A Life Intercepted

by Charles Martin

  It wasn’t difficult to imagine.

  From my first day in prison, dozens of defense attorneys had offered to handle my appeal, but even I could read the writing on the wall. They weren’t concerned with my acquittal, and much less my innocence. And they certainly weren’t concerned with my marriage to my wife. They were concerned with their image and what my popularity could do for them.

  And because hatred is no respecter of persons, I grew to hate them, too.

  At night, deep in my cell, I flipped back through the mental images of the twelve members of my jury. Ron Able. Judge Gainer. The bailiff, Mr. Castor. The court stenographer, Ms. Fox. The fifty-plus media members in attendance. The woman who brought water bottles for members of the jury. The paralegals who aided the attorneys.

  The faces of each were seared in my mind, and I hated every last one.

  Those around me could smell hatred. Anger oozed out my pores like garlic, and the bars of my cell were toothpicks compared to those inside me. After two years, I could hate no more. That doesn’t mean I quit hating. It means I had exceeded my own capacity. I was full and my cup was running over but drinking from my cup was killing me.

  One afternoon early in my third year, Nate Roberson—a giant of a prisoner serving life for any number of crimes—paid off the guards, followed me into my cell, and attempted to put me in perpetual submission when they locked the door behind him. To give you a sense of how far I’d fallen, I remember smiling when the door locked. Given a target, I opened the valve of my hatred and in his face, I saw the images of every person in that courtroom. In the end, I’d been stabbed a couple of times, requiring stitches, while he lay unconscious on the floor, with multiple internal and external injuries and several broken bones. Blood, both his and mine, covered us and most of my cell. He’d required more than eight hours of surgery to reconstruct his face, elbow, shoulder, and knee. When they rolled him off, barely alive, I screamed at the top of my lungs. Told everyone who would listen. Come one, come all. Unlock every door and send the whole prison at once.

  No one wanted any part of me. Including me.

  Given his several-month stay in the hospital and the guard’s testimony that I, in fact, was the intended victim and simply defending myself, word spread and I served out my time in relative obscurity and silence. Even the gangs left me alone. That meant I lived alone in isolation with memories and emotions and whispers that sought to kill me. Close to the four year mark, when the realization of who I’d become and who I’d never be hit me, I spilled off my bunk and shattered on the floor. I cried for days. Roaring in my cell. At the top of my lungs. What hatred I had not sweated out my pores came spilling out in my tears. Out of my cries.

  Somewhere in there, life gutted me and my soul broke down the middle.

  I had been there 1,507 days—four years, one month, fifteen days—when Gage Merkel knocked on my cell. “You the Rocket?”

  I didn’t look at him. He was tossing a ball in the air—something I’d not touched since they walked me in.

  “First time I ever watched you play, you threw for over six hundred yards. Not bad for a—” He turned to look down on me and whispered, “Freshman.”

  The strings he was tugging at were connected to raw, painful, and violent anchors buried beneath time and the residue of anger. I was gurgling.

  I stared up at Gage and the memory shot back.

  My dad had bought me some new cleats, helped me lace them up, then strapped on a helmet that was so big I could barely stare out through the face mask, and then he’d taught me how to throw.

  Turns out, I was good at it.

  Real good at it.

  When I got the hang of it, he shook his head, smiled, and tapped me on the chest. “Football is not played with strong arms and fast feet, it’s played with heart. Grow your heart and your arms and feet will follow.” My dad was not a good, or even skilled, player, but love for the game is not only given to the gifted. He paused. A knowing look. “You play long enough and you might find yourself in a place where your arms and feet fail you.” He smiled and nodded once. “That’s when you find out what’s in your heart.”

  I sat in my cell, staring at twenty years, my father’s voice echoing off hard, concrete walls. Time in prison is like being slowly filleted alive. The knife is not greedy. It only cuts enough skin for that day, leaving enough to stretch out across the remainder of the sentence. That left me to sit in my cell and rot.

