I woke up after the angiogram and I didn't remember anything. They had knocked me out pretty good. They stick a couple of big needles in your neck right into the karotid arteries. I felt lousy from being out. My head didn't hurt anymore, but I felt a little dizzy. I looked up at the television set on the wall of my bedroom. It was turned off. After a while a new nurse came in. I didn't know her. I felt tired. I wouldn't have cared then about Mary Cassidy. I didn't care about anything. I felt sleepy.
The nurse said: "How do you feel?"
"I'd like to wake up but I feel tired."
"Yes."
"How long was I out?"
"Half an hour."
"What does the doctor think?"
"He'll see you." I couldn't remember Dr. Steinbuch's name.
I closed my eyes. It wouldn't have mattered then if Miss Cassidy had walked into the room naked. I was that pooped out.
The next morning Dr. Harold Steinbuch came around to see me. I was sitting up, reading the morning paper. I felt a hell of a lot better, ready to go. Dr. Steinbuch was smiling.
"How do you feel this morning, bucko?" he asked. "Yes, you look all right. No clot."
"When can I suit up?"
"Couple days."
"Two days?"
"Three days."
"Everything okay?" I asked.
"Doctors never lie," he grinned.
"Is Vakos back?"
"Suited up today." He smiled.
"Thanks a lot, doc."
He grinned, patted my shoulder.
"You played a damn good game."
"Nice line, wasn't it?"
"Theirs or ours?" he giggled.'
"Why the hell do you think I'm here?"
"You played a good game," he said.
"Good?" I said. "With that line, it was pure crap!"
He patted my shoulder again, giggled and went out. I took a nap. When I woke up, Miss Cassidy was standing beside my bed, getting ready to stick a thermometer into my mouth. Before she stuck it in I said, "What're you doing tomorrow night?"
She didn't look at me. She was the most beautiful woman I'd seen in a long time. She just stood there, waggling the thermometer, waiting for me to stop talking. Her breasts jiggled against her white uniform. I stared at them, feeling my prick come to life. Down, boy. Down.
"Did you hear me?" I said.
She lifted her eyelids faintly, but her head did not move. She looked at me. She nodded and returned her gaze to the thermometer. Then she quickly jabbed the thermometer right into my open mouth, right under my tongue and picked up my wrist and looked at her watch, and started to take my pulse. I mumbled something but it wasn't any use with the thermometer in my mouth. I shut up until she took it out.
"Look," I said. "If you're married, say so."
She studied the thermometer and wrote her report on my chart. She started toward the door.
"Get a good rest," she said. "The doctor said you can leave tomorrow." She shut the door quickly.
I closed my eyes; my body filling with desire as I thought of her. I thought of running my hands over her breasts, her nipples thickening and then hardening, pointing at me, aching for my teeth to bite into them. Ah, her silky soft pussy, her lovely smooth skin, but suddenly my prick wasn't hard. I couldn't stop thinking about her, but in my thoughts she had on all her clothes. I wanted to see her naked, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't see her naked body. They have done something to your head, Scallen, I told myself. But I wasn't worried. I'd felt a little like this after some rough games after being kicked in the head. It would pass… yet I was worried. It had not been this much of a sexual block before. Not after a rough game. It was something else. Why in hell couldn't I undress Miss Cassidy and have a few nice thoughts? Maybe the trouble was I was feeling like a kid again, and I didn't know it. Maybe I was falling in love with Cassidy and didn't know it. No, she was only another gorgeous dish and I wanted some of it. Then I remembered how goddamn tough the war and football had made me. Yes, until Leighton's wife. I'd felt tender and loving toward her, and now it was happening to me for the second time in my life. I didn't want to get mixed up with any woman, and I mustn't screw or drink myself to death. And I didn't want to fall in love.
I got out of the hospital about noon and went looking for Mary Cassidy. Clara Cook was on the floor station desk.
"When will Miss Cassidy be on duty?" I asked.
"Tomorrow evening."
"Do you know where I can reach her?"
"We're not in the habit of giving out phone numbers of our nurses to any of the patients."
"Well, well," I said. "I just want to send her flowers for her help while I was here."
"Nurses are not allowed to accept gratuities from any patient."
"I'd love to give you a gratuity, Miss Cook."
Miss Cook walked out from behind the floor station desk and down the hall.
I called a taxi and drove over to my hotel and called Binks. He wasn't in. Well, I had a day to rest up before reporting to practice. I didn't feel like resting. I wanted a work out. My car was out in the motel lot. The team was practicing kick off returns, blocking the third and fourth man on the defense. It was a good play, if you didn't use it in every game. It was sunny and clear and cool. I wore a T-shirt, shorts and cleats.
I walked over to the coach. He wasn't a bad guy, Jim Reed. He'd played ten years with the Giants, and he was hoping to make the Viking staff one of these days, too. Yet I wondered why the Giants hadn't picked him up as a scout. He'd been a damn good halfback. He looked glum.
"Binks wants to see you," he said, not even looking at me.
Down at the end of the field Vakos was passing to Leighton.
"I've called him twice," I said.
"He's down in the dressing room. He wants to see you."
I felt rotten suddenly. They were going to give me the axe. Win the game for them and get the axe. Some pay-off. Break your ass and get the chop.
Binks was going through the locker. I wondered what the hell he was looking for. He turned around suddenly, looking embarrassed.
"Oh," he said, blushing, like he'd caught his hand in the cookie jar. I pretended not to notice.
"Well, I'm back," I said. I, looked at him standing there. He seemed to watch me closely. He turned slowly away from one locker.
