by Tim Green
"Owwwwwwwwww!" shrieked the rest of the defense, mimicking Max like wild animals and swarming him with high fives, shoulder slaps, and head butts. They loved when Max made a big hit. It made them want to make big hits. A turnover got the entire defense out of two sprints after practice.
"Anybody can cause a fumble," Clay said to himself in disgust. Immediately he felt ashamed, and glanced around to make sure no one had read his thoughts. He chided himself privately. Max was his friend, even though everyone else was down on him. In fact, the worse things got for Clay, the nicer Max was.
When the howling and slapping subsided, Max walked away without so much as a glance. The trainers ran out onto the field to attend to Pike, and the scrimmage had to be moved to the other end.
"Two's will go against two's next, and I want to see more hits like that!" White yelled to his team. "Max, everyone's tired of hearing it, but great job! Hell of a play! Everybody take five and get some water."
They all pushed toward the water table, where full cups were laid out by Sparky. Max pulled off his head gear and found Clay.
"How 'bout it, buddy?" Max said, putting his arm around Clay's shoulder, his eyes a-gleam.
"Great hit," Clay said, a little blandly.
"Yeah, but how 'bout the revenge factor?" Max asked, hugging him. "I did that fucker for you. I told you that fat fuck would pay ... and I'll get the other fucker, Sick, too before the end of camp. Not that you can't do it yourself, but hey, what are friends for?"
Clay had to smile. "Thanks, buddy."
Clay put his arm around Max's waist and gave him a light squeeze before grabbing them both a cup of water.
White blew his whistle and Clay took the field along with the rest of the second-string offensive and defensive squads. Max stood apart from the rest of the first-teamers and kept a close eye on Clay as the scrimmage began. Doogie appeared at Max's side.
"Hey, Max," Doogie said, "since we got no meetings tonight after dinner, me and Sky and Spike are gonna get a couple beers at that roadside dive out on 23, how 'bout it?"
"I don't know," Max said coolly. "I'll talk to Clay."
"Well," Doogie said jovially, "We were thinking just getting a few of the starters together, you know?"
"No, I don't know."
"Come on, Max," Doogie said in a light-hearted way, "what's the hang-up with you and Blackwell? You don't say shit to the rest of us, and we're the guys gonna be in the trenches with you. Why don't you hang with us a little?"
"Hey, man," Max said, "I don't see the big deal. I don't mind going with you guys, but what the hell's the problem with Clay coming too?"
"Listen, Max, most of us guys don't see much reason to hang with Blackwell unless maybe you need a loan or something, ha, ha," Doogie chuckled at his own wit. "The guy's a bust."
Max's hand whipped out like a flash. He grabbed Doogie's mask and yanked it until it clanked against his own.
"You and 'most of us guys' can fucking kiss my ass," Max said, and shoved Doogie away.
"Crazy fuck," Doogie mumbled, straightening his helmet as he stalked off.
Chapter THIRTEEN
THE CHICAGO BEARS WERE STILL referred to as the "Monsters of the Midway." They had recaptured the physical style of play that earned them the name in the Butkus era. Any team that took the field against the Bears knew they were in for a hard-hitting game of smash ball, and considered themselves lucky to get out of the game in one piece.
For the Ruffians, who were accustomed to the brutal heat of Alabama, it was a cool July evening in Chicago when they took the field against an opponent for the first time under Vance White. The first cut was still two weeks away, and there were still eighty members on the team. The players had to double up in the visitors' locker room, and there was a cramped, uncomfortable feeling that was exacerbated by the testiness of many of the key players, who had discreetly given themselves an injection.
White's eyes burned with intensity. "You men have kicked each other's ass for the past three weeks," he said to them right before they took the field for the kickoff. "Now it's time to kick someone else's ass.
You've lived through hell, now it's time to make someone pay for it. Men, this is a fucking war . . . and I don't expect any goddamned prisoners."
With a roar, the team burst from their locker room and took the field. The Ruffians took control of the game on the opening kickoff. The entire kickoff team swarmed the return man, with nine out of the eleven defenders pummeling him to the ground on the Bears thirteen yard line.
