All-American

by John R. Tunis

  “Fourth floor.”

  “Oh, yes, thanks.”

  A nurse was sitting at a small table. There was the same smell as in the dressing room after a game. Funny how everything went back to football.

  “You’re for Mr. Goldman? He can’t talk much. And you aren’t to stay long. But he wants to see you. This way, please.” She preceded him down a wide hallway with doors at each side.

  How is he? Will he live d’you think? Will he be a cripple, will he be in a chair all his life? Ronny wanted to question her, but he couldn’t say a word, could only follow her down the hall. She threw open a door. “Visitor for you, Mr. Goldman.”

  On the bed was a figure. He didn’t turn his head toward the door. The reason he didn’t turn his head was because he couldn’t. His whole neck was encased in a kind of ruff, a leather collar which came up clean around his chin. Beside the bed a man was standing. He stuck out his hand. The man was short, dark, and wore glasses. “Why, Mr. Perry, it’s mighty good of you to come down here, hey, Meyer?” said Goldman’s father.

  Ronald hardly heard him. He saw only the boy in the bed and the collar around his neck.

  “’Lo, Goldman, h’are you?”

  Ronald wanted to ask had he suffered much, was he going to live, would he have to wear that awful collar all his life, was he ever going to get well?

  The lips above the awful collar moved; but Ronald could hear nothing.

  One moment he was there, in the backfield, active, dangerous, threatening, the ball in his extended arm, a hated enemy. Then this. And I did it. Keith and I, we did it, we did it on purpose. We’ve maybe killed him, maybe we’ve broken his neck so he won’t live....

  “Hullo, Perry.” The voice was faint, the head didn’t move, there was no expression in his face.

  “Gee, Goldman, this is terrible... I... I mean the fellows... we all feel mighty...”

  The man touched his arm and put his face close to Ronny’s. His breath smelled of stale cigars. “After all, it’s football. Football, ain’t it?”

  Despite his dislike of the man, a surge of warmth and relief swept over him. Then Goldman wouldn’t die. He wouldn’t maybe even be a cripple, even have to stay in a wheelchair. “You mean, you think, you hope he’ll come out ok...”

  “Sure! Why sure! Two months in here; as good as new. As good as new. He’s tough; can’t kill Meyer, hey, hey, can they, son?”

  The face made some kind of an expression, still staring ahead.

  “That’s right, as good as new,” said the older man.

  “Say, I’m glad. We’re all... we all feel pretty sick about this up at the Academy.” Still the face was immobile, staring straight ahead.

  It wasn’t in the least what he had wanted to say, and the words sounded hollow and unconvincing. They were unconvincing. In his ears were the comments of the boys in Hargreaves, comments which hurt as he listened, which almost seemed to alienate him from the school. They were comments in tone and accent different from Mr. Goldman’s. Aw, he had it coming to him, the big lug. He happened to go down under that block; so what? Football’s a tough game.

  But the older man kept on. “And the flowers. You never saw such flowers. The principal, that man...”

  “Mr. Hetherington...”

  “That’s it. He came down with flowers, brought his wife, too. And the school sent ’em, and the team sent ’em. Please thank ’em for Meyer, and me, too. Please thank the gentlemen.”

  Somehow Ronald didn’t feel at all like a gentleman. He felt uncomfortable and unhappy and anxious to get out. The face in that ugly collar staring straight ahead showed a sudden spasm of pain. Ronald broke away from the arm on his; as difficult as shaking off a tackler in a broken field. He approached the bed.

  “Y’know, Goldman, I feel terribly about this. About that block, I mean. Gee, I haven’t been able to sleep... or do anything. You see we wanted to stop you, to save a touchdown...”

  The face murmured something. He couldn’t catch what it was, but the faintest kind of a smile came over the lips. “Ok.” Or something of that sort.

  If only they could see him, Ronald thought, if only they could see that awful collar up to his chin, and that set face staring straight ahead, motionless, expressionless. They wouldn’t talk as they did. They couldn’t.

