The Cut (12 page)

After lunch came a one-hour break, followed by drills with no pads. Nothing unusual, just one-on-ones and other basics. Then dinner, and finally a series of meetings—first the whole team with the head coach, who recapped the day by saying he wasn't pleased with anything, then smaller group sessions. The tight ends met with Dale Greenwood and the rest of the offensive coaches and players, getting the itinerary for the rest of the week, and finally with Jim O'Leary, who was friendly and upbeat and did most of the talking. While Maxwell was his usual stoic self, O'Leary could sense that the other three were uncomfortable around each other, and he tried to ease that. When it became clear he couldn't, he focused on the playbook, giving everyone a heads-up on what would be expected of them in the coming weeks and what the Giants were looking for, overall, in a tight end. He was impressed by how thoroughly his three new students had studied the book so far. They were asking questions of greater depth than others in the building were probably asking at the moment. He sensed they also wanted to know about T. J. Was he really cut from the team? If not, why were they here? And what happened that caused all this controversy in the first place? They wanted to ask these things, but they didn't.

*   *   *

By ten o'clock, every person in the dorm who was hoping to be in a Giants uniform come September was asleep except one. Sitting on the toilet with the lid down, the bathroom door shut, and the lights off, an exhausted Jermaine Hamilton opened his cell phone and, with his oversized fingers, phoned home. His heart pounded harder with each ring, and a part of him wanted to kill the call before anyone picked up. Melanie would be furious—she'd know he was checking up on her. She hadn't been around much. He'd seen her only three times since he was contacted by the team, in fact, and only in passing. She breezed in, then out. The conversations were terse, chilly. Anger seemed to be her default position now. He didn't want to argue with her, didn't want to fight, but he wondered if that was the only way to get her attention. He couldn't believe this was the same woman he had fallen in love with seven years earlier, the one who seemed so loving, attentive, and cheerful. She used to hang on him like a Christmas ornament, her arm wrapped around his and locked so tight he thought it might become gangrenous and fall off. Could it really all have been a scam? Could a person be that shallow, that conniving? He'd been warned by a handful of people to be careful of her through the years, that she matched the profile of the classic gold digger, ready to latch on to anyone who could provide the luxuriant life she craved. But he didn't believe it—he thought that kind of stuff only happened on soap operas. Sometimes in real life, but not as often as some people seemed to believe. No, Melanie Nemus wasn't that way.

Was she?

Four rings later, he heard a familiar voice. “Hi, you've reached the Hamiltons. Leave a message after the beep.” The voice was familiar because it was his. Was she there, listening? If so, was she alone? Had she returned to the house only after he left? Was she stretched out on the couch with some guy she picked up at one of the clubs? Were they doing all the things that
they
used to do, in a time so distant now that it seemed like it belonged to someone else? The thought of it made him sick to his stomach. Other images, hopefully fictional, came rolling off the assembly line of his imagination. Amazing how efficient the human mind can be at tormenting its owner.

He terminated the call without leaving a message and, after some hesitation, tried her cell phone. Voice mail again. He left no message, for he knew it would never be returned.

He sat there in the dark for what seemed like a long time and debated what to do. The disciplined part of him issued the order to go to bed so he'd be fully rested for the long day tomorrow.
You're not going to make this team if you don't.
His body simply did not function without proper rest anymore, and this was
training camp
, for God's sake. If you didn't do the things you were supposed to do, the coaches would know it and you'd be gone. There were ten guys waiting in line to take your place, and ten more behind them. Finding someone to play on an NFL team wasn't too tough. It was the ultimate buyer's market.

Another part of him wanted to keep dialing, call and call until Melanie got so fed up that she answered just to scream at him, tell him to leave her the hell alone. That wouldn't be pretty—but it would be
something
. Was that where his feelings had settled? he asked himself. Was that all that was left?
Even if she yells, at least it's attention in some form.
He knew guys like that, whose wives treated them like shit, and their rationale was
Hey, it's better than being ignored.
This made him feel even sicker, and it was an inward-facing disgust. He couldn't help it, though. Part of him still loved her, still wanted her (the
old
her, his mind emphasized), and that part was writhing in pain over visions of her infidelities. If he could interrupt them just by pushing a few buttons on this tiny, toylike device in his hand, why not?

He tried the home number again.

11

Text of letter
sent by Barry M. Sturtz via registered mail on August 3:

Alan Gray, Head Coach and Director

of Football Operations

Chet Palmer, Vice President and General Manager

c/o The New York Football Giants

Giants Stadium

East Rutherford, New Jersey 07073

Gentlemen:

This letter concerns the matter we discussed as a group on July 14, which was then briefly revisited by Chet Palmer and myself one week later over the phone—that of the desired contract renegotiation between my client, Thomas James Brookman, and your organization. To restate the matter, it is the belief of my client and myself that the former is fully within his rights and within reason to request the aforementioned renegotiation, as he has, statistically and provably, performed at a level above and beyond that of his peers since his entry into the league. Over the course of the last season, in fact, he has carried out his duties in a fashion that could readily be termed “best” at his position. And yet, he is earning a salary commensurate with players at the lowest-performing levels. When I requested that his salary be increased to that of his contemporaries playing on the same level—not that his salary be higher, but only representative of an average of the other three top players at his position—I was firmly rebuffed, and in fact threatened to have my client “benched” for the course of the upcoming season. When I suggested several other options, all were met with a similar response.

Therefore, after careful consideration, I regretfully submit this as notice to the following: 1) that my client will continue to remain at home rather than in training camp until this matter can be resolved fairly and amicably, and 2) that this be considered a formal grievance filed by myself on behalf of my client.

