A Life Intercepted: A Novel

by Charles Martin

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  On A Life Intercepted

  Tallahassee, Florida, 1989.

  When I stepped out of the car, I remember the sun being hot and shining directly in my eyes. Over my shoulder reverberated the thump-thump of distant rap music but it had yet to circle around. That would happen in about three minutes. Lastly, I remember the sensation of carrying around a lot of muscle I no longer needed—and really couldn’t use.

  I had driven with my roommate, David, to the Tallahassee Mall to pick up a few things for school. We were sophomores. He had been in Tallahassee a year, was soon to pledge Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and had zeroed in on a career in finance or law. Dave had his collective stuff together. I’d moved to Tallahassee a few days prior, having just transferred from Georgia Tech, and was, for the first time in my memory, not playing organized football. My collective stuff was scattered from Atlanta south to Jacksonville and west to Tallahassee. And though I did my best to mask it, I was not in a good place, and something in me was ticking.

  We would discover this shortly.

  Exactly one year prior, I’d walked on at Georgia Tech and, wonder of wonders, made the football team. Childhood dream come true. Unlike some of the other rookies, I came into camp in shape and placed third in the twelve-minute run behind another rookie who would later spend twelve years in the pros and win two Super Bowls. Throughout the course of training camp and then the season, I’d paid my dues. I’d gotten faster, could jump higher, see the field better, respond quicker to the speed of the game, and all of my clothes were tight—except in the waist. In practice I had made a few interceptions, had been named rookie of the week twice, and—as evidenced by the scars on the front of my helmet, face mask, and shoulder pads—was not afraid to hit pretty much anybody. Late in the season during practice, I lined up against our first string offense. In back-to-back plays, I toppled a senior fullback and sacked our starting quarterback, prompting a senior veteran to pull the tape off my helmet—a rite of passage for rookies indicating that everyone on the team now knew my name and no longer needed the tape to remind them.

  Following the season, I hunkered down in the weight room and when the winter strength competition came around, I tested out as the fifth strongest of all the skilled players. My single day cumulative total for squat, clean, and bench equaled a half a ton. It feels better to say half a ton, than a thousand pounds. Either way, it was a lot of weight. My body weight was up to 193 pounds and my body fat was down around five percent.

  In my mind, I’d made it. Hard work had paid off and I’d done what few thought possible. My dream was coming true and living out the rest seemed a likely possibility. One of my coaches had actually uttered the word, “scholarship.” As in, if I kept working hard, I could earn one.

  Sometimes I wish the story ended there.

  Spring rolled around, I pulled on my shoulder pads and laced up my cleats with a bit of confidence. I can distinctly remember running around the field with some idea of what I was actually doing. Gone was the naive rookie. A seasoned soon-to-be-sophomore now stood in his place.

  Then came sideline drills. It’s a tackle drill that focuses on angle of pursuit. Our free safety had the ball, mimicking a running back. He was a freak of nature: 6′4" and two hundred thirty plus pounds; ran a 4.5 in the forty; and during the winter strength training I saw him squat five hundred fifty pounds with little trouble. The following year he would become a key figure on the team that won the National Championship. So, as I’d done a thousand times in my life, I picked my angle, pursued, and tackled him.

  I felt the pop before I hit the ground.

  I remember lying on the grass, staring up through my facemask, thinking to myself, “That hurts. A lot.” I knew the difference between hurt and injury and this was not hurt. I pulled myself up, hobbled back to the huddle, finished practice by letting others take my reps, and finally limped my way into the locker room. The pain in my lower back was taking my breath away, and something in the alignment of my hips seemed off center. Sitting in my locker, sweat mixed with tears, I pulled off my shoulder pads and had a pretty good idea that I’d never put them on again. The following day the doc stared at the X-rays. Even I could see the crack.

  For almost fifteen years, football had been my identity. Pop Warner, junior high, junior varsity, varsity, team captain, Georgia Tech… You get the point. I’d been building toward something. Yet, when I was walking across that Tallahassee Mall parking lot, I knew my dream had crumbled, and as I sifted through the ruins of what was once me, the only thing I’d built was an angry crater. My emotional posture was akin to a man staring in the mirror scratching his head asking one question, over and over: Without football, just exactly who am I?

  The thump-thump grew closer as we walked to the door of the mall. When the Ford Bronco passed, several loud bodies bounced around, rocking the Bronco slightly side to side. Then one arm extended out of the car and flung something at my head. The Barry Manilow cassette grazed my temple and landed on the asphalt next to me.

  That’s right: Barry Manilow. I found that rather disrespectful.

