Hangman's Game

by Bill Syken

  Soon she pushes her tongue into my mouth, and I place my hand on her back. She raises one knee up on her seat, and then another, and she grabs on to my shoulders with both hands and leans her body into mine.

  But I am wedged behind the steering wheel and we have the gear shift between us. Our mouths locked, we adjust our bodies, struggling to find a comfortable position.

  And yet I do not want to move to the backseat—or, even worse, into her house, where we might have to chat with Vaughn for a few moments—because I know that in the process of separating and moving, the spell will break.

  And so we twist within our confines, me working a hand underneath her shirt, forcing its way onto the lace of her bra, but with the back of my hand, so my feel is more of a flattened squish. She places her hand in the crotch of my jeans, but her arm is bent such that she can only press down. She attempts to twist her body around, looking for a more manageable angle, but her contortions push her up and over the seat, so she tumbles slow motion, headfirst, in the back of the car.

  The fatal separation has happened. She rights herself in the backseat and pats the fabric, inviting me to join her. But already I can feel my buzz disappearing.

  “I have to be going,” I say. “And so do you. Good luck, Melody.”

  She shakes her head in disappointment, but it is an act. She knows, too. “Hope your camp goes well tomorrow, I’ll be rooting for you,” she says, and then she lets herself out from the back. I watch her walk to the door of her house and I feel oddly gratified when she shuts it behind her.

  As I drive home, my mood only elevates. The clock on the dashboard shows it is a shade past midnight, but I am not concerned at all about coming in weary for tomorrow’s minicamp. I am ready to beat Woodward, and then to go on from there. I feel like I can save Jai. I am going to win.

  CHAPTER 21

  BY THE TIME I arrive back at the Jefferson, however, my enthusiasm is subdued, because I still have no idea what that next move should be. I consider going to the police on my own, but if I talk to them, then they will want to talk to Melody. I will have led them to her doorstep, which I said I wouldn’t do.

  I feel like a Cub Scout with one stick. I know I can start a fire, if only I can find something to rub against.

  I cannot sleep. My lack of rest will make tomorrow’s camp a battle. But I’ve had plenty of sleepless nights before games and I’ve always found energy when the ball hits my hands.

  It is one of my rules that if I am still awake in bed after fifteen minutes, I get up so that I do not create an association between my bed and sleeplessness. At 1:05 A.M. I am on the sofa, watching the fourth season of Weeds, when I receive a text from Freddie.

  You up?

  I pause the show and dial his phone.

  “What’s going on?”

  “My father called this afternoon,” Freddie says, voice slurred.

  “And?”

  “He’s talked to Jai’s defense lawyers,” Freddie mumbles. “He’s arranged it so I can go to their offices tomorrow. Work with them on the case. Perry Mason, Jr., that sort of thing.”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “I guess he still hasn’t given up on the idea of his son becoming a lawyer,” Freddie says.

  I hear him breathing heavily into the telephone and hear the echo of his breath as well. The reverb is so pronounced that I wonder if he is calling me from a bathroom.

  “So go to their law offices,” I say. “What’s the big deal?”

  He grunts and then groans. He does not sound well.

  “Being an unpaid intern at thirty-three,” he mutters, “is not a good look.”

  “Try it,” I say. “Just go for one day. If you hate it, don’t go back. All your amusements will still be waiting for you when you get home.”

  It is silent on the other end, until I hear a violent heave. Then a clatter and a crash, and the line goes dead.

  * * *

  At 4:00 A.M. I am still pounding episodes of Weeds. I wish for a do-over of my conversation with Melody, a chance to persuade her to go to the police.

  I need a new argument, I realize. I need to make this as beneficial to her as it is to me.

  I need to find out just what is hanging over her head from the Winking Oyster.

  As the dawn nears I decide to ask Aaron for help. He said he knows people in police departments all over the East Coast. And he would know the most efficient way to procure what I need.

  My only hesitation is that I have never asked Aaron to help me with anything before.

  But at 6:14 A.M. I send Aaron a note.

