by Tim Green
"Exactly."
"Awww, I bet you could get a job with almost anyone," Clay said.
"You're the biggest defensive thing since Buddy Ryan."
"Clay, trust me," Collins said, "no one can walk out on their team during the season and expect to ever work in this league again. Even Buddy Ryan couldn't do it when you think about it, and I bet he hated working for Ditka as much as I hate working for White. Besides, we really do have a great bunch of guys. I'd hate to let them down at this point."
Clay looked out through the soundproof glass at the milling crowd of players, bimbos, and just plain average Joes. He could just make out his own reflection in the glass. "Well," he said, raising his beer, "here's to you getting out of here. Who knows what's next for you? I bet three years from now you'll be running your own team."
Gavin laughed.
"You've had a little too much to drink," he said. "But if I do go . . . maybe I'll take you with me."
Clay spotted his reflection as his face broke out in a twisted grin that was somewhere between pain and pleasure. He raised his beer bottle in a toast and said, "Now who's been drinking too much?"
Clay awoke the next morning in a familiar alcoholic fog. Over the past few months he had grown quite accustomed to the cotton mouth, the sick feeling in his gut, and the throbbing headache. He tried hard to recollect what had transpired the previous night. Even despite his aching head, he smiled remembering yesterday's game and the ensuing celebration. He remembered the game ball, and the good time he'd had with his buddies. He remembered talking to Collins. It was a good memory. They had drunk together like soldiers who were fighting for the same cause, which was what in fact they were.
His phone was thrown down on the floor beside his bed. The receiver had been knocked from its cradle. He remembered vaguely having tossed it when its shrill ring had disturbed his sleep. He wasn't sure if that was last night or just this morning. His alarm clock too lay askew and facedown on the carpet. He picked it up.
"Holy shit!" he said.
He had forgotten to set his alarm and overslept. Or more likely, he had disabled the clock, as well as the phone, in his sleep. It was eleven- forty. The team meeting was at twelve. He was about twenty minutes from the complex. He threw himself out of bed and scurried around his bedroom, throwing on a hat and a sweatsuit and some sneakers without bothering to look for socks.
He hurried out the door and sped to the complex. White was intolerant of lateness, and Clay hated the thought of tarnishing yesterday's performance. The nervous adrenaline worked against his stomach, which was already suffering from last night. He felt nauseous and his heart raced. There was no way he would be on time.
It was 12:06 when he dashed into the locker room out of breath. He looked around, confused. Clay found his teammates milling about and whispering to each other in subdued tones when they should have been in the meeting room. Clay tried to listen to bits and pieces of conversations as he made his way quickly to his locker, relieved that the meeting had not yet started.
". . . don't know, I guess meetings are canceled . . ." ". . . heard he's going to talk to us . . ." "Did you hear who it was?" ". . . really true?"
Just as Clay hung up his sweat jacket, Coach Stepinowski announced in an audible but subdued voice that Vance White wanted to speak to the team before anyone left.
Clay shuffled into the meeting room with the rest of his teammates. They were all silent, and Clay searched their faces, looking for the answer to what he had obviously missed by arriving late. The tension in the air prevented him from asking. He chose a seat in the back of the room and sat down. He noticed the coaches, all except White, standing in a gloomy group in one corner of the room. Vance White entered, and all eyes were riveted on his stiff figure. The look on his face shot an electric charge through Clay's body. Without having any idea what it was, he knew that he was about to hear something awful.
White cleared his throat. "I hate to be standing here right now," he said, his voice choked with uncharacteristic emotion. "As many of you have already heard, Max Dresden died early this morning at Memorial Hospital."
Chapter TWENTY-TWO
cLAY'S MIND SWAM. He was alert, but his thoughts were spinning out of control. He felt the muscles in his face twitching, and his stomach turned over and over again. He did not, could not believe he had heard White correctly. He had seen Max. Max was not dead. Max could not be dead.
tt. . . We're not sure of the exact cause of death, but to tell you guys the truth--and this stays in this room, within this team--it appears that Max had a heart attack."
