Bleachers

  The walls were covered with old football schedules, framed newspaper stories, pennants, autographed jerseys, and hundreds of photos—team photos lined in neat chronological order above the counter, action shots lifted from the local paper, and large black-and-whites of the greatest of Spartans. Neely’s was above the cash register, a photo of him as a senior, posing with the football cocked and ready to fire, no helmet, no smile, all business and attitude and ego, long untamed hair, three days’ worth of stubble and peach fuzz, eyes looking somewhere in the distance, no doubt dreaming of future glory.

  “You were so cute back then,” Paul said.

  “Seems like yesterday, then it seems like a dream.”

  In the center of the longest wall there was a shrine to Eddie Rake—a large color photo of him standing near the goalposts, and under it the record—418 wins, 62 losses, 13 state titles.

  According to the predawn gossip, Rake was still clinging to life. And the town was still clinging to him. The chatter was subdued—no laughter, no jokes, no windy stories of fishing triumphs, none of the usual spats over politics.

  A tiny waitress in a green-and-white outfit brought them coffee and took their orders. She knew Paul but did not recognize the guy with him.

  “Is Maggie still around?” Neely asked.

  “Nursing home,” Paul said.

  Maggie Renfrow had been serving scalded coffee and oily eggs for decades. She had also dealt relentlessly in all areas of gossip and rumor surrounding the Spartan football team. Because she had given free meals to the players she had managed to do what everyone else in Messina tried to do—wiggle in a little closer to the boys and their Coach.

  A gentleman approached and nodded awkwardly at Neely. “Just wanted to say hello,” he said, easing out his right hand. “Good to see you again, after all this time. You were something.”

  Neely shook his hand and said, “Thanks.” The handshake was brief. Neely broke eye contact. The gentleman took the hint and withdrew. No one followed him.

  There were quick glances and awkward stares, but the others seemed content to brood over the coffee and ignore him. After all, he had ignored them for the past fifteen years. Messina owned its heroes, and they were expected to enjoy the nostalgia.

  “When was the last time you saw Screamer?” Paul asked.

  Neely snorted and looked out of the window. “I haven’t seen her since college.”

  “Not a word?”

  “One letter, years back. Fancy stationery from some place in Hollywood. Said she was taking the place by storm. Said she’d be a lot more famous than I ever thought about being. Pretty nasty stuff. I didn’t respond.”

  “She showed up for our ten-year reunion,” Paul said. “An actress, nothing but blond hair and legs, outfits that have never been seen around here. A pretty elaborate production. Name-dropping right and left, this producer, that director, a bunch of actors I’d never heard of. I got the impression she was spending more time in bed than in front of the camera.”

  “That’s Screamer.”

  “You should know.”

  “How’d she look?”

  “Tired.”

  “Any credits?”

  “Quite a few, and they changed by the hour. We compared notes later, and no one had seen anything she said she’d been in. It was all a show. Typical Screamer. Except that now she’s Tessa. Tessa Canyon.”

  “Tessa Canyon?”

  “Yep.”

  “Sounds like a porn star.”

  “I think that’s where she was headed.”

  “Poor girl.”

  “Poor girl?” Paul repeated. “She’s a miserable self-absorbed idiot whose only claim to fame was that she was Neely Crenshaw’s girlfriend.”

  “Yes, but those legs.”

  They both smiled for a long time. The waitress brought their pancakes and sausage and refilled their coffees. As Paul drenched his plate with maple syrup, he began talking again. “Two years ago, we had a big bankers’ convention in Vegas. Mona was with me. She got bored, went to the room. I got bored, so I walked along the Strip, late at night. I ducked into one of the older casinos, and guess who I saw?”

  “Tessa Canyon.”

  “Tessa was shuffling booze, a cocktail waitress in one of those tight little costumes that’s low in the front and high in the rear. Bleached hair, thick makeup, twenty or so extra pounds. She didn’t see me so I watched her for a few minutes. She looked older than thirty. The odd thing was how she performed. When she got near her customers at the tables, the smile came on with the purring little voice that says, ‘Take me upstairs.’ The glib one-liners. The bumping and rubbing. Shameless flirting with a bunch of drunks. The woman just wants to be loved.”

  “I tried my best.”

  “She’s a sad case.”

  “That’s why I dumped her. She won’t come back for the funeral, will she?”

  “Maybe. If there’s a chance she’ll bump into you, then yes, she’ll be here. On the other hand, she ain’t lookin’ too good, and with Screamer looks are everything.”

  “Her parents are still here?”

  “Yeah.”

  A chubby man wearing a John Deere cap eased to their table as if he was trespassing. “Just wanted to say hello, Neely,” he said, almost ready to bow. “Tim Nunley, down at the Ford place,” he said, offering a hand as if it might be ignored. Neely shook it and smiled. “Used to work on your daddy’s cars.”

  “I remember you,” Neely lied, but the lie was worth the effort. Mr. Nunley’s smile doubled in size and he squeezed Neely’s hand harder.

