Double Reverse

by Tim Green

  Annie seemed not to notice. Earlier in the summer she would run her hands over his arms and chest and bring a lemon to the beach for his hair. She'd halve it with a paring knife from the cooler and squeeze the juice onto his hair, letting it spill down the sides of his head for highlights. She had fussed over his hair back then. She had even convinced him to cut it so that now it stopped at his shoulders. He remembered how when they were in bed she used to beg him to swab her bare body with it, tucking his chin to his chest and rolling his head back and forth, up and down.

  But sometime over the past few weeks the lemons had become a thing of the past, and it seemed that she didn't even notice when his clothes came off at the beach--or at the house, for that matter. The same couldn't be said for him. Even if he wanted to he couldn't stop staring at her. Now he caught himself looking up and down the long length of her golden body, remembering the feel of every dip and rise beneath his own bare hands. He sniffed hungrily at the air for even a hint of her skin braising in coconut oil. He found the scent and it caused him to shift in his seat and tug gently at his shorts in order to rearrange himself.

  Clark lay back and tried to relax but couldn't. For one thing, training camp was too near. Life ended when camp began. There would be no languid moments on the beach, no cold bottles of Pepsi pulled fresh from the ice, and no erotic interludes before a late-evening dinner. For another, he was about to pull a big move. And even though he was confident it would make Annie happy, that it would pull her out of her slump, it was still uncharted territory.

  "I love you, Annie," he said, leaning toward her so that his chair groaned audibly.

  "I love you, too," she said, but it might have come from a can.

  Clark got up and nervously walked toward the water. The sand began to scorch the bottom of his feet, so he scooted the last fifteen paces to the water and cooled them in the surf. He turned to see if Annie was looking. She wasn't. She was stone-faced and staring toward the sun without even a hint of a smile to keep the corners of her mouth from being pulled earthward by gravity. Still, in case she looked up, Clark surreptitiously took the shell from his pocket and dropped it where the sand met the water. Then he picked it up and held it high for her to see.

  "Annie! Look!" he shouted.

  Her head popped up from the chair and she saluted to block out the sun. Clark walked toward her.

  "What?" she said irritably.

  "An oyster shell," he said.

  "Oyster shell? What do I want with an oyster shell? It's probably dead. You don't want to eat it."

  Clark grinned nervously and shook his head. He held it out to her and wondered if she could see the trembling that he felt coursing down his arm, in his throat, and in the middle of his chest.

  "Open it," he said. "Just try and open it."

  "Oh yeah," she said, propping herself up on her elbows. "Like there's a pearl. Like we're going to get a pearl. . ."

  Still Clark held it out. Annie sat all the way up and looked suspiciously at him now.

  "What is it?" she said apathetically.

  "It's an oyster shell. Open it."

  Annie held out her hand and Clark dumped the shell in her palm. She hefted it, and for an instant he was afraid that she might heave it into the water.

  "I don't have a knife," she said, teasing him without pleasure.

  "Open it, Annie," he said, losing his patience.

  She separated the shell with her hands and a large diamond winked up at her.

  "Oh, God," she said.

  Her tone filled him with panic. He felt the vitality drain out through the bottom of his feet as surely as if he were a cask whose bottom had been breached.

  It got worse. Her dismay turned to disdain.

  "Did you really think this would stop me?" she said incredulously. "I'm tired of the whole thing, Clark. I was before this. That's how I am. I get tired of things, and this little game was just about over anyway. But to pull some cheesy little trick like this. Like you can stop me?"

  "I . . . What are you talking about? I'm asking you to marry me," he said. It sounded pitiful even to him, a big strong man whimpering. He wished he could take back his words or at least the way he'd spoken them.

  "You're manipulating me," she said, spitting the words, "or trying to. You got the wrong woman, honey. I'm not having a baby, yours or anyone else's. "Vbu think I'm falling for this?"

  "I . . . don't know what the--what the hell you're talking about. What are you talking about? Baby? Are you . . ."

  She was transforming now, right in front of him as she yanked her clothes on. The signs over the past few weeks hadn't been aberrations. She wasn't in some temporary funk. She was molting, shedding the outer layer of the person she'd pretended to be and revealing what she really was deep down. Had he stopped to think about it, Clark would have realized that part of him had known it was coming. That was why he'd been so nervous. The nervousness didn't come from asking her to marry him. Something inside of him had known the truth and he'd been afraid. Immediately Clark reduced the situation to biblical terms: it was satanic. Clark worked his lips in silent prayer, knowing full well that his sins had led to this. It was always the way. you sin, you pay.

  Then it hit him in the face, dead center. She was pregnant. She thought he knew and that he was trying to marry her to stop her from--

  "Oh my God, you can't." He grabbed for her, not with strength but with desperation. She shook his hands free and swatted at them.

  "Leave me alone! You big dumb son of a bitch!"

  His jaw went limp and his mouth sagged open. It was too much, too unreal for all of it to be happening.

