Life Among Giants

by Bill Roorbach

  I felt powerfully that I could have prevented her pain, equally powerfully knew that I could not, walked around with my head split thinking about her. I loved her, adored her, but was antsy in her presence, too much of Dad there. She and Jack visited me in Florida a number of times in the off-season, and generally we went somewhere else for the week or two they’d allotted—the Keys, the Everglades, the Gulf Coast. But all I ever wanted was to get back to my workout schedule, all the stuff Coach Shula put in front of me as I worked to become franchise quarterback. Our visits were drawn-out disjunctions moderated by Jack and punctuated by diving on the reefs at Pennecamp, say, or paddling canoes on the Seminole Trail through lost mangrove thickets, athletic adventures our best bet.

  I LIVED SPARTAN, never bought a house, instead rented a series of fairly nice but plain apartments in one or another of the new towers on South Beach. I bought a table, two chairs, a single bed, a cheap television, one large bookshelf, and wherever those things were was my home, walls painted real-estate linen-white, no art, just the big and then bigger windows looking out high and then higher over the ocean, the increasingly dazzling heights from balconies, always a Gulfstream tumult out there, great ships passing day and night, the water a Kate’s-eye blue, Sylphide’s-eye green near the beach.

  For a while there were women. In fact, and unhappily, I was featured in the Miami Herald’s “Ten Most Eligible Bachelors” article, posed for photos with my shirt off and butt showing, stupid, bales of letters, temptation I never entertained.

  But I dated here and there (the league issued endless memos on conduct, recommended written consent from any sex partners, definitely a mood killer over dinner), women the team wives introduced me to. I had only one real girlfriend in those years, the sister of a teammate, an excitable Detroit girl named Honey (she was sweet and she stuck, she said). And don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed Honey’s sense of humor, loved her bad habits (red wine and soap operas and screaming fits around policemen), enjoyed her rousingly inventive sexuality, also something I hope it’s fair to call her African-American sensibility, a certain kind of heat and light, a skeptical charm, incisive judgment about absolutely everything, no dithering, never. She was a great cook, and after the initial year or so of intense and frequent sex our intimacy was about eating, anything to do with food—buying it together, searching out recipes together, bringing home ideas from our many trips (she was a Ford Motor spokesperson, always on the road for trade shows). She got plump, then plumper yet, very sexy in my eyes, but lost her job with Ford: she couldn’t fit in those narrow spokesmodel gowns anymore.

  I liked her very much, all but loved her, a familiar refrain. And I didn’t want to marry her when in her estimation the time came, and that led to a very messy breakup—she stuck, all right—and eventually bad blood between me and my teammate her brother, who, as it turned out, was as sticky as she. I ended up having to pay her off, rent for the many accrued months I’d stayed over at her house, was the logic, half the price of her car (I’d used it extensively, okay), tuition for the back-to-school plans that I and all my cooking was seen to have necessitated, a large reward for emotional distress, but I didn’t want to go to court to bring an end to it all, didn’t want to be featured as a cad in the Miami Herald, found it easy to write a final check.

  I was even more careful after that, focused on football, my strong feeling that my time was coming in love as in sport, always alone, alone even in a huddle, even in the pig-pile after my first participation in a Super Bowl victory, even after each of my seventeen career rushing touchdowns, 100,000 fans shouting the name they’d learned to call me, lingering on the z in Lizard such that the busy air of Miami buzzed.

  As for love, I remained in my mind devoted to Sylphide. I followed her growing career as choreographer and director, kept a little scrapbook, examined the men in the background of newspaper photos, sent letters to theaters and dance companies around the world just ahead of her, received notecards in return: Desmond’s pretty handwriting, kind words, breezy news, jasmine, finally clippings from a British magazine, neatly folded and tucked into an envelope, no note necessary: five-page photo spread from the dancer’s shipboard wedding to Percy Haverstock, one of the world’s first billionaires, room for two hundred guests on his yacht, the bride radiant in pink T-shirt and blue jeans.

