The Draft

by Wil Mara

  She hadn’t said a word since they sat down. He watched her from his end of the long lacquered table; watched her without trying to appear as though he was watching her, as the city of Baltimore twinkled through the giant windows to his left. He didn’t want to gawk, but it wasn’t easy. She wasn’t just beautiful, she was a goddamn knockout. Long black hair that hung straight down either side of her delicate face, small mouth, and the almond eyes of an A-list fashion model. He wondered again how he’d gotten so lucky. He wondered, but in truth he knew—he’d lied. When the key moments came, he’d lied. He’d lied about his importance to the team, about how much money he made, about the college he’d attended, everything. He was a good liar, and he wasn’t afraid to make use of this talent.

  She took another sip of the wine, carefully wiped her mouth, and replaced the linen napkin in her lap. Without looking up, she said, “So what happened with that promotion today? Did you get it?”

  With the fork in midair, Macintosh froze. He’d hoped this subject wouldn’t come up.

  “They haven’t ruled on it yet.”

  She continued eating as if she hadn’t heard him.

  “What are you going to do if you don’t get it?” she asked eventually.

  “I’ll get it,” he said.

  “What if you don’t?”

  “Then I’ll get something else.”

  She went silent again, and he went back to watching her. She had the greatest poker face of anyone he’d ever seen. If there was anything going on behind those eyes, he couldn’t sense it.

  Abruptly she said, “I won’t be around this weekend. We’ve got to go to the West Coast to see a client.”

  Macintosh’s stomach tightened. He knew what this meant—her boss, J. Ellis Northrup, had to see a client on the West Coast and wanted her to come with him. He’d been after her for ages. He was patient and calculating; he knew how to extract a woman from another man’s grasp. He was richer, taller, leaner, better looking, and better educated than Macintosh could ever be; could ever even lie about being. They’d met once, at the firm’s New Year’s party just a few months ago. Northrup smiled, delivered a bone-crushing handshake, and studied his competition all night. As they were leaving, Macintosh caught one last glimpse of him from the corner of his eye. Northrup’s expression seemed to indicate that he wasn’t the least bit worried about whether or not he could pull Jenny Chandler away. This guy was ruthless, Macintosh thought. Made him feel like an amateur.

  What unnerved Macintosh most was the realization that Jenny might not mind the idea of being taken by Northrup. It wasn’t exactly a secret that she admired men of wealth, success, and power. Macintosh had to fake those things—Northrup actually had them. She never came out and said as much, but Macintosh was pretty certain she wasn’t going to commit the rest of her life to a guy who trolled the lower ranks of life with the rest of the bottom feeders. She planned to move steadily upward, and if you couldn’t help her, you wouldn’t be allowed to stick around.

  How much longer could he hold out? How much longer until the scales tipped in Northrup’s favor? Was it already happening? Was the fact that he clearly wasn’t going anywhere with the Ravens the deciding factor? He’d been with the team six years, and in that time he’d been given just one promotion—and that from Art Modell, the previous owner. Modell had promised him great things, and he had no doubt the old man would’ve kept those promises. But now.…

  “Will you be gone long?” he asked. It sounded feeble and pathetic. The voice of a man who knows his wife is cheating on him but doesn’t have the guts to confront her about it. He had a pretty good idea of what Jenny thought about people like that.

  “About a week.”

  Macintosh nodded, straightened up, tried to appear unconcerned. He wanted to be sentimental, wanted to say something nakedly human like, “Think about me while you’re out there,” or “Try to miss me a little bit, because I’ll be missing you,” but there wasn’t room in their relationship for this kind of talk.

  “Well, have a good time.”

  She nodded, again without looking up.

  The knot in Macintosh’s stomach tightened even more.

  Something in his professional life had to change, and fast.

  * * *

  Darryl Bailey built his personal gym in the basement of his Baltimore home. He wanted it there because it provided the kind of privacy he required during workouts. Other players he knew had theirs on the first floor, with French doors leading to sunny decks overlooking forested mountains or Olympic-size swimming pools. He would’ve found this distracting. There were two small windows in the foundation that could be opened inward to let in fresh air, but he’d had them covered with plywood and locked tight long ago.

