Quarterback

by Dustin Stevens

  It provided just enough air flow to move the scent around without alleviating anything.

  Dressed in a pair of red gym shorts and a white Warriors throwback jersey, Jimmy settled himself back onto his perch. He pulled his microphone over in front of him, watching through the glass as Mickey gave him the signal and the red light overhead flashed off.

  Jimmy offered a quick nod to Kris before dropping into his trademark bombastic cadence, wailing into the microphone before him.

  “Happy Friday sports fans!” he began, drawing out the first two words to four or five syllables each. “This is your man Jimmy B behind the mic, keeping you up to date on all things Warriors.

  “Here in the studio with us this week we have a very special treat for you, none other than the Warriors own Kris Hopkins.”

  He turned his attention to Kris and said, “Hop, a pleasure as always.”

  “Always happy to stop by,” Kris said, matching the smile.

  “So tell us,” Jimmy began, “you’re known as quite the ironman in these parts. Rarely, if ever, do you we see you on the injury report. Heck, I can’t even remember the last time you missed a game. What was it like this morning watching the team fly off without you?”

  Kris nodded. “Well, I didn’t go to the airport with them, so it wasn’t quite that dramatic.”

  Both men chuckled, Jimmy rocking back from the table and letting the springs in his chair bring him back. “No end-of-a-bad-chick-flick for you, huh?”

  “Not quite,” Kris replied, another chuckle rolling out, “but I won’t say it was easy. Definitely not something I’ll ever get used to.”

  “Nor will we,” Jimmy said. “Nor will we.”

  He stared straight ahead in silence for just a moment, giving the statement proper gravitas, before shifting back into the present.

  “So what do you think of this kid Jon Walsh? He put up some pretty good number coming out of USC, but looked rather pedestrian in the preseason. Hasn’t so much as sniffed the field since.”

  It was a question Kris had anticipated on the drive in, running through his mind everything that Jimmy might toss at him. Despite hating the fact that he was stuck at home while his team headed to LA, it was still important for him to be supportive.

  After fifteen years in the limelight, he was more than aware that anything he said could and would be construed against him, a veritable media circus waiting to erupt.

  “As someone that’s watched and worked with Jon each day, I have every confidence he can get the job done this weekend.”

  “So no worries at all?” Jimmy asked.

  Kris raised his eyebrows and wagged a hand at Jimmy in a non-committal gesture. “Well, it’s important that everybody remember he’s a rookie, so there’s going to be some growing pains. The only way to get through those though is to get out there and get those needed reps.”

  Jimmy nodded, working at the inside of his jaw as he did so. “Well, I think I speak for all of us when I say a playoff run is no time to be breaking in a new quarterback. I’m sure the kid’s going to be good, but you’re one of the all-time greats.

  “Get healthy, and get back out there where you belong, Hop.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kris’s sneakers squeaked against the hardwood floor as he paced back and forth in front of the television. A football in his right hand, he carried a plain white hand towel in the left, swiping it across his face every few seconds. No more than a minute would pass before beads of sweat popped up again, dotting his forehead and upper lip.

  On screen the clock in the upper left corner ticked backward from fifty-seven seconds. Beneath the clock was a small scoreboard displaying the Warriors clinging to a thirteen to ten lead over the Lancers.

  “Come on, come on,” Kris muttered, stopping his pacing square in front of the television. He rose onto the balls of his feet, bouncing in place as Walsh came to the line.

  “Second and eight, don’t do anything stupid, Rook,” Kris muttered, watching as Walsh handed the ball to Dickson off-tackle for four yards.

  Kris smacked the ball between his hands, the sound echoing through the empty house. “Alright, alright. We can work with that.”

  Onscreen the clock ticked steadily down, dwindling below forty seconds. Again Kris passed the towel over his face, the cloth damp against his skin.

  “Third down. Get the first, and this game is over.”

  Once more the Warriors broke from the huddle and came to the line, the game and play clocks both winding down in the corner. Kris shifted his attention between them and the field several times, his fingers finding the seams on the ball, holding it at the ready by his side.

  “Run the sweep,” he muttered. “Monty will pick it up. He always picks it up.”

  On the snap, Kris took two quick steps forward, his body just inches away from the big screen. He watched as Walsh reversed out and pitched the ball towards the sidelines, Dickson catching it on the run.

  “Get up field, get up field!”

  A linebacker came tearing off the edge at Dickson, too fast to get his footing. The back threw a shoulder fake at him and cut towards the sideline, sprinting past the first down marker and sliding to a stop a few feet before going out of bounds.

  “Yes!” Kris boomed, throwing both hands in the air. He walked in a slow circle through the living room before turning back to the screen, pointing the ball at it. “That’s my boy right there!”

  Both teams flooded onto the field as Kris pumped his fist in exultation, tossing the ball onto the couch and walking into the kitchen. He picked up a half-empty bottle of water from the island and finished it, the cool liquid sliding down in three long gulps. He ended with a loud smack of his lips, tossing the empty bottle across the counter into the sink and heading back towards the television.

  In the middle of the screen stood Shannon Downs, on-field reporter for CBS, her blonde hair blowing in the breeze. In her hands she clutched a network microphone. Beside her stood a glowering Coach Dumari.

