Hometown Favorite: A Novel

by BILL BARTON

  The commentators were quick to bring up Miami's conquest earlier that day and the relationship between Sly and Dewayne. When they mentioned the boys were former teammates in Springdale, Mississippi, the reaction in the bar was deafening. For a second time Jesse missed his shot, but his opponent had also missed his two opening shots, so the game was still even.

  Jake noticed the negative effects of the commotion on Jesse's concentration as the game progressed. When his opponent was up by two balls, Jesse called a time-out to go to the bathroom. He blamed it on the level of alcohol he had consumed. When he exited the bathroom, Jesse responded with more hyped energy, which Jake took as an attempt to psych out his competitor and get his own wandering attentiveness back in tune with the game at hand. With each deliberate step around the table, he huffed and grunted, holding his pool stick above his head like some primitive warrior. It appeared the Rebel Rouser's court jester had returned in full possession of his charms.

  Jesse had just enough time to sink one shot, a dazzling combination netting two balls at once, evening the score and extracting from the crowd a vocal counter that rivaled the cheers for the hometown boy on the screen. Then someone shouted that the network was showing film clips of Dewayne playing for the Springdale Tigers. The commentators gushed that Dewayne's raw talent for catching passes and scoring touchdowns in high school was being perfected in his college career, and now the wide receiver was establishing his position as a rival for the Heisman and a contender for overall pick of the draft.

  Once again, Jesse lost his audience. Each quick shot of a pass thrown from Sly to Dewayne brought eruptions, and Jake saw the frustration spread over Jesse's face, replacing the renewed buoyancy that had been there seconds before.

  Like a blind Cyclops, the sports commentators had no comprehension of the power they wielded. In their enthusiasm to establish Sly and Dewayne as phoenixes rising from the ashes of defeat, the commentators showed the video clip of the Tigers' heartbreaking loss to the Devils four years ago when the Devils' running back had scored the winning touchdown. The commentator added, "Springdale anticipated the play based on the running backs' alignment, but the linebacker failed to pick up on it."

  No one in the Rebel Rouser shooting gallery heard anything else after that statement. The sporadic boos that popped into the stale air could not push back the tide of humiliation. The telecast and commentary bordered on torture, and no one was more tortured than the one who had absorbed all the blame for the defeat. It seemed to Jake that Jesse began to shrink, as though Jesse's spirit had fled from his body like a ghost fleeing dawn and leaving behind a debilitated corpse. Jesse finished off the contents of his glass in loud gulps, drinking to replenish himself, drinking to quench a desperate thirst, drinking to fill the darkest hole that was his tomb.

  The Rebel Rouser crowd had made a silent pact not to watch the television but to pay deliberate attention to the hometown boy who walked among them and had not forsaken Springdale for the lure of fame and glory in the world beyond. The infinite dark inside Jesse's skull shattered his ability. He scratched his next shot, something no one had ever seen him do. As though he were suffering from shell shock, Jesse rubbed the tip of his stick with more chalk and watched the bartender sink three balls in a row. When Jesse shot again, he knocked the cue ball into the pocket, another historical moment never before witnessed.

  The bystanders were cowed as they watched the steady disintegration of their friend. They felt no animosity toward the bartender who was now running the table. They worshiped him for his skill of mixing the perfect drink, but even the bartender knew this harsh victory would be bitter. When lining up his last shot before moving on to the eight ball, he purposely added too much English to the cue, and ball number six bounced from rail to rail, coming to rest dead center of the table. He wanted to give Jesse one more chance, and everyone in the room, including Jesse, recognized his generosity.

  But Jesse was no longer with them. His body was going through the motions. Whether or not it was intentional, no one would say, but when Jesse hit ball thirteen, it careened off a rail, glancing the eight ball and knocking it into a side pocket, ending the communal angst.

  The bartender was obsequious, saying his win was the dumbest of luck, but Jesse shrugged it off with a fragile smile, saying everybody has an off night. The crowd congratulated the bartender but saved the heartiest backslaps for Jesse and consoled him with offered drinks as they broke ranks to watch a little more of the football game. Jesse unscrewed his pool stick and placed it inside the case Jake held open for him.

  "I don't think I'm gonna stick around and watch you play, Coach;' Jesse said, tucking his trembling hands in his jean pockets. "Hope you don't mind"

  "Jesse, a man is not defined by one event in his life;" Jake said.

  "That's your favorite line, Coach; best to use it now on somebody else"

  "Let me drive you home"

  "You got a game to play."

  "I never expected to get this far;' Jake said. "No way can I beat Tiger Mart"

  Jake placed his hand on Jesse's shoulder, but Jesse deflected it as if it was an incoming punch, and then pretended it was an accident by scratching the back of his head.

  "Sorry, Coach, but I don't need your pity," Jesse said.

  "It's just an offer of a ride home. No harm meant"

  "No harm done" Jesse's hand had gone from alleviating a pretend itch to rubbing the back of his neck. "You play your game. I'm good." "

  When the owner of the Rebel Rouser decided the crowd had ordered a sufficient number of drinks to keep them going for the next game in the competition, he called for a return to the tournament table.

