“You’re going to coach at the U! At the U!” he said. “You are going to do it, D. You’re going to be a big-time coach one day.”
I ARRIVED AT MY brother’s off-season rental in Hallandale, Florida. Easing into the parking lot in my Jetta, I spotted BMWs, Bentleys, Range Rovers, and Rolls-Royces. Then I looked up: the building stretched so high that it seemed like it was puncturing the clouds. There were fifty-one floors in the oceanfront property, and Aaron’s place was on the forty-eighth.
As I walked into the lobby, I must have looked like a wide-eyed tourist, the way I gazed in wonder at everything. I rode the elevator to the forty-eighth floor, opened the door to the suite, and was overwhelmed: the furniture looked like it was too expensive to even touch. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows wrapped around the entire suite. A balcony opened up to a breathtaking view of Fort Lauderdale. The back end of the suite offered a stunning view of the Atlantic Ocean.
I called Aaron, who was still in New England preparing for training camp, which was two months away. “This is the most amazing place I have ever seen,” I said.
He was happy that I liked it but had a few requests: I could only sleep in the spare bedroom, I wasn’t allowed to drive his Range Rover, and I had to be careful about who I let inside the place. I told him I understood; all of that sounded reasonable.
AARON AND SHAY, WHO was pregnant, showed up at the high-rise a few weeks later. The three of us spent time together talking, telling stories, and laughing. I could tell Aaron was in love. Sitting on the couch, he would gaze adoringly at her and rub and kiss her growing belly.
After a few days, they returned to New England. About a week later, I was getting ready to go out with a few other Miami coaches when I heard the front door open. I peeked my head around the corner.
It was Sherrod. He was carrying a black duffel bag over his right shoulder. He was alone.
“What’s up, D?” he said as he walked past the bathroom door and into the living room. I heard a noise that sounded like something had fallen onto the ground. I left the bathroom to see what was going on.
The black duffel bag was on the kitchen floor, empty. On a glass table was a two-foot mountain of cash, all in stacks of hundred-dollar bills.
Then I saw a gun on the table—the first gun I’d ever seen outside the movies. It was silver and black and it looked very small. My heart started racing.
I tried to play it cool, because I didn’t want to look weak. But inside I was terrified and thinking, What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?
Sherrod went out onto the balcony. The doors were left open and the big white drapes were blowing inside the suite. He was pacing back and forth.
I grabbed my wallet and headed toward the front door. But then the front door opened again: it was Aaron.
“Where are you going?” Aaron asked. “You look fly.”
“I’m going to meet up with some of the other coaches,” I said. “I wish I knew you were coming. Why didn’t you even call to let me know?”
Then I nodded my head in the direction of where the gun and the money were. “What the hell is that?”
“Don’t worry about it, D,” he said.
He bent down and flipped my pants up, cuffing them. “Now you look fresh,” he said.
Sherrod walked back inside from the balcony and said, “D, come over here.” He handed me three hundred-dollar bills. “Have fun tonight,” he said.
After dinner and drinks with my fellow coaches, I returned to Aaron’s apartment. All the lights were on. Aaron was alone on the sofa. The gun and the cash were no longer on the table. I sat next to him. He was holding a white iPad and staring at the screen. I inched closer to him: He was viewing Patriots practice film.
I rose to go to bed.
Aaron said, “D, I’m going to be the best tight end to ever play the game.”
Seven hours later, I opened my bedroom door and Aaron was on the couch and still watching film.
“Did you sleep?” I asked.
“No. I told you I’m going to be the best tight end to ever play this game.”
The next day Aaron left to return to Massachusetts. The start of training camp was approaching.
Chapter 21
JUNE 2012
A FEW WEEKS LATER, IN June 2012, the coaching staff at Miami had a summer break, so I went home to Bristol and stayed at a friend’s house for two weeks. Jeff was living at my mother’s and I didn’t want to be there.
One night Aaron called and asked me if I could pick him up at Logan International Airport in Boston.
