“How did you do?” I asked.
“Good,” he said. “But I didn’t run the greatest.”
“Mom told me you did great on the bench press, though,” I said.
“Why do you think I did thirty reps of 225 pounds?” Aaron asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Because I was high,” he said. “Don’t tell me I can’t perform when I’m smoking.”
Chapter 14
APRIL 2010
THREE DAYS BEFORE THE NFL Draft, the arrangements had been made: our entire family was going to watch the draft at our mother’s house in Connecticut.
I was in the car with Aaron on our way to meet them when our mom called me and said, “I’m done. I’m not doing it.”
“What’s going on?”
Aaron had told her that he wouldn’t attend if Jeff was present.
I turned to Aaron and said, “Mom canceled. She doesn’t want anyone to come over.”
Aaron didn’t say much. I told him that we could watch the draft at my apartment with his agent, my fiancée, and one of his high school friends.
“Okay, that’s fine,” he said.
At my apartment, I could tell Aaron was nervous. He was biting the fingernail on his right index finger nonstop. His agent pulled me aside to tell me that this could be a long few days. “There are teams that love Aaron, but there are teams that won’t touch him because of their concerns about his character,” he said. “There’s a chance he could drop pretty far.”
The first round passed and Aaron wasn’t picked. “I didn’t think my name would get called today,” Aaron said. We all believed Aaron would be selected in the second or third round on the second day of the draft.
The next evening, the five of us were back on my living room sectional, our eyes glued to the television. More names were called from the podium in New York City. I started pacing the hardwood floor behind the couch, concerned that Aaron might not be picked at all. During commercial breaks, I’d go outside with Aaron’s agent and we’d skip rocks on the gravel driveway as we discussed Aaron’s draft status.
I questioned everything. Did Aaron make the right decision leaving school early? Did his past mistakes cost him a shot at being drafted? Is he even going to get drafted? What will he do if football doesn’t work out for him?
The second round ended. Then the third round ended.
I told Aaron, “I hope you realize how much your decisions at Florida hurt you. You are a first-round talent.”
“It’s going to be okay, D,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do now. I just want to get drafted and prove to them what kind of player I am and prove to them that I’m going to be the best tight end ever.”
“Aaron, your ability was never questioned,” I said. “It was your decision-making.”
On the third and final day of the draft, we reconvened. I was a nervous wreck. Midway through the fourth round, Aaron’s cell phone rang. We all rose to our feet. Aaron answered and began walking around the room with the phone held to his ear. I followed closely behind.
“Thank you for the opportunity,” Aaron said into the phone. “Thank you so much.”
Aaron hung up. “I am going to be playing for New England,” he said.
With the fifteenth pick in the fourth round—and the 113th pick overall—the Patriots selected my brother. New England was his favorite team as a child. He had a Drew Bledsoe jersey he often wore at recess. He was now living his childhood dream.
I was crying, and he was smiling like a kid who had just opened a Christmas gift he’d been asking for his entire life. We wrapped our arms around each other. “Don’t ever do this to me again,” I said. “Be smart. Be smart.”
WE WENT TO A sports bar a mile from my apartment to celebrate with our family—minus our mother, who was still upset with Aaron. We played pool and everyone danced. As the night was coming to an end, I noticed Aaron walking outside. I asked him where he was going.
“I’m going to the casino,” he said. Aaron planned to go to Mohegan Sun, thirty minutes away, with a friend who had been drinking.
“Why are you going to get in the car with someone who has been drinking? You just dropped to the fourth round because of the stupid decisions you made at Florida. Come on!”
I was angry, shouting at Aaron, telling him not to go.
Gerry, one of our older cousins, came outside and tried talking some sense into Aaron, but he wouldn’t listen to him, either. Then a few of Aaron’s friends approached me and said I was overreacting. I became emotional as Aaron walked toward the car. Gerry placed his left arm around me and said, “All you can do is try. If he refuses to listen to you, there is nothing you can do.”
FIVE DAYS AFTER THE draft, I flew back to Europe, where I was completing my second season as a player-coach for an American football team in Klagenfurt, Austria.
