Playing for Pizza (20 page)

“Indeed I do.”

They met at Paoli’s, a short walk from his hotel. It’s an ancient place, with one long dining hall under a vaulted ceiling covered with medieval frescoes. It was packed, and Livvy happily confessed that she had
pulled strings to get a table. It was a small one, and they sat very close together.

They sipped white wine and worked through the preliminaries. She was a junior at the University of Georgia, finishing her last semester abroad, majoring in art history, not studying too hard, and not missing home.

There was a boy at Georgia, but he was a temp. Disposable.

Rick swore he had no wife, no fiancée, no steady relationship. The girl who didn’t show was an opera singer, which of course changed the direction of the conversation considerably. They ordered salads,
pappardelle
with rabbit, and a bottle of Chianti.

After a hearty pull of wine, he gritted his teeth and addressed the issue of football head-on. The good (college), the bad (the nomadic pro career), and the ugly (his brief appearance last January for the Cleveland Browns).

“I haven’t missed football,” she said, and Rick wanted to hug her. She explained that she had been in Florence since September. She did not know who won the SEC or national title, and really didn’t care. Nor did she have any interest in pro football. She had been a cheerleader in high school and had endured enough football to last a lifetime.

Finally, a cheerleader in Italy.

He briefly described Parma, its Panthers, the Italian league, then moved the topics back to her side of the table. “There seem to be a lot of Americans here in Florence,” he said.

She rolled her eyes as if she was fed up with Americans. “I couldn’t wait to study abroad, dreamed about it for years, and now I’m living with three of my sorority sisters from Georgia, none of whom has any interest in learning the language or absorbing the culture. It’s all shopping and discos. There are thousands of Americans here, and they stick together like geese.” She might as well be in Atlanta. She often traveled alone to see the countryside and to get away from her friends.

Her father was a noted surgeon who was having an affair that was causing a protracted divorce. Things were messy back home, and she was not excited about leaving Florence when the semester ended in three weeks. “Sorry,” she said, when she wrapped up the family summary.

“No problem.”

“I’d like to spend the summer traveling in Italy, away, finally, from my sorority, away from the frat boys who get drunk every night, and very far away from my family.”

“Why not?”

“Daddy’s paying the bills and Daddy says to come home.”

He had no plans beyond the season, which might stretch into July. For some reason, he mentioned Canada, maybe to impress her. If he played there, the season would go into November. This did not make an impression.

The waiter delivered heaping plates of
pappardelle
and rabbit, with a rich meat sauce that looked and
smelled divine. They talked about Italian food and wine, about Italians in general, about the places she had already visited and the ones on her wish list.

They ate slowly, like everyone else at Paoli’s, and when they finished with the cheese and port, it was after eleven.

“I don’t really want to go to a club,” she admitted. “I’ll be happy to show you a couple, but I’m not in the mood. We go out so often.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“Gelato.”

They walked across the Ponte Vecchio and found an ice cream shop that offered fifty flavors. Then he walked her to her apartment and kissed her good night.

Chapter

21

“It’s five o’clock in the morning here,” Rat began pleasantly. “Why the hell am I wide awake and calling you at five in the morning? Why? Answer me that, blockhead.”

“Hello, Rat,” Rick said as he visually choked Arnie for giving away his phone number.

“You’re a moron, you know that. A first-class idiot, but then we knew that five years ago, didn’t we? How are you, Ricky?”

“I’m fine, Rat, and you?”

“Super, off the charts, kicking ass already and the season hasn’t started.” Rat Mullins talked in a high pitch at full throttle and seldom waited for a response before he launched into his next verbal assault. Rick had to smile. He had not heard the voice in years, and it brought back fond memories of one of the few coaches who had believed in him. “We’re gonna win, baby, we’re gonna score fifty points a game, other team scores forty I don’t care, because they’ll never catch us. Told the boss yesterday that we need a new scoreboard, old one can’t count fast enough for me and my offense and my great quarterback, Blockhead Dockery. Are you there, boy?”

“I’m listening, Rat, as always.”