  “I thought you would,” Mr. Nunley said, glancing at his table for vindication. “Good to see you back here. You were the greatest.”

  “Thank you,” Neely said, releasing his hand and grabbing a fork. Mr. Nunley backed away, still waiting to bow, then took his coat and left the restaurant.

  The conversations were still muted around the tables, as if the wake had already begun. Paul finished a mouthful and leaned in low. “Four years ago we had a good team. Won the first nine games. Undefeated. I was sitting right here eating the same thing I’m eating now, on a Friday morning, game day, and, I swear this is true, the topic of conversation that morning was The Streak. Not the old streak, but a new one. These people were ready for a new streak. Never mind a winning season, or a conference title, or even a state championship, they’re all peanuts. This town wants eighty, ninety, maybe a hundred wins in a row.”

  Neely looked around quickly then returned to his breakfast. “I’ve never understood it,” he said. “These are nice folks—mechanics, truck drivers, insurance salesmen, builders, maybe a lawyer, maybe a banker. Solid small-town citizens, but not exactly earthshakers. I mean, nobody here is making a million bucks. But they’re entitled to a state championship every year, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Bragging rights. What else can they brag about?”

  “No wonder they worship Rake. He put the town on the map.”

  “Take a bite,” Paul said. A man with a dirty apron approached holding a manila file. He introduced himself as Maggie Renfrow’s brother, now the chef, and he opened the file. Inside was a framed eight by ten color photo of Neely at Tech. “Maggie always wanted you to sign this,” he said.

  It was a splendid picture of Neely in action, crouching behind the center, calling a play, ready for the snap, sizing up the defense. A purple helmet was visible in the right lower corner, and Neely realized the opponent was A&M. The photo, one he’d never seen before, was taken minutes before he was injured. “Sure,” he said, taking a black marker from the chef.

  He signed his name across the top, and for a long moment looked into the eyes of a young, fearless quarterback, a star biding his time in college while the NFL waited. He could hear the Tech crowd that day, seventy-five thousand strong and desperate for victory, proud of their undefeated team, thrilled that they, for the first time in many years, had a bona-fide all-American
at quarterback.

  Suddenly, he longed for those days.

  “Nice photo,” he managed to say, handing it back to the chef, who took it and immediately hung it on a nail under the larger photo of Neely.

  “Let’s get outta here,” Neely said, wiping his mouth. He placed some cash on the table, and they began a quick exit. He nodded, smiled politely at the regulars, and managed to make an escape without being stopped.

  “Why are you so nervous around these folks?” Paul asked when they were outside.

  “I don’t want to talk about football, okay? I don’t want to hear how great I was.”

  They drove the quiet streets around the square, passing the church where Neely was baptized, and the church where Paul was married, and the handsome split-level on Tenth Street where Neely lived from the age of eight until he left for Tech. His parents had sold it to a certified Yankee who’d been brought down to manage the paper mill west of town. They passed Rake’s house, slowly, as if they might hear the latest just by driving down the street. The driveway was crowded with cars, most with out-of-state license plates, Rake’s family and close friends, they figured. They passed the park where they’d played Little League baseball and Pop Warner football.

  And they remembered stories. One that was now a legend in Messina was, of course, about Rake. Neely, Paul, and a handful of their buddies were playing a rowdy game of sandlot football when they noticed a man standing in the distance, near the backstop of the baseball field, watching them closely. When they finished, he ventured over and introduced himself as Coach Eddie Rake. The boys were speechless. “You have a nice arm, son,” he said to Neely, who could say nothing in response. “I like your feet too.”

  All the boys looked at Neely’s feet.

  “Is your mother as tall as your father?” Coach Rake asked.

  “Almost,” Neely managed to say.

  “Good. You’ll make a great Spartan quarterback.” Rake smiled at the boys, then walked away.

  Neely was eleven years old at the time.

  They stopped at the cemetery.

  ______________

  The approach of the 1992 season caused great concern in Messina. The year before the team had lost three games, a civic disaster that had them grumbling over their biscuits at Renfrow’s and rubber chicken at the Rotary lunches and cheap beer at the tonks out in the county. And there had been few seniors on that team, always a bad sign. It was a relief when weak players graduated.

  If Rake felt pressure, he certainly didn’t show it. By then he’d been coaching the Spartans for more than three decades and had seen everything. His last state title, number thirteen, had been in 1987, so the locals were suffering through a three-year drought. They’d been through worse. They were spoiled and wanted a hundred wins in a row, and Rake, after thirty-four years, didn’t care what they wanted.

  The ’92 team had little talent, and everyone knew it. The only star was Randy Jaeger, who played corner and wideout, where he caught anything the quarterback could throw near him, which was not very much.

  In a town the size of Messina, the talent came in cycles. On the upswing, as in 1987 with Neely, Silo, Paul, Alonzo Taylor, and four vicious loggers on defense, the scores were lopsided. Rake’s greatness, however, was winning with players who were small and slow. He took thin talent and still delivered scores that were lopsided. He worked the lean ones harder, though, and few teams had seen the intensity that Rake brought to the field in August 1992.