  I’d just spent the last year not letting bigger, faster guys shove me around and treat me like I wasn’t worth the dirt between their cleats. My pride whispered from the rubble inside me and said, “Nope. No sir. Not here. Not now.” So, I raised my right hand and told them they were number one in my heart.

  Pause here a second. You see that picture of me? The one with my hand in the air? It’s not my best moment, and I was about to figure that out. I deserved what happened next. Dave did not.

  Before my hand had come down, the brake lights flashed, tires spun in reverse, both doors opened and five guys jumped out pumped up on each others’ adrenaline. They filled the air with waving arms and F-bombs. I remember thinking, This might hurt and then all Hades broke loose. I fought my way to the door of the mall thinking Dave was ahead of me but when I got there, he was not. Not inside. Not at the door. Not next to me. That’s when the sound behind me caught my ear. It was the thud-thud-thud of ten feet kicking somebody. I turned and found Dave on the ground, wrapped up in a fetal ball, trying to guard his face.

  Dave and I had been friends since the crib. Literally. Over the course of our younger lives, we played football, watched football, collected football cards, talked, ate, slept, and dreamed football. And come high school, while he had gravitated toward basketball, he didn’t miss many of my games and when it came to the thought of my playing college football, he’d been one of my biggest cheerleaders. A lifelong best friend. Least, he had been until that moment.

  I covered the ground between us, launched myself at the mass of arms and feet, flew through the air and wrapped my arms around as many as I could get my hands on. We tumbled across the sidewalk where they soon turned their attention to me. I took a few licks and then remember seeing a flashing light out of the corner of my eye. I’d never been so happy to see a mall cop in my whole life. The five of them must have seen it, too, because my last image of them was five pairs of Air Jordans running across the parking lot while the Bronco sat empty, in park and idling over my right shoulder. The paramedics doctored Dave’s face and told him to ice it and take something for pain as needed. We limped to the car and I drove home while he tilted his head back and stuffed Kleenex up each nostril.

  Silent would best describe that ride.

  Halfway home, Dave spoke through a swollen nasal cavity. He never looked at me. “Charles?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You shoot those guys a bird?”

  “Yes. Yes, I did that.”

  Let’s don’t sugar coat this—that blood on the sidewalk, that blood on his face, that blood caked on my best friend—my pride did that.

  He didn’t say much to me the rest of the day.

  While I’m confessing my sins, let me set the record straight on something. I was not a good football player. You can ask any of my high school coaches, and if they’re honest, they’ll tell you—heart I
had, skill I had not. Following my senior season in high school, I received no scholarship offers and was asked to walk on at Tech only because they were recruiting a buddy of mine—a Street & Smith’s top pick—and they thought my presence on the team would sway him. It did not, but to their credit they didn’t rescind the invitation, so they were stuck with me. I have listed my accomplishments above because they’re all I have.

  Later that evening, I knocked on Dave’s door. He grunted, “Yeah?” I pushed it open and found him lying in bed. He looked at me over the top of his book. The disinterested look in his eyes said, “Dude, I don’t really want to talk with you right now.” I didn’t blame him. I didn’t really want to talk with me either. I figured I’d just get right to it. I managed, “Sorry about today.”

  No response.

  Somewhere in that silence, it struck me that, at one time, I had belonged to something. Something bigger than myself that spoke to my identity. That, in my mind, had made me cool. But standing in that doorway, I saw—maybe for the first time—that mask had been peeled off and Dave and I were looking at the real Charles. And the real Charles in that doorway needed his buddy to forgive him. So, I spoke two of the toughest words ever spoken in the English language: “Forgive me?”

  Without rubbing it in, making me feel any more guilty or saying I told you so or you shoulda, coulda, woulda, or even tucking away an IOU, he nodded and said, “Yes.” I knew in that moment Dave didn’t like me very much but he was in good company. I didn’t like me much either. My heart also knew that he’d forgiven me. Hearts know these things.

  When we talk about it now, Dave doesn’t remember it with the same poignance I do. He remembers the physical pain but the emotional sting was water off a duck’s back long ago. A credit to his heart. But for me—it goes a bit deeper. I’d made an idol out of football and bought into the lie that I mattered to the extent that I was good at or somehow tied to the glory train that was football. When that crumbled, I found myself in a prison of my own building.

  That night, I sat at my desk and began writing—in earnest. It’s not fair to say that’s the night I became a writer because I had been writing for years, but it is the night I began to write without a mask. Staring at my screen, I sunk my head in my hands and knew that I knew that I knew that my idol had been exposed and lay in rubble at my feet. The Lord was getting and had gotten my attention. He wasn’t audible, but his message was clear: “You ’bout done? You listening now? It’s a game. Let it go. The question is not ‘Who are you without football?’ The questions are, ‘Where am I calling you, will you follow me, and do you love me enough to trust me with you?”

