Great. Pete wants us to kill each other.
Practice is at a high school in Clearwater Beach. From our hotel it’s a forty-minute drive across the 60, a toothpick bridge suspended over the crystal waters of the Gulf of Mexico. To make sure we are all frothing at the mouth to hit someone, Coach splits up the offense and defense for the first few days of practice. We practice the plays on our own, by ourselves, with no defense. They do the same on their end. It is boring and gets us all riled up. Football players are conditioned for violence. We are at home in the melee. We may have moments of quiet reservation and doubt when lying on our living room couches, but on the field we are pulled toward the mayhem. The feel of the helmet and shoulder pads, the sound of the whistle, the taste of the mouthpiece, the smell of grass and sweat: sacraments for bloodshed.
But the only interaction we have with the defense is in the locker room and on the bus, and since we aren’t getting to know each other on the field, the locker room and bus are quiet. We are strangers. On the day we are to finally practice as a team, the tension is high. Our sacraments have been dangled in front of our noses but we’ve been kept in cages. Just before they unlock the doors everybody is talking shit to each other from across the field. It feels like we are going to brawl.
The first thing we do is a passing drill called seven-on-seven that is designed to work on pass plays only, without any linemen getting in the way. The defense plays coverage and tries to prevent the passes from being completed. But they don’t hit the receivers. They protect their vulnerable teammates.
On one of the first plays of seven-on-seven, I catch a pass across the middle, turn up field, three, four steps, and am cracked hard from the side by a safety. I pop up and look at Whiskey Pete. This is the moment that sets the precedent, the moment where coach says . . .
—What the fuck is that?! We don’t do that shit around here! You got it? Does everybody get it? Save that for game day. We’re on the same fucking team, guys. Protect each other!
But he just stands there watching us through his eyebrows, lip pond glistening. That’s what he wants. Well all right then. That’s what he’ll get.
The next hour and a half is a bloodbath. Bodies are flying and helmets are cracking in the Florida sunshine. Must . . . impress . . . the . . . coaches. Smack! The dreams of the father! Smack! The American dream! Crack! C’mon, boy! Whammo!
Thirty minutes later, on a routine run play, I size up the strong safety for a block. He comes at me in kill mode. We meet solid: helmet to helmet and chest to chest. But also knee to knee. The bursa sac on my left knee bursts. Fluid rushes to cover my patella. He isn’t so lucky. He yelps and falls at my feet. Our best defensive player is done for the season with a torn ACL. Are you not entertained?
After the first practice, things settle down. Now we know each other. Next week, we practice against one of the other teams. Fresh meat. We are doing one-on-ones against their cornerbacks, and their receivers are doing one-on-ones against our cornerbacks. They run a route; we run a route. Pride is on the line. The shit-talking is constant.
Late in the drill, I line up to run a slant. A corner steps out to cover me. He squats inches from my face and mumbles something about handcuffs. He’s short, even for a defensive back, and his lowness to the ground forces me to lower my stance to improve my leverage. I shoot off the line and engage him with my hands, then push off and break to the inside, just in time to see the ball soar over my head. I feel a twinge in my pinkie and look down at it. It’s sticking out sideways and down toward my wrist at an acute angle. I hold it up in front of my face. Not much of a painful feeling. No feeling, really. I take off my glove. It looks much more real without the glove. I walk my pinkie over to the trainer.
—Mmmm. That’s dislocated, Nate. Here.
He grabs my pinkie and yanks. It slides back into place without a whisper. I reglove my hand, tape the pinkie to the ring finger, and I’m back to practice.
After practice, though, the finger isn’t acting like a reduced dislocation. It hurts. A lot. We X-ray it. It’s broken. The X-ray looks like someone has taken a ball-peen hammer to my finger. Shards of slivered bone surround a prominent shark-tooth fragment just below the second knuckle.
They decide to take a closer look at it in Birmingham. The next morning I fly to Alabama. The bursa sac in my knee, manageable at sea level, fills up with fluid on the airplane. I hobble in to see Mayfield.
