The Draft (11 page)

“Shit, DB, the last thing I worry about is alarm systems,” Fletcher said. He appraised the living room, with its high ceilings and sparse wrought-iron furniture. “This is one nice place.”

“Thanks.”

“So how's it been going for you?”

“It's been going pretty good.”

“I can see that. Game room in the cellar, little movie theater, big TV in the bedroom…”

Bailey laughed. “Thanks for taking the grand tour by yourself. Did you see the two Magritte paintings?”

“Is that what they are? Weird shit, man. You like that stuff?”

“Nah … they're investments. Bernadette takes care of all that. She' pretty good with money. I can make it, but she's better than me at managing it.”

Fletcher was nodding. “You're a lucky guy.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Fletcher appraised the entire room one more time with a sweeping look and then said, “So, to what do I owe this pleasure? I assume this isn't a social call.”

Bailey's smile faded. “No, no. Cory, I need some stuff.”

“Some coke? Meth? I thought you'd—?”

Bailey shook his head. “No, nothing like that. Cortisone. I need some small dosages. About twenty. And needles, too.”

“Cortisone? For what?”

“My right foot,” Bailey pointed, as if Cory Fletcher had no idea where the right foot was. “I was working out about two weeks ago and I pulled it. I'm not sure what happened, but it's killing me.” He sat down on a huge ottoman and began massaging the ankle. “I don't want it to get worse. It's gotta be back to normal when minicamps start.”

Fletcher sat on the couch across from him. “Does it hurt now?”

“Yeah, a little bit.” He sounded like he was struggling for breath, and his face was twisted with pain. “This is the last year of my contract, too. If I don't play this year, no one'll sign me after that. I'll be finished. And I know I still have some good games left in me.”

Fletcher watched his old friend in bewilderment. “Shouldn't you, y'know, go to your trainer or the team doctor or someone?”

“Our team physician is an asshole. He'd tell me I got what I deserved for taking part in an unauthorized workout program. What's worse, there's a clause in my contract about keeping myself in peak condition at all times.” He winced again. “So look, can you get me the stuff? I'll pay top dollar for it. And I'll pay for your trip out here, too.”

“Uh, sure. No problem, man.”

Bailey nodded. “Good, thanks. Hey, do you have any on you right now?”

“No, but I know where I can get some pretty quick.”

“Cool. Please … I've got cash on me.” Bailey smiled—that endearing grin that made him look like a little boy in spite of his size. “Unless you already found it when you went through the house.”

Fletcher laughed, and in that moment Bailey knew everything would be fine. He'd found his source.

“No, I would've taken it all and bolted.” He rose from the couch and headed toward the door. “I'll be right back.”

“Thanks, man.”

And hurry …

*   *   *

Fletcher was back in just over an hour. He had the stuff in a brown paper bag and offered no information as to where he'd acquired it. There were five doses of 250mg each, along with five small syringes.

“You know, DB, you really shouldn't administer this shit by yourself. You want some help?”

Bailey was up again and holding a drink. He had changed into a fresh jogging suit and white sneakers that appeared to be brand new. There was another basketball game on the enormous flat-panel TV screen hanging on the wall across the room.

“No, I'll be all right. The pain subsided a bit while you were gone, so I'll have Bernadette help me with it later. Here…”

He took a baseball-size wad of crisp bills from his front pocket and, with enormous fingers that were covered in gold, counted out twenty hundred-dollar bills. “This should cover the stuff plus your trip. If you need more, let me know.”

Fletcher looked at the bills in his hand in astonishment. “Thanks, man. DB, this is really—”

“I'll need about twenty more doses, remember?”

“Yeah, sure, no problem.”

“Cool.” Bailey looked at his watch, purposely making the gesture obvious. “Look, you'd better get going. If Bernadette comes in and sees one of my old dogs in here, she'll freak. You wanna have dinner tomorrow night? I'll take care of that, too.”

“Sure.”