  Somewhere in there, I started putting keys to a keyboard.

  The year following our butt-whooping at the mall, Dave and I watched in awe as Georgia Tech won the 1990 National Championship. And yes, I took quiet consolation in knowing that I’d sweat and bled with a bunch of guys who won at the highest level. Still do. But as talented as those guys were, I treasure one friendship more. Early in our sophomore year, Dave and I bumped into our fair share of difficulty. College is good at that. For Dave, it was life as a Sigma Alpha Epsilon pledge and for me it was a little class called accounting and a brown-eyed girl named Christy. Needing more help than the other could offer, we hit our knees on our apartment floor and prayed for and over every aspect of our lives. Honest, gut-wrenching, Lord-please-help kind of stuff. We did it most every day while in college and have, with few exceptions, every week since. That’s twenty-five years. Scripture says that we Believers are the fragrance of Christ and that the prayer of the saints is incense before the throne. I like the thought of that.

  Today, Dave is married to a beautiful wife who may well be smarter than he—which is good—cause he’s off-the-chain when it comes to smarts. They have two kids. He’s a well-respected attorney. Accomplished deer hunter. Addicted sharks’ tooth finder. College football fanatic. Has a heart for the kids at his church where he teaches Sunday school and has for years. Genealogy guru. Loves history and remembers most all of it. And as of this writing, he’s on something like his eighteenth reading of the Bible. Yep, that’s right. Eighteen times. Straight through. I told you he had his collective stuff together.

  I respect many men but none more than Dave Wainer.

  Here’s why this matters—as you read this, it’s fall 2014—my oldest son, Charlie, is a junior in high school and a third year starter at quarterback. He’s tall, fast, strong, got great heart, and God gave him an arm that can throw and a mind to know when and where. Three inches taller than me, he’s got gifts and talents I never had. Truth is, he’s a better athlete right now than I ever was. Charlie, if you’re reading this, you need to let that sink in. It’ll cut you free from a lot.

  Took me a long time and a cracked vertebra to figure out that God’s not measuring me or you, Charlie, by what we do on a football field. It’s a game. Supposed to be fun. Enjoy it. Laugh some. Especially at yourself. It’s good for the soul—and those who play with you. The only thing you have any control over is how hard you work, so if it is in your heart to be good at this, don’t let anyone outwork you. And when somebody beats you—because they will—well… good for them. Tell them. Go eat a burger, laugh with your friends, and then wake up the next morning and get back to work. Your performance on Friday night is not the measure of your value as a man come Saturday through Thursday. I bumped into trouble when I couldn’t separate my value from my performance or my ability to play. And if you really want to know why, it’s because I thought it made me better than others. Don’t buy that. It’s a lie. A big one. And I’m not real proud of having bought into it.

  A Life Intercepted was born out of this messy emotional implosion: the exposure and failure of my own idol, the unexpected but much-needed healing of forgiveness offered, and then a soul-deep realization that Charles Martin was not born to simply live out his days as a football player. And… yes, it was also born out of a desire on my part to play one more game vicariously through one of my characters. If you’re thinking, “Gee, Charles, Matthew Rising is a lot better than you.” You’re right. He is. But that was God’s gift to me.

  I am speaking from experience when I say that forgiveness offered—especially when so undeserved—cuts chains off the human heart that no other power in any universe anywhere can rattle much less break. Dave forgave me when he had every right not to. That day in Tallahassee, love did what hatred could not and never will.

  I have penned this confession because I do not want to be that dad that tethers my son’s heart with the same chains that once imprisoned mine. Charlie, if I could give you one gift as a player it would be to convince your heart of this—you are not bound by my or any other man’s expectation or shadow. You’re free to love this game. To empty yourself in pursuit of it and play it with all that is within you. To hope, dream, and succeed beyond your wildest imagination. You’re also free to walk away from it. To follow your own calling. I’m not suggesting it doesn’t matter. It does and it should and that’s good—but don’t let it define you.

  Instead, listen for the whisper that sounds something like this: “Charlie, will you follow me, and do you love me enough to trust me with you?” That’s a voice worth listening to. Go where He leads. Ride that train. He’s the God of Friday Night, and He knows where you’re going.

  The wonder and majesty and mystery that is football is not what you accomplish in solitary feats of greatness, but who you get to play it with. The heart of football is found in the huddle—not the highlight reel. That’s true for Matthew Rising, it’s true for Dave and me, and it’s true for you.

  But… that’s another story. And you get to write that one.

  Also by Charles Martin

  Unwritten

  Thunder and Rain

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  Contents

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  WELCOME

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ALSO BY CHARLES MARTIN

  NEWSLETTERS

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.