  Hello, Aaron. It’s Nick. I know this is going to sound strange, but can you get me the police report from Providence, Rhode Island, for the closure of a club called the Winking Oyster about a year ago?

  A minute later, my phone rings. It is Aaron, up already. Of course he can’t just answer by e-mail, he has to call. Open the door a crack and he comes bursting through.

  “Hey, Aaron,” I say pleasantly. “Good morning.”

  “Morning, Nick,” he says. “How are you?”

  “Fine, fine.”

  “Your mother and I are in Elmira,” he says. “After last week, she’s a little jumpy about the idea of being cut off from the world.”

  “Sorry to hear that, Aaron,” I say. “I know you like that cabin very much.”

  “I do. I’m curious about this request you made. What’s the Winking Oyster?”

  “It’s a strip club.”

  “Hmm,” he says. “Why do you want to know about it?”

  “I just need the report,” I say.

  “For what?” Aaron asks, his tone businesslike.

  “I’m friends with a woman who used to work there,” I say. “The other day I came across a news story that said the club was closed because it was a front for drugs and prostitution. I’m trying to find out how much she was involved.”

  “Don’t get too close,” Aaron says. “You don’t need a police report to tell you that.”

  “I know, I know,” I say. “I just want to see how far away I should stay.”

  “What’s happening here, exactly? I think…”

  “Can you get the report?”

  He pauses at being cut off. “I’ll try,” he says hesitantly. “It should be doable.”

  “How soon can you get it to me?”

  He pauses again. I am too eager. “We’ll see,” he sighs. “It’s a yes-or-no request that can be fulfilled with a few clicks, so with a little luck, I could get it to you today or tomorrow.”

  “Good,” I say. “Very good. Thank you, Aaron.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I feel a roiling in my stomach. I could imagine what my dad would say if he heard Aaron and I cooperating with each other, building bonds. So now you’re on his side, too?

  “Say, Aaron. You ever been to Peekskill?”

  “Once, many years ago,” Aaron says. “With your mother, actually…” His voice trails off. He has just let slip that he was there on the book group trip for T. C. Boyle’s World’s End. They were together my senior year of high school. I was living in that house, and I had no idea at all.

  CHAPTER 22

  FOR THE MORNING of the final day of minicamp, Tanner has not scheduled any special teams work. I will have nothing to do, but that is fine. In the afternoon session everyone will play in a simulated game. We will go four quarters. Time will be kept, referees will call penalties. If all proceeds normally, Woodward and I will punt four or five times each, probably more.

  I have been hoping for this. I have played in simulated games before, and they can be fun. They also place extra pressure on players whose jobs are in jeopardy. As far as I was concerned, the more pressure, the better. I knew I would be ready to perform. Whereas Woodward had already shown a propensity to gack.

  * * *

  The day is cool and overcast, with only the faintest of breezes. Ideal weather. No sun to get in your eyes, no heat to strain your endurance, no gusts to
knock down your kicks, nothing extraneous to factor in.

  In the morning Woodward and I each take to Field 3 to practice. Woodward is quiet and methodical, chin down and eyes on the ball. When I first met him, he seemed happy just to be here; now he looks like it will kill him to leave.

  Afterward, he and I have a peaceable lunch—eat with a guy once in the cafeteria, it’s hard to get rid of him. I ask him what he has done with his down time in the city. He says he has gone jogging along the Schuylkill River, on Kelly Drive. I don’t jog because I don’t think endurance runs help with a punter’s short-burst tasks, but if Woodward wants to pound his knees for miles at a stretch, vaya con Dios.

  “I really liked all those old boathouses down there,” he says. “With the college logos on them. Cool to find that in the middle of a big city.”

  “Philadelphia has a long-standing crew tradition,” I say.

  “I saw a bunch of kids out there in their school colors, coming in from a practice,” he says. “They looked like they were having fun.” He sounds a little wistful.

  “Yeah, those days are gone for you, buddy,” I say. “You’re working for a living now.”

  “For a few more hours, anyway.” He shrugs.

