The Franchise (16 page)

“Precisely, Taylor,” Conly said. “It’s the big leagues, and you are so damn good at it.” The general manager banged at Cyrus’s wall until the hidden wet bar swung out. He held up the brand-new eight-ounce Texas Pistols-logo tumblers, purple and white, crossed Walker Colt .45 single-action revolvers. “Drink?” Conly looked to Taylor.

Taylor waved off the alcohol. “I’m on drugs.”

Conly nodded. Cyrus frowned as Dick poured four ounces of whiskey and drank it down in a long continuous gulping motion. He poured another. “Lots of people can play football, but only a few can make big money. Do what the man wants,” Conly said. “You could be making a big mistake. Expensive. Wendy and Lem Three are getting married this July. It’s been set for a long time. You won’t be able to make the wedding because you’ll be in camp early with the rookies and the centers. We’re going to train in your part of the state, just up the road from Two Oaks at Ben T. Milam Junior College up in the hill country.” Conly was painting the air with his hand. “Bluebonnets and bluestem grass, Indian firewheels. Beautiful country. God’s country. Cool breezes.”

“You a chamber-of-commerce lyricist?” Taylor looked up at Conly’s face. His long fingers were laced tightly together and his palms were dry. So was his mouth. “You can’t interfere with us. I’m not afraid of you and I sure as hell couldn’t be the Franchise if I were afraid of Cyrus.”

Taylor unlaced his fingers, clenched his fist and held it in front of Dick Conly’s face. Conly drank another glass of whiskey and watched with dead-fish eyes.

“That’s me in there. I can hold me in one hand.” Taylor’s jaws were tight; the muscles flexed and made his cheek quiver. His eyes cold, narrow; his lips, stretched to a thin crease, barely moved. “If I trust you and open my hand, I will float away, I know it. You know it. But you need me. Where would the Franchise be with Red Kilroy as coach and any other quarterback? Red is a raving lunatic.”

“The man is a football genius,” Cyrus protested.

“Sure, he’s a genius,” Taylor agreed, “but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a raving maniac. You have any idea what it is like to control and play a football game in front of seventy thousand people with a full-blown bozo on the sidelines as head coach? Against Ohio State he shit in his pants in the third quarter and didn’t leave the field until the game ended. He stunk like a shit-house and was crazier than a shithouse rat.

“You bring in your number-three choice, that hotshot quarterback from Florida State.” Taylor smiled. “Red will eat him for breakfast, bones and all, and then walk around asking everybody where the quarterback from Florida State went.”

“Red Kilroy knows more football than you’ll ever know.” Cyrus wasn’t looking at Taylor.

“There is no first place in the mad house, Cyrus.”

“Red wants to trade for a good quarterback.” Cyrus was still at him. “We got Bobby Hendrix from Cleveland; now Red wants that guy that threw to Hendrix, Kendall Adams.”

“Kimball,” Conly corrected, “Kimball Adams.”

“Right,” Cyrus said, “Kimball Adams.”

“He’s almost forty and has had four knee operations.” Taylor sighed, sensing a long war ahead. “How long do you think he’ll last behind the kind of offensive line we’re gonna have? You might get one good year out of him. Red knows that, I know it. We’re gonna have to run sprint-out passes for the first three years at least. How’s Kimball Adams gonna run a sprint out? He’s good, but he won’t put up with Red going crazy on game day. He needs ten shots of Novocain a half to play for Cleveland, and they’ve
got
an offensive line. Sorry, Cyrus, but you need
me.
And you can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do, on or off the field. That’s
why
I’m the quarterback.”

Taylor looked at both men, then extended his hand. “If you fellows want to say good-bye, let’s have that one-million-dollar handshake Doc had you put in the contract.” He stared at the two men; neither reached for the million-dollar hand, so Taylor walked out into the lobby.

“Asshole. College kid asshole,” Cyrus said. “I give him a great contract; then, when I try to keep him happy and wise him up, he walks out acting like the Franchise.”

“He
is
the Franchise,” Dick Conly said. “What the hell did you do to Simon D’Hanis in here?”

“I took him down a notch or two for Mr. Rusk’s benefit.” Cyrus smiled. “Now, what will Taylor Rusk do about my daughter?”

“Whatever he damn well pleases.” And this time Dick Conly drank from the bottle.

