End Zone (19 page)

“Coach wants to see you,” he said.

Everybody stood around watching. I went over and found my coat. I put it over my head and followed Veech into the dimness and silence. We went over to Staley Hall. Veech didn’t say anything. We went downstairs and he simply nodded toward the closed door at the end of the isometrics room. I left my coat bundled on a scale. Then I blew my nose, walked to the door and knocked. The room was small and barely furnished, just an army cot, a
small folding table, two folding chairs. There were no windows. On the wall was a page torn from a book, a black-and-white plate of a girl praying in a medieval cell, an upper corner of the page loose and casting a limp shadow. Near the door, at my shoulder, a whistle hung from a string looped over a bent nail. Emmett Creed was in a wheelchair. His legs were covered with a heavy blanket, gray and white, not quite the school colors. Ten or twelve loose-leaf binders were stacked neatly on the floor.

“Sit down, Gary.”

“Yes sir.”

“I’m told it’s a near blizzard out there.”

“We were going at it,” I said. “We were playing. We were ignoring the weather and going right at it.”

“So I’m told.”

“How are you feeling, Coach? A lot of the guys have tried to get in to see you. I’m sure they’d appreciate it if I brought back word.”

“Everything is progressing as anticipated.”

“Yes sir. Very good. I know they’d appreciate hearing that.”

“A near blizzard is what they tell me.”

“It’s really snowing,” I said. “It’s coming down thick and steady. Visibility must be zero feet.”

“Maybe that’s the kind of weather we needed over at Centrex.”

“None of us can forget that game, Coach.”

“We learned a lot of humility on that field.”

“It was hard to accept. We had worked too hard to lose, going all the way back to last summer, scrimmaging in that heat. We had worked too hard. It was impossible
to believe that anybody had worked harder than we had. We had sacrificed. We had put ourselves through a series of really strenuous ordeals. And then to step out on that field and be overwhelmed the way we were.”

“It takes character to win,” he said. “It’s not just the amount of mileage you put in. The insults to the body. The humiliation and fear. It’s dedication, it’s character, it’s pride. We’ve got a ways to go yet before we develop these qualities on a team basis.”

“Yes sir.”

“I’ve never seen a good football player who didn’t know the value of self-sacrifice.”

“Yes sir.”

“I’ve never seen a good football player who wanted to learn a foreign language.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been married three times but I was never blessed with children. A son. So maybe I don’t know as much about young men as I think I do. But I’ve managed to get some good results through the years. I’ve tried to extract the maximal effort from every boy I’ve ever coached. Or near as possible. Football is a complex of systems. It’s like no other sport. When the game is played properly, it’s an interlocking of a number of systems. The individual. The small cluster he’s part of. The larger unit, the eleven. People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquillity. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies strewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“But I didn’t intend getting into that. You know all that. A boy of your intelligence doesn’t have to be told what this game is all about.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“No boy of mine has ever broken the same rule twice.”

“Yes sir.”

“No boy in all my years of coaching has ever placed his personal welfare above the welfare of the aggregate unit.”

“Yes sir.”

“Our inner life is falling apart. We’re losing control of things. We need more self-sacrifice, more discipline. Our inner life is crumbling. We need to renounce everything that turns us from the knowledge of ourselves. We’re getting too far away from our own beginnings. We’re roaming all over the landscape. We need to build ourselves up mentally and spiritually. Do that and the body takes care of itself. I learned this as a small boy. I was very sickly, a very sickly child. I had this and that disease. I was badly nourished. My legs were no thicker than the legs of that chair. But I built myself up by determination and sacrifice. The mind first and then the body. It was a lonely life for a boy. I had no friends. I lived in an inner world of determination and silence. Mental resolve. It made me strong; it prepared me. Things return to their beginnings. It’s been a long circle from there to here. But all the lessons hold true. The inner life must be disciplined just as the hand or eye. Loneliness is strength. The Sioux purified themselves by fasting and solitude. Four days without food in a sweat lodge. Before you went out to lament for your nation, you had to purify yourself. Fasting and solitude. If you can survive loneliness, you’ve got an
inner strength that can take you anywhere. Four days. You wore just a bison robe. I don’t think there’s anything makes more sense than self-denial. It’s the only way to attain moral perfection. I’ve wandered here and there. I’ve made this and that mistake. But now I’m back and I’m back for good. A brave nation needs discipline. Purify the will. Learn humility. Restrict the sense life. Pain is part of the harmony of the nervous system.”