—Nate! What the hell are you limping for? I thought it was your finger!
—It is, Mayfield. I’m just sore, that’s all.
—Shit, Nate. Who ain’t?!
They keep me there for four days. They are trying to figure out whether to operate. But there’s not much rehab to be done on a shattered pinkie. I spend most of my time wandering around the hospital and flirting with the HealthSouth receptionist. She’s a cute, brunette southern girl in business attire with eyes screaming “get me out of here.” At every door opening, every phone ringing, every new set of footsteps, she perks up and shoots her flare. She isn’t going to miss her chance.
On my last night in Birmingham we go to a movie together and talk. I talk about my girlfriend. She talks about her boyfriend. Both of us are unsure of whatever this is. Unsure of everything. She is starting to realize that she may never make it out of Birmingham. I’m starting to wonder if either of us should bother trying.
Before I leave the next day, Mayfield makes me a pinkie splint.
—All right, Nate, now this should help. But it’s still gonna hurt. Shit, you know that. That ain’t nothin’ new. But I’m serious this time, Nate. Don’t let me see you back here. You got it?
—Yeah I got it, Mayfield. Thanks for the help.
I’m on the field for practice that afternoon with my pinkie splint and my knee brace, gimping from another flight-induced swelling. But I’m happy to be back with my teammates. Our receiver core is getting tight. Aside from Adam, there’s Shockmain Davis. Willie Quinnie. Chris Leiss. Bosley Allen. Jon Olinger.
The day after I get back from Birmingham, we have a scrimmage against the Amsterdam Admirals. I’m very tired in warm-ups. I feel out of shape from my four days in Alabama. My receiver coach doesn’t put me in until the end of the scrimmage. A few plays after I enter the game I catch a 60-yard touchdown from Greg on a blown Cover 2, nearly hyperventilating in the end zone. Well all right. Football is easy. Just throw me the ball.
A wide receiver can only catch what is thrown to him. And it’s never up to him. He must run his route and hope. My time spent in the NFL will be full of this hope. I will run every route with gusto, expecting to turn and see the ball spiraling toward me. But it will rarely happen. And with every route I run, beating the world-class athlete being paid to cover me, and being rewarded only by the defeated look in his eyes, a small piece of my football idealism will die. I want the ball. Always. An effortless harmony of quarterback and receiver is a beautiful thing. All is right in the world with Greg Zolman at the helm.
A few days later, after a month of training camp, we have our last team meeting before packing up and heading to Germany. Coach goes over everything again: Ze food, ze buses, and adapting to ze unknown. Then one of the few returning players from the previous year’s squad speaks up.
—Yeah, fellas, real quick. Just want to let y’all know, they ain’t got no Magnums over there so bring your own rubbers. And bring a lot. You don’t want to get caught up.
Advice well received by the team. This will be our Magnum Opus. Someone brings a duffel bag full. Ich bin ein Düsseldorfer.
After several long, cramped flights, layovers, and buses, we pull in to our new home in Düsseldorf. The Relexa Hotel. It’s a seven-story building on the outskirts of town. The hotel is nice and clean and we all have our own rooms. It’s the end of March. We have a week and a half to practice and get used to our surroundings before our first game.
A few days later there is a
pep rally in the city’s main square. We pull up in our buses and parade onto a stage where Markus works the crowd of a few hundred into a polite frenzy. Frothy cups of good beer tilt at the slight angle of almost drunk and apparently happy. Their enthusiasm surprises me. I hadn’t expected the Germans to support the NFL’s attempt to make people love the other football. But from a dirty seed sprouts beauty. Someone hands me the microphone while we stand onstage. I do my best hype-man impersonation.
—Alo everybody! Are you all having a good time?!
—Ja! Ja!
—What’s that? I can’t hear you!
—Ja! Ja!
—All right! When I say ‘Rhein,’ you say ‘Fire’! Rhein!
—Fye-a!
—Rhein!
—Fye-a!
Then someone snatches the mike and it’s on to the next hype man. Then we are ushered offstage and back onto the buses, creeping through a throng of boisterous Germans who have gathered to wave us on.
