End Zone Read online

  6

  WE STOOD IN A CIRCLE in the enormous gray morning, all the receivers and offensive backs, helmets in hands. Thunder moved down from the northeast. Creed, in a transparent raincoat, was already up in the tower. At the center of the circle was Tom Cook Clark, an assistant coach, an expert on quarterbacking, known as a scholarly man because he smoked a pipe and did not use profanity.

  “What we want to do is establish a planning procedures approach whereby we neutralize the defense. We’ll be employing a lot of play-action and some pass-run options off the sweep. We’ll be using a minimum number of sprint-outs because the passing philosophy here is based on the pocket concept and we don’t want to inflate the injury potential which is what you do if your quarterback strays from the pocket and if he can’t run real well, which most don’t. We use the aerial game here to implement the ground game whereby we force their defense to respect the run which is what they won’t do if they can anticipate pass and read pass and if our frequency, say on second and long, indicates pass. So that’s what we’ll try to come up with, depending on the situation and the contingency plan and how they react to the running game. I should insert at this point that if they send their linebackers, you’ve been trained and briefed and you know how to counter this. You’ve got your screen, your flare, your quick slant-in. You’ve been drilled and drilled on this in the blitz drills. It all depends on what eventuates. It’s just eleven men doing their job. That’s all it is.”

  Oscar Veech moved into the circle.

  “I want you to bust ass out there today,” he said. “Guards and tackles, I want you to come off that ball real quick and pop, pop, hit those people, move those people out, pop them, put some hurt on them, drive them back till they look like sick little puppy dogs squatting down to crap.”

  “The guards and tackles are over in that other group,” I said.

  “Right, right, right. Now go out there and execute. Move that ball. Hit somebody. Hit somebody. Hit somebody.”

  Garland Hobbs handed off to me on a quick trap and two people hit me. There was a big pile-up and I felt a fair number of knees and elbows and then somebody’s hand was inside my facemask trying to come away with flesh. I realized Mr. Kimbrough had issued directives. On the next play I was pass-blocking for Hobbs and they sent everybody including the free safety. I went after the middle linebacker, Dennis Smee, helmet to groin, and then fell on top of him with a forearm leading the way.

  Whistles were blowing and the coaches edged in a bit closer. Vern Feck took off his baseball cap and put his pink face right into the pile-up, little sparks of saliva jumping out of his whistle as he blew it right under my nose. Creed came down from the tower.

  7

  OF ALL THE ASPECTS of exile, silence pleased me least. Other things were not so displeasing. Exile compensates the banished by offering certain opportunities. Each day, for example, I spent some time in meditation. This never failed to be a lovely interlude, for there was nothing to meditate on. Each day I added a new word to my vocabulary, wrote a letter to someone I loved, and memorized the name of one more president of the United States and the years of his term in office. Simplicity, repetition, solitude, starkness, discipline upon discipline. There were profits here, things that could be used to make me stronger; the small fanatical monk who clung to my liver would thrive on such ascetic scraps. And then there was geography. We were in the middle of the middle of nowhere, that terrain so flat and bare, suggestive of the end of recorded time, a splendid sense of remoteness firing my soul. It was easy to feel that back up there, where men spoke the name civilization in wistful tones, I was wanted for some terrible crime.

  Exile in a real place, a place of few bodies and many stones, is just an extension (a packaging) of the other exile, the state of being separated from whatever is left of the center of one’s own history. I found comfort in West Texas. There was even pleasure in the daily punishment on the field. I felt that I was better for it, reduced in complexity, a warrior.

  But the silence was difficult. It hung over the land and drifted across the long plains. It was out there with the soft black insects beyond the last line of buildings, beyond the prefabs and the Quonset hut and the ROTC barracks. Day after day my eyes scanned in all directions a stunned earth, unchangingly dull, a land silenced by its own beginnings in the roaring heat, born dead, flat stones burying the memory. I felt threatened by the silence. In my room at home, during my retreats from destructive episodes of one kind or another, I had never even noticed the quiet. Perhaps silence is dispersed by familiar things; their antiquity is heard. All I had feared then was that my mother, bringing my lunch upstairs, would forget to comment on the weather. (These reports were indispensable to my progress.) But now, in the vast burning west, the silences were menacing. I decided not to eat meat for a few weeks.