Aaron and I talked face-to-face on Skype and he often repeated, “I can’t believe I’m a New England Patriot!” with the enthusiasm of a little kid. But Aaron was still a kid—at age twenty, he was the youngest player in the NFL.
I also emailed Aaron articles that mentioned his past mistakes, because I wanted him to remain humble and know that he still had a lot of room for improvement.
When I returned to Connecticut after six weeks in Austria, I accepted a job as the head football coach at Southington High School in Connecticut. When Aaron had time off from training with the Patriots, he would drive two hours to train with our team. He worked with all the skilled players on their quickness and route-running techniques. Aaron’s face shined when he helped a kid complete a drill that he had been struggling with.
Chapter 15
FALL 2010
ON SEPTEMBER 12, THE sky was blue, the leaves were starting to turn orange and yellow, and the air was warm as I walked with my mother toward Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, where the Patriots were hosting the Cincinnati Bengals—Aaron’s first NFL regular season game. Kickoff was at 1 p.m.
We moved through the turnstile and started looking for our seats, but before we reached them I grabbed my mother by the arm. “I’m going back down to get closer to the field,” I said. “I’ve got to see Aaron warm up.”
I descended the stadium steps, marveling at all the fans in their Patriot jerseys as the pregame music blared. I imagined one day seeing hordes of fans adorned in Aaron’s number with his last name on the back, cheering him on.
I neared the bottom row of the stands, directly behind one of the goalposts. At the top of my lungs I yelled, “AARON!” He didn’t hear me. I tried again and started waving my hands over my head. He finally turned. He raised his right hand to his face mask and then extended it at me like he was blowing me a kiss. I thought about how emotional our dad would be if he were here.
I went back up to join my mother at our seats to watch the game, our eyes glued to Aaron whenever he was on the field.
Then it happened. With 11:27 remaining in the first quarter and the Patriots facing a first-and-ten on their own 41-yard line, Tom Brady took the snap. He dropped back before firing a short pass to the left side of the field.
Aaron caught the ball in stride and turned on the speed. On his first NFL reception, Aaron gained 45 yards to the Bengals 14-yard line. I was screaming as loud as I could. The Patriots won the game, 38–24.
The next week against the Jets, Aaron caught six passes for 101 yards, becoming the youngest player since 1960 to top 100 receiving yards in a single game. Seven days later, against the Bills, he led the Patriots in receiving with six catches for 65 yards. He also had one rush for 13 yards.
Aaron finished the season with 45 catches for 563 yards and 6 touchdowns.
IN THE OFF-SEASON, AARON had to have hip surgery to repair a slight muscle tear. In February, shortly after his procedure, I invited Aaron and five of my friends, including our high school football coach, to my bachelor party. Aaron rented a party bus for the group to ride to Atlantic City, New Jersey, but at the last moment, Aaron
told me he wouldn’t go unless he brought two of his high school friends.
“Aaron, come on, you’re my best man,” I said. “It’s for two days. You can leave your friends for two days.”
He said okay and that he understood. But when the party bus arrived at my apartment, his two friends were sitting in the back. I let it go.
Still recovering from his surgery, Aaron was in a wheelchair. He paid the party bus driver to be his official wheelchair pusher for the night. We ate dinner at a Brazilian steak house. Aaron ordered chicken fingers off the kids’ menu, cracking up everyone at the table. Aaron’s friends laughed along, but they stayed to themselves the entire night.
After dinner, we went to a club. Aaron sat off to the side with our coach the entire time, and they shared stories about his playing days in Bristol. This was when Aaron was always his happiest—talking about the times when he was surrounded by friends and family, by love.
Our waitress had a Florida Gators logo on her cell phone screen saver.
“You’re a Gators fan?” our coach asked.
“Oh my gosh, I love the Gators,” she said.
“What do you think of that Hernandez guy?” he asked, with Aaron sitting next to him in his wheelchair.
“He’s such a great player,” she said.
“I think he sucks,” our coach said. “Did you see him throw the ball into the stands against Florida State? Who does he think he is?”