  The gym contained a variety of equipment, including full sets of freeweights and dumbbells, a squat rack, flat and incline benches, and a multifunction workout center. He also had a treadmill and a stationary bike. There were two TV sets hanging high in the corners, which he used to keep up with sports and world news via ESPN and CNN, respectively. Three of the four walls were bare cement painted white, the other covered with giant mirrors. There was a medicine ball on a cushioned mat, plus a set of jump ropes hanging from a hook. A tall cabinet contained neatly folded workout clothes—shorts, tank tops, jogging suits, lifting gloves, socks, sneakers, etc.—and was kept in order by the housekeeper. There was also a stereo with four speakers, through which he would, when in the right mood, pump rap music at an earsplitting volume.

  His longtime offseason workout regimen had been two sessions per day—three hours in the morning, and three more in the afternoon. It wasn’t as much as some other players’, but he was consistent, and it was the continuity that provided the desired results. These workouts plus a good diet and a relatively clean lifestyle had kept him in peak shape and at his ideal weight, as dictated by his coaches, for so long. He had, in fact, found it surprisingly easy, because once you got into the routine it was no trouble to keep it going. Getting started was the hard part, but he’d passed that step many years ago. Now it was a normal part of his life.

  Or at least it had been until three months ago, during the last few minutes of the championship game.

  He’d gone over the play a thousands times in his mind, trying to figure out what went wrong. On the surface, it all seemed so ordinary. But then he’d heard that that was exactly how some of the worst injuries occurred—with no drama or fanfare.

  There’d less than three minutes left, and they were beating the Panthers by the ridiculous score of 42–7. Blanchard wanted to take out his remaining starters—most of them were already on the bench, congratulating each other and mugging for the TV cameras—but DB felt particularly good that day and begged to stay in. Since Carolina’s defense was exhausted and dispirited, Blanchard figured there was little harm. It was the last game of the year, and Carolina knew there was nothing left to fight for. Also, Carolina coach John Fox was a decent man and a personal friend of Blanchard’s. He wouldn’t tolerate his players taking cheap shots out of bitterness.

  With 2:34 remaining and the Ravens on their own 44, Bell, who at this point was calling the plays himself, decided on a relatively simple rollout that they hadn’t used in a while. Bailey was thrilled—the last time they’d used it, he’d taken it in for a touchdown against the Colts, in Indianapolis. He already had one touchdown in this Super Bowl and had otherwise played flawlessly, including two key blocks that led to two of their three running touchdowns. Another score and he’d have a great shot at MVP.

  From the snap, everything went perfectly. When the throw came from Bell it was a little high, so DB had to go up to get it. This wasn’t a problem, as he’d had to do this on many occasions. He had also anticipated it, as he knew Bell’s arm was growing tired. Michael had a habit of throwing harder than necessary toward the end of a game to compensate for fatigue. Bailey went up about three feet and caught the ball close to his right shoulder. A sixth sense that had evolved from exper
ience told him that he’d be coming down around Carolina’s 43 yard line, and that he had a clear field ahead of him. If he could land flat on his feet and take off quickly, he might be able to reach the end zone.

  He also knew Sheldon Bishop, Carolina’s strong safety, was speeding toward him. But he badly miscalculated Bishop’s distance and was hit in the legs before he reached the turf. It wasn’t a particularly hard hit, as Bishop’s only goal was to kill the play and erase the possibility of another score and further humiliation.

  Bailey’s body spun like a propeller, becoming perfectly horizontal at one point. If he’d landed this way, he thought afterward, he would’ve been fine. Instead he continued to rotate, and when the grass finally came up to meet him, he landed on the side of his head, which caused his neck to twist sharply before the rest of him came crashing down.

  From a fan’s point of view—both at the game and at home—there was nothing unusual about the hit or the landing. Yes, it looked painful. Yes, Bishop had scored a few bragging points off his opponent. But hits like this were the norm. By the time the next snap was in Michael Bell’s hands, it would be forgotten about. Probably wouldn’t even make a highlight reel.