  One day in early September we started playing a game called Bang You’re Dead. It’s an extremely simple-minded game. Almost every child has played it in one form or another. Your hand assumes the shape of a gun and you fire at anyone who passes. You try to reproduce, in your own way, the sound of a gun being fired. Or you simply shout these words: Bang, you’re dead. The other person clutches a vital area of his body and then falls, simulating death. (Never mere injury; always death.) Nobody knew who had started the game or exactly when it had started. You had to fall if you were shot. The game depended on this.

  It went on for six or seven days. At first, naturally enough, I thought it was all very silly, even for a bunch of bored and lonely athletes. Then I began to change my mind. Suddenly, beneath its bluntness, the game seemed compellingly intricate. It possessed gradations, dark joys, a resonance echoing from the most perplexing of dreams. I began to kill selectively. When killed, I fell to the floor or earth with great deliberation, with sincerity. I varied my falls, searching for the rhythm of something imperishable, a classic death.

  We did not abuse the powers inherent in the game. The only massacre took place during the game’s first or second day when things were still shapeless, the potential unrealized. It started on the second floor of the dormitory just before lights-out and worked along the floor and down one flight, everyone shooting each other, men in their underwear rolling down the stairs, huge nude brutes draped over the banisters. The pleasure throughout was empty. I guess we realized together that the game was better than this. So we cooled things off and devised unwritten limits.

  I shot Terry Madden at sunset from a distance of forty yards as he appeared over the crest of a small hill and came toward me. He held his stomach and fell, in slow motion, and then rolled down the grassy slope, tumbling, rolling slowly as possible, closer, slower, ever nearer, tumbling down to die at my feet with the pale setting of the sun.

  To kill with impunity. To die in the celebration of ancient ways.

  All those days the almost empty campus was marked by the sound of human gunfire. There were several ways in which this sound was uttered — the comical, the truly gruesome, the futuristic, the stylized, the circumspect. Each served to break the silence of the long evenings. From the window of my room I’d hear the faint gunfire and see a lone figure in the distance fall to the ground. Sometimes, hearing nothing, I’d merely see the victim get hit, twisting around a tree as he fell or slowly dropping to his knees, and this isolated motion also served to break the silence, the lingering stillness of that time of day. So there was that reason above all to appreciate the game; it forced cracks in the enveloping silence.

  I died well and for this reason was killed quite often. One afternoon, shot from behind, I staggered to the steps of the library and remained there, on my back, between the second and seventh step at the approximate middle of the stairway, for more than a few minutes. It was very relaxing despite the hardness of the steps. I felt the sun on my face. I tried to think of nothing. The longer I remained there, the more absurd it seemed to get up. My body became accustomed to the steps and the sun felt warmer. I was completely relaxed. I felt sure I was alone
, that no one was standing there watching or even walking by. This thought relaxed me even more. In time I opened my eyes. Taft Robinson was sitting on a bench not far away, reading a periodical. For a moment, in a state of near rapture, I thought it was he who had fired the shot.

  At length the rest of the student body reported for the beginning of classes. We were no longer alone and the game ended. But I would think of it with affection because of its scenes of fragmentary beauty, because it brought men closer together through their perversity and fear, because it enabled us to pretend that death could be a tender experience, and because it breached the long silence.

  8

  IT’S NOT EASY to fake a limp. The tendency is to exaggerate, a natural mistake and one that no coach would fail to recognize. Over the years I had learned to eliminate this tendency. I had mastered the dip and grimace, perfected the semi-moan, and when I came off the field this time, after receiving a mild blow on the right calf, nobody considered pressing me back into service. The trainer handed me an ice pack and I sat on the bench next to Bing Jackmin, who kicked field goals and extra points. The practice field was miserably hot. I was relieved to be off and slightly surprised that I felt guilty about it. Bing Jackmin was wearing headgear; his eyes, deep inside the facemask, seemed crazed by sun or dust or inner visions.