  "Annie, you can't," he moaned, almost sobbing. "You can't do that. Annie, I'm begging you!" He groped for her again and dropped almost helplessly to his knees in the sand. She was dressed now and she shook free of him again, flailing her elbows and knees as if he were something poisonous. And then she walked. She just walked away from him on the beach, and by the time he realized she was really going it was too late. She was on her way up the concrete ramp and moving fast. He ran through the sand, then stopped when he saw her get into a cab. His mouth worked like an air-starved fish, dumb and gaping. He went back to his things and found the ring in the sand.

  The chairs and cooler and other things he left. He never liked >. the beach. He remembered that now. As he trudged toward the street with his clothes in one hand and the ring clamped tighdy in the other, Clark was acutely aware of his golden hair and his tanned bulging muscles and the way people stopped to stare. He was every bit the fool he felt. He had become something he wasn't to please a woman who was something she wasn't. His humiliation was only overshadowed by the horror that she was carrying his baby and was planning to murder it. That had to be his focus. He had to stop thinking about himself. That's how the trouble had begun. It was pride. He thought he was a handsome man and that he should have a beautiful girl. He thought his own faith was strong enough not only to carry himself, but to carry others. A fool, that's what he was--a self-centered shameful fool. 11 But Annie, she wasn't just a fool. She was acting out of pure evil. That was the only explanation for what she was planning. Clark had to stop her. He knew that. That was God's will, and sometimes His followers had to do His will on earth. You couldn't just take from God. You had to give back to Him. Clark would either stop her or he would-- Clark didn't know what he'd do.

  Chapter 20

  It was late in the day and they'd been at it all afternoon. Madison sat across the conference table from Chris and the two young associates who worked under him. One was Billy Acres, a young African American fresh out of the University of Texas who'd graduated at the top of his law class. The other was Martin Woo, a Chinese man who'd gone through law school the way Chris had, working nights to pay for school during the day. They were a true melting pot, the four of them, even more of an aberration than they appeared because the firm to which they belonged was as old and stodgy as a plaid bow tie.

  Yet despite the little
group's unusual diversity, the problem plaguing them swirled around the accusation of racism. The table was piled high with files, and the four of them were assessing the damage of the previous week's nasty article in US/4 Today.

  "So you haven't heard back from Amad-Amed?" Madison said. "That doesn't necessarily mean we're out. It's not like he's told us he isn't interested."

  Chris shook his head doubtfully and said, "I disagree. With a player a couple of unreturned phone calls isn't anything to get hot about. But a week of messages and calls without any response means we're out. That's how they do things. These guys don't tell you straight out, they just avoid you until you go away. We're being avoided, by Amad-Amed and just about every other African-American player we're in the process of recruiting."

  "Billy?" Madison asked.

  The young attorney shrugged helplessly and pushed his black plastic glasses up higher on his nose. There was something he wasn't saying. His eyes went to the table.

  "What?" Madison said.

  Billy cleared his throat, started to speak, stopped, then finally said, "I'm a white brother to a lot of these guys. That's the word. I spoke to Barry Coltrian of the Ravens two days ago and that's what he said the word on me was."

  "A white brother?" Madison said.

  "Black on the outside, white on the inside," Chris explained. "Hey, we're going to get through this."

  Everyone nodded in agreement, but it was more for show than a reflection of how each of them felt. The effect of the article had been devastating. Three existing NFL clients had outright fired them. None had called directly, but Madison had received phone calls from their new agents demanding they stop trying to contact the players. Seventeen other active clients weren't returning calls. Eleven more had talked with one or the other of them and had taken a wait-and-see attitude. Only two existing African- American clients had voiced their allegiance to Madison's group. Both of those had done so through Billy. The rest of their clients were white.

  The heaviest damage, though, was with players who weren't clients, NFL veterans and college recruits like Amad-Amed whom they were trying to bring on board.

  "Chris, what do you think about getting in front of these guys?" Madison said. "I mean, we're sending letters and making phone calls, but maybe we need to just appear on some doorsteps and make them listen . . . Billy?"

  "Maybe," Billy said.

  Suddenly the door burst open and Sharon, Madison's secretary, stormed into the conference room.

  "Sorry," she said, addressing Madison excitedly. "I know you said no calls, but Clark Cromwell is on the line and he says he has to speak with you. He says it's a life-or-death situation . . . Line two."

  Madison lifted the phone from a small table by the window and set it down in front of her.

  "Hello, Clark, this is Madison. What's the matter?"

  "I've got to stop Annie from having an abortion--Madison, she's going to kill my child--I didn't even know--I asked her to marry me and she said I was trying to manipulate her, that she was going to have an abortion anyway--I didn't even know she was pregnant, but she is and I've got to stop her--How can I?"

  "Clark, slow down. Collect your thoughts," Madison said authoritatively, hoping she could cut through his obvious distress. "I'm going to put you on hold for a minute and take this call in my office. Give me a minute, okay?"

  "Okay."

  Madison stood and offered no explanation to her group. "I've got to take this," she said.

  She shut her office door behind her and sat down at her desk. She took a deep breath and picked up the phone, then swiveled toward the window to try and draw some tranquillity from the view.

  "Clark, I'm here," she said calmly and patiently. "I wanted to talk in private. Now tell me again what happened. Tell me everything, but slowly."

