Hometown Favorite: A Novel

by BILL BARTON

  Had not a faint familiar voice cried out for him to lookback, the ball probably would have hit him in the head. For a moment, he had been absorbed in the act of running, forgetting there had been an original purpose for the sprint, and as he turned his head and raised his arms, the ball spiraled into his hands with a force that carried him into the end zone and an impact with the ground that took his breath away. He bounced for several yards across the grass, and when he came to a stop, he raised the ball in his hand to show he retained possession.

  No way could Jake Hopper have thrown that pass unless supported by gale force winds. The second the ball had touched his hands he recognized the passer. No one had ever thrown to him with such power and accuracy. Sly never cut him any slack because he never doubted him, and this was Sly's way of testing him. If he could catch a Sly Adams' pass, then maybe there was hope for getting back into the game.

  He lay on the ground, taking time to regain his breath. He knew he had overexerted, but the feat was well worth it. He was not completely ready for this burst of energy, but perhaps just this once his body might not punish him for his eagerness. A hand came into view and knocked the ball out of his grasp, then seized his fingers and lifted him to his feet.

  "Show-off," Sly said, and then he ran his hands up Dewayne's arms and over his shoulders, kneading the muscles. The examination continued. He cuffed Dewayne's chest, poked his sides, and did a quick, light jab to his abdomen. He slapped his thighs, ran a finger down each calf, and squeezed his ankles.

  "You trade in your Heisman for a policeman's badge?" Dewayne asked.

  "No mush, my man. You got no mush" Sly rose from his pat down. "You are a walking miracle"

  "I've added over forty pounds since you last saw me," Dewayne said.

  "Yeah, about that last time ... , Sly started, but Dewayne cut him off at the knees.

  "When you scrambled out my door chasing Rosella, I knew then I hated you."

  "I deserved to be hated"

  "You still deserve to be hated."

  "You'll get no argument," Sly said, the absence of cockiness obvious to Dewayne. "Jake called and chewed me out"

  "He's gotten a lot grumpier since he quit drinking," Dewayne said.

  "So I'm down here to help out;" Sly said. "It's my bye week"

  "Then throw me some balls and stay away from my wife," Dewayne said and trotted back toward Jake.

  Sly stayed in a hotel for the next seven days. Before and after Dewayne's strength and conditioning time, Sly was on the field, the two old friends running passing routes Jake had drawn up. Passes were accurate, catches made, but there was no small talk, no playful banter, no teasing. It was all business, and no invitations were issued to socialize at the end of each day. Sly and Dewayne treated each other like strangers, Sly unable to apologize for fear of seeming phony, Dewayne fearful of hearing an apology and having to accept it. Rosella was wise enough to stay out of the untouchable barrier they had erected. She felt responsible in part just by her mere existence, and she never broached the subject when Dewayne and Jake came home for dinner each afternoon after practice. On the final day, Jake at last plowed a hole through the line they had drawn.

  "So how long are you going to punish your friend?" he asked Dewayne.

  "I deserve it, Jake," Sly said, opening the sack and dropping in a pile of footballs one at a time.

  "See? You heard him," Dewayne said, spiraling a football at Sly with a fierce underhand pitch. "He deserves it."

  "I call it cruel and unusual," Jake said. "You're on my field. I never would have let you get away with it back in the day."

  Sly and Dewayne hung their heads, all the better to take the scolding.

  "So have we got us a Mexican standoff or what?"

  "That day in the hospital, I thought I was looking at the worst of you," Sly began, raising his head to get into Dewayne's sight line, but his friend would have none of it. "Come to find out I was revealing the worst of myself. I didn't stick by you in your hour of need. I would have tried to hustle Rosella if she'd let me. I tell anyone who listens what a jerk I think you are, and then I crawl in a hole too ashamed to come see you when the truth comes out. Jake's the reason I'm here"

  "Yeah, he saved my life too," Dewayne said, the frown on his lips weakening.