  BOB GRIESE BEGAN to struggle, missing routine passes, blowing crucial plays. After we missed the playoffs in 1977, Don Shula’s interest in me intensified subtly. That spring, while the other guys were with their families or girlfriends or hobbies or simply healing from the season, I worked on, a couple of days a week with the offensive coordinator, Chick Johnsson. Other days it was just Strock and me, no one saying much about the future. I ate nearly every Sunday dinner at Coach’s house. And though he put his hands on my shoulders and offered advice, I felt too old to open up as I had for Coach Keshevsky. I’d had all the fathers I could handle.

  Just before the 1978 season, Chick took me aside and suggested I might be playing a lot more in the coming year, perhaps a lot, lot more, maybe starting. My breath quickened—I wanted it more than I’d thought. The possible change in my fortunes was only intimated, but Chick had an articulated message for me, too, which he wouldn’t say was from Shula: “Lizard. Word to the wise: get to know the defensive guys better, get to the know the defensive coaches, too—we’re all one team.” I had an especially bad rap with the defensive backfield, apparently.

  “You’re the Princeton guy,” Chick said. “That’s how these gobs see you.” He found my eye again: “You gotta lose that Princeton guy.”

  “I hear you,” I said.

  “You hear me what?”

  “I’ll lose the Princeton guy.”

  Chick hooked me up with Lionel “the Lion” Smith and Carter Jeffries (superstars the fans among you will know), and soon I was attending their famous barbecues, drinking the way they famously drank, famous fishing trips on their famous yachts. Before long we were boon companions if not great friends, and before long again my reputation among my teammates was apparently repaired. Chick even went so far as to congratulate me.

  Trouble was, the guy I couldn’t lose hadn’t gone to Princeton. The guy I couldn’t lose hadn’t gone to college at all. The gob I couldn’t lose I’d already lost.

  IT HAD TO have been Coach Shula’s idea for me to get some family down to visit during the season, another attempt to humanize me for the boys, no doubt, though he’d been talking in our conferences a lot about my isolation: sports psychology was all the rage. Anyway, he and I had a dinner date with the team owners, a scary pair of elderly businessman brothers, serious phrases about my bright future, misgivings couched as jokes. The subject of comp tickets came up to much hilarity. I was the only player on the team who’d never used my tickets! Ha-ha! The great savings to the team was appreciated! However, well, wasn’t that just a little odd?

  So that’s why I invited Kate and Jack down for a November home game. Jack said no at first, but Kate had gotten hold of the idea and became obsessed with seeing me in a game, of seeing me in my home, traced the idea across a Milky Way of possibility, decided they had to come, that she’d only live if they came.

  She arrived two days early, no notice, ding-dong at my door ten p.m. having breezed past the lobby guys in her swinging little sundress, no luggage, nothing in hand but a clutch and a pack of travel tissues. Even her guilt was supercharged: she mocked Jack, insulted Jack, claimed they’d gotten a divorce, claimed she’d come to live with me.

  “I don’t even have an extra bed,” I said.

  “1-800-Mattress,” she said. “It’s twenty-four fucking hours!” And then she got on my phone and called them, ordered up a Sealy king.

  Why not?

  I took the phone when she was done and called Jack, poor guy. He had no idea where she’d gone, no idea she was gone, pictured her at the gym, merely late home. “Inquire about her meds,” he said, not a word of small talk. “Easier said than done, I know. Doubtful she
’s brought them. What’s your pharmacy down there? We’ll get Doctor Naughton to call it in. And no alcohol.”

  Kate heard what I was up to, pulled my phone out by its cord, yanked it out of my hands, threw it off the balcony, and that was the end of that.

  She found my tequila in the cabinet over the sink, one try.

  “Jack says . . .”

  “It’ll calm me,” she said. “Believe me, it’s needed. I mean, look at me for Christ’s sake!”

  I made weak margaritas and we drank them fast looking out over the ocean, twenty-five stories up, crashing loud and windy after the passage of one or another of the great hurricanes, probably Hurricane Kate.