“Good.” He led his guest to the door. Fletcher couldn't help but notice the change in mood. Before, he was being treated like royalty. But from the moment DB got the stuff in his hands, he was a very different man. He'd seen this behavior in his other customers, but those were users of recreational drugs. Cortisone was a painkiller. What was the rush?

“I'll give you a call in a little bit,” Bailey said from the doorway. Fletcher nodded as he got back into his rented Mercedes.

Bailey shut the door and locked it. Bernadette wouldn't be here until nightfall, he knew. He went back to the living room, passed through it, down the hallway, through their bedroom, and into the small adjoining bathroom. He locked that door as well. He was now safe in a small womb. He turned on the ceiling fan and ran the hot water, but didn't turn on the overhead light. Instead, he flicked on the little nightlight.

He sat down on the toilet and pulled up his pants leg. The ankle he'd been massaging when Fletcher was here looked fine. He reached down and scratched it a few times, then let the pants fall over it again. He would give it no more attention.

He set the brown bag on the sink and removed one cortisone dosage and one needle. He handled everything expertly, filling the latter with the former and flicking the bubbles away. Then he set the needle back down.

Gingerly, he pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. The pain from this relatively simply action was almost unbearable. He managed to keep from crying out, but a tear broke free and streamed down his cheek. He wiped it away quickly. Then he looked at himself briefly in the mirror. There was no visible sign of the injury. That was the one small blessing.

He lifted the syringe from the sink, checked it one last time, then, with a tightened jaw, plunged it into the sharp curve between his neck and left shoulder. This time the pain exploded into every corner of his body, and he dropped onto the floor as if forced there by an invisible hand. He curled into a fetal position, screaming like a torture victim. Through the haze of agony he managed to thumb the plunger down, driven by the desire to get this over with as quickly as possible. The screaming and the writhing lasted for maybe thirty more seconds, but it felt endless.

When the needle chamber was empty, the pain began losing intensity. It mellowed first into a dull throb, and then to nothing. Bailey remained on the floor for a few minutes, sweating profusely as he tried to catch his breath. More tears had streamed out, but he didn't attempt to wipe them away this time. He just wanted to regain his sanity. He got up on all fours, then fell into a sitting position and leaned against the wall. The exhaust fan was still rumbling away, and steam was rising from the marble basin. Eventually his breathing returned to normal, and the pain was but a memory. He wouldn't be able to lift the arm for a while, but that was okay. As long as it was better by the start of minicamps. As long as that happened, everything would be fine.
It'll be as if the injury never happened …

At least that's what he believed.

6

George Washington High School
was built in 1965, during the rise of Lyndon Johnson's “Great Society,” in an impoverished suburb of Philadelphia. Thanks to funds from the federal government, it had many features that a lot of the older area high schools did not, including a science lab, a drama theatre, and a football field with a scoreboard, bleachers, and an announcer's booth. From all appearances, G. W. High was well on its way.

Then in 1992 a male student was knifed to death in one of the upstairs bathrooms. He was a member of a local gang, so it was generally believed his death was the result of a drug deal gone wrong. But, in spite of concerted efforts by the local police and the FBI, his murderer was never found, and the subsequent avalanche of lawsuits by the boy's family forced the school to close. A chainlink fence went up around the property, and the windows were covered over with plywood. The state wanted to sell the land, but, due to a series of legal snafus, they never could. So the building and the surrounding grounds just sat, year after year, neglected and rotting. Weeds grew waist high and graffiti appeared. A rumor would occasionally surface about someone venturing inside via one of the basement windows, and the inevitable folktale arose about the ghost of the murdered boy roaming the halls, seeking vengeance.

The football field had not been enclosed by the fence and was soon adopted as an unofficial public lot; the school looming like a sentinel in the distance. Maintaining it became a community affair, the unwritten rule being if you played on it you helped take care of it. On any given Sunday you could hear the groan of a lawn mower, and each spring some mystery person generously applied new lines of limestone. Local leagues were loosely formed, and one year they even managed their own version of the Super Bowl. Nearly fifty “fans” showed up to watch the Wildcats beat the Playboys, 35–21.