I told him I had plans with our cousin Jay; Aaron said to bring him along. Aaron also asked me to swing by his condo to grab some clothes for him on the way to the airport. He said he had rented hotel rooms in Boston and we could go out together after we picked him up.
Once Aaron got into the car, the three of us went to the hotel. Aaron took his time getting ready—he didn’t like to go out until it was late, around 11:30 p.m.
There was an unexpected knock on the hotel room door. Sherrod walked in. Jay, who brought his hair clippers, was giving Aaron a haircut.
“Why do you hang out with Sherrod?” Jay asked as he was cutting Aaron’s hair. “That dude isn’t your real friend. He doesn’t care about you.”
Sherrod overheard Jay and started arguing with him. “I don’t ask him for money,” Sherrod said. “I don’t need his money.”
“What the hell does money have to do with anything?” Jay asked.
I was sitting on a chair in the corner of the red-carpeted room, drinking a Bacardi Razz and Sprite in one of the glass cups the hotel provided. All I wanted was for everyone to hurry up so we could leave.
As soon as our cousin finished trimming Aaron’s hair, I said, “We didn’t drive all the way up to Boston to hang out with a bunch of dudes in a hotel room all night. We’re going to head out now, so just text me when you and Sherrod are ready.”
Later that night we met Aaron and Sherrod at a bar near the hotel. I spotted a few basketball players I went to college with. We chatted for a few minutes about football and their playing careers in Europe. Then I went back to the bar where Aaron and Sherrod were standing.
Aaron looked like he was in a state of panic. “You trust too many people. You shouldn’t be talking to those guys,” he said. As he spoke, he kept looking back at them, like he thought one of my friends was planning to hit him over the head with a bottle or something.
“Aaron, I know these guys from college,” I said. “We’re friends.”
For several minutes, Aaron didn’t take his eyes off them. He was being paranoid and I didn’t understand why.
The next morning Jay and I went to say good-bye to my brother. When we opened his hotel room door, we started laughing. Aaron was lying facedown under the covers with his arms and legs sprawled out and falling off both sides of the bed.
I started poking him. He didn’t budge. I tried rolling him over, but he was too heavy. For a second we thought something was wrong.
I ran to the bathroom, filled up a little trash can with water, and splashed it on the back of Aaron’s head.
He quickly popped up. “What the hell is going on?” he groggily said. “I’m trying to sleep.”
“We got nervous because you weren’t moving,” Jay said.
“All I need is a blunt and I’ll be all right,” Aaron said.
Chapter 22
FALL 2012
ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, I was back in Massachusetts for Miami’s season opener against Boston College. On the eve of the game I met one of my former teammates at a pub. Drinking a few beers and eating chicken wings, we reminisced about our playing days at UConn and overseas.
During our conversation, my iPhone chimed. The message from Aaron read: “We made it, D. We made it.”
I stepped outside and called Aaron.
“We are set for life, D,” he said. “I just signed a new contract worth forty million dollars and a twelve-and-a-half-million-dollar signing bonus.”
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I almost lost my breath. I couldn’t believe it—Aaron had just received the largest signing bonus ever given to an NFL tight end. The $40 million total was the second largest extension ever for a tight end, behind his teammate Rob Gronkowski. If Aaron handled his money wisely, he would be financially stable for the rest of his life.
“The first thing I’m going to do is donate fifty thousand dollars to the Kraft family,” he said. Robert Kraft, the Patriots owner, had taken a chance on Aaron in the draft two years earlier. His wife, Myra, had passed away from cancer a year earlier, and Aaron wanted to give to their foundation.
“This is just the beginning for you,” I told him. “Remember that the NFL is a business and they gave you this contract for a reason. You have to keep producing.”
After hanging up, I rejoined my college teammate.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“My brother just signed a contract extension with the Patriots,” I said. Then, my phone still in my hand, it chimed again. I was amazed: Aaron had sent me an image of the $2 million deposit he had just made into his bank account. I carefully counted all the zeros and then shared the photo with my friend.