“I was there! It was crazy. It was the best play of the game.”
Then Aaron spoke up. “He’s a bum,” Aaron said. “I’m a Florida State fan.” Aaron started doing the Seminole Tomahawk chop with his right hand.
“You guys don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said as she turned and left.
We doubled over in laughter.
We called it a night and headed to our hotel. Aaron was rolled to his room. The next morning as we gathered in the lobby to leave, Aaron and his two friends were nowhere to be found. I went back to his hotel room door and knocked—no answer. I walked the casino floor. An hour after we were scheduled to leave, I finally got a key to his room from the front desk and opened the door.
Aaron was tucked under the covers of the king-size bed with his two friends, their shirts off, even though it was a luxury suite with multiple beds
“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” I asked. “We’re all waiting for you so we can leave.”
Aaron popped up. “Uh, we’ll be right down,” he said, as the other two began to stir.
Once we got home, I shut my bedroom door in my apartment so Aaron and I could have privacy, away from the other guys in my living room. I asked Aaron if he was gay.
“If you are, I don’t care,” I said. “I love you. You are my brother.”
“Don’t you ever ask me that again,” Aaron said. “If you say that again, I’ll fucking kill you.”
Chapter 16
FALL 2011
ON MARCH 4, AT St. Matthew’s Church in Bristol, Aaron stood next to me at the altar. The doors opened and my bride appeared. As she neared me, I felt a squeeze on my right shoulder. I looked at Aaron and he was crying—one of the few times I’d seen him shed a tear since we lost our father.
At the reception, Aaron gave the best-man speech at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington. He was full of jokes. “Hey listen, if there are any cans in here, make sure you give them to my brother,” he said. “Because if we were at a party, DJ would be the one who would ask, ‘Hey, are you done with that can?’ My brother would collect the cans so the next day he could take them to the grocery store to collect a nickel.”
Everyone laughed.
“And make sure when it’s time to eat, we eat,” he said. “And when it’s time to dance, we dance. Because you know my brother and his damn itineraries. He’s so damn particular.”
More laughter ensued.
EIGHT MONTHS LATER, ON November 6, 2011, the Patriots hosted the New York Giants at Gillette Stadium. Aaron caught 4 passes for 35 yards and a touchdown, but New England lost, 24–20.
I watched the game from my office in Providence, Rhode Island, where I was working as the quarterbacks coach at Brown University. On Sundays, the staff began formulating our game plan for the upcoming opponent, and we usually didn’t leave until after midnight, which meant I would miss Aaron’s twenty-second birthday party that night.
My mom drove from Bristol to Aaron’s condo, which was only a few miles from Gillette Stadium. She was hoping that this would be a night to celebrate Aaron and all that he had accomplished. All she wanted was an enjoyable, fight-free evening with her son.
She walked in and saw a buffet of food spread out on the kitchen table. Aaron’s girlfriend, Shayanna, whom he had reconnected with since returning from Florida, had put together a tower of cupcakes. Some of his friends made my mom nervous. One friend, who went by the name Sherrod, aka Alexander Bradley, was a convicted drug dealer from East Hartford, Connecticut. He was one of many bad influences now hovering in Aaron’s inner circle.
My mother went downstairs to have a cigarette. She opened the door to the garage and there was Aaron, alone in the dark, sitting on the hood of his black Range Rover, cleaning a handgun.
“Aaron, what are you doing?” our mom asked, concerned. “Why do you have a gun? Are you stupid?”
Aaron lifted his eyes and flashed a disgusted look. He remained silent and kept cleaning his gun. My mom went back inside.
A few minutes later Aaron was called upstairs for the celebration. As soon as he appeared in front of his cake, his smile was back—the fun-loving, approachable Aaron had returned. My mother was stunned at his transformation. Moments earlier he seemed withdrawn and depressed and in a bad mental place; now he was a picture of happiness.
Everyone sang “Happy Birthday” before Aaron blew out his candles. He asked one of his friends to arrange for a party bus to come to his place. The destination: a Boston nightclub. Our mom would not be joining them.
