Hometown Favorite: A Novel

by BILL BARTON

  Sabrina had gone to school. She maintained her commitment to get an education if for no other reason than to be away from the apartment. The only thing keeping her from leaving altogether, other than her love for her brother, was her boyfriend, Tyler Rogan. He provided masculine comfort, steadiness, and affection that could be brutal at times, but still made her feel needed. He was a male presence in her life who would say "I love you" at unexpected times and in such a way that made her believe he meant it. So she tolerated the chaos Tyler brought into her life, tolerated the drugs he gave her mother and sold out of the apartment for the cash it provided ... and she tolerated the sex Tyler demanded and the occasional bruises he left when his temper got the best of him. It was the price she paid to have a family.

  Bruce watched Bonita tie the rubber tubing around her arm, then lean back in an easy chair that Tyler and his crew had found in a Dumpster. Bruce's gut tightened. His mother was leaving him again. How many times had she left him before? He had lost count, and when she came back to the world, she was always on the edge of falling off at any moment. He could call out to her, but she would not hear. He could touch her, begging for attention, but she would not respond. Whenever she departed on these drug-induced journeys, she left behind a wretched, breathing corpse.

  It felt like a punishment, Bonita's frequent escapes, but what had he done to deserve this? He tried hard to be good. He tried hard to deserve his mother's love. He did not want to do anything to drive her away. What had he done to make his mother leave him behind again and again?

  Tyler was slow roasting the crumbs of heroin in the tablespoon over the flame of the candle. When the chunks boiled into liquid, he set the spoon on the coffee table and brushed a cockroach onto the floor that had been feasting on food particles before he smashed it with a ferocious stomp of his foot. He examined the smashed cockroach on the grimy carpet and cursed it before he kicked the small carcass under Bonita's chair.

  "Hey, little cockroach;" Tyler said. He snapped his fingers just inches from Bruce's hypnotized face. "Little cockroach, someday you can have a taste of this. Go bye-bye with your mama.

  A wicked laugh burst from Tyler's mouth, causing Bruce to grip the sides of the easy chair.

  "Hurry up, baby. Mama's ready," Bonita said.

  The demand to feel the immediate ecstasy was making her anxious.

  Tyler filled the syringe, and with the precision of an expert caregiver, he tapped the inside of Bonita's arm to raise a deflated vein and injected the drug.

  Bruce had seen enough. He began to pace as he watched his mother descend from reality like a deflated balloon. Tyler shouted that Bruce's frantic pacing was annoying, but the adrenaline rushing through Bruce's body would not allow him to keep still. For not obeying the order, Bruce dodged a beer bottle hurled at him by a volatile Tyler, and he ducked into the kitchen just as the crew came through the door, flush with cash from the latest drug sales.

  After brooding on the perennial emptiness of the open refrigerator, Bruce spied some cash on the kitchen table. He slammed the refrigerator door, stuffed the few dollars in his pocket, and then slipped out of the apartment. No one noticed him go. No one called out after him. No one cared whether he stayed or went, whether his stomach was empty or full, whether he lived or died.

  Dewayne had completed his eighth and final week at the SportsPlex in downtown Los Angeles, a premiere facility devoted to taking young college athletes who were in line for the draft and getting them into optimum shape for the combines held in Indianapolis. By going to school year-round, Dewayne had worked out with his faculty advisor a way to have only one class his final semester in order to graduate. The easy economics class that he and Rosella took together required minimal study so he could have the time to train at the SportsPlex in preparation for the combines. Even though USC had won its bowl game and Dewayne had received the MVP award for the game, he chose not to snub the combines. He was looking forward to meeting coaches and managers from the different franchises so when it was time for the draft, he would know who was talking about him and whom he would deal with during negotiations about an offer.

  After winning the Heisman and leading Miami to victory in its bowl game, Sly had put himself in the elite category of those who skip the combines. Dewayne just laughed at his friend's inflated self-importance when he told Dewayne to be prepared for yet another disappointment when the sport's world heard Sly's name called as the number one draft pick.

