by Mark Bowden
So you can see why family and friends are ready to overlook Jerome’s little excesses; they have come to be considered simply heroic, a part of himself he could help no more than his greatness. Sure, he drives his cars too fast; but hey, that’s just Jerome! Why, ol’ Willie even has a funny story about it: “He couldn’t wait to drive, that boy. He must have been just about thirteen, and he’d put on my big overcoat and my hat an’ he’d jus’ ease right on down on the seat of my truck and take off, figurin’ the police wouldn’t stop him ‘cause they’d figure it was me. He was almost big as me then already. I finally said, ‘Boy, I better learn you how to drive.’ I got him out on 75, you know? Round here in town, he’d spin a wheel, but you git him out on the interstate and he was afraid to drive. Them big trucks would pass him by an’ he’d ’bout run off t’ road with fright. I said, ‘Now, you want to learn how to drive, you better drive or get out from behind the wheel.’ And he hit it. Ain’t slowed down since.”
But he is slowing down. It’s happening. Everyone can see it. His very success—not to mention the powerful Christian presence of Reverend Reggie—is molding this larger-than-life character into a solid family man, pillar of his church and community, Role Model….
In the church this fine spring morning, Jerome fidgets through Reverend Reggie’s hour-long sermon, seated up on the dais behind his teammate, trying to look dignified, even though after the first half hour he was contemplating kicking the back of Reggie’s knee to get him to wrap things up. “Man, I thought he was going to talk forever,” he confesses later, outside the church, where he’s obligingly posing for snapshots. The moment is perfect, people in their Sunday best, the church behind, the glorious God-filled azure Florida spring sky, and the cameras are whirring and clicking, Jerome is there with his teammates and Annie Bell, Willie, his sister Cynthia, the Reverend Reggie, and Clyde, and Nicole, his fiancée … his fiancée? Whoaaaa!
Just a minute, Hoss!
One of these shooters is a pro! Jerome’s been in the public eye long enough to spot ‘em—khaki flak jacket, ninety-pound Domke bag slung over one shoulder, lenses and light meters clanking everywhere. There’s a look of muted panic in Jerome’s eyes. He eases on out of the shot and over to a Philadelphia newshound who has accompanied the photographer down and has been taking all this in, of course, and Jerome drapes a great bear arm around the hound’s shoulders, and leans in close.
“Y’all ain’t going to use that shot, right?”
“What?”
“Me ‘n’ my fiancée. You’re not going to put that one in the paper up in Philly, right?”
Jerome now has a playful but firm grip, between his massive thumb and index finger, on a sensitive spot at the base of the writer’s neck.
The writer instantly understands. Hey, you can see the guy’s point! A cozy group shot like this with Jerome’s fiancée in the picture is just what he doesn’t need! Preseason workouts up in Philly just seven weeks away, which means, of course, the party shifts north, where Jerome—need we say more?—has this other little sweetie (her name is Lisa) waiting. Jerome’s wedding announcement has been, see, strictly regional. Premature word up north could make for a long, cold, lonely winter.
“Okay?” Jerome whispers.
His smile is pleading; his eyes are a threat.
HE NEEDN’T HAVE WORRIED.
Forty-six days later, on a humid Brooksville afternoon, Jerome pulls his green Corvette into the asphalt driveway of Register Chevrolet and Oldsmobile, just off Summit Road. It rained earlier in the day, and the air is thick. Mist curls lazily from the street. Telling his twelve-year-old nephew Gus to wait for him in the car, he hustles into the humid shade of the corrugated-steel paint and body-repair shop. Inside, his buddy Walter Griffin is sweating over a battered ’73 Impala convertible he’s rebuilding lovingly for Jerome, panel by gorgeous panel. Jerome plans to drive it north in a week to report to the Eagles’ first informal preseason workouts. He’s got a quick side trip to the Bahamas planned for Monday, and he wants to make sure his pals are on schedule with the car before he leaves. It’s a beaut, beige with a saddle-tan imitation-leather top. Jerome can’t wait to show it off to the guys up in Philly. The shop is a big part of Jerome’s off-season, a favorite hangout. Hell, with all his cars and the way he drives them, Jerome’s repair and tune-up bills help keep the repair shop afloat, which is just fine with Jerome. He admires the work his friends do. He wants the guys in the shop to know how much he’s appreciated their company this off-season, so he proposes a big fish fry, for … oh, about a hundred people or so, wives, friends, family, children. “Bring everybody,” he says, out to Home Jerome before he heads north.
