redskins.

  Jesse, she took it all out on the Browns.

  In the first half she completed 16 straight passes. Four went for touchdowns. The Browns were down by 28 before scoring a single point. Just before the end of the half, they got a field goal. We enjoyed such a big lead they’d stopped trying to run the ball and went strictly to their passing game. (We stopped Delroy Lincoln, who rushed for only 16 yards on 12 carries. That was part of it.) Orlando Brown had four sacks. Nick Rack and Zack Leedom had two each. The only unfortunate thing that happened in the game was that Drew Bruckner strained his knee pretty badly. We had to plug in a rookie there named Talon Jones who was a strong special teams player but essentially untested at middle linebacker. He’d practiced there with the second team, and Coach Bayne liked him, but you never know with a rookie. He was 6′ 2″ and weighed around 230—fairly light for a linebacker in those days—but he was strong and smart. Just the same, Bruckner was a hell of a player to lose.

  In the second half, Jesse was no less effective. It really was something to watch her drift back, find a receiver, and whip the ball right to him, laser sharp with every pass. She went 11 for 13 in the second half. (Gayle Glenn Louis dropped one, and Rob Anders turned the wrong way on a play and the ball sailed over his shoulder before he realized it.) For the game, Jesse completed 27 of 29 passes, for 340 yards and 6 touchdowns. Walter Mickens ran for 103 yards and scored the other touchdown. We won the game 49 to 3.

  Not only was it Jesse’s first 300-yard game, she tied a Redskins record for touchdowns with six. Only Sammy Baugh (two times) and Mark Rypien had ever done that.

  I didn’t give a damn about her personal life. She was the best quarterback, the best pure passer, I ever saw.

  Coach Engram had taken over the play calling during the Browns game, and Jesse ran the plays he told her to call. It was like he knew what she needed. I kept waiting for him to tone it down, to go more completely to the running game, but he kept feeding Jesse those passing plays. He must have read the Times article himself, and been as pissed off as Jesse was. Twice, I saw her nod toward him when I told her the play he’d called. Coach Engram stood there, carrying his clipboard like he was a third-string quarterback, not the coach, his face inscrutable, saying nothing except what the next play should be.

  The Browns were supposed to be championship material, but we made them look like a badly coached high school team. The papers said the next morning that we’d “humiliated them.” Nothing they tried worked, on offense or defense. Nothing. While for us, it was the opposite. At the end of the game, Dan Wilber, Orlando Brown, and Darius Exley picked Jesse up and carried her off the field.

  I was so proud of her right then. I understood, maybe for the first time, what it meant to be “brimming.” Hell, I thought I might sprout wings and lift up like something attached to a hot-air balloon. I bet I didn’t weigh more than twenty pounds or so at the end of that game. Talk about walking on air.

  Jesse, though, she had a look on her face as though she’d just plundered a village, or pulled off the most perfect, most massive heist. Something in her, something in her soul, was being fed by frustration, anger, resentment, even hate. That kind of thing can’t last for long, but … while it does? People mo
ve mountains.

  I wish love had the same power. It’s the better thing, love, don’t get me wrong. I truly believe that. Hatred is potent, see, but it’s small and finally constricting—even suffocating. Man, though, it sure can feed skill and will for a little while. Yes it can.

  Thirty

  In her ESPN interview with Charley Cross, Jesse did not appear even slightly nervous. She was just Jesse: sweetly ironic, not too forthcoming, but blunt and willing to laugh at herself. As usual, she was conservatively attractive, in a white blouse with a thin gold necklace around her neck. Cross, a broad-nosed, raspy-voiced man who came off a little like Bill Clinton, wanted the world to see her as a “woman.” He opened the interview by saying he was going to be giving America its first true glimpse of an “extraordinary young woman named Jesse Marie Smoke.”

  Throughout the interview, the camera shifted from a close-up of Jesse’s face as she answered questions to highlights of her throwing the football. At one point, the film showed her getting hit from behind in her first pass attempt against the Raiders. Even in slow motion it looked like her head had been knocked off when her helmet flew up.

  Cross asked, “Did that hurt?”

  Jesse gave a broad smile. “A little.”

  “Were you injured on that play?”

  “No. I didn’t really feel it until later, actually.” In the studio light, Jesse’s curly hair glistened, looking almost wet.

  Cross spoke to her gently throughout the interview. “Talk about what it feels like to be the only woman on a field with such violence.”

  “It’s not violence to me, you know? It’s competition.”

  “Pretty violent competition.”

  “I think it can be violent, but … It’s all controlled,” she said. “Violence is chaotic, like, mostly random. I know it looks chaotic on the field, especially during the heat of a play, but most of the people in a play—they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing; and the force you see, that’s just part of that.” She got this thoughtful look on her face then, and Cross let her think for a second. Then she picked up where she left off. “A football play starts with what I know looks like confusion and chaos, all the players struggling and pushing and running to specific places, but then one player begins to emerge in the distance and another one lofts the ball over a crowd, in a perfect arch, to that one player breaking free and the ball and the player come together like some … some elegant fact of the universe. You know? It turns out all that confusion is really precision. Artistry.”

  “Artistry?”

  “To me, it is. There’s no other word for it.”

  “Do the players on other teams ever talk to you on the field?”

  “Sometimes. They say things when they can’t get to me. But the blocking is always so good. I’ve only been sacked twice this year.”

  “You’ve been knocked down, though, quite a few times.”

  “Not that many. Anyway, I’m usually watching the receiver I’ve thrown the ball to. I don’t even notice it.”

  “You don’t notice it?”

  “Not really.”

  “But you say sometimes players say things to you.”

  “Sure.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Nothing important.”

  “They call you names?”

  “Oh, they taunt and stuff. Sometimes they might call me something.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t want to get into that. Just, they get frustrated sometimes, but like I said, I got a great offensive line in front of me.”