During the week the field was usually empty; this was when Raymond Coolidge used it. He brought a bunch of balls in a net bag and was usually accompanied by a friend named Mark Dalton. They had played together at La Salle, Mark as a wide receiver and Raymond as the quarterback. Most notable, however, was the fact that together they had broken twenty-nine school records. Raymond was personally responsible for twenty of them.

On this particular sunny spring afternoon a third person came with them. He was an older man with the weary, troubled face of a blues guitarist. He wore jeans and a flannel shirt, and walked with a slight limp from a machine-shop accident he'd had in 1992. Since the accident, Raymond's Uncle Joe had survived on meager disability payments and the charity of friends and relatives.

He stood with his arms folded over his sizable belly and watched his nephew run the drills. Dalton was doing his best to throw his quarterback out of rhythm, but Raymond was more than equal to the challenge.

After a while Joe asked, “How's your mama doing with her back?”

“Okay.”

“Yeah? That's not what I heard. I heard she's having a lot of trouble over there, getting around, doing housework. Some of the simple stuff is becoming not-so-simple anymore.”

Raymond didn't respond.

“Have you thought any more about what you're gonna do now that you're out of school?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know? Well, are you gonna get a job?”

“Probably.”

Joe shook his head. “‘Probably.' Your mama isn't gonna be able to work forever. You'll need to take care of her. A year from now she'll have trouble just driving over there. In five years she won't be able to work at all.”

Again no response. Joe wasn't surprised. Raymond had always been stoic, even as a child. He had a chip on his shoulder almost from the day he was born. And he knew who put it there, too.

“It ain't easy out in the world, Ray. In fact it's damned hard. Working all day just to get by. Not many opportunities to make any real money.”

Dalton ran a slant pattern about sixty yards out, and Raymond laid the ball right in his lap.

“If you tried out for a pro team, though, you could have enough money to take care of your mama forever. You'd have enough money to do whatever you wanted. You'd be a king.”

Raymond waited for Dalton to run the next route, seemingly unaware that he was being spoken to.

“I heard the new backup quarterback for the Colts got over a million bucks as a signing bonus. A million bucks as a
backup.
You'd never make that kind of money anywhere else. Never. So how about it? How about giving it a shot? Or at least the Arena League or NFL Europe or something?”

Raymond picked up the last ball and waited. Dalton ran down the right side, cut toward the center, then switched back. Raymond released the ball with a grunt and it sailed over the head of its target. Dalton never knew what Raymond and his uncle talked about, but it clearly wasn't anything good.

“No,” he said simply, and Joe knew that was all the response he'd get.

*   *   *

That night, hands tucked behind his head, Raymond lay awake and watched the clouds pass by his bedroom window. He knew his Uncle Joe would bring up the NFL again. And again he would say no. Nothing more than that, for anything more would be disrespectful. He didn't want to be disrespectful to his Uncle Joe—also known as Uncle “Pearly” because of his perfect teeth. He loved Pearly, and he knew Pearly loved him. He'd been a part of Raymond's life for as long as Raymond could remember.

He turned over and found the trading card on the nightstand. It was encased in hard plastic to arrest the aging process. Football cards had never been regarded with the same reverence as their baseball equivalents, and this one in particular probably had a market value of about a buck. But to Raymond it was priceless. The man in the photo was wearing a smile almost identical to Pearly's. In fact, many of their features bore a haunting similarity, which made sense since they were brothers. Quincy Pressner was standing on a sunny field with a ball tucked into his left arm. He was proudly wearing his Rams jersey and looked so young and happy that Raymond often couldn't believe it was the same man he knew now. This Quincy Pressner looked as though he was ready to conquer the universe. He looked healthy, strong, and supremely confident. Another person in another time, so far removed from the present that it was almost impossible to believe it ever existed at all. This was the father Raymond never really knew.