The Throwback Special (16 page)

“Who are you this year?” Robbie said, flipping through his keys.

“Excuse me?” Derek said.

“Which player?”

“Oh,” Derek said. “This year? This year I’m L.T.”

Robbie looked up from his keys, peering at Derek through his stringy bangs. Derek felt the urge to confess his lie, but he remained quiet, and Robbie resumed his search for the key.

The closet was three times larger than the office. Floor-to-ceiling shelves ran across all four walls. On the shelves were clear plastic containers of various sizes. In the containers Derek could see phones, keys, watches, dentures, hearing aids, jewelry, laptops, MP3 players, CDs, DVDs, electric toothbrushes, vibrators, gloves, mittens, dog collars, scarves, video games, GPS devices, chargers, mouthguards, neckties, shoes, shirts, pants, blouses,
skirts, sweaters, knives, toys, games, headphones, hand weights, jump ropes, prescription medications, shaving kits, cosmetic bags, purses, clutches, handbags, duffel bags, garment bags, knapsacks, backpacks, satchels, wallets, hats, visors, socks, photographs, retainers, heating pads, massagers, wigs, stuffed animals, noise machines, dehumidifiers, humidifiers, sleep apnea devices, blood sugar monitors, blood pressure monitors, heart rate monitors, ear wax vacuums, dolls, Charles’s brown canvas bag, sewing kits, knitting needles, thimbles, riding crops, thermometers, fingernail clippers, scissors, tweezers, books, notebooks, canes, lighters, pillows, maps, umbrellas, glasses, sunglasses, contact lens cases, porcelain figurines, travel mugs, pet food bowls, eyeshades, tennis rackets, harmonicas. In a corner there was an antique wooden crib, and wedged snugly inside the crib was Fancy Drum.

“So this is the lost and found?” Derek said.

“We just call it the lost,” Robbie said, searching a low shelf. He pulled out a container full of HDMI cables, intertwined like snakes in a mating ball. “We got two-foot, four-foot, six-foot, or eight-foot,” he said, pulling out cables from the container. “Whatever you want.”

“I don’t know,” Derek said. “I guess I’ll take a six-foot.”

“Good choice,” Robbie said. “Here, take two, just in case.” He handed Derek the HDMI cables. The twitch in his eye made it difficult to tell if he had winked.

Derek nodded.

“You want anything else while we’re here?” Robbie said. “You want some thumb drives?”

Derek shrugged.

Robbie scooped out a handful of thumb drives from a bottom-shelf container, and offered them to Derek.

“Thank you,” Derek said, dropping the thumb drives into the front pocket of his corduroys.

Robbie looked around. “Headphones? Viagra?”

Derek moved a footstool to the corner. On the stool, on tiptoes, he reached into a container on the top shelf. Gently he pulled one end of a lavender scarf out of the container. He rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. He read the tag to confirm it was silk.

“You like that scarf?” Robbie said.

Derek nodded.

“That’s been here longer than I have,” Robbie said.

“It’s nice.”

“You want to see other scarves? We’ve got boxes of scarves. I’ll get them down for you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Derek said.

“You like that purple one.”

“I like this one.”

“It’s all yours,” Robbie said.

Derek pulled the long scarf from the container like a magician.

“Good choice,” Robbie said.

“She’ll love it,” Robbie said.

“Hey, take it,” Robbie said. “Just don’t hurt me.” He laughed. The keys on his belt tinkled. “Just don’t snap my leg.”

The ceiling light was clean and stark, as white as a ping-
pong ball. The industrial dryers rumbled in the basement below. Derek folded the scarf carefully, and reached high to place it back in its container. He thanked Robbie for the cables, and set out for the lobby, wherever that might be.

THE RAIN TAPPED
and streaked the windows of Room 324. With a white wand Bald Michael pulled the heavy curtains closed, darkening the room. The six-foot HDMI cable transmitted uncompressed video data from Trent’s laptop to the hotel’s digital television. The men settled on the beds, the chairs, the floor. They leaned forward, toward the transmitted data. They stopped talking about their parents, and grew silent. Those who chewed their nails chewed their nails. Others warmed their hands with cups of coffee. Those who had colds coughed and sneezed and sniffled and blew their noses into napkins taken from the dining area. Gary tugged at the neck of his Lawrence Taylor jersey. He plucked with agitation at the chest and shoulders. No one asked Gil to do his Frank Gifford impersonation, and he did not do it. A shower cap full of new wristbands, white and blue, was passed hand to hand across the room. Fat Michael held his helmet in his lap, absentmindedly rubbing the single bar of the face mask. His back itched in places he could not reach. There were many things George wanted to discuss, but he refrained from speaking.