  “Coach, just six weeks ago your team demolished the Lancers 38-7. How big a difference did the loss of Kris Hopkins make out here today?”

  The folds on either side of Dumari’s face deepened as he glanced over at her, a dark cloud passing over his face. Just as fast it disappeared as he looked up at the camera, remembering he was on national television.

  “I don’t think it would be fair to say that was the difference at all, Shannon,” Dumari replied. “If you remember, last time we were playing at home, coming off a bye week.”

  Shannon nodded, her attention focused on him as he spoke. When he was done she pulled the mic back and asked, “What was the biggest change in game planning this week without Kris Hopkins?”

  “No change at all,” Dumari said, shaking his head. “We plugged Jon Walsh in and he did a great job. Offense never missed a beat.”

  Behind him a pair of security guards approached, ushering him off towards the locker room.

  “Excuse me,” Dumari said, jogging from the field without another word.

  Shannon remained rooted in place, peering back into the camera. “And that’s the official word from Warriors Coach Marc Dumari. Back to you guys in the booth.”

  “Thanks Shannon,” the play-by-play announcer said, getting cut off before another word crossed his lips, the television going to black.

  In the center of his living room Kris stood with a scowl on his face, the remote extended at arm’s length toward the television. He held it there a full moment after the television went dark, imagining the smug visage of Dumari, before lowering it to his side.

  “Dick.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Twenty-five minutes removed from the scanner, Kris was pacing. Alone in the same patient exam room as a week before he beat a steady path back and forth across the floor, thoughts flooding through his head.

  On Sunday, the Warriors had been lucky to escape LA with a win. Despite whatever Dumari tried to tell the world, Shannon Downs
was right.

  Two months before the Warriors had handled the Lancers easily. There was a noticeable difference in how they played this week.

  It had been nine days since Kris threw a football, the longest stretch he had gone since he was six years old. There was an itch starting to form deep inside him, an aching to get back out on the field, to let his body do what it was trained to.

  The door to the room snapped open, stopping Kris midstride, his foot cocked a few inches above the floor. He stared until Kirby appeared before lowering it, retreating back to the edge of the table and leaning against it.

  Kirby watched the entire display, a quizzical look on her face, before closing the door and stepping inside. “Good afternoon, Mr. Hopkins.”

  “Please tell me you’ve got good news.”

  The words were out before Kris realized it, an oral explosion that seemed to convey urgency and desperation together. He paused a moment, forcing himself not to show remorse for the action, waiting for Kirby to reply.

  She did not.

  “I’m better?” Kris began anew. “Cleared to play?”

  Still Kirby refrained from answering, taking up an envelope just like the one a week before from the counter. She extracted two films from it and hung them on the light board, flipping the machine alive to illuminate them from beneath.

  Kris glanced over at them, seeing the pair hanging side by side, and shifted his attention back to Kirby.

  “We don’t need to go through this again, Doc. You showed me last time. Just tell me, can I play?”

  Kirby met his gaze, a long, slow, doleful look, and shook her head. “Mr. Hopkins, what do you see here?”

  Once more Kris looked at the films, forcing himself to examine the scans hanging before him. Up close they looked to be carbon copies, exact replicas in every way.

  “Looks like the same film twice. What, did you make a copy?” he asked, scrunching his face a bit in confusion.

  Kirby took two steps forward and extended a hand towards the scan on the left. “These images here were taken last week.”

  She shifted the same hand a few inches to the side, pointing at the other side. “This was taken less than an hour ago. Can you spot the difference?”

  Feeling the same foreboding knot creep into his stomach, Kris leaned in close to the screen, staring at the two sets of images. Back and forth his eyes shifted as if watching a miniature game of tennis, trying to ascertain the difference.

  As best he could tell, there was none.

  “No.”

  “That’s because I’m afraid there has been no change at all in your condition,” Kirby said, flipping the board off and pulling the scans down from it.

  The words hit Kris like a helmet to the stomach, driving the air from his lungs. He raised his hands to his scalp and ran them back through his hair, pushing a long breath out between his lips.

  “So I still can’t play?”

  “No, Mr. Hopkins,” Kirby replied. “I don’t see you playing any time in the foreseeable future.”

  She paused, a look of sympathy passing over her face. “If ever again.”

  The final words caught Kris unawares, a lightning bolt from a clear blue sky. His mind ran through the gamut of emotions in just a few seconds, beginning at shock, coursing through fear and denial.

  In under a minute it made it all the way to anger, his eyes drawing tight as he glared at her.

  “What did you just say to me? This is my job, my life. You think this is some sort of joke?”

  Kirby retreated a single step towards the counter, placing the scans down behind her. “No, Mr. Hopkins-“

  “Enough with the Mr. Hopkins bullshit! My name is Kris. I am a football player, a quarterback. That is who I am, what I do.”

  Kris shoved his hips back against the bed, forcing himself upright. He could feel the venom coursing through his body, every nerve tingling within him. His eyes flashed with anger as he stared down at Kirby, almost daring her to say something else.