This produces smiles all around. God bless Jerome. It’s a mighty slow burg without him during football season. Griffin says he knows a guy who owns a wholesale fish company, so he’ll arrange a delivery. “Want to give something back before I go to camp,” says Jerome. God bless ‘im. With that, the big lineman is half sprinting out of the garage, nodding to his buddy Dave Innes, who’s working on another car. He quickly crosses the sunny lot and plops his bulk behind the wheel of the low-slung Corvette—zero to sixty miles per hour in 4.3 seconds, fat road-hugging wheels safety tested for track speeds at Indy—and leaves the lot the way he always does, with squealing wheels.
Under a canopy of giant oaks draped in moss that have kept the side street moist, the Corvette starts its skid. Past a red fireplug … past palmetto trees and tall wild grasses and a walnut tree … a stand of loblolly pine … and Jerome tries to pull out (how else?) by gunning the thing—speed and daring are Jerome’s friends—only one-half of his car is off the road and one fat wheel grips grass, launching the car, which now straddles a steel guy wire angling up to a telephone pole at the intersection, and suddenly all the power and tonnage of the Corvette’s chassis is airborne … there isn’t even time to scream … and the left front end slams into the scraggy trunk of a palm tree as the back end, ballistic, lurches counterclockwise into the telephone pole … and the whole howling mass of engine, plastic, metal, and man neatly flips and falls, landing with a horrible thud upside down. Jerome is crushed instantly. Gus lives long enough to smother, the weight of the car collapsing his head into his chest.
Inside the body shop, Griffin hears the screaming engine—nothing unusual there—but then this awful, enormous thud. He drops his tools, and the other men sprint down Hale Street toward the unholy scrambled mass of plastic, metal, and rubber, upside down, barely recognizable as a car.
“Oh, my God!” gasps Innes, who is the first to arrive.
Griffin rips off the flapping back fender and climbs frantically through the shattered back window, shouting, “Jerome! Jerome! Stay calm!”
RON HELLER, the Eagles’ veteran right tackle, gets a call that afternoon at his apartment in Tampa from an old football buddy.
“A friend just called and told me he was driving down the interstate and he heard on the news that Jerome Brown was in a car accident.”
This prompts a chuckle from Ron. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“No, Ron. Apparently this was a serious accident. Now, this isn’t, like, confirmed or anything, so maybe it isn’t true. Let’s hope it isn’t true. But the report on the radio said Jerome was killed.”
“You’re telling me Jerome Brown died in a car wreck?”
Ron’s wife, Heidi, overhears from the other room and steps into the hall. She shakes her head.
“No,” she says adamantly. “A car wreck can’t kill Jerome.”
When he was traded to the Eagles in ’88, Ron had instantly disliked Jerome Brown. He had, of course, heard about Jerome. The big stud from Miami. Ron had played his college ball at Penn State, a few years ahead of Jerome, but he remembered the infamous stunt Miami pulled on the eve of the celebrated national championship game, that ’87 Fiesta Bowl, when Jerome and his teammates had donned battle fatigues and snubbed the Nittany Lions by marching out of the ceremonial banquet, refusing to dine with thei
r opponents and accusing (baselessly) Penn State players of making racist remarks. It was nothing but a stunt, of course, a piece of pop theater, but it had introduced an unnecessary whiff of ugliness to Penn State’s win the next day over the previously undefeated Hurricanes. Jerome had come off that incident, rightly or wrongly, looking like the instigator. Still, Ron, a man with a Nittany Lion tattooed right on the outside of his right calf, was ready to overlook that. But on his very first day in the Eagles’ locker room he watched and listened to Jerome with disbelief. Here was this big, round, profane, wiseass whose mouth never stopped—he remembered it sounded like a high-pitched yap-yap-yap-yap. Jerome struck Ron as an obnoxious loudmouth, an undisciplined man with a wide streak of bully in him. At six-five, 280 pounds, the former New York State heavyweight-wrestling champion was hardly intimidated by Jerome, and being something of a hothead beneath the cool and fastidious exterior—this was a man who had been traded by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after a fistfight with the head coach—Ron figured he and this Jerome Brown were destined to collide.