Even the quarterback, Ferrone, seemed inspired by his teammates' intensity and at one point in the second quarter did something totally uncharacteristic. He pitched the ball to Davis Green, then turned and threw a vicious block at the head of a pursuing back-side linebacker. The oversized meatgrinders Pike and Sick always gave Green the two or three yards he needed for a first down on a short yardage play up the middle.
Near the end of the game with the team up 27-6, Spike Norris leaned over to Doogie and McGuire on the bench and said, "More like the Midwives of the Midway."
The D-line laughed together. They were having their way with the Chicago offensive line, who in comparison to their own Ruffians offensive line seemed pretty lame. They had sacked the Bears' quarterback three times by the third quarter and tackled the runner for a loss of yards on four other occasions. During the "battle" six Chicago Bears had to be assisted from the field.
Two of these injuries were caused by Max. The first was on a pass play. Max dropped back into the hook zone. The tight end dragged across on an underneath route and tried to catch a pass. Max hammered him and broke his hand. The other play was when Max intercepted the ball and ran it back to the Bears ten yard line. He looked like he had a clear shot at the end zone until one of the Bears receivers caught up to him on an angle. Instead of trying to outrun the faster player, Max dipped his head and careened full-bore into him, knocking both himself and the other player through the air. Max got up with the ball in his raised hands. The receiver lay still, unconscious from the hit.
Standing on the sideline, where his jersey remained bright and clean, Clay heard Tim Tyrone say to his buddy, Spencer Clayton, "I told you, man, that motherfucker is bad."
White's post-game speech was severe, and he seemed unimpressed with the way his team had performed. But Humphry Lyles, who had traveled with the Ruffians, could not contain his excitement and held the charter plane on the ground an extra half hour in Chicago so the flight crew could stock up plenty of cold beer for his players' ride home.
Before takeoff White made an announcement over the plane's intercom that although of course he would not countermand the owner's provision of beer, he would expect his players to use discretion, since they had a full practice tomorrow afternoon.
"You men have won an important battle," White's voice squawked impersonally over the intercom, "but it's just one battle. We have a war to win, and only a hell of a lot more hard work will get us there. We'll go to the Super Bowl, but we'll have to suffer before we get there. But think about this, for every minute we suffer on the practice field, we'll make the rest of this league suffer twice as much when we meet them on the battlefield. Don't forget, you've got tonight and tomorrow morning off, but I expect you to be ready to go tomorrow afternoon like it was the first day of camp."
The players, pent up for the past three weeks with no reprieve, wallowed in drunkenness, scarfing cold beer after cold beer despite knowing that they would have to pay dearly for it in the heat of the upcoming day. White being a hard ass might normally have pissed everyone off, but the Ruffians had been expected to be fodder for the Bears and were so ecstatic at the apparent revival of their sorry team that they looked at White's strictness with respect and admiration.
"Here's to White being a hard ass," slurred a drunken Pete Makozych for the fourth toast.
"To Whitey boy, and his ass," chorused Dan Pike, and the rest of the offensive line as they slammed down their beers.
Cla
y was slumped in the corner of his row, staring vacantly out the window. He had played a total of seven plays at the end of the game, less than in any contest he could ever remember. Max, who normally sat in the aisle seat, was back drinking and shooting dice with Ralph Scott and Davis Green.
Gavin Collins sat in the first-class compartment with the other coaches and Humphry Lyles. He was even indulging in a cold beer. Gavin looked at Step, who sat next to him poring over the stat sheet. Gavin had to smile. For whatever the reasons, his defense had just crushed the Chicago Bears. It was too soon to be sure, but if they could keep this up, he'd be a hot commodity in the NFL.
Denise was laying naked on the bed, facedown when Clay walked out of the bathroom. He hadn't had sex in three weeks, and the last thing he wanted tonight was to be alone. He'd called her the minute they touched down in Birmingham. He only had about eighteen hours before he had to be back in camp, so it was good that Denise wasn't wasting any time. Clay wanted to do her and fall asleep. He stripped himself in seconds but stopped before lowering himself on top of her. On the dresser he saw a bottle of baby oil. He took the bottle and splashed oil over Denise's back.