  “Guess I’ll hafta be slipping along. Hope you get better, Goldman, and fast, too. The boys all wanted me to tell you how bad they felt about this thing.” Once again, it wasn’t in the least what he wanted to say. The things he wanted to say wouldn’t come, and those he did say had no sincerity and no truth in them. What he wanted to say was:

  Look; I can’t sleep; I can’t do my work; I can’t hardly think about you; I can’t talk to anyone at school; I can’t discuss the thing at all, and when they mention your name and the accident it hurts me, inside, deep. Understand? I’m responsible, I did it. No matter what they tell you, it’s on me; that’s why you’re wearing that awful leather collar, why your neck was broken. We did it on purpose, to put you out of the game. And we almost killed you.

  No, it wouldn’t come. Something stopped him. Instead he was saying, “So long, Goldman, I’ll be seeing you.” He backed toward the door, his forehead wet with perspiration, the man with the glasses still talking.

  From the bed he could see that face without expression still staring straight ahead.

  III

  “Anyone heard how Goldman’s coming along?” Half a dozen of them sat in Keith and Ronny’s room in Hargreaves three weeks after the game.

  “Dunno exactly. He’ll be in the hospital quite some time before they let him out, I know. For further particulars, ask Ronny.”

  “Yes, Ronny probably knows. He’s our authority on Goldman,” remarked Tommy Gilmore.

  “Ronny’s practically a buddy of Goldman’s these days; goes to the hospital all the time...”

  “That’s right,” Keith interjected. “He goes down about twice a week. Fact he’s there right now.”

  “No, he isn’t.” Tommy was looking out the window. “He’s coming across the Quad this minute.”

  There was a silence lasting some few seconds. Five of the six boys in the room were on the team, and they were thinking. Of the game, and Goldman’s injury, and Ronny’s refusal to play football anymore, and his strangeness toward them since. Almost as if he was an outsider. Someone remarked that Ronald seemed to be getting right fond of that Goldman lug, and then the moment’s silence lengthened as his steps could be heard on the old wooden staircase.

  “Hullo, men.” His customary greeting. He glanced about the room, at the familiar faces; at Tommy with his legs drawn up as usual on the window seat; at Keith deep in the armchair before the fire; at Roger still carrying the scars on his forehead where he’d been kicked in a scrimmage in the High School game; at Eric Rodman, the big Number One back who could play any game at all and equally well, and to whom eight colleges had been talking, not knowing that he was going to Princeton as three generations of Eric Rodmans had done before him. Ronald looked at them all, taking off his polo coat and muffler. All familiar faces, boys he had worked with, played with, fought with together in tough battles in different sports, friends. Yet strangers, too. Now at least they were strangers in a way. They were there, over on the other side of a river, and he was alone on the opposite bank, calling to them, and they didn’t hear.

  As he tossed his coat to the couch, they began their wisecracks to which he hardly listened.

  “Where you been, Ronny? Slumming again this afternoon?”

  “Ron’s been out seeing how the other half lives,” remarked Tommy from the window seat.

  “How’s the Duke of Plaza-Toro?” asked Eric. He was a great Gilbert and Sullivan fan, had a chest in his room with several hundred records, and always called Goldman by that name. Ronald came to.

  “He’s better. They think they’ll let him out in two months. He’s still... he still suffers a lot.” Then despite himself it came out. He knew the moment he said
the words it was foolish; he’d been saying it for several weeks with no effect. But still it crept out. “Gosh, I wish some of you men would drop in on him at the Orthopaedic some afternoon.”

  The silence came suddenly.

  “Ok for you, Ronny, he’s your pal.”

  “Nuts he’s my pal. He isn’t my pal at all. He’s just a man I laid up in a football game.”

  “Yes, and I suppose two years ago, remember, when they laid out Johnny Staines and busted his leg, those meatballs came running up to the Infirmary to see him?”

  “I don’t remember. But...”

  “Point is, Ronny,” remarked Tommy in his southern drawl, “those lugs play dirty football; only when we get tough they don’t like it. They expect us to play patty-cake ’cause we’re from the Academy, and when we play just as hard as anyone...”