  Gage spoke softly, “Maybe… we could throw sometime.”

  I sunk my head in my hands. Who I’d become was killing me. I couldn’t live with me anymore. I nodded. It was all the response I could muster. On the wall, inches from my face, my predecessor had etched these words into the concrete: WELCOME TO HELL—YOU ARE NOW SITTING IN THE GRAVE OF YOUR DREAMS.

  The next morning, at daybreak, he appeared at the door to my cell. Tossing the same ball in the air. He knelt, his head inches from mine. “Tell me what you love?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He inched closer, pressing his forehead to the bars. “Come on. One thing.”

  A long pause. “My wife.”

  “And?”

  I glanced at the football in his hands.

  He smiled. “We can build on that.” Then he whispered into a shoulder-mounted microphone. My door unlocked, and he nodded. I rose from my bed and stepped out into the ward, where he held the ball hovering over my outstretched hand. He eyed the cameras aimed at us. “You do anything other than catch this and throw it back, and they’ll put you back in that cage. Understand?”

  I nodded.

  He swirled his right index finger in a circle. “Eight cameras.” He leaned in, whispering. “A mile down the street, there are some smug people in suits, sipping triple lattes, watching you on the monitors on the wall. Wondering what you’ll do. A few of the has-beens and never-weres have placed bets, saying you’ve lost it. The rest say you never really had it to begin with. So… let’s prove them wrong.”

  He placed the ball in my hands. My fingers read the laces, the leather’s texture and tackiness, the weight of the ball, and my chest let out the breath it’d been holding since they’d arrested me five years prior.

  My voice cracked. “Understood.”

  We threw one day. Then two. A week passed. Then another. Every few passes, a new memory would surface. So I crawled into my memories, into the games I’d played, the plays I’d called, the defenses I’d read, and into the sound of the woman who once loved me.

  Remembering who I had been was the only way I could combat who I’d become.

  I spent days replaying entire games, living within the memories and emotions. I crawled so far inside myself that I seldom returned to my cell. My body may have been there, but my mind was long gone. And if I wasn’t replaying games in my mind, then I was preparing for them. Every morning I threw with Gage. And when I wasn’t throwing, I was working out. Several times a day. Sometimes all day. Push-ups. Sit-ups. Pull-ups. Squats. Leg raises. I even jumped rope with an imaginary rope. I ran sprints. Lost count of the number of down and outs. Ran in place. Squat jumps. I sweated and sweated and sweated, all in an effort to both remember the past and forget the present.

  To kill time.

  My mind had become a battleground. On one side stood the cesspool of memories of my arrest, the courtroom, the accusations, the testimonies, the experts, the closing arguments, the cinching of the handcuffs, the reading of the verdict, Audrey’s screams as they led me out in shackles. And on the other stood a boy with a football in his hand who loved a girl.

  The months ticked by and the guys in the cells around me, at meals and out in the yard, said I’d gone loco. Lost my mind. I don’t disagree. It probably looked that way. Be it weakness or strength, I was fighting for my soul, trying to remember that I once loved a woman and that she once loved me.

  Some days were better than others. Some not. All taught me the same thing—hatred and anger does not kill hatred and anger.

  CHAPT
ER SEVENTEEN

  Dee arrived at five minutes to six p.m. Audrey was nowhere to be found. He had this look on his face like he knew something I didn’t and he didn’t want to be the one to tell me.

  “While we wait on Audrey,” I handed him one of two jump ropes, “you’re always moving. When I’m talking, you’re jumping. You will be in constant motion unless I tell you otherwise. Your feet and hands will be moving. It might seem silly, but this will force your mind to work while your body does something else.” He still wouldn’t look at me, and he had yet to lace up his cleats. “You all right? What’s up?”

  “She’s not coming.”

  I glanced toward St. Bernard’s. “I know.”

  “You want me to go?”

  “Why?”

  “No Sister Lynn no workout.”

