Run the Man Down

3 Sold-Out Thunder

His cleats rattled on the concrete as he ran up the steps with the squad and out onto the field. The roar hit them like a wave. Usually he was proud of the way they looked as they came swarming out. This time it didn’t seem to matter.

Southern Mines was already on the field. They gave the impression of width and heaviness, but he knew that their style of play was wide open.

He lined up with the first team in the T, directly behind Judge, the quarter. Judge stepped aside and he took the long pass from center, faked a handoff to Brugan, the man in motion, and then swarmed down into the hole off tackle, Sigel bursting through first.

He felt lazy and depressed and he was mildly amused by the on-your-toes look of the rest of the squad. He went out and called the flip right, chose to receive, and they trotted back to defend the north goal.

The ball came high and far, end over end. Joe Brugan took it on the three and one of the Southern Mines ends slipped away from Tom’s block, nailed Joe on the five.

Tom flushed and bounced up and down a few times, went back to the huddle. That had been played like a high-school sophomore.

Judge called for him to take it right through the middle on a straight line buck, taking it from Judge on the way past. He knew, even as he started, that he had taken a full stride before the ball was snapped. The horn sounded on the play before he hit the line.

The five-yard man-in-motion penalty put it back on the one-foot line, and Conway, the kicker, came in to replace Tom.

Robertson gave him an odd look. On the next play, Conway kicked nicely out of trouble, and the Mines safety man had to drop back to their forty. An end came in fast and outsmarted the safety man when he tried to circle out of trouble, nailing him on the thirty-five.

On the first play that Mines ran, their quarterback made a half spin and clumsily faked a handoff to the man in motion. That man made a slow awkward sweep around the left end of the Carvel line. The defense ignored him... but not for long. Just after he got outside the Carvel end, the little quarter, after faking to the other wingback, made a beautiful jump pass, directly into the arms of the man to whom he’d originally faked.

Two of the Carvel secondary were hit with driving blocks that took them out of the play as they tried to cut over and intercept the pass receiver. The safety man angled over to force the runner over the sideline.

But the man didn’t force; he changed direction with a dazzling change of pace, and trotted unmolested over the Carvel goal.

The Carvel rooters sat in stunned silence and the Mines band blared in triumph as their men came trotting back up the field for the second kickoff.

Robertson sent Tom back in. The kickoff came to him. He pulled it out of the air, charged straight ahead. Just as a tackier drove at him, he turned and flipped the short lateral back to Brugan running on his flank.

Brugan got his hands on it, but the ball came alive. Brugan, running, tried to hang on and failed. The tackle tore it out of his hands and Mines recovered on the Carvel eighteen.

Eight men of the defensive team went in, but Tom stayed where he was. Their right wingback took it from the quarter at the end of a full spinner, faked a jump pass, and went through a hole in the right side of the Carvel line. Tom slammed him down after a six-yard gain.

They lined up fast, and got three more on a quarterback sneak. On a straight line plunge, their big fullback barely made the necessary yardage for a first down on the seven and a half.

On the next play, Tom went high and batted down a lazy looping pass intended for a man in the end zone.

On the next play, a whole host of them swept the left end. Sigel missed his shot at the ball carrier. The carrier, trapped, went all the way back to the fifteen. The crowd noise was a constant scream. Back on the fifteen, the man ran the width of the field and was trapped again. He reversed his field, ran back to the twenty, stopped, and threw a long pass to an end who stood all alone in the far corner of the end zone. The man caught it neatly. Tom drove hard and opened a hole through which Sigel went to block the conversion attempt.

Carol Ann sat high among the crowd on the Carvel side at about the forty-yard line and felt sick at heart.

Near her she heard a man say, “What the hell’s wrong with Lamar? He acts as though he did a little celebrating last night.”

Carol Ann’s smile was bitter. She knew that she could tell the man why Tom Lamar acted so dull on the field. She could say, “No, he didn’t celebrate. You see, he’s having wife trouble. His wife is a silly woman who loves him so much that she’s made him feel guilty all week. That’s what’s the matter with Lamar.”

It had been so stupid. She should have told him what her heart said. But she knew that she had been afraid of what was happening to them, what would happen to them.

Fear is a poor companion in marriage.

She knew that he was down there thinking of her, and wondering. She wished that she could have taken back the bitter words said when he left the apartment.

He moved as though he carried a heavy load of weariness. Near the end of the first quarter, Robertson took him out. She watched the game without interest. Southern Mines made an eighty-yard march for their third touchdown and, with minutes to play in the half, Tom was sent back in.

