End Zone

"Let me tell you about their head coach," Tweego said. "I know Jade Kiley. I've known him for years. I know every wart on his hide. And he's mean."

"You better believe it."

"And his boys are mean."

"They're quite a contingent," Hauptfuhrer said. "They like to hit."

"A Jade Kiley team likes to hit. That's been his trademark down the years. I've known Jade Kiley I don't know how long. His teams have always liked to hit. Jade Kiley doesn't let you put on a uniform unless you like to hit. Jade Kiley teams are hitting teams."

"They like to humiliate people. They're quite a contingent."

"You got your work cut out for you," Tweego said. "You got five days to get ready. We can help you get ready but we can't play the damn game for you. We can take you right up to kickoff. Then you're on your own."

"They'll stomp blue shit out of you," Hauptfuhrer said.

Creed didn't make an appearance. As the season progressed he had become more remote. We saw him only at practice and at the games. He no longer had his meals with the squad. At practice he stayed up in the tower or sat alone in the last row of benches in the small grandstand section used during the baseball season. During the games he remained in one spot on the sidelines, right at the midfield stripe, letting his assistants make all the decisions and control the flow of players. He seemed to be losing weight and he moved slowly now, with a slight limp.

When the meeting ended Raymond Toon and I went up to his room to watch television. I wanted to look at the replay of a game between the Detroit Lions and the Mi

"What do you think?" he said. "Can we beat them?"

"I'm watching this."

"They'll be tough. We've had it too easy all year. It'll make them seem that much tougher. But I guess all we can do is go out there and do the best we can. The man upstairs decides these things."

"Who do you mean, Toony?"

"The man upstairs," he said. "It's up to him what happens. All we can do is use our talents to the best of our ability. We can run, we can block, we can tackle, we can kick the ball and catch the ball. If the man upstairs decides we don't deserve to win, then we won't win. Gary, I'm a substitute tackle. I've done all I can to earn firststring status. I play my heart out every time I get in there.

Maybe I'm not mean enough. That's a criticism that's been leveled at me more than once. I know I try my best. I go all out on every play. I give one hundred and ten percent just like Coach demanded of us back last summer. It's like the notion of valuation in the hard market, Gary. Practitioners link the measurement of earnings magnitude to the need for assessing the variability that's expressed in the multiplier rate. This way you avoid doublecounting the risk allowance. But I can't crack the starting lineup. And if the man upstairs wants it that way, that's good enough for me. He has his reasons."

"What are they?"

"I wouldn't even try to guess, Gary. I just know they're good reasons. But they're probably beyond our scope."

"Toony, this shit about the man upstairs. Is the man upstairs supposed to be synonymous with God or what? Because either way it's an outmoded concept. It's a concept that's incredibly outmoded. It makes absolutely no theological sense."

"Don't try to get me in a discussion," he said.

John Jessup walked in then, Raymond's roommate. The game came on and we all watched it, marveling at the pros, how easily they did the things we stumbled over. In slow motion the game's violence became almost tender, a series of lovely and sensual assaults. The camera held on fallen men, on men about to be hit, on those who did the hitting. It was a loving relationship with just a trace of mockery; the camera lingered a bit too long, making poetic sport of the wounded. We laughed at the most acrobatic spills and the hardest tackles and at the mea

"I've had enough broadcasting from your big dumb face."

"I have to practice," Raymond said.

"This goddamn set is not to be goddamn touched. Now I'm serious about that."

"It's my set, John."

"I don't care if it was a gift from your grandmother who knitted it herself."

"John, I've never hurt a man on purpose in my whole life."

"And you ain't tonight, shitfinger."

Jessup was standing in front of the set now, guarding it. Raymond began to ease himself from the chair. I moved my head in order to see what the Lions would do on fourth and one inside the Mi

"Go easy," I said. "We've got a hard week ahead of us. You're both tense. It's the tension. I feel it. Coach feels it. We all feel it. We're all tense and knotted up. Let's save the combat for Saturday. It's bound to be a long hard week. Toony, shake the man's hand."

I was right about the kind of week it would be. We did everything wrong in practice and the coaches raged at us. I spent a lot of time with Myna. Nothing helped very much. Wednesday's practice was the worst of the year and when we were only slightly better the next day, Creed issued word that Friday's light workout would be canceled. He also called the team captains in and suggested we have a beer party that night, Thursday, no coaches, no females, no time limit. The throwing of the beer cans started half an hour after the party began. It went from there to fights, to mass vomiting, to singing and comradeship. A defensive end named Larry Nix kept punching a door until he busted through. A few people fell asleep in their chairs or on the floor. There was a pissing contest with about twenty entries trying not for distance but for altitude-a broom held by two men being the crossbar as it were, the broom raised in stages as contestants dropped out and others progressed. It was the most disgusting, ridiculous and adolescent night I had ever spent. The floor of the lounge was covered with beer, urine and ketchup, and we kept slipping and falling and then getting up and getting casually knocked down again by somebody passing by. Clothes were torn and there was blood to be seen on a few gri

Since there was no workout scheduled for Friday, I thought it would be a good idea to end the week as it had begun, a picnic with Myna and the Chalk sisters. The cyclic redundancy might be beneficial. I needed a feeling of restfulness, of things content enough in themselves to begin again, and I thought the warm drawling chatter of an identical picnic might put me at ease. Myna was available and so was Esther Chalk. Vera had a class but we talked her out of it and assembled behind the Quonset hut. I lay on the blanket with my arms over my face.