I said nothing.

“What I called you in here for,” Creed said.

“Yes sir.”

“Do you know the reason?”

“Why I’m here? I assume because I walked off the field.”

“I knew that exploit was coming,” he said. “In one form or another it had to come. It was just a matter of time. I knew about Penn State and Syracuse. Sooner or later you had to make a gesture. Do something. Upset things. Test yourself — yourself more than me. I’ve been waiting. Every team I’ve ever coached had at least one boy who had to make the gesture. I’ve been waiting all season. You did it at other schools in one form or another and I knew you’d do it here. It’s off your chest now. You can settle down. What I called you in here for. Kimbrough graduates in the spring. You’re offensive captain.”

“I never expected anything like this,” I said. “I’m not a senior. Doesn’t it go to seniors?”

“Never mind that.”

“Frankly I thought I was here to be disciplined.”

“Maybe that’s what it all amounts to. I’ll be demanding extra. I’ll be after you every minute. As team leader you’ll
be setting an example for the rest of them. You’ll have to give it everything you’ve got and then some.”

“I’ll be ready,” I said.

“I know you will, son. You’ll find Oscar Veech in the training room. Send him in here.”

“One thing I’ve been meaning to ask since the minute I walked in. What’s that picture taped to the wall? Who is that in the picture? Is it anybody in particular?”

“Somebody sent that picture to me many years ago. Looks like it came from some kind of religious book for kids. People were always sending me things. Good luck things or prayers or all kinds of advice. Not so much now. They’ve been keeping pretty quiet of late. But that’s a Catholic saint. I’ve kept that picture with me for many years now. Teresa of Avila. She was a remarkable woman. A saint of the church. Do you know what she used to do in order to remind herself of final things?”

“Something to do with a skull, I think.”

“She used to eat food out of a human skull.”

“I’ll go find Veech,” I said.

In my room later I became depressed. No American accepts the deputy’s badge without misgivings; centuries of heroic lawlessness have captured our blood. I felt responsible for a vague betrayal of some local code or lore. I was now part of the apparatus. No longer did I circle and watch, content enough to be outside the center and even sufficiently cunning to plan a minor raid or two. Now I was the law’s small tin glitter. Suck in that gut, I thought.

Jimmy Fife came in and sat on Anatole’s bed. Fife was a defensive back who had been disabled all year, a ruptured spleen. Someone had accidentally kicked him during a practice session the previous spring. He had been very close to death. Many players still kidded him about it.

“Nix went wild last night and started throwing ash cans through windows. His ass has likely had it.”

“Coach made me captain,” I said. “As of now, I captain the offense.”

“Congrats,” Fife said.

“I don’t know if it’s good or bad. I feel a little bit upset. I guess I just have to get used to it. So Nix went berserk.”

“Completely amuck,” he said. “I saw the last part of it. It took six people to carry him off. It was a real fist-swinging melee. I didn’t get anywhere near it. Stupid to expose the spleen to contact at this point.”

“But Nix was out in the snow with us a little while ago. I just realized. I’m sure Nix was there. He was in the game we were playing out in the blizzard.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Fife said. “He’s an animal. He’s an animal’s animal. The animals themselves would vote him all-animal. After a night like last night anybody else would be in bed for a week. Animalism aside, I’ll tell you what he really is. He’s a nihilist. He himself says so. I’ve had conversations with the guy. He blames it on his name. Nix meaning no, no thanks, nothing.”

“I’ve never talked to the guy,” I said.

“I’ve had conversations with the guy. He’s pretty interesting, albeit a little bit stereo.”

“What do you mean — stereo?”

“I mean psycho. Did I say stereo? What a funny word to use.”