  “Work,” he shouted past me. “Work, you substandard industrial robots. Work, work, work, work.”

  “Look at them hit,” I said. “What a pretty sight. When Coach says hit, we hit. It’s so simple.”

  “It’s not simple, Gary. Reality is constantly being interrupted. We’re hardly even aware of it when we’re out there. We perform like things with metal claws. But there’s the other element. For lack of a better term I call it the psychomythical. That’s a phrase I coined myself.”

  “I don’t like it. What does it refer to?”

  “Ancient warriorship,” he said. “Cults devoted to pagan forms of technology. What we do out on that field harks back. It harks back. Why don’t you like the term?”

  “It’s vague and pretentious. It means nothing. There’s only one good thing about it. Nobody could remember a stupid phrase like that for more than five seconds. See, I’ve already forgotten it.”

  “Wuuurrrrk. Wuuuurrrrrk.”

  “Hobbs’ll throw to Jessup now,” I said. “He always goes to his tight end on third and short inside the twenty. He’s like a retarded computer.”

  “For a quarterback Hobbs isn’t too bright. But you should have seen him last year, Gary. At least Creed’s got him changing plays at the line. Last year it was all Hobbsie could do to keep from upchucking when he saw a blitz coming. Linebackers pawing at the ground, snarling at him. He didn’t have what you might call a whole lot of poise.”

  “Here comes Cecil off. Is that him?”

  “They got old Cecil. Looks like his shoulder.”

  Cecil Rector, a guard, came toward the sideline and Roy Yellin went running in to replace him. The trainer popped Cecil’s shoulder back into place. Then Cecil fainted. Bing strolled down that way to have a look at Cecil unconscious. Vern Feck, who coached the linebackers, started shouting at his people. Then he called the special units on to practice kickoff return and coverage. Bing headed slowly up to the 40 yard line. He kicked off and the two teams converged, everybody yelling, bodies rolling and bouncing on the scant grass. When it was over Bing came back to the bench. His eyes seemed to belong to some small dark cave animal.

  “Something just happened,” he said.

  “You look frightened.”

  “You won’t believe what just happened. I was standing out there, getting ready to stride toward the ball, when a strange feeling came over me. I was looking right at the football. It was up on the tee. I was standing ten yards away, looking right at it, waiting for the whistle so I could make my approach, and that’s when I got this strange insight. I wish I could describe it, Gary, but it was too wild, too unbelievable. It was too everything, man. Nobody would understand what I meant if I tried to describe it.”

  “Describe it,” I said.

  “I sensed knowledge in the football. I sensed a strange power and restfulness. The football possessed awareness. The football knew what was happening. It knew. I’m sure of it.”

  “Are you serious, Bing?”

  “The football knew that this is a football game. It knew that it was the center of the game. It was aware of its own footballness.”

  “But was it aware of its own awareness? That’s the ultimate test, you know.”

  “Go ahead, Gary, play around. I knew you wouldn’t understand. It was too unreal. It was un-everything, man.”

  “You went ahead and kicked the ball.”

  “Naturally,” he said. “That’s the essence of the word. It’s a football, isn’t it? It is a foot ball. My foot sought union with the ball.”

  We watched Bobby Hopper get about eighteen on a sweep. When the play ended a defensive tackle named Dickie Kidd remained on his knees. He managed to take his helmet off and then fell forward, his face hitting the midfield stripe. Two players dragged him off and Raymond Toon went running in to replace him. The next play fell apart when Hobbs fumbled the snap. Creed spoke to him through the bullhorn. Bing walked along the bench to look at Dickie Kidd.