  "You boys have been caught in my sinister web," Jake said. "You're my sons and I love you. Kiss and make up. We all know life's too short."

  Dewayne tossed the ball he was holding into the open sack, and Sly let go of the corners. Their hands were empty.

  I can't hold a grudge anymore," Dewayne said. "It's too hard."

  I The muscles in can't bear the thought of your hatred." Sly's face began to tremble, his tough countenance crumbling. "I'm sorry, my brother. I'm so sorry." Dewayne took Sly into his arms, and their combined bitter weeping echoed off the stadium bleachers.

  With all his medical records in tow and after one last checkup with Dr. Macy, Dewayne and Rosella moved back to Houston and bought a three-bedroom condominium in a gated community on the opposite side of the city from where they had once lived. With the help of Detective Hathaway and his connection at the Treasury Department, cyberspace had opened up, and their fortunes restored. Dewayne and Rosella were still unsure if they could live in that city again and did not want to make a huge investment in a home. What they were sure of was Jake's place in this new family.

  "It's time to hand you off to the experts," Jake said. "I'd be in the way."

  "I need you in my way for a lifetime," Dewayne said.

  "Rosella is all you need"

  "Jake, you're family. I've lost enough family. I don't want to lose any more.'

  Jake still wanted to protest until Dewayne pulled out the blue teddy bear. "You think I'd leave this behind? How could I leave you behind? You're the only connection to my history, you and Sly. I don't leave that behind"

  Jake blinked first, so they closed the two houses and left the keys with a property management service that would care for the homes in their absence. They would make a decision about the properties once they knew what the remainder of this football season would mean to their futures.

  The team doctors put Dewayne through another round of examinations before they allowed him to go onto the practice field. He also had to face the media attention his return brought to the Stars. Avoidance was impossible.

  "I just want to contribute to the team's success;' he told the reporters assembled in the pressroom at the practice facility on his first day back. "I appreciate Coach Gyra's confidence in giving me a second chance"

  The team accepted Dewayne back into their ranks like little brothers welcoming home the big brother after a long absence. When Gyra announced the team doctors had cleared Dewayne for practice, there was spontaneous applause in the locker room.

  Dewayne did no showboating during the first week. All he wanted to prove to everyone, and most of all to himself, was that he could just hold his own. He wanted to earn everyone's trust. He wanted everyone to know his body was functional, and they could count on him to do his job if called upon. The first couple of games Dewayne dressed out but did not play. They were road games so he did not have to face the Stars fans until the third game, but like the response he received in the locker room from his teammates, when his jersey was spotted by a group of fans close to the bench, they began a rowdy chant of "D-man" that was soon echoing throughout the stadium.

  Dewayne had to stand on the bench and wave his helmet, accepting their appreciation, before the game could begin.

  Dewayne did not start or play any of the first quarter. By the middle of the second quarter, he went in for a series of downs but never received the ball. He got to run onto the field, run his routes, throw a few blocks, and run off again without embarrassing himself. His groove was coming back. All the instincts were firing, and he could feel his mind and body readjusting to the physical demands of the game. But more important, his heart was growing into the spirit of the game, something that had m
ost concerned him. What if, once he was on the field engaged in real-time play, he discovered that he no longer cared about the game, that, in fact, he was afraid?

  In the third quarter, Dewayne caught passes for a couple of first downs, which brought the fans to their feet, but in the fourth quarter, got smacked high and low after snagging a thirty-yard pass. He brought in the catch, but the referee called an official's time-out for the team doctors to escort Dewayne off the field to the subdued applause of distressed fans.

  The next day Coach Gyra announced Dewayne had suffered a mild concussion and the coaching staff would take a waitand-see attitude about his role in the next game. The media jumped on it, raising doubts that Dewayne was not ready to return, that the game was no longer in him.

  "You've got nothing to prove," Rosella said that night in bed as she rubbed his chest. "Nobody will blame you."

  "I've got everything to prove," he said, taking her hand in his and kissing her fingers. "I just had my bell rung. That's all."