  Dewayne and Rosella agreed they would not rush into making a decision about whom they might hire as a sports agent, even though several agencies were making inquiries. Rosella proved a perceptive negotiator when she worked a deal with the SportsPlex management to cover Dewayne's training expenses. Once drafted, Dewayne would pay the costs of his training, and as a bonus to the SportsPlex for its kind treatment of him, he would be a representative for the center for one year.

  This success began to build a confidence that they could handle many of the business decisions regarding Dewayne's career. They knew the value of athletes endorsing a product or a company, and the millions that come with it, but they also knew that unless they were generous to those people who had helped him along the way, no amount of wealth would be worth it.

  The couple had not purchased a second car. They were trying to live off Dewayne's scholarship stipend, so Dewayne often took the bus to and from the SportsPlex. Part of their agreement with the SportsPlex was to do interviews with sports news outlets whenever requests came in, which was often.

  One day Dewayne was surprised to enter the lobby from the training center and find no reporters waiting to ambush him. The receptionist stopped him as he headed out the door, however, and pointed to a little boy sitting in the corner.

  "He says he's your nephew;" the receptionist whispered.

  Dewayne went over to the boy, who kept his eyes focused on his shoes. He did not recognize this undersized, ragged kid at first. There was a sports magazine in the boy's lap with a picture of Dewayne on the cover. He thought this kid might have used the uncle ploy to sneak into the facility and get an autograph.

  "You want me to sign that for you?" Dewayne asked, expecting to see the boy's sullen face transformed into elation.

  "You really my uncle?" the boy asked. "Do I really have an aunt Rosella?"

  Dewayne took a step back as he recognized the boy.

  "Bruce? Is that you, Bruce? Is your name Bruce?"

  "Yeah, don't wear it out;" he said.

  With Bruce's sullen answer, Dewayne knew immediately he was the smart-mouthed kid who lived at Bonita's apartment.

  "How'd you find me? How'd you get here?"

  "I can read the newspapers. I know how to catch a bus:"

  Dewayne looked back at the receptionist, who was busy talking on the phone.

  "You hungry?"

  The boy gave Dewayne a look of desperate expectancy.

  "Come on."

  Bruce followed him through the double doors back inside the training center. Several tables filled with food were set up on both sides of the hallway. Dewayne pointed to the tables, and Bruce attacked, stuffing handfuls of food into his mouth right off the trays like a starving animal. A couple of trainees walked by, and Dewayne explained that Bruce was his nephew. Bruce paused from gorging himself and an odd look of surprise crossed his face.

  The reaction mystified Dewayne, but only for a moment as it occurred to him that Bruce was shocked to hear him admit to being his uncle. There was hope in the boy's eyes.

  Dewayne watched the boy satiate his appetite until he was out of breath.

  "You need to leave something for the players," Dewayne said with a half smile.

  The sight of the lavish spread had deafened Bruce to Dewayne's casual joke. He was in shock from this new experience ... the shock of a full stomach. Dewayne told him to grab some granola bars and fruit for the road.

  "You got bus fare?" Dewayne asked as they walked outside the SportsPlex.

  "Spent it all get
ting here;' Bruce said.

  Dewayne stretched out his hand toward Bruce before they crossed the busy intersection to get to the bus stop. For Dewayne, it was an automatic response to care and protect a child in his custody, but Bruce flinched before the giant paw.

  "You hurt my hand the last time you took it," he said, with no hint of resentment for the pain and mortification Dewayne had caused him months ago.

  "You're right, sorry about that;" Dewayne said and returned his hand to his coat pocket.

  They crossed the street to the bus stop and watched the traffic in silence until the arrival of the city bus. Dewayne paid their fare, and they took their seats in the middle of the bus.