  "Rack 'em up," the owner shouted. "It's Tiger Mart vs. Barbecue Man in the second round of the final four."

  "I got to go to the john;' Jesse said and slapped Jake on the arm. "I may get to feeling better and stick around."

  I wish you would,' Jake said. "I need your support."

  The bar's congregants took their places around the table, and Jesse slipped through the circle toward the men's room.

  When the last man left the lavatory with an encouraging word to the Rouser's favorite son, the favored son locked the restroom door, set down his case, turned on the faucet, and splashed some water on his face. After wiping the excess off the metal counter above the sink, he pulled a plastic bag from his pocket and sprinkled the powdery contents on the dry metal tray. He cut the cocaine into two thin lines, took a straw from a shirt pocket, and snorted both lines in quick succession, one through each nostril. He peered into the mirror and saw the water trickling down his skin like clear blood. He listened to the sound of his ragged breathing, like new tires on wet asphalt, and longed for the blessed trap of sleep.

  Dewayne opened his Bible as he stood before the grave site surrounded by family and friends of Jesse Webb. Cherie had called her son to tell him of Jesse's death. The Hummer had flipped over an embankment and smashed into a tree, and the black box in the Hummer had revealed that the vehicle was traveling at an excessive rate of speed. Jesse had not been wearing his seat belt.

  Cherie also told him about the rumors speculating between accident and suicide, considering the condition Jesse was in when he left the Rebel Rouser that night. All Dewayne could think about as he listened to his mother rattling off the details through her tears was how his dear friend had died the night of one of the best games of his life-three hundred twentyseven receiving yards, four touchdowns, two school recordsclenching the conference title and the honor of leading his team to a bowl game that might win them a national championship. It was a mystery how life orchestrated those two events on the same day, at the same time. Why had Death been so near at hand for Jesse and so far away from Dewayne?

  And where is Jesse's spirit floating now, Dewayne wondered as he stared at the text of the Twenty-third Psalm. In what unnameable white light does my dear friend float?

  "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want," he began. He read at a tedious pa
ce, not ready to watch the internment of Jesse's body. "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul ..

  Couldn't God have restored Jesse's soul... kept him from ending his life this way? Dewayne almost spoke his thoughts aloud.

  "He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. .

  The shadow that devours, the shadow that has no conscience, the shadow that indiscriminately chose my dear friend and not Sly or me, who stands behind me, or my wife, who stands beside me, or my mother, who stands on my other side, or any of the billions of other people Death could have plucked from the living.

  "I will fear no evil..

  But there was evil and evil was hungry to suck up another soul.

  "For thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me... 11

  Where were you in Jesse's desperate hour-and, yes, God, where was I? Where was your rod of protection, your comforting staf?

  "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over...

  No bountiful table for Jesse to feast upon, no healing oil for his head, no cup overflowing with joy.

  "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever"

  Goodness and mercy were too slow; they followed too far behind Death, and, yes, Lord, he is in your house now, at peace, at rest, leaving us here to wonder where evil might collide with our lives.

  "This is the Word of God for the people of God," he said, and a few amens echoed in response. "Jesse's stay here with us was too short; a good soul was taken home too soon."

  Dewayne extolled Jesse's virtues and praised his family for giving Springdale the gift of their son. He admonished the graveside community not to forget Jesse, and to hold those dear to them a little closer, to listen to them a little longer, to see them a little clearer once they would depart this hallowed ground. But when it was time to pray, he had run out of words. He did not know how to speak to God. What was he to say to a God whom he acknowledged a faith in, a God with whom he had had such insignificant communication, a God who had presented him with the challenge of treading the dark of his own mortality?

  The reverend from the Webbs' church sensed Dewayne's spiritual exertion and stepped in. Once they lowered Jesse's body into the grave and the line of family and friends had passed the opened earth, pouring handfuls of dirt onto the casket, the crowd set off in deferential silence.

  Jake Hopper had come in late and sat in the back of the chapel at the funeral home for Jesse's service. He had not followed the procession to the graveside in his car. Instead, he stumbled along a garden path through the cemetery and waited at a distance, half hidden behind an obelisk, listening to Dewayne eulogize his good friend. Jake had been the last one to have a conversation with Jesse, perhaps the last one to take full notice and discern his fragile state before he got into his Hummer.

  Jake had not been sober since he had defeated the Tiger Mart man at the pool tournament that had pitted him against the bartender for the championship. This was his first public appearance, and he braced himself against the obelisk and took another drink from the flask concealed inside his coat pocket. They never got to crown the Rebel Rouser's King of the Cue. The police had arrived at the bar right after the bartender had made his opening shot. Jake had seen Jesse come out of the bathroom and hurry from the bar. The demands of the game had kept him from obeying a drunk's instinct to protect a brother addict. Hadn't he tried? Hadn't he offered?

  Now in the rise and fall of the soul's mercury, in the pool of its lowest red depths, he tried to drench the theory he might now be a murderer. He might be the cause of an innocent death.