Which, of course, they did.
Predictably, it was midway through the endless, broiling summer slog of training camp in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The Eagles were grunting through the second of Buddy Ryan’s two grueling daily practice sessions. Everybody was stressed to the max, bruised, winded, dehydrated, and exhausted. Jerome had been throwing his weight around all afternoon, his mouth flapping; he was getting on everybody’s nerves. When Ron slipped and fell on one play, he instinctively grabbed at the nearest opponent’s jersey and pulled Jerome down on top of him.
Jerome jumped up screaming.
“You holding motherfucker!” he said, and lunged at Ron, which, of course, triggered a general riot, with fists and mud flying in from all directions. Players working drills on the adjoining field stopped what they were doing and came running. Ryan (who loved few things more than a serious practice brawl) maneuvered to one side with a bloodthirsty grin and watched as his team merged into a roiling heap at the center of the field. Underneath the pile, Ron and Jerome were pinned together, unable to move.
Finally, Buddy blew his whistle. When practice ended, Ron, as is his wont, sprinted off the field first, up the long, steep stairs to the West Chester University gym, where he quickly stripped off his gear and headed for a cool shower.
He was crossing the locker room when he saw Jerome come in, dragging his jersey, helmet, and shoulder pads. The defensive tackle, not one to stay in top shape during the off-season, looked whipped. Mud and sweat gleamed on his round black face, and his eyes looked bloodshot and vacant.
“Hey, Jerome. You all right?”
“Screw you,” said Jerome, not even looking up.
“Hey, come on, man. We’re teammates. Everyone was a little hot and bothered out there. You all right?”
Jerome dropped his gear and walked over.
“No, man, I’m not ‘all right,’” sneering the last two words, mocking Ron’s conciliatory tone. “As a matter of fact, I’m pretty goddamn pissed off!”
That got Ron going again. “Look, man. Then let’s finish it now. Let’s settle it,” putting up his fists.
“You’re damn right!” Jerome shouted, moving at him.
By now the locker room was filling up, and teammates crowded in to watch these two behemoths lock horns.
Suddenly, Jerome’s face transformed. Breaking through the angry scowl was his neon grin. “Man, I can’t fight you,” he shouted. “Your ass is buck naked!”
As the locker room broke out in laughter, Jerome stepped up and locked the naked lineman in an embrace.
Ever since that moment Ron’s opinion of Jerome had turned around. He had felt relief when Jerome backed down, but he was also charmed. He realized something. Jerome’s profane bluster was for show, and he respected people he couldn’t frighten.
Ron’s respect for Jerome had grown deeper over the next three seasons. He had known plenty of bigmouthed players who would rag people and complain—when the coaches weren’t around. Jerome just didn’t care. He was brutal with everybody, right to their face. But his ferocity, talent, and dedication were such that everyone accepted Jerome’s outrageous ways. Things that would get an ordinary player fined or suspended would be dismissed with a laugh by Jerome’s admiring coaches. They knew. They knew, as Ron came to realize, that Jerome Brown was the heart and soul of the football team Ryan had built. He was the kind of player who made everyone around him play better. Ron had been on enough teams—high school, Penn State, Tampa Bay, Seattle, now the Eagles—to know that the kind of motivation Jerome provided was what separated winning teams from merely good teams. Jerome made playing for the Eagles fun. Ron looked forward to coming into work every day, even when the routine of lifting, meetings, and practice became monotonous midway through the long season. And on Sundays, Jerome shone.
No, a car accident can’t kill Jerome.
Ron’s father calls from New York. The evening TV news up there had run a teaser before a commercial: “There’s been a tragedy in Florida for the Philadelphia Eagles. One of their players is dead. More after this….”