  “Ah, come on. You’re going to make it in this league, Woodward,” I say. “Sooner or later.” After a pause I add, “I would prefer later, of course.”

  “And I’d prefer now,” Woodward says, looking down.

  We share an awkward laugh.

  Then Woodward says, waving his fork aimlessly, “You know what I don’t get? It seems like at least a third of the guys here don’t even like football.”

  I do the mental math. “That sounds about right.”

  “So why are they here?”

  “The money,” I say. I think of Jai, an extreme but not atypical example of players who build a lifestyle that demands piles of cash be thrown continually into the furnace.

  “I guess that’s a reason,” Woodward says. “But I don’t see how you can push through all the work, day after day, if you don’t really like it.”

  “It’s a lot of money,” I say. “And for most people, this is the only identity they know or want to know.”

  “Do you like playing football?” Woodward asks. “You don’t seem to, really.”

  I am surprised by this. “I would enjoy it more—and so would everyone around here—if Tanner wasn’t such a prick. And the business end can be brutal. But I love playing. Always have, always will. Snap me a ball and I’m happy.”

  Woodward smiles in recognition. “Same for me,” he says. “Too bad there’s not more balls to go around.”

  * * *

  For the game we are divided into two teams, the Brown and the Gray. The Brown is made up of the first-team offense and second-team defense. The Gray side consists of first-team defense and second-team offense. Each side has third- and fourth-stringers scattered among them. The special teamers wear hairnet-like webbing over their helmets—some blue, some red—so guys from each team can sort themselves out quickly when they have to be on a punt or coverage unit. Woodward and I can punt for either Brown or Gray, and we will be called into the game at Huff’s discretion.

  These camp games are historically intense because jobs are on the line, but it is also a time to let loose. Guys on the sideline cheer good plays and heckle bad ones as if they are fans in the 700-level who have just cracked their fifth beers. Early in today’s game, a receiver stumbles and falls in the open field without having been touched, and one of the players on the sideline yells, “You should see a doctor about that narcolepsy!”

  The heckle comes from Seth Kuhnert, a six-five, 345-pound left tackle who wears his long blond hair in a ponytail. Kuhnert is two seasons into a five-year, $41-million deal, and he is one of the team’s most irreplaceable assets, so he can relax and enjoy the day. Most of the guys making catcalls are established players who are all but guaranteed to be here in the fall. You could say the camp has eighty people competing for fifty-three roster spots, but in reality it is closer to forty people competing for the fifteen or so jobs that are genuinely up for grabs—the fifth wide receiver, or the ninth offensive lineman, or the dime back, or the third quarterback. Or the punter.

  As I stand and watch today’s game, I feel myself going slowly mad. The problem is this: no one is punting. The Gray offense, under the direction of Bo John White, is moving the ball well. That you might expect. But the Brown team offense, led by backup quarterback Marty Yount, is carving up the defense as well. Every third down, I strap on my helmet and prepare to run onto the field. But I never get off the sidelines because the offenses just kept going. The defense just can’t make a stop. I am missing Samuel and Jai in a new way.

  The first quarter ends without a single punt. The second quarter goes the same way, with the offenses strolling up and down the field. I wait and wait and wait, biting deeper into the insides of my lower lip.

  Finally, a couple of minutes before halftime, a third-down pass by Bo John White sails over a receiver’s head out of bounds. It is time for the first punt of the game.

  “Ten!” barks Huff. “Go!”

  Ten is Woodward’s uniform number. He is getting the first kick.

  That is fine. It doesn’t necessarily mean he has leaped ahead of me on our two-man depth chart.

  The ball is on the offense’s thirty-three-yard line, which will give Woodward a chance to put some leg into it.

  And he does. He takes the snap and rockets the ball high and deep, giving the coverage unit plenty of time to get downfield. The returner catches the punt on the fourteen-yard line, but he can bring it back just four yards. So Woodward’s kick is fifty-three yards, with a net of forty-nine.

  Very well done. Shit.

