A Life Intercepted: A Novel

by Charles Martin

  A pressure cooker without a vent is not a pressure cooker. It’s a bomb.

  Ball in hand, Gage stared at me across the open area. “How long we been doing this?” He knew the answer but asked anyway.

  “Couple of years.”

  “Seven years, ten months, and fourteen days.” He shrugged. “Give or take.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “You sure?”

  I caught the ball, dropped to my knees, and threw. Throwing from the knees is a drill for QBs. It forces a better throwing motion—coming over the top. And, in all honesty, it makes it easier on Gage’s early-onset arthritic hands ’cause I can’t throw it quite as hard. I loaded and fired it across the short distance between us. “It was a Tuesday.”

  “Seems like a long time.”

  It had been. “A lifetime.”

  We tossed the ball back and forth, working up a sweat. After a few minutes, the ball started whistling through the air. Like any good receiver, he caught the ball, tucked and covered it, then threw it back. “Where will you go?”

  “Home.”

  “You sure you want to put yourself through that?”

  I made no response.

  “I thought you said it’d been sold on the courthouse steps.”

  “I did.”

  “Where will you stay?”

  “I’ll find something.”

  He paused. “She worth it?”

  A pause. I pointed at his bum knee. “If a team called you, any team, and said, ‘Hey, we’d like you to come try out.’ How long would it take you to get on a plane?”

  He mimicked the Heisman pose again. “About that long.”

  I nodded. He understood.

  When two boys, or men, play catch, a rhythm can develop. Something like a pulse—catch, throw, release, catch… It doesn’t happen all the time, but with Gage and me, it happened most of the time. And it was my therapy. I released the ball, flinging sweat from my forehead and fingers. The ball shot from my hand and struck his palms, stinging his skin. He shook his head. “You remember throwing that hard in college?”

  A shrug. “Doesn’t matter.”

  He chuckled. Some of the others were awake, the whites of their eyes showing through the bars. “Not if you’ve been listening to talk radio the last couple of weeks. A few of the coaches have expressed interest in evaluating you. Several players have done it.”

  I lifted my pants leg, revealing the black anklet.

  Silence followed as the ball arced between us. Our time was almost up. He glanced at the door, the window, and the distance to the fence. “One time?”

  I shook my head.

  He shrugged. “For me?”

  I knew the cameras were recording.

  Gage trotted over to the door that led out into the yard. He pressed a button to lower an automatic window above the door that served as a ventilation draw. The window was eighteen inches square, hung twelve feet off the ground, and funneled cooler air to the cells. No screen and no bars, it led out into the yard, which was surrounded in double rows of fifteen-feet-tall, electrically-charged fence, all of which was covered in multiple rows of concertina wire. It also allowed a man with a football an uninterrupted throw to the corner of the exercise yard, fifty-nine yards away—provided the thrower could thread the needle of the foot-and-a-half-square window, which hung at the halfway mark. Not much room for error. He tossed me the ball and then jogged through two doors that electronically unlocked and then locked and into the far corner of the yard. By this time, the other inmates were awake and staring through the bars of their cells. A couple were making odds, taking bets. The pass required precision and meant that the ball never rose above twelve feet off the ground. In football terms, that’s called “throwing on a frozen rope.” It also required the thrower to release the ball at about 600 rpm—roughly the same spin rate as an air wrench used by NASCAR teams when they spin the lug nuts off race cars in the pit.

  Gage waved, signaling all clear. I had to look through the two windows of the two doors, so his outline was distorted. Blurred. I turned the ball in my hand, my fingers reading the laces, measured my target, dropped three steps, and fired the ball at Gage. The ball left my fingers, whistling in a tight spiral. It cleared the window, spun through the air, and crossed the outside yard, striking his hands an inch or two left of the imaginary bull’s-eye I’d placed on his forehead. He caught and held it still, in place. His silent reminder to those watching that “that just happened.” He trotted back, waiting for Frank to unlock, open, close, and lock each door.

  He handed me the ball, shaking his head. “You know there might be one, maybe two guys in the entire league right now who can make that pass. Maybe only a couple ever.”

  I shrugged.

  I stepped inside my cell and turned. I wasn’t allowed to extend my hand, and he knew that. In return, he handed me the ball along with a Sharpie. In all this time, he’d never asked. Over the years, the sweat and oil from our hands had darkened the ball. I signed it and handed it back. He turned it in his hands. He glanced over his shoulder at the window, then the corner of the yard, then back at me. “I’ll keep it—someplace safe.”

  “You should hide it.” I waved my hand across the interior cameras that filmed our morning sessions. “Along with everything else.”

  He stepped outside, whispered into his microphone. The door swung shut and locked. Him on one side. Me on the other. He glanced at his watch. “Don’t get too comfortable in there. Couple of folks will be along shortly to finish paperwork on you.”

  I glanced around my cell. “I haven’t been comfortable since I walked in here.”

  He smiled, then turned and began walking away. “Take care, Rocket.”

  My voice stopped him. “Gage?”

  He waited but didn’t turn.

  “Thank you.”