  I watched the scrimmage. It was getting mean out there. The players were reaching the point where they wanted to inflict harm. It was hardly a time for displays of finesse and ungoverned grace. This was the ugly hour. I felt like getting back in. Bing took his seat again.

  “How’s Dickie?”

  “Dehydration,” Bing said. “Hauptfuhrer’s giving him hell.”

  “What for?”

  “For dehydrating.”

  I went over to Oscar Veech and told him I was ready. He said they wanted to take a longer look at Jim Deering. I watched Deering drop a short pass and get hit a full two seconds later by Buddy Shock, a linebacker. This cheered me up and I returned to the bench.

  “They want to look at Deering some more.”

  “Coach is getting edgy. We open in six days. This is the last scrimmage and he wants to look at everybody.”

  “I wish I knew how good we are.”

  “Coach must be thinking the same thing.”

  Time was called and the coaches moved in to lecture their players. Creed climbed down from the tower and walked slowly toward Garland Hobbs. He took off his baseball cap and brushed it against his thigh as he walked. Hobbs saw him coming and instinctively put on his helmet. Creed engaged him in conversation.

  “It’s a tongue-lashing,” Bing said. “Coach is hacking at poor old Hobbsie.”

  “He seems pretty calm.”

  “It’s a tongue-lashing,” Bing hissed to Cecil Rector, who was edging along the bench to sit next to us.

  “How’s the shoulder?” I said.

  “Dislocated.”

  “Too bad.”

  “They can put a harness on it,” he said. “We go in six days. If Coach needs me, I’ll be ready.”

  Just then Creed looked toward Bing Jackmin, drawing him off the bench without even a nod. Bing jogged over there. The rest of the players were standing or kneeling between the 40 yard lines. Next to me, Cecil Rector leaned over and plucked at blades of grass. I thought of the Adirondacks, chill lakes of inverted timber, sash of blue snow across the mountains, the whispering presence of the things that filled my room. Far beyond the canvas blinds, on the top floor of the women’s dormitory, a figure stood by an open window. I thought of women. I thought of women in snow and rain, on mountains and in forests, at the end of long galleries immersed in the brave light of Rembrandts.

  “Coach is real anxious,” Rector said. “He knows a lot of people are watching to see how he does. I bet the wire services send somebody out to cover the opener. If they can ever find this place.”

  “I’d really like to get back in.”

  “So would I,” he said. “Yellin’s been haunting me since way back last spring. He’s like a
hyena. Every time I get hurt, Roy Yellin is right there grinning. He likes to see me get hurt. He’s after my job. Every time I’m face down on the grass in pain, I know I’ll look up to see Roy Yellin grinning at the injured part of my body. His daddy sells mutual funds in the prairie states.”

  Bing came back, apparently upset about something.

  “He wants me to practice my squib kick tomorrow. I told him I don’t have any squib kick. He guaranteed me I’d have one by tomorrow night. Then he called Onan over and picked him apart. Told him he was playing center as if the position had just been invented.”

  “They’re putting Randy King in for Onan,” I said.

  “Onan’s been depressed,” Bing said. “He found out his girl friend spent a night with some guy on leave from Nam. It’s affecting his play.”

  “What did they do?” Rector said.

  “They spent a night.”

  “Did they have relations?”

  “Are you asking me did they fuck?”

  “There goes Taft again,” I said. “Look at that cutback. God, that’s beautiful.”

  “He’s some kind of football player.”

  “He’s a real good one.”

  “He can do it all, can’t he?”

  They played for another fifteen minutes. On the final play, after a long steady drive that took the offense down to the 8 yard line, Taft fumbled the hand-off. Defense recovered, whistles blew, and that was it for the day. The three of us headed back together.

  “Hobbsie laid it right in his gut and he goes and loses it,” Rector said. “I attribute that kind of error to lack of concentration. That’s a mental error and it’s caused by lack of concentration. Coloreds can run and leap but they can’t concentrate. A colored is a runner and leaper. You’re making a big mistake if you ask him to concentrate.”