"That's cold!" she protested.
"I'll warm it for you," he said in a husky voice.
He worked his hands around her ass, then slithered across her back, covering himself with oil before he flipped her over. He splashed more of the oil across her breasts and belly and began to rub it in. She reached up to him and grabbed hold of his wrists.
"Stop," she said. "Fuck me."
For an hour they writhed and moaned, and Clay forgot.
The Ruffians next faced Tampa Bay. It was one of two teams that had finished behind the Ruffians in the league standings the year before.
"Don't you motherfuckers lose this game tonight," White said through clenched teeth in his pre-game speech. "This team is horse shit. We're no longer in their class. We're champions, and when champions face a horse-shit team, they don't make a game out of it, they squash the fuckers out of existence! I don't want you to just win this game, I want you to punish these fuckers like there's no tomorrow! I want them to hurt! I want them to bleed!"
Despite the muggy Florida heat, White's team played with a fury, and Tampa bled. Eight Tampa players were carried from the field during the game. Tim Tyrone caught two touchdown passes. Sky had three sacks. Davis Green ran for two hundred and eleven yards and three touchdowns. Max had fifteen tackles and two forced fumbles. The Ruffians won 35-3. Clay's jersey remained clean.
Gavin Collins stretched his legs onto the ottoman and eased back into his leather recliner. After the trouncing they had given Tampa, White gave the coaching staff their first night off in over a month. Gavin slept in until seven o'clock, then snuck downstairs to make his wife, Leena, breakfast. While she cleaned up the kitchen, Gavin decided to read the morning paper with his coffee.
Til find out what the hell's going on in the world," he told himself, but then immediately turned to the sports page.
"Holy shit," he said with a chuckle.
"What's that, honey?" Leena called from the kitchen.
"Nothin', baby."
The headline on the top of the sports page read: RUFFIANS "DEATH SQUAD" LED BY "MAD" MAX.
The article went on to explain that the Ruffians players had come up with the nickname based on their "body count" and that Max Dresden was their unofficial leader. Most of the article was devoted to Max, his hard-luck background, the tough road he had to the NFL, and his apparent blossoming into an NFL superstar.
"Hmmm, I could live with this kind of press." Gavin murmured to himself when he read his own name in the article. "Sensational it might be, but . . /a defensive genius' . . . that could move things along faster than I'd hoped."
Gavin read everything about the Ruffians through to page five. Leena came in and sat on his lap. "What's the frown for?" she asked. "Did you get some bad ink?"
"Hmmm? Oh, no ... in fact," he said with a smile, "if things keep going this way, baby, you and I could make the big time."
"I thought we were in the big time," Leena said, waving her hand around their extravagantly furnished living room.
"This is big, but there's bigger if we keep doing this," he said, tapping the paper with the back of his fingers. "I'm talking about maybe my own team in a few years," he said.
Leena nodded, "So. why the frown a minute ago?"
"Ahhh," he said, "it's Clay Blackwell, he's a damn good kid. I feel bad for him. Look at this . . ."
Gavin showed her a small blurb in the lower corner of page five. The caption read: IS BLACKWELL A BUST?
"Wow," said Leena, "harsh stuff Your guy too, huh?"
"Yeah," Gavin, said shaking his head.
"Well, if everything else is going so good, they won't hang you for it. It was White and Humphry Lyles who had the final say on him anyway,"
she said.
"No, I wasn't thinking about myself," Gavin said. "I was just thinking that Blackwell's a good kid, and a hell of a player."
"So what's all this about White calling him a major disappointment?" Leena said, squinting at the page.
Gavin looked up at her for a few silent moments. His eyes told her something wasn't right, but she knew when not to ask questions. "Just a personality conflict." was all he finally said.
Chapter FOURTEEN
THE THIRD PRE-SEASON GAME was at home in Birmingham against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Clay was in the locker room early with Max. He sat at his locker putting the thigh and knee pads in his game pants when he felt Max directly behind him.