  “Talk about your father. He teach you how to play this game?”

  “He taught me everything. But—it wasn’t like he wanted me to be a boy, you know? Some of the newspaper people—some have tried to make it like I was a disappointment to him because I was a girl, but that’s just … not true. Let’s put it this way. He loved the game and he loved me. He wanted me to know it. It’s not like he hoped I’d play professionally, though.”

  “That was your idea.”

  She looked directly into the camera now and laughed. “Actually, it was Coach Granger’s idea. It never really crossed my mind.” My heart brimmed over, of course, when she said that.

  “Do you feel like a role model for other young women?” Cross asked.

  “Look, I just want to play football. I don’t want to be anything to anybody.”

  “Does it bother you that other girls are getting involved in the game now?”

  “No.”

  “Other girls are trying out for football teams across the country, did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t.” She got a bit of a serious look on her face. “I guess that’s okay. I mean, if a woman wants to play football, then why not? I played in a women’s league. Women can play any sport they want. I just think it’s not fair to suggest that because I’m a woman I can’t do as well at something as men do. If I’m strong enough, if I have the talent, if I move fast enough, then … why not?”

  “How about the danger?”

  “It can be dangerous for anybody who plays it.”

  “Have you ever been hurt? I mean really hurt?”

  “Not really.”

  “Ever had a concussion?”

  “Once, in a game against the Philadelphia Fillies in the women’s league, I got slammed down pretty hard and bumped my head. I was dizzy for a while after that. I had trouble sleeping and I had a headache for most of the rest of that week. I guess that could have been a concussion. I know I was hurt on that play more than any play so far playing against the men.”

  “Talk about your relationship to the men on the team.”

  “They’re my teammates. We all work together.”

  “Did you have trouble in the beginning, getting them to listen to you?”

  She looked a little puzzled. “You mean on the field?”

  “In general.”

  “I call the plays,” she said patiently. “Or, I let them know what play has been called. We practice all week together. They get used to running the plays I call, the way they would with any quarterback.”

  “How do you get along with the other quarterbacks on the team? Ambrose? Spivey?”

  “Fine. Corey helps me a lot, actually. He coaches me about things.”

  “What things?”

  “Reading defenses. How to mislead the safeties. That kind of thing. He’s been a big help.”

  I thought she was kind to say that. As for Spivey, she didn’t say anything about him, except that he was a terrific competitor and never missed getting the ball where it needed to be on kicks when she had to try a field goal.

  Except for the news that she might have had a concussion during that game against the Fillies, no really earth-shattering revelations came out of the interview. That’s what I liked about Cross, though. He wasn’t adversarial, or interested in pushing the sensational. He was interested in the human side of things. He didn’t want to embarrass or expose anybody; he just wanted the audience to meet the person he was interviewing. More than once he gave players who were maligned a chance to defend themselves. And he was a good listener. The whole interview only lasted about a half an hour. Near the end of it he playfully asked Jesse if she was dating anybody.

  She got this modest smile on her face. “Not right now, that’s for sure. Too busy.”

  “But do you have a love interest?”

  “I’m not exactly … free for that, you know?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She blushed. I could see she had let out more than she intended. But she maintained an expression of concentration, taking her time now to find the right words. Finally she just shook her head and laughed. “Nobody wants to go out with me.”

  “Is that really true?” Cross said.

  She was smiling again. “I won’t be going out with anybody until the season is over.”

  “But then?”

  “Are you interested?” She laughed, again.

  A
nd that’s how it ended, with music and her smiling face, and then a slow-motion film of her launching the ball, in top form. Even in slow motion her release was a kind of blur.

  We had the Eagles next. In our first game against them, in Philadelphia, they’d beaten us 21 to 9 and nothing much happened in that game that would make it into team highlights, except for the fact that Jesse kicked three field goals. But the Eagles were always tough. It didn’t matter what kind of season we were having, they still managed to give us a hell of a game, and it was no different in Jesse’s first year. Of course for this second game, they had to play on our field.

  It didn’t help that on the day of the game it rained. It was a damp drizzly November day, and the offense couldn’t get the ground game going. The Eagles stuffed Mickens pretty badly, and when Jesse tried to get the ball downfield, they seemed to have a dozen defenders around the ball no matter what play we ran. Jesse got knocked down a lot, but always after she’d let the ball go. Once she got hit so hard the whole stadium gasped, but she kept getting up. At one point when she came to the sideline for a time-out, she had bloody snot hanging from her nose. She got it all over her sleeve and the equipment manager held a wet cloth over her face for a bit, then wiped the blood off her uniform.

  “Jesus,” she said. “That’s embarrassing.”

  “You okay?”

  “I wish they didn’t know what we’re going to do on every play.”

  “Sure seems like it, doesn’t it?” I said.

  Coach Engram told Jesse we were going to keep trying to run the ball. By the end of the first half, we still had not scored, while the Eagles had already kicked two field goals.

  Jesse completed only 5 of 22 passes in that first half, her worst outing. Some she missed, some got dropped or knocked down. She just couldn’t seem to settle down and play to her natural talents, always being forced to move and dodge before she threw the ball. On the opening play of the third quarter, she ducked under a 300-pound lineman and ran the damned thing right through a big hole up the middle. She dodged to the outside when she saw a linebacker coming for her and gained 13 yards before a safety threw his body at her and knocked her out-of-bounds. She flew into the air and landed on her neck and shoulders. I thought every bone in her body might have broken. It looked like a deliberate attempt to hurt her and you could see how angry every player on our side was. The refs didn’t like it either. They called an unnecessary roughness penalty and tacked on another 15 yards, which put the ball on our own 41-yard line. Jesse got up and shook her head, then trotted back onto the field.