  I wasn’t about to send this kid home. “Why? You don’t think you can hang with the old man?”

  “No, I can hang—”

  “It’s okay. You can tell me the truth.”

  “You’re playing me, aren’t you?”

  I smiled. “Yes, Dee. I’m playing you. Get your shoes on.”

  He sat and began lacing up his boots. “How’d you know?”

  “Had a feeling.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded. “She’s pretty strong willed.”

  Dee stood and began jumping rope while I pointed at the two walls of cars around us. In front of him, I’d hung four ropes with eight tires. They ranged in distance from eight yards to forty. Different distances, different angles. The line of scrimmage was a line I’d drawn in the dirt. I emptied a bag of balls at his feet and pointed at his targets hanging in front of us. “Given that we can’t use real people, I’ve given you a few receivers.” One by one, I named them. “That Michelin hanging over there is your go route. Behind it, that B.F. Goodrich is a slant. That retread with the steel radials curling out of it is your sideline bump and run.” He started smiling. “That bald thing there, or ‘baldy,’ is a secondary read, a hitch and go. Over there, that big tractor tire, that’s John Deere and he’s your back out of the flats. That MINI Cooper tire is your fade. Pirelli is a post. Goodyear is a streak.” I ran my hand along the wall of cars on our right which made impromptu sidelines. “You see that red station wagon right there?”

  He nodded.

  “You see that open window just above it?”

  “Got it.”

  “That’s a Chevy Impala. Or what remains of it. The window is your sideline route.” I turned him to the left. “That window there?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m not sure, but I think it’s a Volkswagen.”

  “Left sideline. Got it.”

  I tossed him a ball, and he dropped the jump rope and caught it. I knelt in front of him, a dozen balls at my feet. “When I snap you the ball, I want a three-step drop—starting with a strong first step—and while you’re doing that, I’m going to call your receiver. Got it?”

  His eyes ran through the hanging tires. “I think so.”

  “You ready?”

  He smiled. “No, but I’ll get there.”

  I snapped him the ball. “John Deere.”

  A quarterback’s throw starts in his feet. They are his anchor. His foundation. They get him in position to throw and they start the power transfer or kinetic chain. At the snap, Dee’s first step was big and backward, covering about three yards. His next two were short, choppy, and quick—that’s good footwork, and I’d bet it was natural and no one had taught it to him. Guys either have it or they don’t. His eyes were quick to read his receivers and check off one or two—which would buy him a half a second or so from the safeties—before he committed to John Deere. Then came his throw.

  If you could call it that.

  “Wow.” I scratched my head and tried to make sense of what I just saw. “What was that?”

  He chewed on his lip. “Yeah. I have a bit of a problem.”

  “I’ll say. Did you always throw like that?”

  He shook his head.

  “Who did that to you?”

  “Coach Damon.”

  “I know he’s your coach, but if you want to improve you’ll never listen to another word he says to you when it comes to your throwing motion. Just nod, smile, say ‘yes, sir,’ and then disregard every word that comes out his mouth. The delete button is now your best friend.”

  He laughed. “That go for you, too?”

  I smiled and shrugged. “Well played.”

  In its simplicity, the throwing motion is a simple transfer of energy. One seamless symphony of muscles and memory. In its complexity, it’s an incremental buildup of leverage, finally released out the fingers.

  Think of a medieval catapult. Stored energy rests high in a structure. A decision is made, a lever is thrown, and that energy is released straight down, where it is driven through some mechanism that utilizes other levers to convert that energy into a swinging arm, which, as a result, launches a projectile. The more energy stored, the more available to be released. The more released, the farther the projectile is hurled. Distance is a function of two things: energy stored and the efficiency of the structure to transfer that energy into the object.

  A football player is the catapult. Energy is stored in his body. At given intervals, like when a receiver is open or going to be open, the QB’s mind tells his body to release stored energy that is then channeled along a kinetic chain. It starts in his toes, rises up through his legs and hips, and then narrows through his core. All the while, it is multiplying exponentially. Then it courses through the shoulders, arms, and finally off the tip of the index finger on his throwing hand.