  A collective of sports news reporters had gathered on the main road cutting through the cemetery but had kept a respectful distance from the grave site as they waited for the end of the service to interview Sly and Dewayne. Two college football stars, each leading his team to a conference title, each headed to a major bowl game, each a contender for the Heisman Trophy and leaving for New York City for the ceremony in twentyfour hours, and each returning home for the funeral of a best friend-it was a news story that could not go untold. Dewayne insisted they go to a neutral location to hold this impromptu press conference, and he led them to the parking lot of the high school. Out of respect for Jesse, both Sly and Dewayne kept all comments about their years playing for the Tigers on a positive note, even though one intrepid reporter asked if either of them thought there might be a connection between Jesse's death and their state championship loss their senior year.

  "We lost as a team;" Dewayne said. "There is never one play that loses a game or one player that makes a team lose. You win or lose as a team. End of story." And the moment he heard those words come from his mouth, he felt a rush of regret. He could have provided a stronger buffer to shield the hurt feelings of his friend when Sly was raging against him after the Tigers' defeat to the Devils, but he had wimped out. His defense had been lame.

  Why had he never looked Jesse in the eye when he was alive and said the words he had just spoken to an anonymous reporter?

  Jake remained in his car behind the reporters and curiosity seekers in the parking lot, unable to see or hear much of what was happening, but that was not the point. He wanted only to be in proximity to Dewayne and Sly, for being near them was easing some of the pain and assuaging some of the confusion. For the moment, he did not have the reckless need to soak his fears in alcohol. By focusing on the importance of Dewayne and Sly to his life, perhaps to his survival, he would not have to drink again for that minute, that hour, that day, for who knew how long.

  Jake followed them to Cherie's after the interview and then waited until nightfall before leaving the refuge of his car and walking to the front of the house, walking carefully so as not to stumble, holding his hands out from his sides to maintain an awkward balance. He stood at the end of the path leading to the front porch, placed his hand on the mailbox, and peered through the windows at the dinner preparations going on inside the house. It was like watching a play on a set that enclosed the actors. He wished that he could breach this set, that the characters would invite him onto the stage to be a player in this story, to contribute to the action, to add to the depth of each character from the wellspring of passions and desires swimming through his own heart. But he could not force his legs to inch his body forward to the light, toward the life inside the bright set. He feared they would have a moral limit as to who could enter and no invitation would be issued.

  "Coach? Coach Hopper, is that you?" said the voice that snapped him out of his dream. He stepped back, and the lucent glow of the streetlight brought recognition.

  Dewayne stepped off the porch and bounded toward Jake, like a child dashing toward a favorite uncle. Sly was at his heels, and both men shook his hand and pounded his shoulders. It was the admission he had hoped for, yet dreaded.

  In the light Dewayne and Sly saw a hollow-chested man whose hair was thinning on top of his bowed head; the pallid face of an alcoholic with papery skin and an expression of constant mourning. Gone was the robust confidence that had once inspired them. Dewayne asked him to come in, but he declined, citing an urgency he would not identify. He just needed to feel their touch, to hear their strong voices, to have them say his name to remind him that he was still among the living, that no one held Jesse's death against him.

  He was doing fine and about to open his own barbecue restaurant, he told them. "Hopper's Barbecue;" he said with excitement, almost as if he thought man had never before attempted the concept of offering barbecue to the public. Then came the request out of the blue, from the giddiness of the moment. He had not wanted to burden these Heisman nominees, but could they help their old coach with this new phase of life? Would they come to the grand opening of Hopper's Barbecue at noon tomorrow? Their enthusiastic yes surpri
sed and pleased Jake.

  Sober now from head to toe, he walked backward to his car, talking to the boys the entire way, not wanting to lose sight of them. Maybe they could wear their old Tigers' jerseys and pass the football in front of the restaurant? They would draw the crowd in, and the Springdale Leader would be sure to take pictures of him flanked by these future superstars. He would call in a favor at the high school and request several of the current football players who would love to be in the presence of two former Tigers, and throw in some of the cheerleaders as a bonus. He would ask the police chief for an escort to the restaurant, maybe even block off the street to give the boys plenty of room for a little pitch and catch. Dewayne and Sly would just show up, sign some autographs, take a few pictures, throw a few passes, and eat the best barbecue ever made since man became a carnivore-all before getting on the plane to New York and arriving in the Big Apple in plenty of time for the award ceremony.

  Jake had found himself, and he called in many favors that night. No one wanted to miss this opportunity to exploit the return of two Springdale heroes, especially on the heels of such a sad day as this one had been. Everyone agreed it would help bring the town back to life. Jake did not touch another drop the rest of that night. He did not drink again until the following morning when he turned on the television to watch the morning's sports news as he made his coffee and prepared to eat his cereal, the first bite of food he had had since he could remember.

  "So which of you will win the Heisman tomorrow?" the newscaster asked.

  Both Sly and Dewayne pointed to themselves before starting to laugh.

  "Well, not to put the other nominees down-they are all excellent players-but all our polling numbers show the race to the trophy is between you two."