  Bailey, lying there on the turf, felt the same way. His first thought was, So much for the touchdown. Maybe I can still get it before the game’s over. He shook off the initial shock, as always, then let go of the ball, rolled onto his stomach, and pushed himself off the ground.

  As he was about halfway up, however, his left arm gave way. It folded into a little less-than sign, and he tumbled over. He managed to get his left knee down before hitting the ground again, and he jumped quickly to his feet. Get up, millions are watching you. He jogged off the field with the rest of his team, doing his best to act as though nothing unusual had happened. Just a little clumsy, that’s all. The end of a long and exhausting season.

  Steve Salem, the wide receivers coach, didn’t say a word, so he hadn’t noticed. Neither had any of the trainers or physicians. He was thankful for that. But he knew something wasn’t right. By the time he got back to the bench, he was unable to lift his left arm higher than halfway without tremendous pain. If he kept it at his side, it felt both numb and tingly. The shoulder ached, and there was a burning in his neck. As it grew in intensity, he was able to form an accurate self-diagnosis—he had just acquired a stinger.

  All players knew about stingers. DB got his details, anonymously, from a site he found on the Internet—“A stinger occurs when the bundle of woven nerves that runs from the neck to the arm is stretched or compressed to the extreme. An electrical discharge follows, shooting down to the fingers. Afterwards, the athlete often will have trouble using the arm, and severe pain will appear in the neck and shoulder…”

  Most stingers lasted for just a few hours, sometimes a few days. But they could also be tricky. For an unlucky few, untreated stingers became the beginning of the end of their career.

  By contract, by league rule, and by rule of common sense, DB should have immediately reported the symptoms to Mendel. Instead, he made the fateful decision on that otherwise magnificent afternoon to keep them to himself. Next year would be the last of his contract with the team, and he would most likely have to think about finding a new home somewhere. No one wanted an injured player. While it was true most stingers went away, it was also true that, psychologically, many coaches and GMs were unable to overlook the fact that a player had had one in the first place. There was always concern about arm strength, about quickness, and about dexterity. If word got out, regardless of how well DB recovered, there would always be doubt. Each time he dropped a pass, each time he didn’t quite reach high enough for a pass, someone would wonder if it was because of that stinger he got during the Super Bowl. So he decided to keep quiet about it and gamble that the condition would fade in time.

  It did not.

  By the third week he was able to lift his arm about three-quarters up and no more. By six weeks he could lift it over his head, but not without pain. And his ability to grip a ball had diminished. The tingling was still there, and some mornings after he’d slept on his left side the burning was unbearable. He didn’t tell Bernadette about it; she would’ve been in his face and had him to a hospital in a flash. And he didn’t dare tell Mendel or anyone else on the team. One of the stupidest mistakes a player could make was hiding an injury, but it wasn’t as if he’d meant to hide it this long. He simply figured it would heal. He didn’t figure the injury would get so bad so fast—if he didn’t tell anyone about it the day it happened, he couldn’t tell them at all.

  He learned more about stingers by calling friends who’d had them, being careful to make it sound as though he wasn’t calling solely for this reason. He put together what he believed to be an effective recovery program, one that he could follow at home, in private, without anyone else getting wise. The goal, of course, was to return to full health in time for minicamps. They were months away, after all. He could do it.

  Now those camps were drawing so close that he could hear a clock ticking in his head, and the stinger was worse, not better. Some days the slightest movement made him wince. Once, in an absentminded moment, he’d reached up on a high shelf to remove a flower vase for Bernadette and ended up dropping it on her head. The accident turned out to be advantageous because it explained why he cried out. She never suspected a thing.