“AARON WASN’T THE KID I remembered,” our mom told me later. “It was like he wasn’t my kid anymore. His attitude was getting worse and worse. I had no clue what was going on with him and couldn’t understand his selection of friends. I knew he was going the wrong way and I told him this. But he was drifting further and further away. He would call me and say, ‘I hate you because you don’t even know me.’ That really hurt.”
THE PARTY BUS ARRIVED. One of our cousins and her boyfriend hadn’t planned on going out, and they weren’t dressed appropriately for a night on the town, so they told Aaron they couldn’t go.
“You’re about the same size as Shayanna, so you could wear some of her clothes,” Aaron said. “And your boyfriend can wear something of mine.”
Once everyone was dressed, they filed onto the party bus. On board, my cousin offered to chip in for the expenses. Then Sherrod stood up and said, “Nah, I got it. Right, Aaron? You don’t ever have to touch your pockets when you with me, Aaron, right? Tell ’em.”
Sherrod made my cousin feel uncomfortable. “Sherrod kept talking about how much everything cost,” she told me. “He would be like, ‘Do you see these bracelets right here? This is worth ten thousand dollars.’ He went on and on, saying this diamond is worth this, and this is worth that. I remember sitting there with everyone and thinking, Who is this clown and why is he here?”
THAT WAS A QUESTION all of us asked when we met Sherrod. The first time I was introduced to him, I had arrived at Aaron’s condo after watching him play at Gillette Stadium. I walked inside and sat in the living room with a few family members. We were talking when I spotted a man I didn’t recognize walking up the stairs from the ground-floor entrance. I was looking in his direction because I thought it was Aaron coming back from his game. But it was Sherrod. He was about six feet tall, light-skinned, wearing glasses, and had short hair in waves. Without saying a word or making any eye contact, he walked through our conversation and continued on past the kitchen, down the hall, and up the stairs, where no one was at
the time.
As he strutted past us, my aunt saw the look on my face—a look that said, “Who the hell is this?” My aunt caught my attention and mouthed the word “Trouble” while shaking her head very slowly.
A few minutes later, I heard the door shut downstairs and then footsteps. It was Aaron. He came up behind me, gave me a hug, and smiled at everyone in the room. We started talking about the game until Sherrod came back down the stairs.
It was like a balloon popped, the way Aaron’s demeanor changed. He became visibly uneasy.
THE PARTY BUS PULLED up to the Cure Lounge. Several of Aaron’s Patriot teammates were inside. Aaron and his guests sat at tables near them.
At one point Aaron stepped out of the club into a private area to smoke a joint. Our cousin asked him, “Are you sure that’s okay? You’re not going to smell? Aren’t people watching you, Aaron?”
Aaron smiled back at her. “It’s all good,” he said. “They let me do it here all the time.”
Chapter 17
JANUARY 14, 2012
THE EVENING BEGAN WITH so much promise, so much joy at Gillette Stadium.
The temperature had dipped into the teens—my breath shot out in white puffs—but man, I was so proud as I watched my younger brother during pregame warm-ups for the divisional playoff game against the Denver Broncos.
On this winter evening in New England, Aaron was as dominating as ever, as versatile as ever. He lined up all over the field: tight end, wide receiver, and running back. Aaron caught 4 passes for 55 yards and 1 touchdown while rushing for 61 yards. It was hard to fathom that a player with that much talent was related to me. New England won the game, 45–10.
After the game, Aaron was asked in the locker room by reporters if he would be ready for the AFC Championship Game the following Sunday. “I feel great,” Aaron said. “I love running back. I hope [Coach Bill Belichick] keeps letting me do it. Doesn’t matter, whatever I can do to help this team to get to the next game.”
Once Aaron was finished with his team responsibilities, I met him outside the locker room—unaware that the medical staff had examined him for a head injury in the fourth quarter. A Patriots employee then guided Aaron, my wife, two of his friends, and myself onto a golf cart and drove us to Aaron’s SUV, parked in a private lot for the players.
The Truth About Aaron Page 7