“I called right away,” Ron’s father says. “I almost had a heart attack. How many Eagles players live in Florida anyway?”
• • •
EAGLES OWNER Norman Braman is surprised by the funeral. He has flown in from his villa in Grasse, in southern France, and has been expecting a miserably hot, sad affair in a tiny rural black church up in country he regards as more typical of Deep South, cracker Georgia than of the urbane, bustling Florida that buys up his luxury cars by the thousands. But instead of some stuffy shack, his black limo pulls up before Brooksville’s showpiece, redbrick, air-conditioned First Baptist Church … you know, the one built by the white Baptists.
And inside it’s even more remarkable. The grand hall is jammed with mourners of every hue and religion. The ceremony is ecumenical, interracial, and (even Norman the old skeptic has to concede) positively inspiring. Music rocks the rafters, the joyous, rhythmic music of African America, that soulful blend of sadness and celebration. All of the Browns’ considerable extended family is present, teammates from Jerome’s high-school, college, and pro days, including, of course, most of his Eagles brethren (though Jerome’s beloved Buddy Ryan is conspicuously absent). In the crowd are Jerome’s girlfriends; there’s LaSonya (or “Peaches”), who gave birth to William Jerome Brown IV when Jerome was in high school; there is Cynthia, who gave birth to Dunell when Jerome was in college, and Lisa, Jerome’s Philadelphia squeeze; and, of course, Nicole, his regional fiancée—the sight of all four together here forces a smile through poor Tim Jinkens’s tears (that Jerome). Willie and Annie Bell are dressed in white. The congregation’s rhythmic clapping is infectious, and as the choir’s voices swell, Annie Bell and Willie rise and dance, clapping and singing before the enormous bronze casket of their youngest son, and the smaller blue one of their grandson Gus.
“They have gone,” intones Reverend Theodore N. Brown, Jerome’s uncle, “to a better place.”
Reverend Reggie (who Braman regards as a greedy, sanctimonious brute) rises to deliver a eulogy of heartfelt, earthy eloquence:
“… He was fun to be with. He and myself were like two kids in grown men’s bodies. He enjoyed life. Jerome enjoyed life. It’s sad that it ended. But, you know, every time a life ends, there’s a purpose to its ending. If we don’t grab on to the purpose, we miss out on the whole plan.”
“Amen!” someone in the crowd shouts.
“Hallelujah!”
“Jesus is the purpose. For all there is. If we don’t take advantage of that, we miss out on life. I hope we learned something from the death of Jerome and the death of Gus. I hope we can open our hearts and find out what God wants us to do. One thing I know is, in the past week, myself, my teammates, and friends, we’ve lost a special friend. I hope there will be a special prayer. We found out what the purpose of our life is.”
And as the church rocks an
d sways to the gospel song “We’re Gonna Make It,” Norman is moved despite himself. He feels uplifted, and puzzled. Why are there so many people? In particular, so many white people?
The club’s multimillionaire owner doesn’t really hold athletes, apart from their athletic skills, in very high regard. They are too young to be interesting, have been pampered through adolescence by a football-crazy society, and are now reaping rewards way out of proportion to their value or accomplishments. He puts up with them, of course, because he is a football fan himself and because they are making him a lot of money. Norman had once, not long ago, considered Jerome Brown to be a fat, disappointing bully.
Take the night before the big Dallas game, ’88. It was crunch time for Norman’s young team. A win over the Cowboys the next day could mean the team’s first trip to the postseason play-offs since Coach Dick Vermeil had retired seven years earlier. The team was having a late meeting at the Summit Hotel in Dallas, and Norman slipped into the room to observe, puffing one of his huge after-dinner cigars. He was still new enough in his ownership of the franchise to get a thrill out of behind-the-scenes moments like these.
He listened briefly, then began to leave.
Before he reached the door, he heard, “Yo! Norman!” in Jerome’s unmistakable high-pitched voice.
He turned.
“Ain’t you gonna talk to the team?” Jerome demanded. “This is the night before the biggest game of our goddamn careers! And you ain’t gonna talk to the team?”