  I made stronger margaritas and we drank them more slowly, leaning over the railing out in the wind, her sundress blowing round her legs, snapping, my phone kind of funny lying down there in the courtyard. The alcohol did cut her intensity, made her warmer, none of that chilly Mom stuff. She remembered to hug me hello. I was very, very glad to see her, as it turned out. More margaritas. The night swung past, the wind off the ocean tossing her hair in her face as she talked and talked, so smart, so funny. She might have been sixteen again, full of stories. She’d gotten kicked off the circuit, once and for all. I’d seen something about her status in the sports pages, but these things weren’t so public then, and I hadn’t heard the story, which she made hilarious, an altercation with the net umpire, and then with the president of the Lawn Tennis Association. “I called her Mrs. Modess!” She’d bought a puppy, found it evil, returned it to the breeder, who turned out to be evil as well. “He was the father of those dogs, I’m telling you.” I brought out food, but she wouldn’t eat. She made us more drinks, very strong. She was thin, she was energized, she leaned into her words like the guest on a marathon talk show. “I’ve been working on the case,” she said suddenly. “Do you remember Detective Turkle?”

  “Detective Turkle,” I said cautiously. “Of course.” He was the very sweet man who ushered me around after the shootings, took my statements in such a sympathetic way, drove me to the morgue, recognized my shock, testified in court, warm and kind and exact.

  “He’s got access to the evidence locker. All the shit’s still there! There’s a sweater. There’s a whole bunch of stuff. He knows everything about the case. He’s given me stuff.”

  “Kate.”

  “And that little cop is sexy as hell, David, Jesus. Small, but perfectly formed.”

  “Kate. Does Jack know about this? Does Jack know anything about this at all?”

  “Jack? David, you dumb shit. I’m not allowed to talk about any of this stuff in front of him.” And, voice of one weary Yale professor, she intoned, “ ‘We’re to accept and abide by the decision of the jury and the judge in all cases pertaining to the matter at hand.’ ”

  “Kate. There may be good reason for that.”

  “Anyway, David, shut up, Turkle came through—I have the list. From the shooter’s car. The rental car. Abandoned in the New Canaan train station parking lot. No fingerprints on it anywhere. And did any of this come out in court?”

  “Yes.”

  “Only the gun, David. Don’t be a moron. Here’s the list. You can have it. I have it memorized: one Smith and Wesson forty-five-caliber semiautomatic handgun, no fingerprints; one pack Big Red gum unopened, no fingerprints; Playtex rubber gloves size large yellow, no fingerprints interior or exterior; roll of Bounty paper towels, eleven used and crumpled; one bottle Windex, no fingerprints; fourteen pounds shattered window glass, no fingerprints; and of course your famous flower pot, David, your fingerprints. None of which ever got mentioned in court. Am I right? None of it!”

  “Because it wasn’t relevant.”

  “Relevant, ha. Listen to this, last item on the list, still in the box, David, slightly soiled, no fingerprints, tell me this isn’t relevant: one pair brand-spanking-new Chippewa Work Mate boots, size nine.”

  “Well, ha. Dad’s were worn to the elevator inserts.”

  “Exactly. Dad’s were ancient.”

  “So what does this have to do with anything?”

  “They were trying to frame him.”

  “In his own death?”

  “No, David. Don’t you see? In Dabney’s death!”

  “Dabney’s death? Dad? Who would try to frame him for that?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “Oh, Kate.”

  She gave me the gentlest look, like it was I who needed the placating. “You’re blind when it comes to her, brother.”

  “It was an accident, Kate. Dabney crashed into the bridge abutment up there in Greenwich. He was all alone.”

  “David, David. So naïve.”

  She wanted a walk on the beach, so two in the morning we headed out, plenty of others walking, too, and lying in the sand and even jogging. We walked hours, up and down the beach from one inlet to the next, my sister ten steps ahead of me most of the way, dropping back only to repeat Turkle’s list, which (painful to admit) had caught my interest.

  It was dawn before I could get her back up to my place. And there she made yet more margaritas, fine by me. Our conversation took a gentler turn, the usual stuff people talk about, my dating disasters, her home decorating, quite a bit of football, tequila flowing freely. You shouldn’t buy the half-gallons.