White was silent a moment, and so was the rest of the room. Clay continued to listen in disbelief.
"It also seems . . . that the police found some cocaine in Max's bedroom . . . where he apparently phoned the ambulance for help. When the ambulance got there, Max was already unconscious and his heart had apparently stopped beating. I'm told that they did everything they could to revive him, but, well, he didn't make it. I don't have to . Say what a shock and devastating loss this is for all of us. Max was a teammate and friend, and one of the most dedicated players I've ever coached.
"You guys just go home today. We won't be doing anything here. Max has a sister, and the authorities have contacted her. She's having his body brought back to Ohio for the burial, but she's agreed to allow us to have a viewing here in Birmingham tomorrow. We'll be having a memorial service for the team at the McNally Funeral Home at one o'clock tomorrow afternoon.
"I know you guys all respected Max. We all did. So you guys just go home and be with your families. I know this is hard to take, but we've got to pull together and get through this as a team. That's the only thing we can do, and it's the only thing Max would have wanted us to do. . . . You guys can go."
White said no more. He walked from the room with the rest of the coaching staff following in his wake.
Clay sat. He didn't know what to do or what to think. He found his mind floating from one trivial thought to another, all of them , totally unrelated. Where would he go for dinner tonight? What was Katie doing right now? The idea of Max being dead left him feeling vacant. He vaguely wondered if he should be crying. After all, Max was his best friend. He also wondered whether the ringing phone he had knocked over that morning was a call from someone to let him know what had happened.
The rest of the Ruffians players also continued to sit noiselessly. It was ten full minutes before the first guy got up and quietly left the room. After the first few left, there was a steady stream. One by one they rose and left. It was as if they were ashamed of leaving, as if it were disrespectful to continue on with their lives when one of them was dead. Soon Clay was the only one remaining. He didn't know how long he sat there. He wouldn't remember a single thought. His mind seemed stuck in a daze, and only an occasional thought penetrated its fog, and then not long enough to be remembered.
Clay had never been through the formalities of death before. He knew he should wear a dark suit to the memorial service and that was all. No one he had been close to had ever died. Once when a high school teammate's mother had died, Clay had instinctively avoided him until a few weeks passed and then he had acted as if nothing happened. He assumed that people wanted it that way. And that was how he wanted it now. He didn't want any of his teammates to try to console him. He wanted to go through what had to be done without having to talk about it with anyone.
As he drove to the funeral home it began to rain. After the team meeting the day before, Clay had returned home and shut himself in for the rest of the day. His phone had rung several times. He didn't answer. He was incapable of doing anything but sitting and staring. He couldn't eat. Only when it was well after midnight did he fall asleep on the couch where he'd been sitting all day.
Clay's hands trembled despite the tight grip he had on the steering wheel. He had arrived at the funeral home and pulled into the lot, parking his car away from the others, who had gotten as close to the building as they could to avoid th
e rain. He turned off the car and sat, his whole body shaking now. Agony and shame rushed from deep within him, racking his body with sob after sob. Tears flowed freely down his cheeks, and he cried uncontrollably for the first time in his life. Max was dead.
The windows of his car were all steamed up. No one would have been able to see him even if he cared. He cried for Max and he cried for himself.
By the time the tears stopped, he couldn't even breathe through his nose. Clay composed himself as well as he could and went into the funeral home. The service was already well under way when he entered the large viewing room. The entire team sat in folding chairs arranged in rows in front of Max's coffin. A priest stood at a podium off to one side of the coffin and conducted a service that seemed to Clay only a formality. The priest didn't know Max, and that, in Clay's mind, seemed to invalidate the substance of what he had to say. Clay knew Max better than anyone in the room, and even he knew nothing of Max's religious sentiments. He probably had none.