Twice he tried to run with the ball and was smothered. Then, with Sigel carrying, Tom looked for a moment like his old self. He cracked through, smashed two of the secondary out of the way, made room for Sigel to make eight yards before he was downed.

But then they had to kick, being too close to their own goal to risk running it with two yards to go.

Southern Mines hung onto the ball for four slow running plays. The half ended. The big board said 20-0.

During the third quarter and most of the last, Southern Mines should have scored again. But there was a fumble at a crucial moment, a back who slipped when he was almost in the clear, a pass that didn’t get away properly, dropped into the hands of the Carvel center.

Carvel was doing little to deserve the breaks. Big Tom Lamar’s apathy had somehow infected all the rest of them.

Carol Ann was watching him when the change began to occur. Suddenly he seemed more alert. There seemed to be some sort of argument in the huddle. They came out, and Judge fed the ball to Tom. He made a bruising, punishing drive into the center of the Mines line, and smashed through for five.

On the next play, he slanted off tackle, picked up Sigel who smeared the closest man in the secondary, and Tom wasn’t downed until he had made twelve.

Fifteen thousand Carvel fans yelled, and then looked nervously at the seconds ticking by on the clock.

The Mines team was laying for him the next play, but somehow little Judge appeared streaking around the right end with the ball tucked under his arm.

He made over twenty yards. Another first down was hung up when Brugan, on a naked reverse, cut back in time to dive for a good six yards.

With fifteen to the goal, Big Tom Lamar took it over in three smashes at the line. On the third and last smash, the sound of impact was so loud that Carol Ann heard it high in the stands and shut her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Carvel was lining up to try for the conversion. Tom was still in the back-field.

The extra point was kicked and Carvel, for the first time, kicked off to Southern Mines. Mines felt the new spirit in the Carvel team and tried to hold onto the ball. But they were forced to kick short of a first down and Brugan took it on the Carvel twenty-three, fighting, spinning, slipping all the way up to midfield.

Carol Ann realized that Tom was playing harshly and well, channeling his anger at the world against the Mines eleven.

His smashes were so successful that Mines adopted, for the first time in the game, a seven, three, one defense.

At that point, Tom took the backward pass from Judge, picked his receiver calmly and threw a flat pass into the arms of Sid Carver, the left end. Sid was dumped on the four. The game ended as Tom was stopped on the one-foot line and Carvel began to line up for the next play.

The man who had spoken before said, “If this game was ten minutes longer, it’d be another story.”

She went out with the crowd, walked the long way home, thanked Janet, fixed Tommy’s evening meal and put him to bed. Then she dressed carefully and sat to wait for her husband.

He came in and his step was weary. But when the light hit his face, she saw that he had rid himself of much of the anger and frustration. His face was calm, almost relaxed.

He kissed her, said, “Hmmm! You smell good, punkin. All dressed up and noplace to go?”

“Are you too bushed to talk, Tom?”

She saw the stubborn look appear on his face. He sat down and said, “No. Let’s talk if you want to talk.”

“Darling, I’m sorry for the way I acted this morning. I should have been spanked.”

“You’re a big girl now.”

“I wonder. I haven’t handled this right, Tom.”

He looked puzzled. “What should you have done?”

She sat down opposite him, her chin on her fists, her eyes sober and grave. “Darling, I’m not a very brilliant woman. I like keeping your home and raising your child and cooking for you. Those, I suppose, are peasant delights. Anyway, I like doing it. I like it because our marriage is a partnership. We both have an equal vote. I’m not a chattel or a possession. I’m part of this tight little unit called a family.”

He smiled. “So far, I don’t know where you’re heading.”

“Patience, my love. I’m long-winded. As an equal partner in, say a company of some kind, if I saw the company adopting a policy that I thought was wrong, what could I do?”

“Change the policy or sell out. That’s easy.”

“This is a marriage, not a company, Tom. My investment isn’t in money, but in emotions. I gave in to you and I shouldn’t have. Now I want to change the policy.”

“Or?”

“Or I want to get out.”

“Could you?” he asked, his face white.

“It would be the closest thing to death that I can think of, darling, but I could do it.”

He stood up and began to pace back and forth. The expression on his face frightened her. He said, “But I wanted to do this—”

“I know. For me. So that I might be gay and happy and carefree.”

“And why not?” he demanded.

“It’s what is called an initial error, I guess. You want something very badly. You know what you want to do with your life. It is a strong motivation with you. And through me you are forced to give it up. I think you are enough of a gentleman so that for all the rest of our life, you would never throw it up to me and say, ‘Look at the sacrifice I made for you!’ But that would be in your thoughts one day. And I’m too selfish to permit that sort of thing to happen.”