  He glanced to his left at the inner courtyard, then at the eighteen-inch-square window above the door that led into the yard. He shook his head, mumbled to himself, and then his steps faded away as he tossed the ball into the air.

  CHAPTER THREE

  American football derived primarily from rugby, and until the late 1860s, it was tough to tell the two apart. Then in the late nineteenth century, Walter Camp, the father of American football, suggested a few rule changes. The effect Americanized the game, and what they played then is essentially what we play now.

  In rewriting the rules, Camp suggested several fundamental changes. The first was an unheard of concept of “down and distance” rules. The team with the ball, the offense, was given four downs to gain ten yards. If successful, they were given another four downs. Next, he reduced the number of on-field players from fifteen to eleven, thinning the crowd.

  But Camp’s most game-altering change to this point was the snap. The snap transferred a stationary ball off the line of scrimmage, through the legs of a giant-bellied, hairy beast of a man and into the hands of another man. A different man. A man unlike any of the rest on the field. The quarterback, a.k.a. the QB. When Camp instituted the snap, he created one unintended consequence—both for the players and the fans. The snap created a pause. A regrouping behind the lines. And it became known as the huddle. In the huddle, the players got their marching orders and were reminded who they’re fighting for—and who’s fighting for them. In those brief few seconds, the quarterback stared at the men looking back at him and, without ever uttering a word, asked one undeniable question.

  Do you believe in me?

  The answer was either the tether that joined their hearts or the wedge that drove them apart.

  In any game, one half of those on the field—the defense—hates the quarterback and wants to rip his head off. The other half—the offense—does whatever it can to prevent that and to help the quarterback move the pigskin across one of two goal lines separated by exactly a hundred yards.

  In the early days of the snap, the quarterback handed the ball to a halfback or ran the ball himself. But doing so play after play became predi
ctable and lacked a certain luster. In truth, the game was simply boring. So Father Camp proposed one more change.

  The forward pass.

  And the game was never the same.

  Overnight, entire strategies evolved, developed, and changed, or were thrown out. The game’s popularity skyrocketed, as did the reputations of the men who played it. Before the forward pass, men of stout stature, able to lift freight trains, were simply lined up across from each other and then cut from their tethers to shove and scrum their way around the field in a cloud of dust and snot and blood. But after the forward pass, non-Goliaths, Davids tending the sheep, were included. Even sought after.

  When the rules changed, so did the responsibilities of the players, and none more so than the quarterback. No matter how complicated it’s become—and it has become complicated—the quarterback’s job is to get the ball into the hands of other playmakers and let them make plays, to know where to dish it out and not turn it over, to help his team cross the goal line with the ball.

  In short, to score.

  His role is essential, and while the game could technically be played without one of the other ten players—albeit not very successfully—it could not without him. The QB is the decision maker, the brain, the deciding factor; without him, there is no play and the ball never crosses the goal line.

  Today, almost a hundred and thirty years later, American football is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Fans idolize teams and players, stadiums hold a hundred thousand wearing clothing that identifies them with their on-field heroes. They name their children or dogs after them, wager small and large sums of money, tattoo themselves in all manner of locations, and own fantasy football teams.

  Because greatness is possible with each snap, fans put these mortals on pedestals. Some are still there. Men like Heisman, Unitas, and Starr. And we are shocked when each is reduced to a man whose bones break and muscles stretch and tear. They pull off their helmets and we discover that they are not the winged Pegasus, smiling Hercules, or thundering Zeus we had imagined. We love them when they win, mourn when they don’t, cheer when they return from retirement. And we despise them when those of great promise fail to let us appreciate the promise we held for them.

  We hate it when our idols let us down.

  Truth is, quarterbacks have a shelf life. A limited shelf life. Each is a mist that wafts across the field. Every one will only throw so many touchdown passes, so many yards, win so many games, so many championships. Finite careers are composed of finite numbers, and every quarterback plays a first and last game. There is a definite difference between a Hall of Famer and an also-played. Because of this, the fans are in constant search of the next coming of whomever to fill an insatiable appetite. We toss them about like plastic chips in a smoky poker game.

  Either by God’s design, the exercise of their will, or both, some quarterbacks hang around longer than others. And we love them for this. Some achieve greatness. Some immortality. And while we love the greats, we worship the immortals. We hang our hopes on them, and in return, they do something no other player can.

  The also-playeds, even the greats, give some. The immortals give all. They empty themselves. Carrying the hopes of others requires a selfless emptying. Strip away the colors and the conversations and all the noise, and the game of football is a war. It’s a barbaric, violent war. And those who play it know this well. That’s why every time they strap on that helmet they are digging into a deep place. Some tell you they play with a chip on their shoulder, out of their anger, their hate. Those players are deceived. Anger never won a football game, and in the end, when the last whistle has blown, players are judged not by how well they hate, but how deeply can they love.

  That’s why, when our idols disdain and spit on us, when they don’t value what we do to the extent that we do, when they unshoulder our hopes, casting them off like unwanted rags, brushing them like crumbs from a table, the pain of betrayal is soul-deep and only one thing heals it.