The priest spoke in generalities, many of which had no application at all to the type of person Max was, or to the type of life he led. Nevertheless, when the priest began to speak of Max's love of life and his zest for football, it struck a nerve in the entire team. Many of Clay's teammates began to cry silently.
It wasn't until the service was over and the last few Ruffians were shuffling silently from the room that Clay had an opportunity to really see Max for the last time. He made his way to the front of the room, and was horrified to see Max's lifeless form slightly propped up in his coffin. His eyes were shut tight, and his arms lay crossed stiffly across his chest in a way that let Clay know Max was gone forever. What Clay saw now was a shell, stiff and pale, and so unlike Max Dresden that it was disturbing. Gone was that lust for life, and that hot-blooded arrogance that made everyone know that Max Dresden was not only alive, but that he was living life in a way that few others dared or knew how to. Hot tears welled in Clay's eyes. He moaned pitifully for his friend and wanted to touch Max's face, but he was too horrified. He turned and stumbled out.
Denise was waiting for him outside. "Clay," she said, hugging him, "I'm sorry about Max. I can't believe it happened."
After a minute Clay gently detached himself from her. It seemed so out of place, Denise being there. "I gotta go," he said.
"Sure. You want me to come over later?" she asked.
"No, thanks," Clay said turning to walk away. He stopped and turned back. "Denise," he said, reaching out for her hand to shake it, "I want to say good-bye."
"What do you mean?" she said, pulling her hand free.
"I just mean good-bye. Take care," he said, then turned away without looking back.
Although Clay was exhausted and depressed, the crying had actually made him feel better. He felt as though part of the heavy weight that compressed his chest had been lifted. He drove absently and was suddenly struck with the idea that if he had stayed with Max instead of dashing off to celebrate, Max would probably still be alive. If he had stayed with his friend, he most certainly would not have been snorting cocaine.
Then it hit Clay like a fist in the mouth. He could see Max lying there that night of the Zone Seven party. He couldn't forget Max's frightened, ashen face. No way would Max have been snorting cocaine after what had happened. No way.
His mouth dropped open. Could he be wrong? No. It all made sense. There was nothing he could have done to save Max. Max hadn't used cocaine. Even White himself said that they only found cocaine in Max's room, and that they weren't sure what had killed him. White said that to imply that Max had died from cocaine. Maybe they had found the powder in Max's bedroom, but Clay knew that was not what killed Max. It was the drug.
Clay slammed the steering wheel with his palm. Hadn't Max complained of a tightness in his chest, and a pain? A pain in his left arm! It was a heart attack, all right, but it had nothing to do with cocaine. Max had shown the symptoms before he had even gotten home! In his debilitated state he had probably lain down on his bed, and only when it was too late had he realized that he needed help. The thought of Max lying in pain, alone and helpless on his bed, crowded all other thoughts out of Clay's mind.
He slammed the car into third gear and jumped into the passing lane, leaving a path of shrieking car horns in his wake. He sped past the exit for his apartment and didn't stop until he pulled up in front of the offices of the Birmingham Ruffians. He jumped from his car and stormed into the building. He pushed past a gaping secretary outside the office of Humphry Lyles. When he burst open the doors, he found the owner and Vance White together. They looked up with surprise at the unannounced intrusion.
Clay stood trembling from head to toe. His voice wavered, but the sheer force of his anger propelled the words from his mouth. "You sons of bitches!" he shrieked, pointing at the two men. "You killed him! You killed him!"
At first, even Vance White was too shocked to respond, but the sight of one of his players standing there pointing--actually pointing at him-- was too much. White had neither the experience nor the self-control of Humphry Lyles. It never occurred to him to deny what he knew to be true. He was being called out, and he knew of only one way to answer that call. Before Lyles could speak, White was on his feet.
"You're way out of line, boy," he yelled angrily. "Do you realize who you're talking to?"
"You son of a bitch," Clay repeated. "I know your drug killed him, and soon everyone will know. The party is over for you, you son of a bitch. Your next stop will be the fucking jail."
"Why, you worthless shit!" White stood as if he were about to come after Clay with his fists.
