End Zone (4 page)

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.

I
T’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.”

A very heavy girl wearing an orange dress came walking toward us across a wide lawn. There was a mushroom cloud appliquéd on the front of her dress. I recognized the girl; we had some classes together. I let the others walk on ahead and I stood for a moment watching her walk past me and move into the distance. I was wearing a smudge of lampblack under each eye to reduce the sun’s glare. I didn’t know whether the lampblack was very effective but I liked the way it looked and I liked the idea of painting myself in a barbaric manner before going forth to battle in mud. I wondered if the fat girl knew I was still watching her. I had a vivid picture of myself standing there holding my helmet at my side, left knee bent slightly, hair all mussed and the lampblack under my eyes. Her dress was brightest orange. I thought she must be a little crazy to wear a dress like that with her figure.

T
HE THING TO DO
, I thought, is to walk in circles. This is demanded by the mythology of all deserts and wasted places. A number of traditions insist on it. I was about a mile beyond the campus. Motion was strange. Motion consisted of sunlight on particular stones. (With the opening of classes I had been brushing up on perimeter acquisition radar, unauthorized explosions, slow-motion countercity war, super-ready status, collateral destruction, crisis management, civilian devastation attack.) All the colors were different shades of one nameless color. Water would have been a miracle or mirage. I took off my shoes and socks and the stones burned. I saw a long bug. I was careful to keep the tallest of the campus buildings in sight. This was a practical measure, nonritualistic, meant to offset the saintly feet. I remembered then to think of Rutherford B. Hayes, nineteenth president, 1877–1881. That took care of that for the day. Each day had to be completed. I avoided a sharp stone. Something sudden, a movement, turned out
to be sunlight on paint, a painted stone, one stone, black in color, identifiably black, a single round stone, painted black, carefully painted, the ground around it the same nameless color as the rest of the plain. Some vandal had preceded me then. Stone-painter. Metaphorist of the desert. To complete the day truly I had to remember to think of Milwaukee in flames. I was doing a different area every day. This practice filled me with self-disgust and was meant, eventually, to liberate me from the joy of imagining millions dead. In time, I assumed, my disgust would become so great that I would be released from all sense of global holocaust. But it wasn’t working. I continued to look forward to each new puddle of destruction. Six megatons for Cairo. MIRVs for the Benelux countries. Typhoid and cholera for the Hudson River Valley. I seemed to be subjecting my emotions to an unintentioned cycle in which pleasure nourished itself on the black bones of revulsion and dread. Tidal waves for Bremerhaven. Long-term radiation for the Mekong Delta. For Milwaukee I had planned firestorms. But now I could not imagine Milwaukee in flames. I had never been to Milwaukee. I had never even seen a photograph of the place. I had no idea what the city looked like and I could not imagine it in flames. I put on my socks first, as I had been taught, and then my shoes. I was hungry. Pot roast had been served for lunch and I had eaten only some cereal and fruit. Heading back I kept watching for insects. Buildings rose across the plain. I could see cadets marching quite clearly now, bright blue squadrons on the parade grounds. The thing to do is to concentrate on objects. In the room, when I got there, Bloomberg was occupying his bed, prone, on top of the blanket, hands folded behind his white neck — the lone unsuntanned member of the squad. There were two beds,
two chairs, two desks, a window, a closet. His white skin was remarkable. Some dietary law perhaps. An overhead light, two wall lamps. Consume only those foods that do not tint the flesh. A desk lamp, two bureaus, a wastebasket, a pencil, six books, three shoes. Bloomberg himself. Harkness himself or itself.

“Milwaukee is spared,” I said.