  Passengers stared at the unusual sight of this well-dressed, well-built high-rise of a man and this diminutive boy in frayed clothes who had gotten on the bus together, and sat together, but acted as though they did not know each other. Several stops passed before Dewayne could think of anything to say.

  "What am I going to do with you?"

  Bruce shrugged. He was as disoriented by the impulse that had brought them together as Dewayne was.

  Dewayne was used to turning heads in public, but not under these circumstances, and all he knew to do was smile and wave to travelers who kept blinking in disbelief, dying to know the story behind this unusual couple.

  "Is it rough out there?" Dewayne asked, which could have meant any number of scenarios, but Bruce took the question to mean his specific situation.

  "Yeah"

  The discussion Dewayne and Rosella had regarding further involvement in the lives of Bonita's children had been put on hold, but now it had shown up on his doorstep, hungry, reeking of body odor, and bewildered as a refugee.

  "I think we need to get you cleaned up,' Dewayne said.

  Bruce's forehead creased, as if weighing sides of an argument in his mind. Finally, he looked up at Dewayne and nodded.

  Rosella returned from school with a load of groceries she bought on her way home. She kissed Dewayne on the cheek, thanking him for doing the laundry, but he had to explain as he pulled the clothes out of the dryer that he was not doing their laundry. These were her nephew's clothes.

  While Rosella stared at him, dumbfounded by this news, he explained how Bruce had come to the SportsPlex and he had not said much about what was going on at home, but it must be bad or he would not have tracked him down.

  "He's in the bedroom watching TV, waiting for his clothes'

  "He's in my bedroom?" Rosella asked.

  "He seems scared, and I don't know the next move," Dewayne said as he snapped out the wrinkles from Bruce's shirt and laid it on the dryer.

  Immediately Rosella began to put dinner together. Dewayne put Bruce's clothes just inside the bedroom door and went to help Rosella put the groceries away. When he started to open a bag from the pharmacy, Rosella snatched it out of his hand and told him the contents were a woman's business. She marched toward the bathroom, returning a few moments later to put dinner on the table.

  Through two helpings of spaghetti, Rosella drilled Bruce about the conditions at home, but he was not forthcoming with abundant detail. He admitted to the chronic scant amounts of food and little money. He admitted Tyler was a constant presence who used his street smarts for drug transactions. He admitted his mother still took drugs, but lied about the rate of recurrence. And he admitted Tyler and Sabrina were a couple.

  Bruce searched the faces of his aunt and uncle for signs that these admissions had increased their anxiety. He was fearful of what they might do, afraid if they heard too many terrible things, they might not want to have anything to do with him.

  By the time Rosella had filled his bowl a second time with a mound of ice cream, Bruce tried to reassure them that he could handle the situation, he could find the help his mother needed, and he could deal with Tyler. He was not asking for any help, did not need help; he just wanted to know if the two of them were for real. He never knew they existed. His mother had never spoken of Rosella, Dewayne, or his grandparents until she had pointed out their pictures in the society page of the Los Angeles Times covering their wedding day. From then on whenever he could steal a newspaper, he looked for articles about Dewayne. It was the first time all day he had strung two sentences together, and he talked nonstop, an unbroken monologue, trying to sound like a man capable of self-reliance.

  They spent the rest of the evening shopping for clothes, an expenditure not in the Jobe budget, but one demanded by conscience. Dewayne took charge. Bruce had never made a selection of clothes in his life. From time to time Bonita would arrive home and toss him some underwear, socks, and a bag of used clothes with well-worn looseness gathered from large bins at Goodwill. The clothes Dewayne handed him came wrapped in plastic, folded, with no wear and tear. It was not an extravagant shopping spree, the clothes fit in two bags, but as they left the department store, Dewayne noticed that Bruce was walking upright for the first time that day.

  All three sat in the car in front of the apartment complex, no one willing to concede the night had ended; no one willing to admit to being stumped about what the next step needed to be. Dewayne reached into his wallet and pulled out some cash.