  "How many times can that happen and you walk off the field on your own two legs? How many times can your head take the punishment?"

  "It's the life, baby. You know the life. I've just come back from a brain tumor. You think I'm going to let a mild concussion-

  "I'm afraid, that's all. I'm just afraid;" she said, pulling her hand away and turning over on her back. "Will these concus sions bring back the tumor? The doctors don't know that. I'm just afraid"

  Dewayne turned on his side and smiled down at his wife. He took the top of the sheet and dabbed her eyes, and then he caressed her face.

  "We've been through more than anybody could ever imagine, and we made it to the other side. We'll never be the same, but I can't live in fear. I want to grow old with you and have a houseful of babies along the way, but I can't live in fear. I want the joy we once had to be restored to us, and I believe that can't happen if we live in fear. I promise I will do nothing foolish that might endanger a happy future together, but if I live in fear, I live as half a man, and you don't want that:"

  "I don't want to live in fear either" Rosella pressed his hand onto her cheek.

  "We're gonna make it, baby;" Dewayne whispered. "We're gonna make it"

  The Stars had to win the final three games of the regular season in order to make the play-offs. In the previous games, Dewayne evaded injury and made positive contributions, including a few touchdowns, which built the confidence factor. He avoided responding to the press, who had placed a high expectation on his game and expressed disappointment in his ho-hum performance to date. Dewayne's own expectations were all that mattered, and those who insisted he should be doing more by this time in the season to help the Stars make it to the play-offs would not distract or discourage him.

  Though his strength and speed had returned to first-season levels, he did not play up to those expectations. This forced the team to play with more cohesion instead of relying on one player to be a difference maker and built poise and camaraderie among his teammates.

  The Stars won the first of the last three games with Dewayne getting less than eighty yards and no touchdowns. In the second game, he took a hit that would have floored a charging bull, but when the three tacklers peeled off his flattened body, he bounced onto his feet and trotted off the field as if he had tripped over his own shoelace. The Stars went on to triumph.

  The third game was against his old nemesis, Baltimore and Colby Stewart. It was do-or-die for both teams, and Dewayne knew Colby would do everything in his power to get inside Dewayne's head. The smack talk began in the pregame warmups.

  "Well, if it isn't Teddy Bear Boy back from the dead;" Colby said as he high-stepped around Dewayne sitting on the thirtyyard line and stretching his calves.

  "Colby, how's the weather in Baltimore?" Dewayne asked.

  "Cold, and I brought cold with me today. I'm gonna show you cold. I'm gonna hit you like the iceberg hit the Titanic, and you're gonna go down. You're gonna sink, and I'm gonna be the one who knocked the hole in your hull"

  "Listen to his bad self," Dewayne replied. "Don't you ever get bored by the sound of your voice?"

  "How can I be bored when I've got sixty minutes to smack on Tumor Man?" Colby shouted. "Is it true the docs burned half your brain when they cooked your tumor?"

  "Yeah, I heard that story;" Dewayne said, wrapping his big hands around his shoes and bending forward until his face mask touched the grass. "You read that in the tabloid section, which is about your grade level?"

  "Well, the tabloids say you took a nap while everyone died around you," Colby said.

  Every muscle in Dewayne's body stiffened.

  "Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and you slept while the devil ransacked your house"

  It was as though some powerful hand lifted Dewayne to his feet; pure rage popping capillaries, but the hand went from invisible to solid form and held him in place with a firm grip on his shoulder pads.

  "Colby, can I quote what you said to my man, so I can show the world what a real jerk you are?" Sly said, sticking a microphone in Colby's face as a camera operator stepped from behind Sly with his eye attached to the lens of his camera. Colby's expression went from scowl to hateful. "Zoom in on Colby and let him do an instant replay of what he just said, then I'm gonna turn loose of my man here and let him do a little Mississippi soft shoe all over your ugly head, something all of America would love to see."

  Colby spat in the direction of Sly's shoes before he put on his helmet and snapped the chinstrap in place.