"Clay," Max said, rummaging in his travel bag, "I'm not trying to get you to do anything you don't want"--Max pulled a syringe from his bag and held it up--"but this shit will get you into a serious frenzy tonight. I could even tell White that you took some of it, and the fucking guy'd be so happy he'd probably start you. I don't know, I just wanna help you. You can tell me to go to hell. I won't mind."
Clay looked at the needle. Under the bright locker room lights he could see it glinting through its translucent plastic cap. All the self-doubt and emotional pain of the past month resurfaced. Never had he hurt so much or felt so miserable. It was as though White had pushed him into his own little hell. Ending all that pain was as simple as giving himself a shot. One little shot. He'd get beaned up for about six hours and probably play the game like he'd never played it before. He could see himself, crushing opponents like Max, slapping high fives with his teammates. White would not single him out. He'd be part of his team. The headlines would read: BLACKWELL FINDS NICHE, EXPLODES AS RUFFIANS WIN.
Then his stomach turned. He was disgusted with himself. "Fuck that," he said flatly to Max, turning back to his locker.
"Clay," Max said, calm considering he'd just been cursed at, "really, I don't care. I just wanted to try to help. I hate to see you this way, that's all."
Max turned and walked away through the still empty locker room.
Without turning toward him, Clay, who now had his head resting in his hands said quietly, "Max, I just think I can do it without it. Maybe tonight I'll get a chance. It's not that I think I'm better than anybody, or above anybody. I just think I can do it without it."
Max stopped and said, "I think you can too, buddy. I just hope you get the chance."
He made his way into the bathroom, bag in hand. He entered a stall and locked the door. He pulled down his pants and underwear to his knees. When the right amount of Thyall was in the syringe, he dropped the bottle into his bag. He twisted around and grimaced as he punched the needle into his buttock. The now familiar hotness of the drug under his skin was almost comforting. He knew it was working. He knew what it would do for him. He rubbed the spot gingerly, easing the sting and at the same time working the Thyall quicker into his system. He knew some players injected it right into a vein in their arm, but that was something he couldn't stomach. He assumed that would give him an instant rush, but he liked the slow, methodical increase in the feeling the drug
gave him.
He probably could have injected himself out in the open. No one else was there yet, but he never knew when someone might come. Even if someone had seen him, he doubted whether it would make any impression on them. Many of his teammates would be doing the same thing today. Most, he assumed, injected themselves in their rooms before leaving for the game. But Max liked to get the feel of the stadium before he got himself wired up on Thyall. He also knew that the amphetamine effect would only last about six hours, and he would hate to chance losing that effect any time before the game ended. Max was secretive because he knew that was the way he was supposed to be. That was what White had demanded.
Max's behavior since March had been a series of actions that had all pleased Vance White. His career was approaching proportions that he had dreamed of but never really thought possible. There was no doubt in Max's mind as to why he was having the sudden success he was. He had always believed he had the talent to play in the NFL, and now he was being given that opportunity. Still, it was more than just opportunity that accounted for his prosperity. It was Thyall.
Max also knew that the drug was responsible for the team's success. There was no doubt that this team, more than any other Max had seen, was more violent and more intent on winning. There was never a letdown with the Ruffians. Even the skill players who were not using the drug were carried by the emotion of the majority of their teammates who were. Even though it was only pre-season, already those who had seen them play knew that the Ruffians were a new team with a new attitude. No one suspected the real reason why. They were crediting White's rigorous off-season training program that included the entire team. The Ruffians were about to ride a big a wave and Mad Max would be at the wave's crest.
The Steelers, like the Bears, were known throughout the NFL as a team that played football the old-fashioned way--mean, tough, and physical. When they played the Ruffians, the game went back and forth, each team having their share of big plays on defense, and each team scoring ten points. It was the first time the Ruffians were playing at home this season. The stadium was packed with fans, many of whom screamed for the Death Squad Defense by name. Death Squad . . . Death Squad . . . Death Squad . . . went the chant every time the Ruffians defense took the field. It was late in the third quarter when their offense completed a long bomb to take the lead for the first time that night. The crowd went wild.