  Ronny felt his face become hot. He was getting angry. He wanted to shout at them as loud as he could. Oh, sure. When they play rough it’s dirty football; when we play rough we’re just getting tough and playing hard.

  Keith knew Ronald and saw his roommate’s face redden. So he tried to change the subject.

  “Football, football, don’t we have enough football three months in the year?”

  But Ronald was not to be hushed up. “I don’t know about dirty football but I bet that boy LeRoy is still limping from the bruises on his shins and legs.”

  “Yeah... but you know, Ronald...” Now Tommy was dispassionate and objective. He was even authoritative; he was talking about a subject which he knew. Of which they were totally ignorant. “You know, Ronny, they have no right to play Negroes on their team.” He pronounced the word as if it were spelled Nigrows.

  Ronald flared up. “Whad’ya mean they got no right? It’s a free country, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, sure. It’s a free country all right. Sure, they got a right, they got a right. Point is they hadn’t oughta. Now down south we have separate schools and colleges for Negroes with their own teams and leagues and schedules and everything.”

  Ronald was stopped. He’d never heard of that. Nor had any of the others. They looked at Tommy on the window-seat with some interest.

  “Certain. We give ’em their own teams and all, and they like it. Why, they’d much rather play with themselves.”

  “How do you know, Tommy?” Ronald was stung by the other’s assurance.

  “Oh, oh, I know. Down south we understand how to treat Negroes. Up here, you-all spoil ’em.” He paused. “Leastways, we think. Now we don’t have any trouble; we love our Negroes. They’re our friends, yes, sir. They are....”

  “Well, the way you got to LeRoy’s shins and ankles that afternoon didn’t look to me like you loved Negroes much, Tommy!”

  The other sat up angrily. “Yeah. Ok! And I’ll give him worse next year, too,” he said with emphasis. “Him and that clunk, that boyfriend of yours, Goldman, and the rest of those lugs...”

  “Me, too.”

  “Same here. When you’re playing with a gang of thugs like that you can’t be fancy. They think every year we’re a bunch of softies; well, they found out this time.”

  “They found out—what?” Ronald was on his feet. Now he knew. He disliked them. Once they had been schoolmates, teammates, friends. Now they were there, over there, across that river, going away from him. He kept calling to them but they moved farther and farther away. “They found out—what? That we wanted to win the worst way, that what the Duke always said in chapel about playing the game was a lot of beeswax, that all Baldy’s talk about clean, hard football was tripe once we got on the field and saw we had a chance to trim ’em. They found out a lot of things. That we talked about sportsmanship but kicked LeRoy in the shins whenever we could, and ganged up on Goldman...”

  “Yeah! What about them? Maybe they didn’t all gang up on you whenever you tried to throw a pass?”

  “Don’t we call that rushing the passer?”

  “And maybe they didn’t go for your shoulder, that guy Stacey, their end. And Fronzak, always cracking Roger on his bum ankle in the scrimmages, and Mancini...”

  “Why, those lugs, those meatballs,” said Tommy, “they couldn’t play clean if they tried. Those peasants...”

  Inside Ronald something happened. For just a minute he was outside the whole world, he saw nothing in the room, lost the sound of voices all talking together in angry tones. He was entirely alone in a world with himself which nothing could penetrate. Then he heard his own words, cold hard words that came from deep within.

  “Peasants! They’re no more peasants than you guys.”

  “Yeah! You like ‘em so darn well, Ronny, looks like you’d quit the Academy and go down there—with your friends.”

  Ronald stood up. Now he knew exactly what he was saying. The red hot fury of anger suddenly passed. He was cool now, yet trembling. “You’re quite wrong, all of you. They aren’t my friends. They don’t like me at all—yet. Maybe they never will. But you’ve got something there, Tommy; that’s a good idea. I think I will quit this place. Right now.”

  His coat had slipped down to the floor from Keith’s bed. Everyone was watching him wide-eyed as he slowly wrapped the muffler about his neck, his hand trembling in spite of all he could do to keep it steady. Taking one look around the room, he shoved on his coat. This room where he had been happy and was now unhappy. Tommy was right. There was no use staying on.