“So here’s the deal. The boss has already bought a round-trip ticket, first-class, you ass, didn’t spring one for me, rode back in coach, leaving Rome in the morning at eight, nonstop to Toronto, then to Regina, first-class again, Air Canada, a great airline, by the way. We’ll have a car at the airport when you touch down and tomorrow night we’ll be having dinner and creating brand-new, never-before-heard-of pass routes.”

“Not so fast, Rat.”

“I know, I know. You can be very slow. How well I remember, but—”

“Look, Rat, I can’t walk away from my team right now.”

“Team? Did you say team? I’ve been reading about your team. The guy in Cleveland, what’s his name, Cray, he’s all over your ass. A thousand fans for a home game. What is it, touch football?”

“I signed a contract, Rat.”

“And I got another one for you to sign. A much bigger one, with a real team in a real league with real stadiums that hold real fans. Television. Endorsements. Shoe contracts. Marching bands and cheerleaders.”

“I’m happy here, Rat.”

There was a pause as Rat caught his breath. Rick could see him in the locker room, at halftime, pacing frantically and talking wildly as both hands thrashed the air, then a sudden stop for air as he sucked in mightily before launching into the next tirade.

An octave lower and trying to sound wounded, he began, “Look, Ricky, don’t do this to me. I’m sticking my neck out. After what happened in Cleveland, well—”

“Drop it, Rat.”

“Okay, okay. Sorry. But will you just come see me? Come visit and let me talk to you face-to-face? Can’t you do that for your old coach? No strings attached. The ticket’s bought, no refund, please, Ricky.”

Rick closed his eyes, massaged his forehead, and reluctantly said, “Okay, Coach. Just a visit. No strings.”

“You’re not as dumb as I thought. I love you, Ricky. You won’t be sorry.”

“Who picked the airport at Rome?”

“You’re in Italy, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“That’s where Rome is, last I checked. Now find the damned airport and come see me.”

·  ·  ·

He knocked back two quick Bloody Marys before takeoff and managed to sleep for most of the eight-hour flight to Toronto. Landing anywhere in North America made him anxious, regardless of how ridiculous such thoughts were. Killing time as he waited for the flight to Regina, he called Arnie and reported his whereabouts. Arnie was very proud. Rick e-mailed his mother, but did not say where he was. He e-mailed Livvy with a quick hello. He checked the
Cleveland
Post
just to make sure Charley Cray had moved on to other targets. There was a note from Gabriella: “Rick, I am so sorry, but it would not be wise to see you. Please forgive me.”

He stared at the floor and decided not to reply to it. He called Trey’s cell, but there was no answer.

His two years in Toronto had not been unpleasant. It seemed so long ago, and he seemed so much younger back then. Fresh from college with big dreams and a long career ahead of him, he thought he was invincible. He was a work in progress, a greenhorn with all the tools, he just needed a little polish here and there, and before long he would start in the NFL.

Rick wasn’t sure if he still dreamed of playing in the big league.

An announcement mentioned Regina. He walked to a monitor and realized his flight had been delayed. He inquired at the gate and was told the delay was weather related. “It’s snowing in Regina,” the clerk said.

He found a coffee bar and ordered a diet soda. He checked out Regina and, yes, there was snow, and lots of it. “A rare Spring blizzard” was one description.

Killing time, he browsed through the Regina daily, the
Leader-Post
. There was football news. Rat was making noise, hiring a defensive coordinator, evidently one with very little experience. He’d cut a tailback, leading to speculation that a running game would not be necessary. Season tickets sales had
topped thirty-five thousand, a record. A columnist, the type who drags himself to the typewriter and manages to write six hundred words four times a week, for thirty years now, regardless of how absolutely dead the sports world happens to be in Saskatchewan or wherever, mailed in a gossipy potpourri of things “heard on the street.” A hockey player had said no to surgery until the season was over. Another had separated from his wife, who had a suspicious broken nose.

Last paragraph: Rat Mullins confirmed that the Roughriders were talking to Marcus Moon, a scrambling-style quarterback with a quick arm. Moon spent the past two seasons with the Packers and was “anxious to play every day.” And Rat Mullins refused to confirm or deny that the team was talking to Rick Dockery, who “when last seen was throwing gorgeous interceptions for the Cleveland Browns.”