I would like to state again that I hope we can settle this matter in a fashion that is fair to both parties, and move forward. It is requested that the parties to whom this letter is directed kindly furnish a response, in accordance with the Collective Bargaining Agreement (Article IX, Section 3) within seven days of receipt.

 

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Barry M. Sturtz, Owner and President Performers LLC

CC: NFLPA, NFL Management Council

Greg Bolton knew he needed to improve his diet. He'd been making that promise to himself for …
what, two years now?
His physician—the same guy he'd been seeing for the last six years after finding him randomly in the United HealthCare search engine just one week after he and his family moved to Michigan—told him repeatedly that he needed to mend his high-cholesterol ways or earn honorary membership in what he called “Club Cardiac.” “You're thirty-nine now, Greg, not seventeen,” the bastard said sternly, sounding like a grandmother. “Your body doesn't bounce back the way it used to.”

Sitting in the darkened corner of a Chili's restaurant in North Carolina's Raleigh-Durham International Airport with an almost-finished cheeseburger on the plate next to his laptop, Bolton thought about this and shook his head.
What the doc doesn't realize is that I'm going to kill myself from overwork anyway, so I'm going to eat whatever I want in the meantime.

The pace had indeed been murderous these last few weeks. ESPN had him back in the hot seat of the third-straight “Greg Bolton's Training Camp-Palooza.” The first one had been a monster hit two years ago, featuring a not-so-subtle mix of humor, behind-the-scenes investigation, and solid reportage. Bolton discovered, to his astonishment, that he actually had some on-screen charisma. He didn't see what the big deal was, but if the fans enjoyed it, that was good enough for him—and certainly good enough for the network. The gods rewarded his newfound fame with a salary bump and a new title, which was great. Of course, it also meant longer hours, more work, and more stress and strain. In turn, that meant less time at home with his wife and five-year-old son, Chase, whom he adored and couldn't wait to see in a few hours. Still, this was what he'd always dreamed about since he came out of Kent State with his journalism degree. John Clayton (whom he secretly thought of as one of the most encyclopedic minds the sportswriting world had ever seen) had his own thing, and draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. had his. Now he had one, too.

He finished off the burger, and when the waitress came to clear the table, he ordered some ice cream (disregarding the tiny barbs of guilt over not making it frozen yogurt or sherbet instead;
screw that
). An easy evening glow had settled along the horizon, somehow making the concrete of the tarmac and the steel of the airplanes postcard-pretty. He appreciated the view for a moment, but it was more to take his eyes away from the screen than anything else. When he wasn't in front of the camera, it seemed, he was staring into the damn thing. He didn't wear glasses yet, but he knew they, too, were in his future. Most of the ESPN folks pulled double duty as writers, and he had a syndicated column in more than a hundred papers around the country, plus a handful overseas.

The piece he was working on right now was an update on the Panthers' camp. Coach Martello had been helpful but reserved. Once again, Martello and his staff had pulled off a very quiet but very excellent draft, and once again they managed to get all their new guys signed and on the field in plenty of time. Jerry Richardson ran a tight ship over there, and Bolton was, like countless others around the league, very impressed with the organization. Martello was a formidable coach, and the Panthers always produced a competitive team.
Solid
—that was the word he always thought of, although he had already applied it to them so many times in his writing that he had to find other ways to get this point across. This afternoon he'd shot about two hours' worth of film from their camp in Spartanburg. Maybe three minutes would end up on television. And nothing of great note occurred, so there wasn't much to write about. During one-on-one drills, a rookie receiver got into a shoving match with a veteran safety, and it descended into an all-out brawl. Bolton was standing no more than twenty feet away. It wasn't the first such altercation he'd ever seen, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. But he didn't mention it in the article. Neither player ended up getting injured or tossed off the team, so there really wasn't anything to say. What he found personally interesting about these incidents, however, was the way the coaches seemed to like them. It showed fire in the souls of the participants, a certain competitive spirit that was essential to success in the NFL. He even knew of several fights that had been purposely precipitated
by
the coaches, who instructed a veteran player to push a younger guy around to see what kind of guts he really had. Bolton didn't think that was the case here, though. Just two idiots losing their temper in the heat.

He turned back to the glowing screen and discovered the waitress had left the ice cream without a sound. He picked it up and dug in. Just as he put the first spoonful in his mouth, the Instant Messenger box popped up in front of the Microsoft Word document. The text was brief and to the point, and Bolton was awake again.

CMC88: Are you there, Greg?

He dropped the bowl back onto the glossy table, where it slid a few inches and almost went over the edge, and set his hands on the keyboard.

GEB@ESPN: Yes, I'm here. Thanks for the note. What's going on?

He hoped that sounded casual enough. There was very little equality in this relationship, but he didn't mind as long as the information kept -botflowing.

CMC88: A new development today. Barry Sturtz has filed a formal grievance against the team. He's going to keep T. J. Brookman out of camp until they get a new deal.

GEB@ESPN: That's incredible. Gray and Palmer didn't think Sturtz would take this step, did they?

CMC88: No, they thought he'd give in.

GEB@ESPN: What are Gray and Palmer going to do?

CMC88: I don't know yet, but they're shocked that it's come to this.

GEB@ESPN: Do you know what Sturtz is asking for? How much?

CMC88: He wants the average of the three highest-paid tight ends in the league.

GEB@ESPN: Do you feel he's worth that?

From a reporting standpoint, this was a pointless question. Bolton had no idea who the source was, so the response would have no value. He slipped it in there anyway, hoping the answer would shed some light on the identity of the person on the other end of this dialogue, which had been going on sporadically for two weeks now.