  Bruce looked at the tens and twenties coming in his direction but did not reach for them.

  Dewayne snapped the money a couple of times, encouraging Bruce to remove the bills from his hand, but Bruce looked away, then grabbed his clothes bag and opened the car door.

  "I don't want your money," he said and slammed the door behind him.

  Rosella rolled down her window and was about to speak as Bruce stormed off toward his apartment, but when Dewayne touched her arm, the words in her throat iced over. They watched him walk through the gate into the complex, never looking back.

  "Should we go in?" she asked.

  "No;" he said, stroking the back of her hair. "We'll see him again. I don't know when or how, but-"

  "We should call the police. We should do something," Rosella said, her body trembling with rage and guilt.

  "This is beyond us;" Dewayne whispered. "This is ... this is beyond me."

  Rosella took an unusually long time in the bathroom after they got home. Dewayne dozed off a few times, trying to stay awake so they could talk before they went to sleep. When she finally came into the bedroom, she was smiling and holding something behind her back. He could not imagine what she might be smiling about but was happy to see her mood and countenance had improved since dropping off Bruce.

  "What's going on?"

  She climbed into bed beside him and showed him the fourinch white wand she had been concealing from him. In the middle of the wand, he saw the color blue.

  "What's this?"

  "You remember that night in New York ... the night of the Heisman? Sly wasn't the only one to get a trophy."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You're going to be a daddy. I passed the pregnancy test."

  It had been a day when life had thrust itself upon him; a day that had been routine for billions of people and had seemed to start in similar fashion for him when he kissed Rosella goodbye that morning and caught the bus to the SportsPlex.

  All bets were off.

  His reaction to Rosella's announcement was joyous; he needed to express joy; his wife needed to hear his joy, see it in his face and eyes, and feel it in his exhilarated embrace.

  But the performance belied a disquieting visceral groan. What would he do with a child? His one moment to act like a father to a despondent boy had slipped through his fingers. He had done little for the child-some food, a few clothes, almost nothing in comparison to the need. Fatherhood existed for millennia with all levels of success and failure. This could work, this mysterious role called a father, but it required him to fall humbly into God's merciful grasp, even though he questioned the evenhanded judgment of a heavenly Father who would give and take away, who would allow life to cast the one who had been sent to him that day back into a world of hurt and uncertainty.

/>   The sprawling lobby of the Marriott adjacent to the RCA Dome in Indianapolis was teeming with college football players, sports agents, coaches and staff from the professional teams, and sportswriters and television reporters from all over the country.

  For the league, the annual combines provided a one-stop shopping event for the coaches and general managers to measure the abilities of the incoming rookie class who would soon be eligible for the upcoming draft. For the three hundred college players talented enough to get invited to this event, it was like going to a very specialized job fair where they could show off their physical and mental skills in various designed tests and workouts in front of all the representatives of the teams, and if they performed well, they could move up their potential standing in the draft.

  For someone of Dewayne's physical size and notoriety, it was impossible for him to check into the hotel, collect his combine itinerary, and go to his room unnoticed. He would have preferred to avoid the attention. He was happy to see some of the star players from teams he had played against during his college career. He shook hands with coaches and general managers but did not want to get too cozy early in the process. He was going to be assessing them as much as they were him, and there were some teams he wanted no part of their program. He kept his comments polite but terse to the media as he made his way to the elevators. One aggressive sports agent kept the elevator door from closing with one hand, made a quick sales pitch, and with the other hand, stuck his card inside Dewayne's front coat pocket.

  When the elevator doors opened onto a quiet thirty-fifth floor, Dewayne pulled the sports agent's card from his coat pocket and dropped it through the slit between the carriage and the hallway floor. He smiled as he walked to his room at the thought of the agent's card spinning end over end as it floated the thirty-five floors to the lowest level of the hotel.