  After a bad scrimmage on a Saturday afternoon, Rake lashed out at the team and called a Sunday morning practice, something he rarely did because, in years past, it had upset the church folks. Eight o’clock Sunday morning, so that the boys would have time to attend worship, if they were able. Rake was particularly upset over what he perceived to be a lack of conditioning, a joke since every Messina team ran sprints by the hundreds.

  Shorts, shoulder pads, gym shoes, helmets, no contact, just conditioning. It was eighty-nine degrees by eight o’clock, with thick humidity and a cloudless sky. They stretched and ran a mile around the track, just for a warm-up. Every player was soaked with sweat when Rake called for a second mile.

  Number two on the list of dreaded tortures, just behind the Spartan Marathon, was the assault on the bleachers. Every player knew what it meant, and when Rake yelled, “Bleachers,” half the team wanted to quit.

  Following Randy Jaeger, their captain, the players formed a long, reluctant, single line and began a slow jog around the track. When the line approached the visitors’ stands, Jaeger turned through a gate and started up the bleachers, twenty rows, then along the top rail, then down twenty rows to the next section. Eight sections on the other side, then back on the track, around the end zone to the home side. Fifty rows up, along the top rail, fifty rows down, up and down, up and down, up and down, for another eight sections, then back on the track for another loop.

  After one grueling round, the linemen were drifting to the rear, and Jaeger, who could run forever, was far in front. Rake growled along the track, whistle hanging around his neck, yelling at the stragglers. He loved the sound of fifty players stomping up and down the bleachers. “You guys are not in shape,” he said, just loud enough to be heard. “Slowest bunch I’ve ever seen,” he grumbled, again, barely audible. Rake was famous for his grumbling, which could always be heard.

  After the second round, a tackle fell to the grass and began vomiting. The heavier players were moving slower and slower.

  Scotty Reardon was a sophomore special-teams player who weighed in that August at 141 pounds, but, at the time of his autopsy, weighed 129. During the third round of bleachers, he collapsed between the third and fourth rows on the home side, and never regained consciousness.

  Since it was Sunday morning, and a no-contact session, both team trainers were absent, at Rake’s instructions. Nor was there an ambulance close by. The boys would describe later how Rake held Scotty’s head in his lap while they waited for an eternity to hear a siren. But he was dead in the bleachers, and he was certainly dead when he finally arrived at the hospital. Heatstroke.

  Paul was telling the story as they walked through the winding, shaded lanes of the Messina Cemetery. In a newer section, on the side of a steep hill, the headstones were smaller, the rows neater. He nodded at one and Neely knelt down for a look. Randall Scott Reardon. Born June 20, 1977. Died August 21, 1992.

  “And they’re going to bury him over there?” Neely asked, pointing to a bare spot next to Scotty.

  “That’s the rumor,” Paul said.

  “This place is always good for a rumor.”

  They walked a few steps to a wrought-iron bench under a small elm tree, sat, and looked at Scotty’s headstone. “Who had the guts to fire him?” Neely asked.

  “The wrong kid died. Scotty’s family had some money, from timber. His uncle, John Reardon, was elected Superintendent of Education in ’89. Very highly regarded, smart as hell, smooth politician, and the only person with the authority to fire Eddie Rake. Fire him he did. The town, as you might guess, was shocked by the news of the death, and as the details came out there was some grumbling about Rake and his methods.”

  “Lucky he didn’t kill all of us.”

  “An autopsy was done on Monday—a clear case of heatstroke. No preexisting conditions. No defects anywhere. A perfectly healthy fifteen-year-old leaves home at seven-thirty on a Sunday morning for a two-hour torture session, and he doesn’t come home. For the first time in the history of this town people were asking, ‘Why, exactly, do you run kids in a sauna until they puke?’ ”

  “And the answer was?”

  “Rake had no answers. Rake said nothing. Rake stayed at home and tried to ride out the storm. A lot of people, including many of those who played for him, thought, ‘Well, Rake’s finally killed a boy.’ But a lot of the diehards were saying, ‘Hell, that kid wasn’t tough enough to be a Spartan.’ The town split. It got ugly.”

  “I like this Reardon fellow,” Neely said.


  “He’s tough. Late Monday night, he called Rake and fired him. Everything blew up Tuesday. Rake, typically, couldn’t stand the thought of losing in any way, so he worked the phones, stirred up the boosters.”

  “No remorse?”

  “Who knows how he felt? The funeral was a nightmare, as you might guess. All those kids bawling, some fainting. The players wearing green game jerseys. The band playing right along here at the graveside ceremony. Everybody was watching Rake, who looked quite pitiful.”

  “Rake was a great actor.”

  “And everybody knew it. He’d been fired less than twenty-four hours earlier, so the funeral had the added drama of his departure. Quite a show, and nobody missed it.”

  “Wish I’d been here.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Summer of ’92? Out West somewhere. Probably Vancouver.”