Though everyone was quiet, Trent, as commissioner, called for everyone to be quiet. He placed the DVD in his laptop, and a menu materialized, whirring. Trent pressed play. The keyboard was hot to the touch. The television screen flickered for a moment, and then upon it appeared an aerial image of the Jefferson Memorial, stolid and columned, lit up from the inside at night. Far beyond the memorial there were headlights moving quickly across a dark highway, and more than one man thought to wonder who was driving those cars on that night, and what had become of them. A caption beneath the memorial read, “Live from Washington, D.C.” The font was blocky and guileless, naked in its pride and enthusiasm, and it worked upon the men in ways they did not comprehend. The volume was too low, but the men could hear Frank Gifford say that it was almost Indian summer weather here in mid-November. “Turn it up,” every man said, and Trent turned it up. The men could hear the bleat of the referee’s whistle, indicating that the ball was ready for play.

THE MEN WOULD WATCH
the play repeatedly. For over an hour the men would watch the five-second play, remembering, for a moment, as always, exactly where they were. The men would see that a play is what happens when two plays meet. The men would study this choreography of chaos and ruin. They would see, some of them, that hair on
a mammoth is not progressive in any cosmic sense. Each man would see exactly where he would line up in his huddle. Steven would see, as he had seen many times before, the white towel tucked into the left side of Art Monk’s waistband. He would see that Monk, lined up wide at the numbers to the left side of the formation, has his right leg forward in his stance. He would also see that Gary Clark, lined up at the numbers wide right, has his left foot forward, and he would whisper it loudly to Jeff, who would pretend not to hear him as he would see Clark disappear into the dark on a sprint route, or a seam route, or a skinny post, or a corner route. Jeff and others would be forced to assume that players who left the frame of the television camera continued to exist. Derek would see Didier doing what Didier does—that protracted series of ineffectual stutter steps against Giants linebacker Byron Hunt, whom George would see. The defensive backs would see nothing. The men would be reminded by play-by-play announcer Frank Gifford that language, always, is insufficient. “First and ten . . . Riggins . . . flea flicker . . . back to Theismann.” The linemen would see the rout, the tattered pocket, blue overwhelming white. They would see the devastating pincer movement executed by Carson and Taylor. Gil would see, over and over, the majestic footwork of Redskins right tackle Mark May, who takes one step forward to sell the run, then slides back to seal the pocket and rebuff the hard outside rush of Curtis McGriff.
Every time
, over and over, knowing, as May must, that he cannot prevent the catastrophe, but doing his job simply because it’s his job,
pushing that rock forever. Randy, the erstwhile optician, would see that as Donnie Warren he could die for all of their sins. Tommy would see but not understand that John Riggins, whatever his virtues, is not a cunning agent of dissimulation. A mechanical actor, Riggins fails to deceive the defense, fails to divert the advance of the linebackers upon the quarterback. He turns his shoulders back to Theismann immediately upon receiving the handoff. He is not stealthy, not persuasive. It is a clumsy sleight, this Throwback Special. (As Andy remarked one year in film study—either Andy or Adam—you can’t expect subtlety from a guy called the Diesel.) Nate would see that the fake run makes linebacker Harry Carson charge. Trent would see that right guard Ken Huff misses Carson as he charges. Fat Michael, the orphan, would see that the charging Carson, missed by Huff, misses Theismann, makes him step up into the pocket. Fat Michael would try to control his heart rate through deep, yogic breathing. The men would see once again that if Carson had just made the tackle, Theismann’s leg would have been spared. The men would hear Frank Gifford say that Theismann is in a lot of trouble. “Theismann’s in a lot of trouble,” Gifford says, would say, said. Gary would see that Taylor launches himself onto Theismann’s back, that he slides down Theismann’s body, that his right thigh . . . Bald Michael would see that linebacker Gary Reasons jumps on Theismann after he is down, after his leg has and had been broken in two. Wesley would see that nose tackle Jim Burt jumps on Theismann after Gary Reasons jumps on Theismann. Gary
(and Robert) would see that the circuit of Taylor’s anguish could not be completed. Bald Michael would see that Gary Reasons prays. He would see how it is done. The men would recall that this was Theismann’s 71st consecutive—and final—regular season start at quarterback. The men, excepting Steven, would not immediately recall that the Redskins won the game. The youngest of the men would recall that they were permitted to watch only the first half. The men would hear Frank Gifford say, “We’ll look at it with reverse angle one more time, and I suggest, if your stomach is weak, you just don’t watch.” The men, many of them, would have a weak stomach, and they just wouldn’t watch. A few still winced and moaned, even after all of these years. There was the year that Peter threw up a little. These men, to their great shame, had sent their wives into emergency rooms with their injured children because they could not stand the blood, the needles. The men would watch the slow-motion replay, the reverse angle replay, with their hands over their faces. The men would hear, over and over, O. J. Simpson’s groaning commentary.