Our first game is at home against the Cologne Centurions. The stadium is state-of-the-art, featuring a retractable roof and a field that can be rolled entirely outside so as to receive more sunlight, or something. The Arizona Cardinals stadium has the same technology. There are twenty-five thousand fans or so and all of them wear whistles around their necks. They blow them all game, rendering the referee’s whistle mute and the concept of “play the whistle” dumb. Be flexible.
I’m on the front line of the kickoff return team. The opening kickoff of our season soars through the air. I turn and run to my landmark, pivot, size up my block, and engage him. Rober Freeman, our kick returner, weaves through the wedge and runs past me with the ball in his hands on his way to the end zone. Touchdown! Touchdown! Twenty-five thousand whistles.
After a touchdown by Cologne, we line up for our second kickoff return. This time Shockmain receives it and shoots past us all the way to the house. I leave my man and follow Shock to the end zone as twenty-five thousand Germans lose their shit, again. This is awesome! This is Germany.
After that, the game settles down. At the start of the second half I am split wide to the right. Greg is in at quarterback. He gives me a look at the line of scrimmage. I run a fade route and he lofts it up: slightly underthrown, just how I like it. I slow up and leap at the last moment. The cornerback has me covered but my jump takes away his advantage. I lose the ball in the lights. I stick my hands out where I think it will come down. It lands in my basket and I squeeze it into my body. As my feet hit the ground the free safety pops me under the chin. But he doesn’t bring his lunch pail with him. I bounce off his hit and gather myself, then head up the sideline. The cornerback dives at me. I pirouette and shake him off, heading up the sideline again. The safety who missed me the first time catches me from behind and latches on to my waist. I drag him another ten yards before his buddy jumps on my back and drops me at the five-yard line. Ja! Ja! Ja! We score on the next play.
It’s a tight game. On our first drive of the fourth quarter, I’m split wide right from deep near our own end zone. I run a five-yard hitch and wait for the ball. Chad Hutchinson is in at QB. He throws the ball over the middle but loses control of it and it dribbles off in front of him. No one knows if it is a fumble or an incomplete pass. And the whistle won’t tell us. I run toward the rolling ball and pull up when I realize the play is dead. But not everyone gets the memo. A defensive lineman flies in, overshoots the ball, and lands on my good knee. Pop. No more good knee.
I fall to the ground and grab my leg. It’s such a loud pop in my head that I expect a bone to be sticking out. I pull down my sock.
Nothing. Clean leg.
I stand up and walk to the sideline. I tell my trainer something popped in my knee. I try jogging around to shake off whatever just bit me. Unshakable is the phantom of truth. It’s no good. I sit on the bench and seethe. We win the game by a point. Afterward I go to the hospital for an MRI. According to the German doctor who reads the MRI, my medial collateral ligament is torn.
—Zat pop you heard vas your ligament tearing, right here.
He points to the apparently abnormal image on his screen, string-cheese-splayed fibers.
—Ze recovery depends on if your doctors decide you need surgery.
—My doctors? You’re not my doctor?
—Nein.
—I have nine doctors?
This will apparently fall to HealthSouth. I’ll wait until they confer. I go back to the Relexa Hotel and flop onto the bed. It seems that every time I get hurt it’s on a play that feels wrong from the start. The finger, the bursa sac in my knee, and now this one. All of them flukes. And my two shoulder dislocations in college were the same: stupid plays that never should have happened. Either I’m rehabbing here in Germany, watching my teammates play, or I’m getting back on a plane to Alabama. Neither appeals.
I pick up the phone to call Alina back home. I need the reassuring voice of my woman to tell me everything is okay.
—Hello?
—Hey.
—Hiii.
—What are you doing?—Me.
—Uhh, nothing. I’m in a cab.—Her.
—Going where?—Me.
—Going home.
—Huh? Home from where?
It is Sunday, 10:30 a.m. in California.
—Ugh, you don’t want to know.
—Ugh, yes I do.