  But he knew he was in trouble—deep, serious trouble. If word got out, the team would not only cut him, they’d have legal right to deny him another penny. He stood to earn more than three million next year, plus another two on his prorated signing bonus. And then his next contract would come—The Big One. Unless you were drafted high in the first round, your first pro contract was rarely The Big One. You signed your first one, made some decent money, and then played your ass off in the hopes of scoring huge on the second. That was the model the most ambitious players followed—including him. His first contract had been terrific, thanks to the generosity and faith of Jon Sabino. But the next one was to be the deal that changed not only his life, but the lives of those he loved. It would be the one that provided for his eventual children, and his grandchildren. It would be the one that carried his very lineage to the next level and kept it there. No more struggles, no more wanting, for generations. The first deal gave a player the nice house, the nice car, the nice vacations. But it was the fabled follow-up deal that had the lasting effect. A vision of grandeur, perhaps, but it was within reach. This was the dream, the only objective. It was everything he’d worked for, everything he’d prayed for. And now, because of one mistake—one goddamn mistake—all would be lost. His career would be over, and he’d leave the league in disgrace. Sometimes, when Bernadette wasn’t around, he’d sit and worry about it for hours, turning it over and over in his mind. But there was no way to turn back, so he moved forward and hoped for a miracle.

  Bernadette walked into the gym with her jacket on and her bag slung over her shoulder. At twenty-six she was, technically, still a student. As both her parents were university professors, she, too, had contemplated a career in the academic community. But after receiving her masters in psychology, she took a few years off to make a final decision. She met Darryl during this period, at a banquet dinner honoring wealthy donors to a children’s hospital. Now she was making a final run toward her psych Ph. D., with the hopes of opening a private practice soon thereafter. Aside from her remarkable mental talents, she also had the body of a fashion model and the presence of a movie star.

  “Hey, I’m leaving,” she said, taking a pair of leather gloves out of her pockets and wriggling her fingers into them.

  Darryl turned, surprised, as he hadn’t heard him come in. He was massaging his shoulder and occasionally grimacing in pain, but, fortunately, was not facing the doorway. Lucky this time, he thought. In the future, I keep the door closed. If she’d seen him agonizing, she’d make inquiries. The problem with being in a relationship with a shrink was that you couldn’t hide much.

&nb
sp; He smiled, of course. “Okay, sweetheart.” He walked over to her. “Where to?”

  “I’m going to meet Francesca at McNally’s.”

  “Tell her I said hello.”

  “I will.”

  A brief kiss, and when they parted she did a quick study of his face. Taking my mental temperature, he thought, using a phrase he’d learned from her. Habit. She always did it, wasn’t able not to do it. He knew it was because she loved him, cared about him. But it was still unsettling at times.

  “See you later.”

  “See ya.”

  After she was gone, he sat on the edge of his flat bench and curled a fifty-pound dumbbell with the arm. It always hurt at the beginning, but it got a little better after the first ten or twenty lifts. That was all, though—only a little better, and a little wasn’t enough. More importantly, however, was the fact that, over time, the arm wasn’t improving. Under normal circumstances it should have.

  After the curls, he held the dumbbell loose at his side and brought the arm up straight, very slowly. The higher it got, the greater the pain. By the time his arm was at a ninety-degree angle, he was puffing and sweating, his teeth clenched in agony. When he couldn’t stand it any longer he brought the weight back down, but the moment the burning subsided he started again.

  After ten such lifts, he was hurting so bad that he could barely lift the arm at all. He knew this was a bad sign. No, it was worse than bad—The arm is growing useless, he thought for the very first time, and it terrified him. It was beyond the point where he could hide it now. He was being forced to confront it. He had to tell someone. His plan to do this in secret was failing.

  As all the frustration finally exploded inside, he screamed out “Goddammit!!!” and, in enraged defiance, forced the arm up, dumbbell still in hand, as high as it would go.

  The overloaded bolt of heat and energy that flashed through his body was, he was certain, worse than a gunshot. The dumbbell dropped from his hand and hit the floor with a dull thud. He dropped along with it, clutching his shoulder tight in an attempt to cut off any feeling. Bernadette could’ve still been upstairs, for all he knew. In spite of this, he was unable to hold back a scream that would’ve chilled a murderer’s heart.