He walked with the nervous monotony of a trapped animal. Suddenly he stopped and turned to her, his palms spread.

“But, Carol Ann! What else can we do?”

“I did three things today, Tom. Probably every one of them will make you angry.”

“I’m too tired and confused to be mad.”

“I sold the little star sapphire you brought back from India. The eighty dollars I got for it are in my purse. I wrote for the accumulated dividends on my life insurance. They amount to another twenty-three fifty. At eleven o’clock I saw Mr. Bargoman who handles the employment fund. I told him about the cost of living and if you stay, they’ll pay you sixty-five a month instead of fifty for tending the oil furnaces. And on Monday, I’m going to go to the campus office of the newspaper and put in an ad. There’s no reason why I can’t tend a few extra kids during the afternoons.”

She looked at him defiantly. The silence was heavy between them. He had his hands shoved deeply into his trousers pockets and she couldn’t read the expression on his face.

“I told Robertson,” he said.

“I know you did. He’ll be glad if you change your mind.”

“I told Tide too.”

“You didn’t sign anything. This is where we belong, Tom. No matter how hard it is, this is what we want to do. We just forgot that for a little while.”

“I don’t see why you should take it on yourself to—” He paused as a knock sounded on the door.

He opened it. Tide Wallinger smiled and said, “Can three people get into one of these rooms?”

“Come on in, boy. You know Carol Ann?”

“Sure. Hi, lady. I’m that commercial Mr. Wallinger.”

“So I’ve heard,” she said flatly.

Tide sat down. “My, you two look happy! Did I interrupt any fisticuffs?”

She saw Tom grin. “We hadn’t quite gotten to that point.”

“Big Tom, that was an odd performance you put on out there on today’s balmy afternoon. Very peculiar. You certainly needed me out there.”

“I could have used you,” Tom admitted.

“It almost made this old heart sad, lad. We could have shredded those smart punks in the approved fashion.”

“But we didn’t. We’ll have our chance to do that next year. S.I.U. has Southern Mines in the schedule as a breather.”

Carol Ann’s heart sank as she heard Tom say ‘we’.

But before Tide could answer, Tom said, “Correction, please. I forgot. Tell your chums that Tom Lamar is no longer on the market. Tell them his wife has decided that he should be a kept man, and she has decided to keep him.”

“Darling!” Carol Ann said softly.

Tom grinned at her.

Tide Wallinger, slumped in the chair, looked speculatively up at Tom and said, “Behind that massive brow, Lamar, you do think, don’t you?”

“How so?” Tom asked, anger in his tone.

“I sat high in the stands today about five rows back of your charming lady. I had a friend with me. He left after the third quarter. He told me to relay to you his best wishes and to advise you that should you seek a transfer to S.I.U., you do so at your own risk, and sans travel expenses. He felt that your performance was a bit too... ah... spotty for an outfit which deals largely in sure things.”

She felt the laughter start, deep inside her. She caught Tom’s eye just as it started to bubble out. The shocked look on his face changed and then he was laughing too.

She laughed herself into helpless weakness. Tom’s great bellowing laugh filled the small room.

“What the hell?” Tide asked mildly. He stood up. “So, folks, I just stopped by to say that the gravy train pulled out without you and that I’m very sorry. You have my kind permission to read about me in next fall’s sports sections.”

Tom walked over to the door with him, shook hands with him, and said good-by. When he came back to her, Carol Ann was still weak from the good laughter, the good, deep, wonderful laughter that had meant an end to their bad week.

When she was under control, she said, “You know, Tom, I don’t know whether I like him or not. He’s — so sort of cynical and funny.”

“Underneath he’s a good guy.”

They talked together in low tones for a long time, and then she went out into the kitchen to prepare dinner. She was humming as she worked, and she felt young and very alive.

Tom’s hoarse shout brought her to the doorway of the living room.

He handed her the note. It was from Tide. “Stuffed down there in the chair he sat on, honey.”

The note read:

She looked, saw on his broad palm the three crisp fifty-dollar bills.

“That crazy guy!” Tom said thickly. “He couldn’t leave without throwing one more block for me.”

“We’re rich,” she said gaily.

“Maybe I just learned something,” Tom said.

“You! Learn something!” she said in mock surprise.

He put his palms under her elbows, lifted her high off the floor. “Sure, pun-kin. Maybe I learned that even without the money, I’m rich.”

Then he laughed. “Stop looking at me like that! You look fifteen and you make me feel like a cradle-snatcher!”