  “And I am not about to let some chicken shit doctor with a God complex keep me from doing it,” Kris spat, striding across the room in three long steps. He jerked the door open and stepped through without looking back, slamming it closed behind him as he went.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The Skyview Bar was on the twenty-fifth floor of the Jackson building, just six blocks away from Good Samaritan hospital. Sitting at an angle against the Willamette River it offered a towering overview of the southeast, northeast, and northwest quadrants of Portland. Sun danced off the river and blinked against the mirrored glass windows of buildings across the way, shining in through the floor-to-ceiling windows that comprised the entire outer wall of the bar.

  When Kris left the exam room he strode past the stunned nurses sitting at the front desk and took the stairs down to the first floor. The thought of returning to his car and driving home never occurred to him, his feet carrying him outside into the brisk autumn air. Construction along the roadway to his right forced him left, walking in exaggerated steps until a sign for the Skyview pulled him upstairs.

  Now, twenty minutes later, he sat alone at a corner table, an empty chair on either side of him, staring out at the city.

  “May I?” a voice asked.

  Kris shifted his attention from the city below to the reflection in the glass, seeing Kirby standing behind him. She looked a bit different without her glasses or white coat, an oversized purse hanging from her shoulder.

  “Go for it,” Kris said, his voice low, detached.

  She dropped her bag to the floor and slid into the chair beside him without pulling it out, as if trying to be as non-invasive as possible. Her bottom had no more than touched the seat when a young waitress in a white Oxford shirt and black tie approached, raising her head in expectation.

  “Same as him, please,” Kirby said, smiling.

  “Two waters. Great,” the waitress said, letting her disgust roll off the words.

  Kirby waited until she was gone before moving her attention to Kris, arching an eyebrow.

  “I have a concussion, remember?” Kris said, his focus remaining on the city below. He lifted his own glass and took a long drink, condensation dripping from his glass and dotting the table beneath it.

  “How’d you find me?” Kris asked, setting the drink down.

  Kirby turned to look out at the city as well, offering a slight twist of her head. “Wasn’t hard. This is the only bar you can get to on foot from the hospital.”

  “Hmm,” Kris said, nodding. He wasn’t sure what to make of her assumption he would go straight for a bar, but decided to let it pass.

  “I have lived three places in my life,” he said, his voice a tough lighter, drawing Kirby’s gaze towards him. “Nashville, Tennessee, where I was born and raised. Norman, Oklahoma, where I went to college.”

  He paused, his gaze sweeping the view below. “But this is the only place I’ve ever felt at home.”

  A knowing smile pulled up the left corner of Kirby’s mouth. She nodded and looked down at the city, nodding. “It has a way of doing that. I showed up sixteen years ago, swore I would never be happy anywhere but deep in the heart of Texas. Now, here I am, with no designs of ever going back.”

  A hint of mirth crept in around Kris’s eyes as he debated making a crack about Texas, but he decided to let it go. College rivalries could wait for another time.

  “Sorry about all that back there. I didn’t mean those things I said.”

  He glanced over at her to drive home his sincerity before reaching out to take another drink of water.

  “I’ve been called worse,” Kirby said, shrugging off the apology. “I’m from Texas, remember?”

  She glanced up as the waitress appeared with her water, almost slamming the glass down and retreating in silence. Kirby nodded her thanks at the girl’s back, waiting until she was gone before pressing on.

  “I don’t blame you for being angry. I just told you everything you’ve ever known
could be taken away from you.”

  A long moment passed as Kris processed her words, choosing his own carefully.

  “That’s the part I’ve been trying to avoid the most since it happened. I’m no fool. I know I’m not going to play forever. But when it does end, I want it to be because I chose to, not because I had to.

  “On your own terms,” Kirby said, nodding. “Understandable.”

  “Right,” Kris agreed. “And at the moment, nothing seems to be on my terms.” He motioned down at the glass in front of him and said, “I can’t even order what I want to drink.”

  Kirby glanced down at the matching pair of water glasses. “No, but you can still order what you want to eat.”

  “Hardly,” Kris snorted, the movement rocking his head back. “I haven’t gotten to order what I wanted in ten years. You know how hard it is to keep up with twenty-three year olds for a living?”

  Kirby raised her eyebrows in concession and shifted back towards the window, their gazes locked in a parallel path.

  “Since I’m not very good at this,” she said, “and you seemed to have missed it, that was me asking you to dinner.”

  “Oh,” Kris replied, his face giving away nothing.

  He had missed it, had never once ever considered that was where she was going with the comment.

  “Should I take the hint or blame it on the concussion?” Kirby asked, her gaze remaining focused outside.

  Kris sat and pondered the question for a long moment, long enough that Kirby nodded and gathered her purse from the ground. She slid her slight frame off of the chair and made it two steps across the floor before Kris stopped her with a single word.

  “Steak.”

  He said it without turning to her, using the window to watch her stop and shift back towards him.

  “Bone-in rib eye with melted butter and mushrooms.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A wooden sign along the roadside announced the place as The Griz. Hacked with a chainsaw from a chunk of old growth pine laid on its side, the words were written in basic script, the outline of a bear’s jaw clamping down on them from above and below.