— . . . Vince Vaughn’s house.
—Vince Vaughn? Why?
—I don’t know. I’m so annoyed right now.
—You slept there?
—Yes. On the couch. Amy hooked up with him.
—Why were you there?
—We were hanging out with him at a club and he said he was having an after-party at his house so we got in his car with him and went back to his house and no one ever showed up. It was just me and Amy and Vince.
—Great party.
—I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t know.
—You didn’t know what?
—I don’t know. It was just stupid.
—And you slept on the couch?
—Yes, baby. I promise.
—Whatever . . . I tore my MCL.
—Aw, baby!
(Fuck Vince Vaughn.)
The next day I’m back in Birmingham and back with Mayfield.
—Well, Nate, you want the good news or the bad news?
—Isn’t it all bad news?
—Oh c’mon, Nate. Don’t get down on me now.
—Bad news.
—Okay. Bad news is, you’re gonna be here for a while. We gotta get that thing right and it ain’t gonna happen overnight. Good news is, you don’t need surgery. That thing’ll heal on its own, but we gotta stay on top of it. And the harder you work, the faster you’ll get your ass out of here. You look around while you’re here, Nate. You’re gonna notice some things real quick. One is, there’s some sorry sons of bitches around here feelin’ extra sorry for themselves, moping around, going through the motions and ain’t gettin’ shit done. Shit, Nate, there’s players that’s been here for over a year. Imagine that, Nate. A year! They get so down on themselves that they can’t heal. And you know you can’t leave until I clear you medically. Make sure you ain’t that guy, okay? I know you ain’t that guy, Nate, but make sure you ain’t, you got me?
—Yeah, I got you. I love it here and all, but I gotta get back to Deutschland.
Inordinate pause.
—Germany.
—Shit, I know that, Nate.
I love Mayfield’s enthusiasm. And I promise myself I will adopt his approach: Stay positive. Stay motivated. Every day has a purpose. But it’s easy to start feeling sorry for myself in Birmingham. We stay at a Shoney’s Inn in a nondescript commercial neighborhood south of the city, across from a U.S. Treasury office, a Dollar General, a handful of other depressing hotels, and an anima
l hospital. Unlike most Shoney’s this one doesn’t have a restaurant attached. Instead we have a shuttle service to take us to our meals. Breakfast and lunch we eat in the hospital cafeteria.
Years later, when I’ll close my eyes and picture this city, I’ll see an overweight woman walking slowly across a street as I sit in the passenger seat of the Shoney’s Inn shuttle and wait. At the wheel is Catman. In the back of the shuttle are seven more hungry, injured football players. It’s dinnertime and Catman is our ride. The most energetic man in all of Alabama, Catman is one of three Shoney’s Inn shuttle drivers. He’s a military veteran, maybe, in his forties or fifties, or sixties, with fading tattoos on his forearms and long gray hair slicked back. He weighs 120 pounds and has three prominent teeth, all on the bottom row, all abnormally long and knifing up toward his nose. He got his name because he meows like a cat. He brings his hands to his mouth and twirls his hips while staring down the object of his feline affection. Catman is my support system in Alabama. When things get weird, he’ll be there to let me know: That ain’t weird, this is weird.
—I haven’t been with a woman for so long the crack of dawn makes me horny. Meoooow!
—More, Catman! More!
He’s an old soul in a new world, a weak world, a humorless world with no sense of adventure. He’s seen things and been places. Or he’s seen nothing and been nowhere. It doesn’t matter. His spirit is on fire. Everyone knows him everywhere we ride in our shuttle.
—Hey, Catman.
Tension is high in Birmingham and Catman is only trying to lighten the mood. Mayfield is right. I look around and I see some sorry sons of bitches, feeling extra sorry for themselves. I meet a guy who’s been here for over a year. He’s still on crutches. I meet guys who are moving in on a year. All of them have one thing in common: “Fuck this shit.” They are folding in on themselves. Shrinking to meet their beaten wills. Injuries in football are common, but being literally shipped off to exile after being injured isn’t.
Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile Page 6