just called it again. He dogged it again.
'Hey, buddy,' I said. 'Look for the ball on the break, would you mind?'
Vakos laughed. I flipped Vakos the ball.
Vakos called a slant and Leighton was right there, taking the ball on the break.
'I knew you could do it,' I said. Vakos threw him a couple more slant passes. Leighton looked real good and Vakos tossed me the ball.
So then I crossed up Vakos on the next slant pass, but he should have been ready like he was in a real game, the dumb schlock. He should have, continued on the slant even though I didn't throw the ball.
'Hey, dumb, dumb,' I said. 'Ever been played close on the slant?'
'Fuck you, Matt.'
I laughed and dribbled the ball twice like it was a basketball.
'Man,' I said. 'You catch like old people screw.'
Vakos chuckled.
'Play it again, Sam,' I said. 'Slant and up, baby, when you're getting played close. Right?' I nodded my head up and down. 'Right?' Leighton looked at me flat-eyed, sore.
Vakos' face got tight, faintly angry. I shoveled the ball to Klobuchar. 'You guys rooming together?' I looked at Vakos. He put his hands on his hips and turned away, shaking his head.
'Leighton,' I said. 'You know something? You never were worth a damn on a post hook.'
Leighton ran it, a post hook pattern, but he still wasn't in that good enough shape to make it look real. Hell, I let him catch the ball.
'Fat ass,' I said. 'Why the hell don't you try a sauna?'
Vakos walked over to Leighton. He put his arm around Leighton's shoulder. Vakos started to open his mouth. If I was going to make it, I'd have to beat these two guys one way or another. All they understood was a kick in the ass, and all I had to be was better than Vakos. Leighton knew it would be tough to make me look really bad if I were really accurate.
'Give him a kiss, Vakos,' I said. 'Bride and bridegroom. Hoo!'
'Fuck you, Scallen,' they said.
Come on, you little babies,' I told Vakos. 'If you're so goddamn good, let's see you beat me out for the slot.'
They turned and walked away. I laughed at them.
They walked over to Reed and the three of them bent their heads together and then Vakos and Leighton went down to the locker room.
I picked up the football and practiced punting. I'm not very big compared to a lot of quarterbacks, but size hasn't anything to do with punting. But trying to get the ball on the instep of my foot just a little back of the center of the ball, to get that perfect spiral, reminded me of all the kicking I'd done in high school and college.
Funny thing, I saw Reed watching me. Probably hating my guts for putting his two boys down, and wondering what the hell I had on Binks to have Binks put out the order for me to trade throwing with Vakos in practice.
But Reed was giving the punts a good look. They weren't bad, about forty-yard average, and I wondered if Reed had a fake punt formation because I could run out of it. Trouble was I wasn't doing the kicking for the team.
Who needs a triple threat as a quarterback? He'll get his ass busted eventually if he pulls the fake punt formation too often. So what team needs him or can afford him?
I punted about thirty times. Screw you, Reed. He was against me. Binks was against me, but Binks knew how I could hurt football, and Binks, with just a series in Sports Illustrated with inside information. And pro football was getting. as sensitive to the press as a United States President.
I walked over to Reed, flipped him the ball.
'If you ever need a punter,' I said. I watched his face.
'Get off Leighton's back,' he said.
'Fuck Leighton,' I said. 'He tried to put me in a hearse.'
'Ah, you're over the hill,' said Reed.
'Vakos goes over the hill first,' I said. 'I'll send him there.'
Chapter 10
When I got back to the motel, it was raining outside. It looked as if it were going to rain the rest of the day and probably all night. That was bad because when it rains and there's nothing to do, I like to sit in bars and drink and shoot the breeze with anybody. Especially on rainy afternoons and evenings. It helps pass the time. I began to get the itchy feeling when it rains. I wanted to go someplace, but where? I just didn't want to sit in my room alone, but if I went out and to a movie in the rain, I would want to go to a bar after the movie. I looked at the movie advertisements. There wasn't a good movie in Des Moines. Just movies about monsters. So I tried the television. More monster movies. So I sat on the edge of the bed, debating, telling myself not to go out, wanting to go out, but telling myself over and over again to sit tight, take it easy, sit tight. I got up and went to the window and drew back the drapes. It was raining hard; the wind blowing the rain against the window. You could hear the wind- blown rain slashing against the glass. I thought about Mary Beth. No, don't get mixed up in that. I tried to locate Mary Cassidy through information, but the telephone wasn't listed in the directory. Well, I finally told myself, why don't you act your age and do what you should do? Study the team playbook. I knew the plays. No, you don't know them that well. Quit kidding yourself. This was true. So I got the play book and lay down on the bed and started reading and going over the sets and moves of the bread-and-butter plays. These are the key plays, the best offensive weapons to hit the individual weaknesses of each opponent and to probe their defensive vulnerability.
At the same time, I wanted something to run at the strongest lineman on each team. Like that Day who'd been knocking the hell out of me. That's the kind of lineman you have to two-time block or he'll chase the play down the line every play. But to keep him home in his place., you have to have something to run against him. Even then, when you keep a big lineman home by running at him, the odds are against the play ever working. I knew we had to get better blocking against a big tackle. You have to run outside of them a couple of times, usually a second down call. Usually a wasted play but you have to use it sometimes even if you're on second down and ten. It's the only way to keep a big tackle honest through an entire game.
I went over the bread-and-butter plays, at least the plays I've always felt are bread and butter. An end run, off tackle, a trap play and a pitch out.
What I saw in the book, I liked. Reed's end-run play from a split formation with the end out. That was all right. We would turn the defensive tackle loose and not pull our guard.
This play would develop faster than a regular end run, with five men. blocking downfield. But Reed had the end split only ten yards. I preferred a twelve-yard split. I'd talk to him about it. Then the halfback would run full speed to get wide, with the right halfback nailing the end and the fullback handling the linebacker. Good solid bread-and-butter play.
I started to study the trap play. All tackles are susceptible to trap plays, especially when you catch a tackle with a square charge, coming straight in, instead of at an angle.
There was a knock at the door. I sat up. For a minute I was scared Mary Beth had found my motel.
'Who is it?' I asked.
'Manager.' It was a woman's voice.
'Come in.'
I listened to the doorknob click turning and watched the door open.
The woman standing in the doorway had flaming red hair. She looked about thirty-five. She was tall, with very white skin and a few crows feet at the corners of her eyes. I couldn't tell what her figure was like. She wore some kind of housecoat, unbelted, so whatever was underneath it in the way of a body didn't show. The housecoat was bright blue and her legs were very straight, bare, quite white. She wore dark sandals. Her toenail were unpainted. I took her all in with a single glance. There was a little mileage on her.