  The gates of Wiregrass Correctional Facility swung behind me, locking me out rather than in. Puddles dotted the asphalt below a hovering gray mist. Weeds sprouted up through the cracks. Concertina wire serpentined off to my left atop the fifteen-foot fence. The humidity wrapped around me like a blanket. Gage stood stoically in the guard tower—a rifle in his hand. A single wave, half a nod, and the beginnings of a smile. The quiet around my exit stood as a stark contrast to the media circus that accompanied my entrance.

  Standing there didn’t improve my situation, so I started putting one foot in front of the other. I pulled up my collar and turned my face into the wind—twenty pounds lighter and dragging twelve years tethered to my ankle.

  Just out of town, a man in a van with a Bible on his dash stopped at dark, offering me a ride, and I was about to accept when I saw his daughter in the backseat. I thanked him and kept walking. Late afternoon, I stuck my thumb in the air. Not long after, a woman—maybe midforties—pulled over in a box-style Chevrolet van. “Where you headed?”

  “Gardi.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “East of Jesup.”

  “I can get you halfway.”

  I opened the door, sat down, tried not to make eye contact, and made sure my pants leg covered my ankle.

  She was chatty, seemingly nervous, and did most of the talking for the first twenty minutes. Then she turned the conversation to me. “Enough about me. Tell me about you.”

  I felt something tighten in my throat. “I’m headed home. To see some folks I haven’t seen in a while.”

  “What happened to your car?”

  “Don’t have one at the moment, but I’m looking to get one soon as I can.”

  “You got a job?”

  “I’m in…” My mind raced. What’s that word that everybody uses to describe being unemployed? Finally, it came to me. “Transition.” I made some awkward movements with my hands. “I’m between jobs right now. Hoping to find one when I get home.”

  “Got a girlfriend?”

  “No. No girlfriend.”

  “Wife?”

  “Not anymore.”

  If suspicion has a body language, it was starting to spread across her face. “Well, honey, you’ve got to do something. Got any hobbies?”

  I was never very good at lying—or telling half-truths. “Ma’am, I just got out of Wiregrass.” The name alone spoke to the severity of my crime.

  “When?”

  “Couple hours ago. I wouldn’t blame you if you want to pull over.”

  She looked at me. Sizing me up. Our speed decreased, but her foot was still pressing the accelerator. Her left hand drove while her right hand slid across her lap and buried itself in her purse, which was wedged between her and the door. “What for?”

  “I… I did twelve years.”

  Her right hand had yet to move. She thought out loud but took her foot off the accelerator. We coasted. “Twelve years?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She wasn’t angry. Least not yet. There was no easy way out of this. “Ma’am, my name is Matthew Rising.”

  It took about three seconds for the words to circulate through the car and finally come to rest in that part of her brain where memories reside. We made eye contact, she recognized me, and her lips tightened and eyes narrowed. Revulsion and anger replaced kindness. Without saying a word, she pulled to the side and pressed the unlock button.

  I stepped out quietly, said, “Thank you,” and pressed the door closed. She never looked at me. Without a word, she pulled around me and disappeared into the distance.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  In the feeding frenzy leading up to the draft, several agencies offered to represent me. Many made strong cases. Said they could protect me and my interests. And while that was true, I needed someone I could trust. For seven years, Dunwoody Jackson had been my center. Literally my shield from those who wished to rip my head off. And at six feet two inches, three hundred and twenty pounds, and with the ability to bench press a
house, “Wood,” as I affectionately called him, was well-suited to the job. We were inseparable on and off the field. He must have had some Viking in his blood because everything about him was big and strong. Hands, feet, arms. His hair was reddish blond. His face was dotted with freckles, and his laughter was contagious. For three years in high school and four in college, he pointed his sweaty butt at me, slammed the ball into my hands, and took my sacks personally. And while he was a great football player, he was also a pretty good student. He majored in finance, graduated in three years, and then as a senior, he started his law degree. After he passed the bar, he went to night school to complete his MBA. A bit slimmer now at two hundred and forty pounds, he had taken to his new role as my agent and described himself as my “first line of defense,” saying he always wanted to play both sides of the ball. During our week in New York, while I’d been getting fitted for suits and sitting in front of cameras, Wood had been talking with other players and signing up new clients. Strutting a bit under the haze of adoration, and relishing the strange juxtaposition of telling me what to do, life was good for Wood.

  Following my interview with Jim Kneels, Wood mother-henned us out the back door of the studio where he had hired a limo to chauffeur us five blocks away. Exiting the door, he pressed his left hand to the secret-service-looking earpiece stuck in his left ear, and muttered something into the mic hidden in his right hand. An engine cranked to our right, and the block-long black limo slowly approached. I raised an eyebrow. “We could walk, you know.”

  In the agent-picking process, Audrey felt strongly I didn’t need one more person kissing my butt but someone who knew me and wasn’t afraid to get in my face and tell me when my issues were my issues and not somebody else’s. She said I didn’t need another yes-man but a your-swollen-head-is-getting-too-fat-for-your-shoulders-man.