But first—before that—they saw the Jefferson Memorial, which George, Nate, Jeff, Adam, Wesley, Carl, Randy, and Myron had each separately visited on class field trips in elementary school. Wesley’s teacher’s name had actually been Mrs. Fortune. They heard Frank Gifford say that it was unseasonably warm. They read the caption “Live from Washington, D.C.,” and saw that the periods were squares. The font, quaint and earnest, elicited a warm and formless memory of safety. The warm and formless memory
of safety elicited by the quaint earnestness of the font made them feel mournful. The mournfulness caused by the formless memory of safety elicited by the quaint font made them feel like brimming vessels. They were alive, gloriously sad. Bald Michael had almost no hair remaining at all, just small patches above the ears, as neat as decals. The men heard the bleat of the referee’s whistle, and they saw the magic circle of the huddle, inside of which the play was chanted. When the huddle broke, the offensive players, even Theismann, jogged eagerly to the line, where the defense waited. It was a home game, nationally televised. It was first and ten, near midfield, early second quarter. Everything in the playbook was available. You could run anything here. If you had a trick up your sleeve, now was a time and a down and a field position you might try it. The men watched as the players jogged to the line of scrimmage. Theismann’s right leg was intact, as straight and strong as an Ionic column. Everything was early, everything was open. The things that had not happened yet were greater than the things that had happened.

THERE WAS A DEER
next to the dumpster behind the hotel. It stood still in the rain, ears alert, waiting to be frightened. A grainy version of the deer occupied a small box in the third column of the fourth row of the surveillance grid of the sixteen-channel CCTV monitor at the front desk.
Like anyone shown on a surveillance monitor, the deer appeared to be involved in a crime.

In another box of the surveillance grid, the parking lot glittered blackly.

In another box, four grown men threw a football in a hallway.

In another box, two employees from the AquaDoctor scrubbed the lobby fountain with soft brushes.

In another box of the surveillance grid, the stairwell was so profoundly deserted as to seem post-human.

In another box, an elevator passenger dropped into a three-point stance.

In another box, it was very difficult to tell what exactly was going on.

In another box, a man wearing an elbow pad ran an unsustainable pace on the treadmill in the workout center.

In another box, two grown men threw a Frisbee in a hallway.

In another box, the continental breakfast had long since ended.

In another box, was that a cat in a hallway?

In another box, inhabitants of the conference center applauded silently.

In another box of the surveillance monitor, the front desk clerk ignored the sixteen-channel surveillance monitor.

In another box, a man pacing and gesticulating alone in a hallway was either suffering from mental illness or using a phone with a hands-free headset.

In another box, an upside-down bird gnawed grainily on the knotted rope in its cage.

In the final box, an elderly man walked with purpose and a dignified limp through the lobby doors, into the hotel, vanishing from the box. He then reappeared in the front desk box, placing his elbows on the desk in a manner that seemed both inquisitive and assertive. He spoke with the front desk clerk—he appeared to speak with the front desk clerk—then walked briskly out of the box. The elderly man reappeared in the elevator box, pressing buttons, or more likely pressing a single button repeatedly. Here, in the elevator, you could see him well. He was perhaps seventy-five, with a full head of neatly trimmed gray hair. He was tall, with excellent posture. He wore a plaid shirt tucked into dark pants, but it was not difficult to imagine him wearing a uniform of some sort. The man did not, like almost all passengers, look at himself in the mirror on the back wall of the elevator. After a time, the elevator doors opened, and he exited the box. He reappeared in a different box of the sixteen-box surveillance grid, walking toward a group of grainy men throwing a football in a hallway. Most of the men dispersed immediately, though one of the men stood against the wall as if frozen. His face, which was not clearly visible on the surveillance monitor, had a startled expression. The abandoned football still spun on the hallway carpet like the altimeter dial of a rapidly descending aircraft. Midway down the hall, the elderly man stopped outside of a room, and knocked on the door. The vending alcove was neither visible nor audible. The man appeared
to say something to the door. One is forced to assume that he was viewed through the peephole. Eventually, the door opened, and the elderly man entered the room, disappearing from the box in the fourth column of the second row of the surveillance grid. By this time the deer, too, was gone from the box with the deer in it.