The Jook

Chapter 8

Three weeks later I was in top shape and had passed every goddamn random drug test they used to trap me. The first one that afternoon during the walk-on period had me worried. But not having tried too much of Wilma's crank that past night, and burning it off in my system, was the smartest thing I could have done. Plus I'd drank lots of water and taken a whole mess of vitamin C for absorption, and some B-2 to make sure my urine was yellow. Them lab motherfuckahs get suspicious if your pee is too clear. The water helps dilute the shit in your system along with sweating it off. Good thing crank burns off cleaner than boo.

The physical was another matter.

The fibula had been giving me a little trouble, but it worked great the day I had to get on the treadmill. In the old days teams had one pill roller and maybe his assistant. If you and he were on the same wavelength, certain things could be forgiven. Especially if you were a multi-million dollar stroker and were bringin' in the ducats, including his salary bumps.

The new thing was a roomful of these sports medicine types, women too. They had their machines, their electronic scopes, and their charts and graphs and clipboards telling me how and what a muscle should do and when. They'd X-rayed my leg and hip from different angles, slapping electrodes on different parts of my leg when they'd done it.

Their results only told Coach Cannon what he must have learned from the Barcelona Dragons' medical exam.

"Zelmont, this tendon strain on your hip is exacerbated by contact, and you know that." Cannon scratched at his chest with one of his big hairy hands.

"Stress on the abdominal musculature too," I said, having memorized the words. "The ligaments are strained in my thigh and the fibula has bone chips. I know all that, coach. Your docs told you all that too. But there are days I'm duckin' and dodgin' like ten years ago. You seen me out there, you know."

Me and Cannon were standing near the locker room. From inside I could hear the sounds of the men getting dressed for practice. "They say if you keep this up, osteoarthritis will surely be the result before you're fifty, Zelmont."

"That's more than fifteen years away, man. You want to bring a Super Bowl trophy back to this city after damn near twenty years, or you want to be a missionary? I'm a grown man, I know what's what."

Stadanko, who'd been around each day but I had avoided, came around a corner. His old lady was with him. He was dressed in casual clothes, expensive Mezlan loafers on his feet. Ysanya had on a colorful poncho, white jeans, and cowboy boots. She'd done her hair different than the last time I'd seen her at the party. Now it was brown and orange shag cut with streaks of purple. I guess Pablo had advised her she could tune in Venus that way.

"Zelmont's damaged goods, Don?" Stadanko didn't bother to look in my direction.

"He ain't no kid, and he's got battle injuries."

"He blew off our number three draft pick yesterday in practice."

"You looked real good, Zelmont."

"Thank you, ma'am."

Stadanko jingled some coins in his pocket, still only looking at Cannon.

"He did look good," the coach said grudgingly. "But we have to consider how productive he can be in the long term." Cannon folded his beefy arms, touching his glasses like he always did as if they were ready to fall off.

"Long term doesn't always apply to everybody." He kept jingling.

Was Stadanko trying to play me? Get me thinking he means something else?

Ysanya smiled at me. "Well, I'm sure Zelmont hopes to have a good year, make enough to maybe retire, huh, Zelmont?"

"I just want to play." Damn, what cornball bullshit.

Cannon looked at me sideways behind his glasses. "He says he's ready, he's clean, and he's on time."

"Then what more can we expect?" Stadanko spread his arms wide, grinning with no feeling behind the smile. "I'll leave you to your tasks, coach." He split, his old lady sauntering along, humming to herself. Maybe she was getting signals from them planets after all.

Cannon pointed toward the locker room. "Get busy, lucky boy."

"Sure you right."

Walking into the locker room, who but coach's grown son Tommy breezed past me. He had that look that told me he'd come up short again at the racetrack.

"Hey, you're back, huh?" He stopped and glanced back at me, blinking.

"Can't keep a God-fearing man like me down."

He laughed real loud and went on to look for his dad and a loan.

Later that day I got a call from Martin Lowe, which didn't surprise me much. He was the junior flip to the big dick boys in the sports agents firm which said not more than a year ago I wasn't worth their effort to rep. We had a late lunch at a restaurant near the water in Redondo Beach, not too far from Wilma's office.

"Uh-huh, no… I'm on that now, I kid you not. Yeah, this is like done already." He snapped his cell phone shut, moving his runner's shoulders inside his baby soft leather coat. "Hey, what you gonna have, Zee?" Lowe couldn't have been more than twenty-six. He was tanned and wore a ring on each index finger. One had a black stone, the other a red one.

Usually if a cat don't know me, I don't dig 'em talking to me like we're familiar. But I needed his young sure self, so I nixed the comeback. "Somethin' light, want to be hustlin' when I hit the field on Saturday for the exhibition against the Browns."