"Vance!" Lyles shouted, seeing the severity of the situation. "Get hold of yourself!"
White blinked, then looked angrily from Clay to the owner, waiting for the reason why this shouldn't be settled his way.
"Sit down," Lyles said after seeing that his words had had their desired effect on both coach and player, "You too, Blackwell."
After a few moments of staring, Clay sat.
"Good. Now," Lyles said, drawing himself up to his full height in the elevated chair, "Clay, what you've just said is not only very serious, it's absurd."
Clay gave the owner a vacant look. Right now he didn't care whose toes he stepped on. Max was dead and he shouldn't be. These two men were responsible. That was all Clay knew, yet despite his outrage he found himself seated and listening to the owner's demand. His rage had vented itself and then suddenly lost its force. He no longer felt the surety that had caused him to burst in here uninvited and hurl accusations. Yet despite the cooling of his temper, he was still convinced that he was right about Max's death, and he set his jaw with determination to meet any contradictory information the owner might throw at him.
"First of all," Lyles said, "you, like the rest of us within this organization, have agreed not to mention any kind of drug. This drug, in fact, does not exist.
"Do you know why it does not exist, Clay?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.
"It does exist," Clay said flatly.
"No, it does not!" shrieked the owner, slamming his fist against the solid desk with a thud. "It does not exist because I say it does not exist!"
Then, very calmly, he said, "Throughout history there are great men, Blackwell. And great men are the ones who write history, this is the nature of things. What is true is what the men of power say is true. I am one of those men."
The room filled with silence. Clay met Humphry Lyles's stare as he felt Vance White's malevolent gaze bearing down on him from the side.
"Max Dresden is dead" was the only thing Clay could think of to counter what had just been said.
"Clay," said Lyles, "Max had a heart attack. This is unusual for a boy his age, yes, but Max was a cocaine user, and things like this happen from time to time."
"Max didn't die from cocaine," Clay said, speaking fast, wanting to explain, wanting them to understand that he knew. "There was no cocaine in Max's body, was there? It was in his bedroom, but Max didn't
use it that night. And he was sick before I even dropped him off at his apartment. He was sick right after the game. He said his chest was tight and his arm hurt."
"Clay, I know you're very upset," said Lyles. "You probably feel somewhat responsible. Max was your friend. But facts are facts. There has already been an autopsy which says Max died of a heart attack, that's it. The coroner's report has no mention of cocaine, true, but the police report and every newspaper in the country have stated that Max was found dead of a heart attack with a modest stash of cocaine right next to the bed where he died. People will remember Max as a guy who died from cocaine. That is what history will say. That is what is."
Clay saw exactly what was happening. Both the owner and the coach understood all too well what had really happened, and Lyles had far more control of the situation than Clay had guessed. Without saying it, Lyles was saying that Max had in fact died from Thyall-D, but no one would ever know that. The cocaine in his bedroom was incriminating evidence. There would be no proof that Max had taken Thyall--it was undetectable unless someone knew they were looking for it. There was probably not even any solid proof that the Ruffians had any direct control over the drug even if someone could find it in Max's system. And if he wanted to make a fuss about it, it would be his word against the team's. No other player would come forward to back him up. They probably all believed that Max had died from cocaine. They all believed Max was crazy enough to take such a risk; he was Max.
Clay's mind was fogged. How could people ever know what had really happened? Who would listen to him? Who would believe him even if they did listen? But just because Lyles and the whole world said otherwise, Clay knew in his heart that Max had died because Humphry Lyles and Vance White wanted to win football games, and they did not care about the cost, even if it included the life of a young man who was Clay's friend. The thought sickened him. No one would care about Max. To the world, he was just another foolish and spoiled professional athlete who couldn't be satisfied with what so many others dreamed of, so he turned to the rich man's high, cocaine. No one would want to hear about the real Max Dresden. No one would overcome the prejudices already instilled by the implications of a cocaine death to care.