End Zone

'I am.'

'Who's that?' he said.

'Gary.'

'You scared me. I didn't think anybody would be awake. I'm having trouble sleeping. Where's Bloomers?'

'He's in bed.'

'He doesn't make a sound,' Len said. 'I can't hear a single sound coming from his bed. A big guy like that.'

'That means he's asleep.'

'It's real dark in here, isn't it? It's as dark with your eyes open as when they're closed. Put your hand in front of your face. I bet you can't see a thing. My hand is about three inches from my face and I can't see it at all. How far is your hand, Gary?'

'I don't know. I can't see it.'

'We better get some sleep. This stuff isn't for me. I remember the night I graduated high school. We stayed up all night. That was some night.'

'What did you do?'

'We stayed up,' he said.

In the morning we went out to the stadium, suited up without pads or headgear and had an extra mild workout, just getting loose, tossing the ball around, awakening our bodies to the feel of pigskin and turf. The place seemed fairly new. It was shaped like a horseshoe and probably seated about 22,000. Our workout progressed in virtual silence. It was a cool morning with no breeze to speak of. We went back in and listened to the coaches for a while. Then we rode back to the motels. At four o'clock we had our pregame meal-beef consomme, steak and eggs. At fivethirty we went back out to the stadium and slowly, very slowly, got suited up in fresh uniforms. Nobody said much until we went through the runway and took the field for our warmup. In the runway a few people made their private sounds, fierce alien noises having nothing to do with speech or communication of any kind. It was a kind of frantic breathing with elements of chant, each man's sound unique and yet mated to the other sounds, a mass rhythmic breathing that became more widespread as we emerged from the runway and trotted onto the field. We did light calisthenics and ran through some basic plays. Then the receivers and backs ran simple pass patterns as the quarterbacks took turns throwing. Off to the side the linemen exploded from their stances, each one making his private noise, the chant or urgent breathing of men in preparation for ritual danger. We returned to the locker room in silence and listened to our respective coaches issue final instructions. Then I put on my helmet and went looking for Buddy Shock. He and the other linebackers were still being lectured by Vern Feck. I waited until the coach was finished and then I grabbed Buddy by the shoulder, spun him around and hit him with a forearm across the chest, hard. He answered with three openhand blows against the side of my helmet.

'Right,' I said. 'Right, right, right.'

'Awright. Awright, Gary boy.'

'Right, right, right.'

'Awright, awright.'

'Get it up, get it in.'

'Work, work, work.'

'Awright.'

'Awright. Awriiiight.'

I walked slowly around the room, swinging my arms over my head. Some of the players were sitting or lying on the floor. I saw Jerry Fallen and approached him. He was standing against a wall, fists clenched at his sides, his helmet on the floor between his feet.

'Awright, Jerry boy.'

'Awright, Gary.'

'We move them out.'

'Huh huh huh.'

'How to go, big Jerry.'

'Huh huh huh.'

'Awright, awright, awright.'

'We hit, we hit.'

'Jerry boy, big Jerry.'

Somebody called for quiet. I turned and saw Emmett Creed standing in front of a blackboard at the head of the room. His arms were crossed over his chest and he held his baseball cap in his right hand. It took only a few seconds before the room was absolutely still. The cap dangled from his fingers.

'I want the maximal effort,' he said.

Then we were going down the runway, the sounds louder now, many new noises, some grunts and barks, everyone with his private noise, hard fast rhythmic sounds. We came out of the mouth of the tunnel and I saw the faces looking down from both sides, the true, real and honest faces, Americans on a Saturday night, even the more welltodo among them bearing the look of sharecroppers, a vestigial line of poverty wearing thin but still present on every face, the teenagers looking like prewar kids, 1940, poorly cut short hair and a belligerent cleanliness. After the introductions I butted pads with Bobby Hopper and then bounced up and down on the sideline as we won the coin toss. The captains returned and we all gathered together around Creed, all of us making noises, a few prayers said, some obscenities exchanged, men jumping, men slapping each other's helmets. Creed said something into all the noise and then the kickreturn team moved onto the field. I glanced across at Centrex. They looked big and happy. They were wearing red jerseys with silver pants and silver helmets. We wore white jerseys with green pants and green and white helmets. My stomach was tight; it seemed to be up near my chest somewhere. I was having trouble breathing and an awful sound was filling my helmet, a sound that seemed to be coming from inside my head. I could see people getting up all over the stadium and the cheerleaders jumping and a couple of stadium cops standing near an exit. I could see the band playing, the movements of the band members as they played, but I couldn't hear the music. I looked down to my right. Bobby Iselin and Taft Robinson were the deep men. Speed and superspeed. About sixtyeight yards upfield the kicker raised his right arm, gave a little hop, and began to move toward the ball.

Part Two 19

The special teams collided, swarm and thud of interchangeable bodies, small wars commencing here and there, exaltation and firstblood, a helmet bouncing brightly on the splendid grass, the breathless impact of two destructive masses, quite pretty to watch.

(The spectator, at this point, is certain to wonder whether he must now endure a football game in print- the author's way of adding his own neat quarternotch to the scarred bluesteel of combat writing. The game, after all, is known for its assaulttechnology motif, and numerous commentators have been willing to risk death by analogy in their public discussions of the resemblance between football and war. But this sort of thing is of little interest to the exemplary spectator. As Alan Zapalac says later on: 'I reject the notion of football as warfare. Warfare is warfare. We don't need substitutes because we've got the real thing.' The exemplary spectator is the person who understands that sport is a benign illusion, the illusion that order is possible. It's a form of society that is ratfree and without harm to the unborn; that is organized so that everyone follows precisely the same rules; that is electronically controlled, thus reducing human error and benefiting industry; that roots out the inefficient and penalizes the guilty; that tends always to move toward perfection. The exemplary spectator has his occasional lusts, but not for warfare, hardly at all for that. No, it's details he needs-impressions, colors, statistics, patterns, mysteries, numbers, idioms, symbols. Football, more than other sports, fulfills this need. It is the one sport guided by language, by the word signal, the snap number, the color code, the play name. The spectator's pleasure, when not derived from the action itself, evolves from a notion of the game's unique organic nature. Here is not just order but civilization. And part of the spectator's need is to sort the many levels of material: to allot, to compress, to catalogue. This need leaps from season to season, devouring much of what is passionate and serene in the