  The doorbell rang, shocking us. We looked at each other like convicts caught in a riverbed, the shackles still binding us together: Jack!

  But no, it wasn’t Jack, just two incompetent young men delivering her mattress, a monstrous thing. It was nine in the morning and we were smashed. The dudes hefted it in and set it up, highly amused by Kate, who danced for them, pulled off her shirt comically, wobbled her breasts, drummed on her belly. You bet they set that bed up. I dressed in panic and rushed to the stadium, nothing for it, late for Thursday practice, unbrushed, unrested, unsettled, more than half drunk, my worst day ever on the field.

  Kate was off to shop. Linens! Comforter! Pillows! Duvet!

  JACK ARRIVED ON their scheduled flight Friday, looking like photos you see of hostages after extended hijackings, two suitcases, his and hers. I’d never before seen him chewing his fingers like that, never seen the bags under his eyes, never understood the price he paid, day in and day out. I’d failed to get Kate’s meds, I’d let her drink, I’d taken her to glitzy restaurants, I’d let her stay up all night two nights, I’d entertained her crime scenarios, I’d gone through two days of practice with almost no sleep, come home to shopping bags and the same discussion, like it had never stopped, each item on Turkle’s list of evidence analyzed and reanalyzed, every word Freddy the bodyguard had said to me, every word anyone said in court. She was having the sweater combed for hairs: Turkle had access to the newest technology, and nothing was hotter than DNA evidence, soon to be legal in the courts, though where that would get us Kate couldn’t quite say, especially with the sweater and its hairs removed from police custody.

  Didn’t matter—I’d grown excited, too.

  Jack gathered her in, surprisingly sheepish girl, plunked her in a cab, whisked her to their hotel—she’d have to start her meds protocol all over again, which could only be done gradually after these hiatuses. Coach was footing the bill for their visit complete, his own pocket and insistence: my emotional health, ha.

  At dinner that night, no preamble, Kate announced that she’d decided to become a scientist. Rapid speech, she outlined her plans to go for her doctorate in genetics. “Dad always wanted it,” she said.

  Not in my memory. I looked around the restaurant to avoid catching Jack’s eye. I allowed myself a Bloody Mary, didn’t drink it, didn’t even look at it when it came, big salad of vegetables sticking out of the outsized glass, sickening to see: Dad’s last drink.

  Jack patted her hand. “Let’s ask David about the big game,” he said.

  “Pittsburgh Steelers,” I said.

  “CpG islands,” Kate said seriously. “Codons, plasmid vectors, eukaryotic DNA—I’ve been learning it all—ph
age lambda cohesive end sites, phosphodiester bonds, zoo blots.”

  Jack looked mournful over dessert, put a hand through his thick hair, which had gotten shot with gray. “It’s not your fault,” he said, Kate in the ladies’ room an awfully long time, perhaps decoding a gene spool in there. “Really, it started a couple of weeks ago. Genetics this and genetics that. And the horror is, she’s fully capable! In another life, she’d be a scientist. You should see the books we suddenly own. I can’t keep up with her.”

  “It’s always been this way,” I said. “The illness takes over, but it can’t stop her from being smart.”

  “Lately, David, I find it very difficult to separate the illness and the personality. Maybe they’re the same. In any case. I need help. She wears me down. She wears herself down. There are parts missing. Not everything comes back after these bouts. This thing about your parents? Detective Turkle all of a sudden? It’s not benign. It’s not a hobby. She took him to Mexico, I’ve just learned. When I was at the conference in Milwaukee. They spent the week in Mexico. She and Turkle. He had no idea she was attached.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “David, he’s bought her an engagement ring.”

  ON GAME DAY Jack and Kate sat in the end zone with my teammates’ friends and families, the “Dolphinators,” great bright faces full of pride. Kate wore a fresh pink sundress, and while Jack smoked a tremulous briar she told everyone around her that she was a genetic chemist, that she was on the verge of finding the answer, or so I was told later by more than one impressed teammate.