"Natch." His phone buzzed again, and he clicked it open like Captain Kirk getting a message from the Enterprise. He jabbered some more, then clicked off, lifting his shoulders. We finally ordered and got down to it.

"You know you're coming out of a rough patch there, Zee." Lowe had some of his imported mineral water. "The money isn't like it would be in the old days. And there's the salary caps, the free agent finagling and so forth."

"What you figure your 15 percent comes to?" I crossed my legs.

He chuckled in his throat. "Stadanko will go seven small this year. And if you perform the way we know you will, then two large next year will not be crazy to consider. Plus, I have a couple of possible endorsers considering."

Considering I don't get busted with anything up my nose or my zipper down when the video is rolling. "I was hoping we could do better."

The waiter brought our salads. "Zee, you were making minimum wage with the Dragons. This isn't bad." He pierced a cherry tomato with his fork.

No it wasn't. Seven hundred grand would keep a lot of shit from rainin' down on me. But I was expected to complain and he was expected to promise me all kinds of perks. We ate and did the back and forth what if I asked for this, maybe he could get that.

Afterward, we shook hands. He would get a contract to me tomorrow. And he picked up the tab. That hadn't happened in a long time.

I wondered what Wilma would say if I dropped in on her at the office, but good sense told me not to do that. No reason making it seem like I wanted anything to do with their scam when all I really wanted was another taste of that educated trim of hers. Better to get my mind on straight and keep it there.

I pulled into my driveway and Fahrar parked right behind me. I knew it was him before he got out of his tired Toronado. The half-Landau top was old and cracked like alligator skin, and the tires were mismatched like his eyes. Damn car must have been more than twenty-five years old.

I can't believe they let you drive that piece of crap. Don't the LAPD have standards?"

"My lieutenant likes us to blend in." He came out to the car wearing his hat. His light-colored eye looked wet. "You've been all the rage on the sports radio this morning."

"What is it, Fahrar? You gonna keep your weak-ass Columbo routine goin' until I break down and cry like a bitch? You ain't got shit and you never will. Know why? You ain't competent, that's why."

"Big word for you to use, isn't it, Zelmont?"

I shoulda popped him upside the head with the equipment bag I was holding. But that's what the little punk wanted. He was gonna keep needlin' me until he had an excuse to haul me in. "What you got, cop?"

Fahrar shoved his hat down on his head. He pulled in his lips, then said, "I got a murdered girl slaughtered by a thrill killer. A young woman who only wanted what all of us want, Raines, a chance, one goddamn chance, for a piece of that silver hope. You've had hope to spare and shat on it each time."

I threw down my bag. "That it, Fahrar? You the Spectre, that white ghost with the green gloves in the comic books? You been sent to deal justice, officer? Or is it something more, Fahrar? You get a look under Davida's dress when she was on the slab and can't get it out of your fantasies?''

He rushed me, pushing me back against a post of the carport. "Stop it, stop talking like that."

"Or what, cop?" I backhanded his hat off. "What you gonna do?" I looked down at him, his hands latched onto the front of my clothes. "Go on, get bad, chump." We were both pumped, our chests rising and falling. "You want to be the superhero, don't you?''

Fahrar pushed off me, jabbing his finger at my face. "You had everything handed to you and you don't give two fucks. Don't you understand what an opportunity you were allowed and what you could have done with it?"

"I earned every goddamn thing I ever got out of pro ball, Fahrar."

"Yeah, the jail and rehab time too."

"I started, man, I been in the lights and seen the smiles when Zelmont Raines brings the ball down out of the air like Houdini, baby I ain't no role model, but I never pretended to be one either. See I'm honest, I don't come on Barbara Walters goin' aw shucks, I didn't know about them fucked-up conditions in that Asian shoe factory. Damn, I guess I'll have to get the shoe company to do something about it. Meanwhile, I keep pocketing the endorsement dough, cryin' to hide my greed.

"I know them shoes I used to pimp to kids in Compton and wherever is made by poor little bastards in Chinese labor camps or Indonesia some place. So what? They makin' a wage, ain't they? It ain't like they got a good system like us where a man can make what he can with what he got. I think about them like they think about me, not too often. You got to go for what you know in this world, son. 'Cause it don't last long."

I turned to go.

"Don't you walk away." Fahrar grabbed my arm.

I stopped, counting down to myself like I do to keep a clear head. A right head. "Better ease up, fool. I'm startin' to lose my good graces."

He got around in front again. "You ain't walking on water around here, Zelmont."

"That's what kills you, ain't it, Fahrar? You can't figure out why I got it and you don't. You with all your heart seepin' out of your pores, and me, just waltzin' in and snatchin' balls and fame out of the air." My eyes got wide as I shoved him back against my Explorer.