  Down the hall his footsteps sounded. Then slowly on the wooden stairs. Inside, the room was dazed. Keith sat up straight, looking at Tommy and Eric, and Tommy looked back at Keith and Roger.

  “Gosh!” said Keith.

  “Aw... he’ll cool off. He’ll come back. You’ll see, he’ll come back by dinnertime. Just see if he doesn’t.”

  “Aw, he’s nuts,” remarked Tommy. “Completely nuts, that’s all. Been that way ever since he took that beating-up in the High School game. Why, he’s been queer ever since then. I’ve noticed it.” Tommy unraveled himself from the window seat, refusing to treat it as a major tragedy. What was the use of getting excited? Ronny would be back for dinner just as Eric said.

  “Who wants to go over to the gym and shoot some squash?”

  IV

  “I don’t know whether your father can see you this morning or not, Mr. Ronald. He’s been in conference all morning with the board of the Terrington Company. I think maybe he has a luncheon engagement with them, too.”

  Miss Jessup in the outer office looked up at him. To break away from the Academy and people he had begun to dislike, who were beginning to dislike him, had seemed the natural thing to do back there in his room on the Hill. One hour later in a different and cooler mood, it appeared less simple. What would his father say? How would Dad take it? How would he like spending a thousand dollars to send him to the Academy and then find him walking out before Christmas? He always said, his father did, that it takes a long while to earn a thousand dollars.

  Miss Jessup waited, sticking the end of a pencil into her hair, while he stood reflecting, saying nothing. “Hold on a minute. Take a seat and I’ll just let him know you’re here.” She wrote his name on a piece of white paper and tiptoed into the inner office. Ronny could see her shoving the paper on the desk, and his dad’s absentminded gesture, picking it up and talking to a man at his side all at the same time. The heavy odor of cigars came from the half-opened door. She returned. And gave him a gesture which said, maybe he’ll come out and maybe he won’t. Ronny waited.

  In about a minute the door opened again and his father appeared. “Hullo there, Ronny. What seems to be the trouble?” There was a disturbed frown on his forehead, and Ronald realized he had probably come at the worst possible time. He should have considered that. Should have gone home and talked first of all to his mother. This he’d thought of doing, but was afraid she’d try to get him to go back. Besides, he’s got to know sooner or later. It’s impossible to return now. Well, here goes!

  “Dad, I’ve quit school.”

  “Quit school
! You mean you’ve left the Academy?”

  Ronald nodded. There was a moment of silence. His father stood over him without a word, looking down hard, the frown deepening. Then he glanced quickly up, and looked at his wristwatch. “Ronny, I left my golf shoes over at Hanley’s to be resoled. Here’s two bucks; suppose you pop over and get them for me. Then meet me... meet me in... forty minutes. Meet me at the Crane and we’ll have lunch, what say?”

  “You bet, Dad, half an hour. That’s a few minutes after one.”

  “Yes. Let’s say one-fifteen to be sure.”

  “Ok.” He was off.

  Going down in the elevator Ronald felt lighter. There was a big load off his mind. Some fathers would have been sore. Some would have asked a lot of unpleasant personal questions there, right in the front office, before Miss Jessup and those other girls at the desks. Some would have exploded and talked about spending a thousand dollars for nothing, and made a scene. Not his dad, though. His dad took things like that in his stride. Still, Ronald knew he’d have plenty of explaining still to do. The ordeal wasn’t over. It was hard work to make a thousand dollars, no matter what your dad did. The closer the luncheon came the less he looked forward to it.

  “Now tell me all about it. Begin at the beginning.” They were seated at a table in the big, cool grill of the Crane. Usually a lunch at the Crane was an event in Ronald’s life. Not today.

  “Dad, I hardly know where to begin. Where it all started, I mean.”

  “Well, what happened? Something must have happened to put you off like this.”

  “Gee, Dad.” It was really hard to explain. Sure, he was a wonderful father. But suppose he didn’t understand, didn’t see things as Ronny saw them. Suppose he only thought about that thousand dollars, a thousand bucks; it took a long time to earn a thousand dollars.

  “Well, let me ask you some questions. Marks bad?”