“Fellas ... say, fellas ...” In the outer office Simon D’Hanis called to the various writers and cameramen, sound technicians, assorted press and Franchise officials who were drinking free whiskey and looking at the hostesses dressed in black-net stockings, skintight purple-and-white hot pants and T-shirts.

Taylor stood next to the door and watched.

“Fellas, if I could have your attention again ...” Simon walked up to the podium and the bouquet of microphones taped there. “Charlie, could you come here a minute?” He waved at his agent, who was near the back of the room, talking to Lem Carleton III and one of the hostesses.

“Charlie Stillman and I have one more announcement,” Simon insisted, and people began to move back toward the podium, turning on tape recorders, cameras and klieg lights. Charlie Stillman, a tall, thin man with a pointed face, was a graduate of the University law school and had been recommended to Simon by the athletic director, T. J. “Armadillo” Talbott. It was a mystery to Taylor why Simon believed Armadillo. Taylor had tried to get Simon to let Doc Webster handle his contract, but Simon said Doc was a drunk with a bad reputation. Taylor wondered where Simon D’Hanis, from Vidor, Texas, learned to worry about Doc’s reputation. Taylor guessed Dick Conly.

“What is it, ol’ buddy?” Charlie Stillman said to Simon, who had the agent in a shoulder grip and was avoiding his gaze, concentrating his efforts on reinspiring the press.

Finally all the lights and tape and film were running.

“I just wanted to tell you about Charlie.” Digging into Stillman’s shoulder with his strong fingers, Simon turned, looked into Stillman’s eyes and saw a man who knew he’d been caught. “He sold me out like a sneaking dog, and if I had my two-seventy, I’d show ...” His eyes catching sight of Taylor, Simon suddenly stopped. “... show ... and ... I’m ... I’m ...” He looked at Taylor again. “I’m sorry.” Simon released the vise grip on Stillman’s shoulder and shoved him over the podium and crashing through the crowd.

Simon stormed into an open elevator. Two writers trying to follow were tossed gently off, only bouncing a couple of times. The TV sound man was screaming that his leg was broken. The doors closed on Simon, all alone in a descending elevator. Taylor watched it all. Nobody had won and Simon had lost. It was so pointless.

T
AYLOR AND
W
ENDY
went up to Doc’s on Dead Man Creek and watched the moon rise big and red, climbing rapidly into the sky, getting smaller, finally turning white.

“You remember the Bowl Game when A.D. got hurt?” Taylor closed his eyes. “It was near the end of the game ... remember?” Their separate hammocks creaked slowly in rhythm, the white nets of cotton cord stretched between the skinned and jointed cedar poles that supported the porch’s tin roof. The crickets and hammocks made the only noise for a while.

“No. I didn’t watch.” Wendy didn’t want to talk about the Bowl Game.

“Well,” Taylor continued, unaware, “A.D. was flopping like a fish, screaming, moaning and groaning. Simon wanted to call a priest instead of the trainer.” To keep his hammock swinging, Taylor pushed off the stone floor, his long leg crooked, his foot flat. “So now everybody is scared and the trainer says, ‘A.D.! Where are you hurt?’ and A.D. acts like he’s taken bullets in the chest. He groans finally. ‘Don’t worry about me; how are my fans taking it?’ ”

Taylor began to laugh. When Wendy did not respond, Taylor’s laughter quickly died off. They lay silently in the hammocks, listening to the whippoorwill in the oak motte.

“You going to do what my father wants?” Wendy asked finally.

“No. I try never to cooperate with the system. How about you?”

“I don’t know. Are you proposing?”

He shook his head. “Don’t ask for forever if you don’t want it.”

“Maybe I want it.”

“Maybe don’t have a pay window.”

“Life isn’t always metaphor for sports.”

Taylor said nothing for quite a while; then quietly, carefully, he said, “It takes management and coaching to win consistently, but to do it
quickly
the Franchise needs a great quarterback—me. There are plenty of good players for the other positions, all mass-produced by the colleges, all available. But great quarterbacks are rare.”

“You make it seem that way,” Wendy said.

“That’s the reason Red’s in a hurry,” Taylor went on. “Me too. I’m a lifelong tramp athlete with one chance in a million to turn some big money. If your father stays clear.”

“He won’t,” Wendy said. “He never will.”