I was spitting out my words quickly I was so excited. "Get used to it, Fahrar. I've been playin' football longer than you been a cop. I see the lines on the field when I'm bustin' a nut or snoozin' in my bed. I hear the crack of the pads when I'm out in the streets and smell the locker room when I got a big steak oozing on my plate. Don't preach to me 'cause you wear a badge and think Jesus himself pinned it on you. Fuck you, Fahrar. You can't come to my house and talk down to me. You ain't my mama, and I don't let her do that either.

"Now if you want a couple of tickets to the exhibition on Saturday, I got 'em for you. You want a date with a Baronette so you can get over Davida, I'll see what I can do for you, 'cause I can see you're lonely."

He was getting red around the jaw but stared at me with his goofy eyes. "Watch me on the field, Fahrar, watch me and see if I ain't got the touch of the wind. Then sit back in your broke-down easy chair sippin' your beer, and ask yourself, if I was guilty, why am I so good?"

I picked up my bag and went toward the front door. I looked at Candy and Dandy keeping silent guard, then went inside.

I caught five passes shooting between their zone D, fumbled once, and racked up ninety-two yards in the game against Cleveland. Listening to the crowd in the Coliseum, their voices bouncing off the dome's ceiling was stronger than any jolt of crack or coke I ever had. The place was maybe half full, but what did it matter? They were paying to see the Barons, and I was one of the team. Even Cannon gave me a smile when I came off the field.

We clapped each other on the backs and swatted towels at brown and white butts. There was slapping and yelling and dancing in the aisles. We'd lost by two points, but that was only after Cannon, Blake, and Pat Warren, the defensive coach, had put the pine riders in to see how they'd do.

"How's it feel to be back in the regular leagues, Zelmont?" Lenisse Havers had her cameraman cram his lens near my face.

"Like it was meant to be."

"How's the leg? In the third after the hit by Tractor Bradshaw you were limping."

"So would you, Lenisse, if a flying slab of 350 pounds came slammin' into you." I didn't limp long, anyway. Bradshaw's tackle had traumatized my thigh, and I had to be taken out and have it massaged as it spasmed. But it calmed down and I ran two plays in the fourth until they brought in the scrubs.

Walking out of the locker room, Grainger caught up to me.

"I heard they're making choices this coming week."

"There's four more games in exhibition, man, calm down. You gonna do all right." Every day he needed me to hold his hand. Rookie.

"Grier was smoking today too," Grainger said.

He was. He was gonna take Grainger's slot, not 'cause he was that much better but because he was that much hungrier. "I'll see you on Monday, Grainger."

"Yeah," he said, like an eight-year-old who'd learned Santa wasn't real.

I split, and after chilling and changing at the pad I went to an after-party Duck Shannon, the first-string center, was throwing at the Locker Room. I was curious to see how things were working with Danny as the straw boss.

"Zelmont." Danny Deuce nodded at me as I entered. He and his Daltons crew were in sports coats and slacks. Seems Nap had insisted they follow a dress code. Of course, you can take a thug off the corner, but you can't take the corner out of the thug. These brothers all looked like they'd as soon beat you down as walk past you.

"Nap around?" I asked one of the junior gangsters.

"Who you?" he said in that voice they learned at CYA.

I sighed and went off to find him, but he wasn't around. And Danny wouldn't tell me squat. I knew Nap had moved out of his Mount Olympus pad, but didn't know where to. That made me kinda mad, like maybe he didn't trust me to keep quiet. I ordered another drink, then left without waiting for it.

Who was I foolin'? Like I could go to the Locker Room and pretend I hadn't said what I'd said to him a few weeks ago at the Seven Souls. Like we could go on being friends with Stadanko hangin' between us. For once I went to bed early, by myself, and happy to do so.

Monday I was bending into my locker taking my pads off after practice when this hand landed on my shoulder. I turned, but it wasn't Coach Cannon. "What do you want? This ain't play hour, Trace."

"Man wants to see you." He was crowding me in front of my teammates like I was a punk.

"Back the fuck up." I got in his face, breathing on his flaming cross.

"You can talk like a man in a room full of your other hedonists, but what does it matter?" He grinned, and we mad dogged each other until he pointed at the exit. "He's waiting, and now I've already told you twice."

"Maybe you slow, Trace, maybe you hearin' hymn music too much in your bean head, but I got to get somewhere, understand?"

"Understand I'm not telling you another time." He stepped back, touching the tattoo on his cheek like it was a lucky charm. "Go on, find out."

The evilness of his smile made me kinda sick. I pulled on a T-shirt and walked out in my practice pants and socks. Julian Weems was in the hallway, his hands in his pockets. Two more of his holy-rolling squares were with him. Weems was in a cream-colored suit and pearl black shoes, his skin the same shade as his off-white shirt.