  "The devil is loose in your house, and I'll stomp you like a mouse," Colby said and then trotted in the direction of his locker room.

  "My, my, Mr. Stewart, you have such a way with words!" Sly shouted after him. "In your next life you can come back as Shakespeare"

  Colby never turned around but raised the middle finger of each hand before he disappeared into the tunnel.

  "There goes next year's NFL poster child for Miss Congeniality," Sly said.

  "I might have killed him if you hadn't grabbed me," Dewayne said, still trembling from the verbal sledgehammer blow. Dewayne was as surprised by his murderous reaction as he was by Colby's attack.

  "And I might have let you if we hadn't had a stadium full of witnesses" Sly released his grip but extended his arm over his friend's shoulder. "Take a couple of deep breaths for old Sly, and remember Colby's in a world of hurt"

  "I might just break some of that world over his head today." Dewayne released a deep breath of hot air.

  Sly patted Dewayne's shoulder pads. "Focus on the win. You get the win, and Colby can go back to his little pit of hell."

  "Yeah. Yeah, you're right." Dewayne started jumping up and down, getting the elastic back into his muscles. "Hey, congratulations on yesterday's win;" Dewayne said with a slap to his arm.

  "I'm counting on you breezing through the play-offs and seeing you in February."

  "To what do I owe the honor of Sly Adams coming to my rescue, sporting a suit and a cameraman?"

  "All Sports Network brought me in for halftime commentary. Set me up with a cameraman to score a few pregame interviews;" Sly said. "I'm trying out this sports news thing. Couple of championship rings on my fingers, and this may be my second career." Sly signaled the camera operator to roll tape. "Are you ready to face down Baltimore?"

  "Baltimore is a great team," Dewayne said. "But they'll go home disappointed"

  "I've got some insider information from a very reliable source that says you take your famous teddy bear with you everywhere you go. Is that true?"

  "He is sitting in my locker even as we speak, and he goes with me on the road."

  "What's the meaning of that teddy bear?"

  "It reminds me of how precious life is and how wonderful God is for creating every life, no matter how short a stay it might have"

  "Good luck today," Sly said and sliced his finger across his throat for the camera operator to stop taping. Sly cradled Dewayne's helmet in his hands. "You be careful, my
man."

  On the very first possession of the very first play, the Stars' quarterback let Dewayne build a head of steam across the field and dropped the ball right into his hands for the first score of the game. Had the crowd noise not been so loud, Dewayne might have heard Colby reaming out his teammates as they jogged off the field for letting Dewayne slip by them.

  With their second series of downs, Dewayne caught two passes in a row, both for first downs, and Colby took the unusual step of calling for a time-out to rewrite the defensive game plan. Colby did not ask for suggestions or consensus. For the first few seconds he browbeat his squad's incompetence, and then he revamped their strategy.

  "If we don't stop him, we don't stop them," Colby shouted to the group before he turned to the cornerback whom Dewayne had turned into a chump. "He's too big and fast for your scrawny ass. I'll roll up on him at the line and knock him around. You help with coverage, and we'll own him"

  In spite of Colby's being flagged twice, once for unnecessary roughness and a second time for unsportsmanlike conduct, this double-team coverage strategy virtually shut down Dewayne for the rest of the first half, holding him to three catches for only thirty-plus yards. Instead of being a poet in his next life, Colby could come back as a motivational speaker.

  "This is a battle royal;" Robert Hickman said, sitting in his chair as anchor for All Sports Network for the halftime show. "Colby Stewart and Dewayne Jobe, two titans of the game, are battling it out on the field. Sylvester Adams, who do you think has the upper hand at this moment?"

  "Colby Stewart, no question. After the first ten minutes, Colby and his crew have dominated the game and shut out Dewayne. If the Stars' defense had not stepped up with those two interceptions and held Baltimore to one score, they could be two touchdowns ahead and we wouldn't be looking at a tie game. I heard what went on between those two during the pregame warm-up. It wasn't pretty, and they've taken it to the field"