“You said albeit a little bit stereo.”

“Did I say albeit? That’s incredible, Gary. I’d never use a word like that. A word like that is way out of my province.”

“But you used it, Jimmy. I’m certain.”

“I must have been speaking in tongues,” Fife said.

He bounced on the bed a few times, his mouth wide open, and I thought he might be trying to cast out a minor playful word-demon.

“Anyway,” I said, “Nix has probably had it.”

“Sure, they’ll get him for the windows. It’s my guess he’ll be gone for good. Have you heard about Conway’s insects?”

“Offensive captain,” I said. “That means I go out for the coin toss. If Coach doesn’t object I think I’ll go out with my helmet off. I’ll carry it rather than wear it. I think it looks better. It sort of humanizes the coin toss. Then I can put it on again as I come running off.”

“Who’s the new defensive captain?” Fife said.

“I don’t know. Coach didn’t say and I didn’t ask.”

“How is he? I hear he’s the same.”

“He’s in a wheelchair,” I said.

“A wheelchair.”

“Don’t ask me why. Something to do with his legs, I guess. At least that’s what he seemed to intimate. Maybe not.”

“Where’s Bloomers?”

“I don’t know.”

“John Butler tells me he’s been hearing strange noises at night. These noises come from the other side of Butler’s wall. The other side of Butler’s wall is right here. It goes on for hours. Butler says it goes
teek teek teek teek.
”

“I don’t know anything about it.”

“Conway,” he said. “I started to tell you about Conway’s insects. He’s got this tremendous assortment of insects in his room. A few days ago he went out in the desert and dug them out of hibernation and brought them back to his room. Everybody’s been going in there to look at them. I think he wants to put them in some kind
of cage or giant bowl. Arrange it like their natural surroundings. Some dirt, some small plants, some rocks. And then see what happens.”

“It sounds horrible.”

“I think it might be interesting, Gary. We’ll get a chance to see what happens.”

“What could happen?”

“They could reproduce. They could fight among themselves. I don’t know. But it might be interesting. Conway knows all about insects. They’re his field. He was telling us all about it. It’s pretty interesting from a number of viewpoints.”

“Has he built this thing he’s going to build yet?”

“Work on that starts tomorrow. For the time being he’s keeping them in a number of jars.”

“What kind of number? How many insects are there?”

“Maybe forty all told. All different kinds. Beetles, spiders, scorpions — mostly beetles. The spider incidentally is not an insect. The spider is an arachnid. Let’s go take a look.”

“I’d just as soon stay here, I think, Jimmy.”

“A quick look,” he said.

“How quick?”

“In and out, Gary.”

“I’ve got things to do. We’d have to make it a very quick look.”

“We’ll just stick our heads in the door. Wap. In and out.”

We went down the hall. I saw two people come out of Conway’s room. Four others were there when we walked in. Conway escorted us around the room. There were ten or eleven large jars. Most of the insects seemed to be asleep.

“Tell Gary about the tiger beetle,” Fife said.

“The tiger beetle is a very interesting creature. The tiger beetle hunts by night. It moves swiftly over the ground or it climbs trees. It goes after caterpillars mostly.”

“What’s so interesting about that?” I said.

“Tell him about the radioactivity.”

“Insects are highly resistant to radioactivity,” Conway said. “In case of an all-out something-or-other, they’ll probably end up taking over the planet. All the birds will be killed off by the fallout. But the insect resists fallout. He won’t have birds feeding off him. He’ll be able to reproduce freely.”

“Most people are aware of that,” I said.

“But I’ll tell you a mistake almost everybody makes. It concerns the spider. The spider is not an insect. The spider is an arachnid.”

“I know that. Almost everybody knows that.”

“He doesn’t know about the wolf spider,” Fife said. “Tell him about the wolf spider and the little spiderlings. How they ride on her back.”

“The wolf spider has eight eyes. It spins no web. When the female’s eggs hatch, the little spiderlings ride on her back for about a week.”

“The scavenger beetle,” Fife said. “Tell him about the scavenger. I like the part where it lays the eggs.”