"Mr. Raines, you're off the team."

He didn't even let me get close. He practically yelled it so it could be heard in the locker room. "I passed your drug tests, Moses. You ain't got no reason to bounce me."

"I know you beat the screening somehow, but that's irrelevant to me." He swatted his hand through the air. "I am exercising my prerogative and removing you from the roster before it's finalized."

I made for Weems, but the beefy boys were prepared for that action. They moved in front of him, ready to rack me in a New York minute. I could sense Trace itchin' to slap me down from behind. "You can't do that, that ain't right."

Weems stuck his hands in his pockets, and like before, the slabs moved to either side of him. "Yes, well, so be it. The indisputable fact remains we will not have your kind in the NFL."

I couldn't get any words out of my mouth.

Feeling bold, Weems stepped from around his protection. "You don't have a contract yet, you are here only at the pleasure of the owners."

"And you ain't one of them," was the only lame thing I could say.

"I'm the commissioner, Raines. And though I'm sure you never bothered to read what is the purview of my office, I can assure you I exercise a fair amount of leverage with the owners."

I wasn't sure, but it sounded like he had the goods on Stadanko and was flexing to prove it. "I haven't done anything, Weems."

"But you will. You will get in a fight at a rock concert, or have an assignation with a married woman, or hit a policeman as you did in Atlanta and Denver. You will do something to make a mockery of what we are attempting to do in this league, and I will not suffer it. I simply won't. You are gone."

A twitch jerked one side of his lip. Then he walked away, his dog pound trotting after him. Trace said, "You better find honest work, homeboy. The devil has betrayed you."

I got on the pay phone and screamed at my new agent Lowe. "Why didn't you know about this?" Players went past me into the parking lot. Cannon must have gone out another way. The coward wouldn't face me.

"Calm down, Zee. Don't you know I'll get on this like last week? They can't get away with this kind of shit. What's Stadanko's position?"

"Prone, his ass in the air and puckered up so he can get reamed easier by his lord and master King Julian." I slammed the mouthpiece against the wall, breaking it. I got my street shoes on and drove off in my football pants. I stopped at a liquor store near the airport on Century and marched inside. I got stared at but they took my money for the fifth of Cutty. I'd finished a good part of the bottle by the time I rolled home. Too bad Davida was dead, she could really ease my tension right now. Drunk and mad enough to kill, I broke the rest of the scotch against Candy's head. "Put that goddamn tongue back in your head," I told her. I stumbled inside and called Isabel at her work. She was a clothes buyer for Bloomingdale's or Macy's or whatever the hell it's called.

"Busy?"

"Workin'a couple of buyers. You sound down."

"Got fired."

Nothing for a bit. "Look, I have to close this deal, all right? How 'bout you come by tonight 'round 7?"

"Sure." I hung up and got my cognac out. I juiced up the stereo, a Paris CD jammin' on it as I sipped and plotted and sipped some more. I fell asleep and woke up a little after 5. If Lowe had called, I'd been lost in snooze land. I still had an edgy high on. I showered and had something to eat. By then I was in a half-sober way, together enough to manage the freeways at the end of rush hour to get into East Los and Isabel's pad.

I knocked and she answered the door.

"You look real professional," I said, noticing her business suit.

"You look wore out."

"I ain't that wore out."

She let me in and we made small talk about how messed up it was that Weems did what he did to me, how she had a lawyer I could talk to, and so forth. Pretty soon we let the feeling that had been building between us since the funeral take over and I had her dress up, pantyhose and panties down, and was waxing that ass doggie style on the couch.

"Zelmont," she said between sighs, her hands on the back of the sofa cushions. "You didn't kill my sister, did you?"

"Of course not." I kept on keeping on.

"Good," she said, "it wouldn't be right making love to you if you did."

"Oh yeah, that'd be sick."

Afterward, we sat slouched down on the couch, watching the 10 o'clock news, our legs over each other. She was in an old man's bathrobe and I was in my bikini drawers.

"What are you going to do?" We were watching this story about a kid who went into a burning apartment to save a three-legged cat belonging to this crippled seventy-year-old woman.

"I don't know," I said. I was scared of what was bubblin' inside my head. I didn't want to fix on it, but the idea wouldn't go away.

She snuggled her head on my chest. "I don't cook breakfast."

One of these days I was gonna catch me a domesticated chick who did. "Ain't no thang, Isabel. I didn't come here to get my eggs scrambled."

"You sure about that?" She started kissing me and we got busy again.

Later, in her bed, I woke up sometime in the early hours. I couldn't remember what I'd been dreaming, but it had given me the chills. One of the bedroom windows was open, the humid air of the night spilling into the room. I laid there, my hand on my chest, wondering how many beats my heart had missed.