  Clark described for her Annie's unusual behavior over the past week or so, including her bouts of nausea.

  "I had no idea she was pregnant. I don't know, should I have?"

  "No," Madison told him. "How could you have known that? Take it easy on yourself."

  He then described for her what had happened at the beach and how he'd gone to his place and then her place but couldn't find a sign of Annie.

  "Clark," Madison said after listening carefully, "I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do. I can try and get hold of her for you, but if you're asking if there's something legally I can do the answer is no. I can't."

  "Can't?" Clark said incredulously. "Madison, this is murder. Abortion is murder and she's going to murder my child! What do you mean can't? There's got to be something. There's got to be!"

  Madison let it sit, hoping he'd calm himself. "There isn't," she said finally. "There isn't."

  "You're a lawyer . . ."

  "And I know the law, and I'm telling you there isn't a thing that can be done."

  Madison kept calm. There was no need to tell him how she felt about the situation. That would only precipitate an argument between them, and he was her client.

  Clark made an exasperated, animal sound, then mumbled good-bye.

  Madison took the phone from her ear but continued to hold it as she stared pensively out at the emerald river.

  Chapter 21

  Clark woke at 5 a. M. and tried desperately to get back to sleep. His neck was sore. That hadn't changed since camp had begun. His recent injury was apparently here to stay. But now he had much more to contend with than just a sore neck. Injuries had compounded on injuries. That was the way of camp. Air had to be let out of the cushions in your helmet and your forehead greased to fit your swollen head into its protective covering. Headaches were constant and monumental. Nickel-size divots of raw, oozing flesh pocked your ankles, feet, and hands. Constant pounding and constant taping all but guaranteed that a cut would take four weeks to heal. That was how long Clark had been in camp.

  Dim light from the approaching dawn filtered in through a seam in the shades. The musty smell of the hotel room was so familiar by now that it felt like home. Clark examined a puckered scab on the knuckle of his thumb to test his four-week theory. Yeah, he remembered that one from the first day. He'd smashed it between two helmets and left a good-size hunk dangling from the noseguard's face mask. The scab was just about ready to come off.

  Of course, on that first day of hitting Clark hadn't fussed over a little cut. Even his painfully unsuccessful search for Annie was blocked from his mind. On that day, all he could think of was his neck. It felt good going into camp, strong anyway, if a little stiff. But it was only strong from six months of rehab. Six months of concentrated strengthening. Contact was the true test, slamming your head at a dead run into the helmet of another man. That was contact. That was what the NFL required, and on that first day Clark had no idea if he could still do it and survive. With every impact he had winced in anticipation of total paralysis.

  He remembered how the team's medical staff and coaches had clustered around to watch him during the first contact drills, curious to see if he could hold up. His hands had been cold and damp and he had worried about them calling a play where he would have to carry the ball. But of course they'd given it to Trane, and Clark's first test was to run with abandon into the middle linebacker, Mallory, a blocky gap-toothed Irish kid from Notre Dame who had no more sense than God gave a carrot. Clark remembered digging in his cleats and coiling his legs. The quarterback's count seemed to hang in the air like smoke.

  Finally it had come and Clark threw himself forward and into the linebacker without a single impulse from above the stem of his brain. When the impact came, Clark heard it and felt it and saw it. It was a dagger plunged into his spine. It was a bullet, a battle-ax, a tire iron. Mallory went flat. Clark staggered, but kept his feet and managed to get back to the huddle despite the good- natured cheering and excruciating backslaps he got from his teammates for springing Trane to the end zone on the first play of the practice.

  Clark had then looked at Gridley and Jerry, who were standing shoulder to shoulder off to th
e side. He gave them a thumbs- up even though he wondered if he wasn't going to fall dead in the grass with his next step, the pain in his spine was so bad. He didn't fall though. He kept going and going, a regular pink bunny. That didn't mean the pain had diminished over the ensuing weeks. It hadn't. But Clark knew that constant pain was part of the game. There were things for that, and Clark was smart enough to know when God called time-out. Certainly moralistic self-denial didn't apply to the use of painkillers in the NFL.

  At ten minutes past five Clark was able to put that scene as well as his dull throbbing injuries out of his mind. He flipped over on his side, ready to resume the incapacitating sleep that he had so reluctantly given up before rising to use the bathroom. But while his mind was strong enough for circumventing physical pain, the emotional issues plaguing him could boil to the surface suddenly and without notice. During the first week of camp he had been so distracted that only Halcion, the powerful sleeping drug, had enabled him to get any rest whatsoever. And while the initial anxiety about his neck was gone, other problems still tormented him.

  For one, the team's running game that everyone was so intent on remedying had so far given a poor showing. The possible reasons were many, and Clark, like everyone else on the offense, worried that the blame would somehow be attached to him. The other thought Clark found himself constantly wrestling with-- and in fact it was what kept him awake on this morning--was Annie. At random moments an image would pop into his mind of her sitting there on the beach with that sour look on her face. The resulting emotions were so tangible that Clark would involuntarily clench his fingers, teeth, and toes. That was what he struggled with now.