Everything in my brother’s career seemed to be falling into place. He was about to start his third NFL season and he had already earned his second contract—a five-year extension. The average NFL career is about 3.3 years, and Aaron appeared to be on his way to playing much longer.
The next day we beat Boston College, 41–32.
A FEW WEEKS LATER, Aaron called me again with more big news: he was going to propose to Shayanna.
I asked Aaron if he was sure about his decision. “I don’t want you to get hurt like I did,” I said. “There’s so much unexpected pain that can come with it.”
“D, I have thought about this for a while,” Aaron said. “She treats me amazing and she is going to have our princess. I love her.”
Aaron had already picked out an engagement ring. Two weeks before Shayanna’s baby shower—she was in her third trimester—he rented a limousine and arranged for it to pick up our mother, her sister, and our grandmother. The limo then carried them to Massachusetts to get Aaron, and the four of them went to a mall so he could show them the ring he was going to purchase.
At the mall, Aaron led the three women to a jewelry store, where he bought a diamond heart necklace for our grandmother, who cried as Aaron clasped it around her neck.
Aaron showed everyone the ring he wanted to buy Shayanna. My mother told him it had the biggest diamond she had ever seen; she wondered if Shay’s finger would be able to hold it up. Aaron bought the ring.
“Aaron made all of us feel good,” my mother said later. “He was so fun and loving. He was the nice Aaron. He was my baby again.”
THE BABY SHOWER WAS in October at the Carousel Museum in Bristol. Midway through the shower, as Shay sat in a chair in the middle of the room, Aaron quietly entered, sucking on a lollipop. He got down on one knee and asked Shay to marry him. In tears, she said yes.
A month later, on November 6, Aaron’s birthday, Avielle Janelle Hernandez was born. Aaron was excused from practice to be at Shay’s side in the hospital.
He called me to share the news. “She is so precious, D,” he said. “I can’t believe I’m a dad now!”
On December 22, I returned to Boston from Florida to meet Aaron’s daughter for the first time and get a tour of his new home in North Attleborough, Massachusetts. When I walked through the door, Aaron was holding baby Avielle. She was perfect, the most gorgeous human I had ever laid my eyes on. Aaron made me scrub my hands with sanitizer twice before I held her, and she immediately melted my heart. She had done the same thing to Aaron, who couldn’t stop looking at her. It was a struggle just to get him to let me hold her, because he didn’t want to let her out of his arms. He was fully consumed by his baby.
He showed me around his beautiful home, which featured five bedrooms, six bathrooms, a hot tub, a sauna, a theater room, a backyard pool, and a massive playhouse. I couldn’t stop thinking about how his garage was bigger than our childhood home.
The next day the Patriots hosted Jacksonville. Aaron had one catch for 13 yards in New England’s 23–16 win.
The following evening we had our annual Christmas gathering at a cousin’s house in Bristol. Aaron showed up without the baby.
“I didn’t want to bring Avielle because I don’t want her to get sick, so she is home with Shay,” he said. For several minutes, as Aaron and I talked, he appeared happy and so content. The brother I knew was by my side.
Then, as suddenly as a lit candle blows out, Aaron changed. He quit talking. He quit smiling. He seemed preoccupied, focusing on something only he knew about.
I asked a family member to take a picture of Aaron, me, and two of our cousins. When I looked at the photo, I noticed that everyone was smiling except Aaron. “Aw, Aaron, you didn’t smile,” I said. “Let’s take another one.”
We retook the picture. The result was the same: Aaron still had a dark expression on his face.
“Aaron, what’s wrong?” I asked. “Why aren’t you smiling?”
“I was,” he said.
We took another photo—same result. I finally gave up.
Chapter 23
JANUARY 2013
AFTER THE HOLIDAYS, I returned to Florida. I carried my luggage into the apartment I had finally rented in Miami and dove onto my brown sofa to relax after my flight. The scent of trash filled the apartment from the dumpster outside my broken sliding-glass door. I was still struggling with being alone after my divorce.