"What do you want?"
"The contract."
"What contract?"
"I won, didn't I?"
"We won," he said.
"Come on, don't play games. A deal's a deal."
"What deal?"
"Bull " I said
"Come on down to the office tomorrow."
"Bullshit," I said. I walked over to him. He knew I could take him apart. He knew it would ruin me in football, but there were some other factors he wasn't thinking about. And I knew them. Like being a prick in the business and telling Sports Illustrated the real story.
"Well," he said softly, smiling, lounging with a kind of sudden indolence against the locker.
"Don't give me any crap," I said.
"Hoo, baby!" He started to chuckle. I socked him in the chest and rammed him back against the locker. His nostrils flicked white with rage. But he didn't move.
"If I win I get a contract," I said. "If I lose, I get five bills. Remember?"
"Come on down to the office tomorrow."
"No way." I poked a finger against his chest. "You go out there and tell Reed I'm throwing to Leighton today. Now."
He studied his fingernails, both hands, then swinging his eyes down, yet with that kinky, curvy smile on his lips, he slipped past me, silently.
I followed him upstairs. Reed was talking to his assistant coaches. Binks called him over, about twenty yards away from the coaches.
"I want Matt to throw some with Leighton," said Binks coldly.
Reed's face didn't change, but his eyes flickered for a fraction of a second. He didn't answer. Reed looked at me and jerked his head, beckoning.
It was funny walking in on Vakos and Leighton. They were still down at the far end of the field, with Klobuchar, a center from Ely Junior College, who'd tried out with the Vikings but hadn't made it.
"Hello, hot dogs," I grinned at Vakos. Screw you, Leighton, I thought, but I gave Leighton a nice smile to let him know that if I ever found my Boy Scout knife I'd stick it up his ass.
"Trade off," Reed said to Vakos. Leighton looked at Reed like Reed had lost his mind, but he didn't say anything because Reed's voice sounded tight and strained and hard.
It felt good to have the ball in my hands again. No matter how you look at it, the best pass outside of the sideline pass against any defense is the slant pass.
It's a good pass to warm up on. I tried three and Leighton dogged it on all three. I didn't say anything to him, just called it again. He dogged it again.
"Hey, buddy," I said. "Look for the ball on the break, would you mind?"
Vakos laughed. I flipped Vakos the ball.
Vakos called a slant and Leighton was right there, taking the ball on the break.
"I knew you could do it," I said. Vakos threw him a couple more slant passes. Leighton looked real good and Vakos tossed me the ball.
So then I crossed up Vakos on the next slant pass, but he should have been ready like he was in a real game, the dumb schlock. He should have, continued on the slant even though I didn't throw the ball.
"Hey, dumb, dumb," I said. "Ever been played close on the slant?"
"Fuck you, Matt."
I laughed and dribbled the ball twice like it was a basketball.
"Man," I said. "You catch like old people screw."
Vakos chuckled.
"Play it again, Sam," I said. "Slant and up, baby, when you're getting played close. Right?" I nodded my head up and down. "Right?" Leighton looked at me flat-eyed, sore.
Vakos' face got tight, faintly angry. I shoveled the ball to Klobuchar. "You guys rooming together?" I looked at Vakos. He put his hands on his hips and turned away, shaking his head.
"Leighton," I said. "You know something? You never were worth a damn on a post hook."
Leighton ran it, a post hook pattern, but he still wasn't in that good enough shape to make it look real. Hell, I let him catch the ball.
"Fat ass," I said. "Why the hell don't you try a sauna?"
Vakos walked over to Leighton. He put his arm around Leighton's shoulder. Vakos started to open his mouth. If I was going to make it, I'd have to beat these two guys one way or another. All they understood was a kick in the ass, and all I had to be was better than Vakos. Leighton knew it would be tough to make me look really bad if I were really accurate.
"Give him a kiss, Vakos," I said. "Bride and bridegroom. Hoo!"
"Fuck you, Scallen," they said.
Come on, you little babies," I told Vakos. "If you're so goddamn good, let's see you beat me out for the slot."
They turned and walked away. I laughed at them.
They walked over to Reed and the three of them bent their heads together and then Vakos and Leighton went down to the locker room.
I picked up the football and practiced punting. I'm not very big compared to a lot of quarterbacks, but size hasn't anything to do with punting. But trying to get the ball on the instep of my foot just a little back of the center of the ball, to get that perfect spiral, reminded me of all the kicking I'd done in high school and college.
Funny thing, I saw Reed watching me. Probably hating my guts for putting his two boys down, and wondering what the hell I had on Binks to have Binks put out the order for me to trade throwing with Vakos in practice.
But Reed was giving the punts a good look. They weren't bad, about forty-yard average, and I wondered if Reed had a fake punt formation because I could run out of it. Trouble was I wasn't doing the kicking for the team.
Who needs a triple threat as a quarterback? He'll get his ass busted eventually if he pulls the fake punt formation too often. So what team needs him or can afford him?
I punted about thirty times. Screw you, Reed. He was against me. Binks was against me, but Binks knew how I could hurt football, and Binks, with just a series in Sports Illustrated with inside information. And pro football was getting. as sensitive to the press as a United States President.
I walked over to Reed, flipped him the ball.
"If you ever need a punter," I said. I watched his face.
"Get off Leighton's back," he said.
"Fuck Leighton," I said. "He tried to put me in a hearse."
"Ah, you're over the hill," said Reed.
"Vakos goes over the hill first," I said. "I'll send him there."