I started to worry to beat hell about the fact that we had only three more games to play. My right knee was acting up, too. Nobody knew it but the last two games I'd shot it with Novocain myself. I was finished. All the sacrifice and training and hard work,. and nothing out of it, except going back to selling stocks and bonds after the season. So if Vakos was trying to frame me, it didn't matter. Nothing but selling stocks and bonds the rest of my life. I'd tried to prove something and I hadn't proved a damn thing, except that you go over the hill in this game. I should have known it. Crazy. I shouldn't even have tried. I tried to find Mary, but it wasn't any use. A private detective wanted a fortune to find her. I tried not thinking about her. I moved, took a room with a kitchenette in an old apartment house. That took care of Mary Beth, but not Mary Cassidy. Nothing took care of Mary Cassidy. The knee got better, the stiffness went, then it came back.
I sprayed my mouth and put the plastic mouthpiece in my mouth. The band was marching up and down the field, some high-school band, girls in blue and white uniforms trying to march in a formation to form the words BIG D. Christ, that's all I needed. I thought of all the stupid football bands I'd listened to and all the hundreds of thousands. of screamy nutsy fans singing the national anthem and screaming kill. I felt stupid, wasting my whole life. No, I had to stop thinking like this. I had to get up even for this game. Thinking like that was only an easy way out. The old excuse route. But I couldn't get away from the feeling that my feelings now about football were not only real but very valid.
It was a cold night. The lights were bright. They must be new. Doug Dunsheath came over and leaned down.
"You gotta get tough. Talk tough. You're getting chippy, baby."
"Yeah, I'm chippy." ' "Think tough, baby. You gotta. You been acting like you got your head up your ass."
"That's where it is."
"We gotta win this. My mother's out there."
"Keep talking. I'm going to throw up, Doug."
"This game is my whole life."
Pretty soon the band stopped playing and marched off the field. I felt dopey. I wondered if I'd been doped. I didn't give a damn. I felt so damn slow, like I was tired, just suddenly pooped out. Hawthorne kicked off. Klobuchar came off the field, shaking his fingers. The grass looked black. The field looked like an enormous cemetery. Klobuchar came over to me. My neck felt weak, like it wanted to flop down and roll my head on the ground.
"That sonofabitch, Hawthorne," said Klobuchar, shaking his fingers in pain. "The bastard must've played soccer in high school. He goddamn near kicked off my bowling hand."
The opposite moved the ball well, four first downs, then we intercepted. I got up from the bench. I felt half asleep. When I got out on the field, the team was already in a huddle, waiting for me. I knelt down, looked at the cold grass, tried to think of a play. I called the first play that same to mind.
A Right 95 Block Pass I suddenly wished I were in bed with Mary Cassidy, not out here on this stupid football field. We broke and set. I dropped back, looked up field for Leighton. I watched him cut on a post pattern.
He put up his hands. I let him keep running. Then I threw the ball straight into the hands of the safety man. Somebody huge rose above me. This big thing was coming at me. I didn't move. Then a hand hit me in the face. The big rusher was flying through the air above me, coming down at me, with both arms out. He looked like a giant bird. I sprang back but the big bird roared straight down at me and I felt his helmet slam into my guts. I went down. I lay still. It was dark. I was gone. Completely gone.
Then I felt somebody lifting me. I was walking off. Somebody had his shoulder under my armpit and his forearm across my back. I wanted a cold bourbon and soda the worst way.
On the bus when I woke up, Jack Dow was sitting next to me.
"You know what?" he said.
"Who won?" I asked.
"We killed them. You know what?"
"Nope."
"Klobuchar. You seen what he's doing? Right on the bus. Even here? He does it in his room all the time."
"What?"
"He talks to flowers. He bought a book, says if you talk to a flower, it'll help it grow. He talks to flowers all the time."
"He's punchy," said Dave.
"He does it at night a lot," said Dow.
"Maybe we ought to tell Reed," Dave said.
"It might keep him awake," I said. "Maybe it helps Klobuchar play better."
"He ought to leave them flowers alone at night," Dow said.
"He'll probably stunt their growth," Dave said.