Rat was quoted as offering a gruff “No comment” to the Dockery rumor.

Then, with a wink, the sportswriter passed along a little tidbit too rich to ignore. The use of parentheses gave him some distance from his own gossip:

(For more on Dockery go to [email protected].)

No comment? Rat is too afraid or too ashamed to comment? Rick asked this question out loud and got a stare or two. He slowly closed his laptop and went for a long hike through the concourse.

· · ·

When he boarded an Air Canada commuter flight two hours later, he was headed not to Regina but to Cleveland. There he took a cab downtown. The
Cleveland Post
building was a bland modern structure on Slate Avenue. Oddly, it was four blocks north of the community of Parma.

Rick paid the cabdriver and told him to wait around the corner, a block away. On the sidewalk he paused only for a second to absorb the fact that he was really once again in Cleveland, Ohio. He could have made peace with the city, but the city was determined to torment him.

If there was any hesitation about doing what he was about to do, he did not remember it later.

In the front lobby there was a bronze statue of some unrecognizable person with a pretentious quotation about truth and freedom. A guard station was just beyond it. All guests were required to sign in. Rick was wearing a Cleveland Indians baseball cap, purchased moments earlier at the airport for thirty-two dollars, and when the guard said, “Yes, sir,” Rick was quick to respond, “Charley Cray.”

“And your name?”

“Roy Grady. I play for the Indians.”

This pleased the guard greatly, and he slid the clipboard over for a signature. Roy Grady, according to the Indians’ Web site, was the newest member of the team’s pitching staff, a youngster just called up from AAA who so far had pitched in three innings
with very mixed results. Cray would probably recognize the name, but maybe not the face.

“Second floor,” the guard said with a big smile.

Rick took the stairs because he planned to leave by them. The second-floor newsroom was what he expected—a vast open area crammed with cubicles and workstations and papers stacked everywhere. Around the edges were small offices, and Rick began to walk while looking for names by the doors. His heart was pounding and he found it hard to appear nonchalant.

“Roy,” someone called from the side, and Rick stepped in his direction. He was about forty-five, balding, with a few long strands of oily gray hair sprouting from just over his ears, unshaven, cheap reading glasses halfway down his nose, overweight, and with the body type that never earned a letter in high school, never got a uniform, never got the cheerleader. A disheveled sports geek who couldn’t play the games and now made a living criticizing those who did. He was standing in the door of his small, cluttered office, frowning at Roy Grady, suspicious of something.

“Mr. Cray?” Rick said, five feet away and closing fast.

“Yes,” he answered with a sneer, then a look of shock.

Rick shoved him quickly back into the office and slammed the door. He yanked off his cap with his left hand as he took Cray’s throat with his right. “It’s me,
asshole, Rick Dockery, your favorite goat.” Cray’s eyes were wide, his glasses fell to the floor.

There would be only one punch, Rick had decided after much thought. A hard right to the head, one that Cray could clearly see coming. No cheap shots, kicks in the crotch, nothing like that. Face-to-face, man-to-man, flesh to flesh, without the aid of any weapon. And, hopefully, no broken bones and no blood.

It wasn’t a jab and it wasn’t a hook, just a hard right cross that had begun months ago and was now being delivered from across the ocean. With no resistance because Cray was too soft and too scared and spent too much time hiding behind his keyboard, the punch landed perfectly on the left chinbone, with a nice crunch that Rick would pleasantly remember many times in the weeks afterward. He dropped like a bag of old potatoes, and for a second Rick was tempted to kick him in the ribs.

He had thought about what he might say, but nothing seemed to work. Threats wouldn’t be taken seriously—Rick was stupid enough to show up in Cleveland, surely he wouldn’t do it again. Cursing Cray would only make him happier, and whatever Rick said would soon be in print. So he left him there, crumpled on the floor, gasping in horror, semiconscious from the blow, and never, not for the slightest moment, did Rick feel sorry for the creep.

He eased out of the office, nodded to a couple of reporters who looked remarkably similar to Mr. Cray, then found the stairs. He raced down to the basement, and after a few minutes of drifting found a door to a
loading dock. Five minutes after the knockout, he was back in the cab.