“I know, and that means skating on thinner ice than usual. I still want you with me, but I can’t think about a wife and children. It’s going to be full speed through the fog, with me calling the turns. I have to pay attention.”

“How about a simple yes or no,” Wendy said impatiently.

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“You’re backing down from my father,” Wendy accused.

“Not an inch, nor am I purposely pushing him. I don’t need any additional bends in the road. Speed and time are important.”

“You’re just going to let real life go by while you play games for my father.”

“This
is
real life.” Taylor pointed at himself. “I have to control the playing field or I am gone, replaced by a technician who becomes the coach’s pawn, showing great skill but no magic.”

“Now you’re a magician?” Wendy was sarcastic. “You definitely are an escape artist.”

“Keeping my eyes on the road ahead is not the same as ignoring you. My life is what it is,” Taylor said. “You’re welcome to make this insane run; you can get off or back on anytime, but don’t grab the wheel.”

“No wedding? Or children?” Wendy spit the words angrily. She was unused to being denied.

“Why risk the first few laps,” Taylor replied. “I have the skills, knowledge and power to survive the business. With your help I could win at it, on and off the field.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Wendy asked warily.

“Understand.”

“What do you mean by that? Understand what?”

“Three things are important.” Taylor frowned. “Don’t lie, never make a promise you can’t keep, and never quit.

“I fight for control every day, against more than Cyrus. I trust no one, especially people who believe in Spur, team, and University. I thrive against the system.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Be on my side ... trust me ... and ...”

Wendy interrupted unhappily. “... And let you call the plays.”

Taylor nodded and remained quiet.

The whippoorwill started up again, and they both looked off into the darkness toward the sound.

Finally Taylor spoke, “What power I have, what control I exercise in the world, has its source in
the game.
On the field I must have complete
control.
... No plays from the bench or suggestions from the press box, because those bastards aren’t out there. Only the players are ... only the players count. I have to deliver on demand at the right time. Timing. It does no good to do magic tricks on Monday ... if the game was Sunday. Timing and winning are power and control.”

“Timing what?” Wendy closed her eyes. “Winning what?”

“All of it,” Taylor said. “All the way to the Super Bowl. And
fast.
It’s possible in three to six years, if they build the Franchise around me. And if I deliver.” Taylor continued, “I force your father, Conly and Red to deal with
me
because on game day they need me more than I need them. That is
power.”

“Do you love me at all?” she asked quietly. “Are you always this cold and calculating? My stomach is a broken Slinky and you just swing there, passionless, blank-faced.”

“I get nervous when people start tossing passion around like a Frisbee. There are two sides to the goddam Frisbee and chaos is one.”

“My father is not going to stop my marriage.”

“Well, he’s not going to force me into
mine.
Passion is not what we need right now. We need patience, calculation, time to figure our next move. Logical decisions are catastrophic in an insane situation, and your father ...”

“How can you humiliate me like this?” Wendy stopped the hammock and stepped onto the rock porch floor. She walked to the west end and peered around the ranch house. “All my friends think we’re getting married.”

“I didn’t tell them. Let’s just ease on down to training camp and see how the first season goes....”

“Son of a bitch!” Wendy leaned against the stone wall and stayed at the west end of the porch. “Dumb son of a bitch. You’ve got no idea what’s important—”

“I’ve got one idea,” Taylor interrupted. “Love hurts, passion hurts. And I’m in a business where, during the important times, I cannot allow pain, mental or physical, to interfere.” Taylor stared at Wendy’s back; she was hugging herself like she was cold. She looked small, alone and abandoned.

“I ignore pain,” he went on, “but I never forget it, because then it runs loose. Forgotten pain is the most destructive kind.”

“Bullshit!” Wendy turned. “One person isn’t enough: You have to have hordes of fans. And you’re afraid of my father and Dick Conly. You’re afraid to chance it.”

“I’m less frightened of your father than I am of you.”

“Why? Why me?”

“You’re used to looking at other people as parts of your life.” Taylor stood up and stretched his fingers pointing skyward. “You’ll want to choreograph parts of my life. You actually think you can make me do what you want to do whether I care or not.”

“Tell me”—keeping her back to Taylor, Wendy leaned forward and braced her chin on the back of her hand—“is that what it is about
me
that enchants you so that marriage is out of the question? Take a chance.”