  Simple, right?

  Well, yes and no.

  When released into a football, that energy can be measured in such units as release velocity, launch angle, and spin rate. Scientists, coaches, players, even armchair quarterbacks, get really axle-wrapped in this. So difficult is the act of getting the ball into the receiver’s hands without a defender getting to it first that it’s been called “threading the needle”—and a moving one at that. Good quarterbacks can put the ball in the same place five out of ten times. Great quarterbacks put it there ten. Greatness wins games. Consistent greatness wins championships. Consistency is king.

  The problem with Dee’s throw was simple. Somebody had monkeyed with his catapult. For a quarterback, his nonthrowing arm is as important as the throwing arm, because what you start in the nonthrowing arm is finished in the throwing arm. It is commonly agreed that the most efficient and accurate throwers come over the top. Meaning, the ball is released somewhere above their ear. In order for an over-the-top release of the right hand to happen, the left arm must come straight down and back along the torso. That forces the right arm, or throwing arm, to come over the top. If the left arm swings wide, like a helicopter blade, then as a matter of sheer physics the right arm will swing wide as well, causing the thrower to sidearm the ball. There are exceptions to this, but they’re few. Sidearm quarterbacks are not known for their accuracy, and their careers are rather short given that the shoulder is not designed to handle the torque produced by a sideways throw. In short—for a right-handed quarterback—left arm straight down and back is good as it causes the right arm to come up, over, and forward.

  Every time Dee threw, his left arm swung wide. As a result, his right arm did, too. To make matters worse, he was dropping his right elbow to compensate for the torque put on his shoulder. Ray was right, doing this to Dee was like taking a Derby-winning racehorse and tying a rope between his feet, shortening his stride by a foot or two. The kid had all the strength in the world yet maybe only half his available power made it out his arm, and his accuracy was sporadic at best. And he just didn’t look comfortable. As a result, he was throwing ducks.

  It was bad all the way around.

  But it was also fixable.

  Very fixable. Problem was the rope between his feet also rested in his mind.

  Dee dropped back, checked off his
read, and fired the football, missing his target by about three feet.

  I’d seen enough. I said, “Follow me.”

  One of the unique features of the maze of cars within which we were throwing is that in some places the stacks of cars were twenty feet high and piled in tight rows. The aisles between were two-to three-feet wide and a man of average shoulder width had to turn slightly sideways to walk between them.

  Dee and I walked down one of the aisles. When separated by about fifteen feet, I said, “Now, throw me the ball.”

  He laughed. “You’re joking.”

  “When it comes to throwing a football, I never joke.”

  He pointed to the pieces of rusted metal protruding from the walls. “I’m not sure my tetanus shot is up to date.”

  “You arguing with me?”

  He brought the ball up and tried to fire it toward me, but his left arm brushed the crushed car next to him and the ball went tumbling and bouncing off the sides like a pinball machine. I threw it back to him. “Only one way to throw in here. Over the top.”

  He caught the ball. “How’d you do that?”

  “Think about it. The problem is in your left arm. Pull it straight down. For now, keep your left arm in constant contact with your body. That will change as your motion improves, but right now I want you to overaccentuate.”

  He tried again. More pinball.

  I demonstrated in slow motion. “Left arm down. Right arm over the top.”

  He gathered himself and threw. Left arm came down, right arm over the top, and the ball came straight to me before the wobble pulled the ball right.

  “A little wobble is good. A lot is bad. Too much can take a ball five yards off target at thirty yards. Again.”

  We spent the afternoon playing catch between rusty crushed cars, throwing a couple hundred balls.

  When we emerged from between the cars, his arms were scratched and right knuckles a little bloody but he was smiling and shaking his head. And his throw had shown improvement. “How’s your arm feeling?”