  The first half ends without me getting a chance to answer. Halftime, thankfully, doesn’t last any longer than the horn blow. No ceremony, no bands, no panel discussions in the TV studio. We go straight to the third-quarter kickoff, which is good, as I am dying to have a turn. On its first possession the offense stumbles to a quick three-and-out. Time for another punt.

  “Ten!” Huff calls.

  Woodward again? I look at my position coach and wonder if his brain is working right. He took plenty of knocks as a player back in the ’80s. Are the aftershocks setting in now, this very afternoon? Did he forget that I haven’t had a punt yet? Or is it that Huff already knows what I can do, and he wants see as much of Woodward in a game situation as he can?

  I think back to that first time I saw Huff after the shooting, back in the locker room. He was talking at length to Woodward, and then brushed me off with a few awkward words. I wonder if Huff knew even then that he was planning to cut me.

  Woodward takes the field on the twenty-two-yard line and lets loose another boomer, fifty-one yards, high enough that the returner signals fair catch, not even bothering to attempt a runback with the coverage guys already in his face.

  Fuck me.

  After that, the offenses resume motoring up and down the field as I watch helplessly, waiting for a stall-out so I can finally kick. But every third-down screen pass or slant pattern seems to pick up just enough yardage to keep me on the sidelines.

  By the fourth quarter White and Yount have ceded the quarterbacking to greener players. Our rookie fourth-string quarterback, Onderay Marshall, is in the game and he decides to try a deep ball instead of going to the check-down receiver for the easy gain, and he overthrows his target. Thank God for his incompetence. It is time for another punt.

  “Ten!” Huff shouts.

  What? Woodward again?

  The team wants to make the switch, of this there is no doubt. I can’t even argue with their logic. Woodward is perfectly fine, it is plain to see. Why devote a $350,000 bonus plus a few hundred grand of extra salary for a position of secondary importance, when this team has so many other areas in which it needs to improve?

  He sets up on the offense’s forty-eight-yard line, giving him a chance to kill the ball
inside the twenty. If Woodward hits this, he will correct his mistake from two days ago, and erase all doubt from their minds.

  This could really be it for me.

  I begin to sort through the other teams around the league that aren’t firm at punter. I might have to send Cecil begging again to secure me an invitation to a training camp, just like he did when I was a rookie. Of course, Cecil is still weakened by his gunshot wound. Which means I will be doubly fucked. I imagine another team’s punter getting injured and their G.M. being flooded with calls from other agents while Cecil sits on his backyard deck examining his scar.

  Thus will my career go down the toilet. What a mess.

  Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

  I watch Woodward count the ten men in front of him, carefully pointing at each. He is taking care to get every detail right.

  Then Backlund delivers the snap—and it comes out wide to Woodward’s left. Woodward reaches out and knocks down the ball with his hand, but he isn’t able to control it. He dives on the loose ball, but it squirts out from underneath him and is collected by a defender.

  At which point I stop panicking about my job long enough to worry about Backlund’s. He has snapped eleven balls on film in this camp, and he has missed his target twice. The Sentinels have no replacement for him at long snapper on the roster, but they can fix that quite easily between now and the season’s opener.

  This isn’t like Backlund. Before today, he had two bad snaps in all the years I’d worked with him. I hope he hasn’t developed some ghastly mental hiccup. It’s happened to plenty of athletes: the mind suddenly sabotages the body, and the career. In one season, former Colt Mike Vanderjagt went from the most accurate field-goal kicker in history to a guy who couldn’t make a chip shot. In baseball, All-Star second baseman Chuck Knoblauch suddenly couldn’t throw the ball to first. In golf, Ian Baker-Finch went from winning the British Open to spraying balls into the wrong fairways.

  But this is Backlund’s problem. At this juncture I don’t need to be thinking about him or Mike Vanderjagt or Chuck Knoblauch or Ian Baker-Finch. I need positive images in my head. I could very well be standing at the precipice of my career. When my chance comes to punt—if it ever does—I have to be ready to nail one. I have to let these clouds roll by.