The next day my fortunes changed: I was offered a job at the University of Iowa as a graduate assistant. At Iowa, I would be responsible for coaching the tight ends—I missed being a position coach.
I told the Miami head coach how much I appreciated working on his staff before I accepted the position, and I booked a flight to Iowa.
I spent the first two nights in Iowa City sleeping on a couch in the football facility. On the second night I was awakened by a custodian vacuuming the players lounge. He must have told offensive line coach Brian Ferentz—the son of head coach Kirk Ferentz—that he found me there because the next morning Brian poked his head into my office and invited me to stay in a spare bedroom in his house until I found my own apartment.
That night, Brian, who had coached my brother in New England, invited me out for a pizza dinner. Once we ordered, he started talking football. He cleared space on the table and, using salt and pepper shakers and sugar packets, began moving them around as if they were players on a football field. He pulled a pen out of his pocket and began teaching me zone-blocking schemes. Immediately I was sold.
My father had briefly played with Coach Kirk Ferentz at UConn. Whenever we had watched Iowa play in our living room, he raved about him, saying what a great man he was—a man of character and kindness. When I received a recruiting letter from Iowa in high school, my father proudly posted it on the refrigerator. They never offered me a scholarship—I knew I wasn’t a national prospect—but my father continued to tell me how special the coach who led the Hawkeye program was.
On my third day, I went to Brian’s office and we started studying Patriots practice film of my brother and Rob Gronkowski. I took notes, writing down every word he was saying. He told me to put my pen down and just watch the tape with him. He said I could look at his own notebooks—the first time a coach had ever been willing to share his own football secrets with me.
I found an apartment and my outlook on life turned sunny. The people I was around each day cared for me and looked out for me. The Iowa program was one big family.
I called Aaron often and told him about the coaches and how family-oriented everyone was.
“D, I love how happy you sound,” Aaron said. “Your time is coming. You are with the best, and I know one day you are going to be a big-time D1 coach. I can feel it, D. Just keep working hard.”
IN FEBRUARY THE IOWA coaches had a break. Aaro
n invited me to spend time with him in California, where he was staying in the off-season to work out. Shay and the baby were with him.
I stepped out to the curb at Los Angeles International Airport and spotted Aaron’s white Audi. He rolled down the passenger’s side tinted window—Shay was driving—and popped his face out: two big dimples and a radiant smile. As I neared the SUV, I could feel his happiness.
I got in the backseat and sat to the left of Avielle, who was buckled into her car seat. I couldn’t stop looking at her and neither could Aaron. He constantly turned around to gaze at his three-month-old daughter. “Isn’t she precious, D?” he said. “Isn’t she the most beautiful princess you have ever seen? I am the luckiest man in the world.”
We drove to a mall where there was a Macy’s. Aaron told me to pick out a few shirts for work. I asked an employee where the sales rack was located, but Aaron stopped me. “It doesn’t have to be off the sales rack like when we were kids,” he said. “You’re such a dork.”
With my new shirts in a bag, we drove to their two-story rental home in Hermosa Beach. Shay showed me to my room and I took a shower. Once I was finished, I put on my jeans and one of the new shirts, and went into the living room. “Where’s Aaron?” I asked Shay. She told me to check the roof.
I walked up the swirling staircase and opened the door. It was evening now, and in the dark distance I saw Aaron sitting at a table. There were small lights along the edge of the rooftop that created a relaxing orange glow. I moved toward Aaron.
Sitting alone, his eyes were focused on his lap. I took a seat next to him at the table. He was holding a gun.
I looked at him and his eyes met mine. He had a defeated look on his face. He turned his head straight forward, looking out past the roof lights, past the beach, and far away into the dark night over the Pacific Ocean. That was when I noticed one bullet lying on the table directly in front of him.
I was concerned for my brother. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. He kept staring straight ahead, like I wasn’t there. I studied his face. It wasn’t dark like it was during the Christmas photo; he appeared lost and sad.
The Truth About Aaron Page 9