Another jab. “Twelve years is a long time to sit there and watch the world spin.”
“If you’re trying to help, you’re not.” I finished my burger.
He looked at me several seconds, finally shaking his head. “I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the idea that she sits on top of the world and you’re buried beneath it.”
I wiped the corners of my mouth with a napkin. “You want me to pound my chest?”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
“Shout at the world? Tell everyone how she done me wrong?”
“Might give people a reason to believe in you.”
“And what would I gain?”
Silence.
“Wood, try and see this from my side of the table. I’m not interested in defending my name or my reputation, building my long-lost career, or gaining people’s adoration and belief.”
Wood eyed my empty burger wrapper and his tone softened. “You want another?”
I shook my head.
He wiped the burger grease off his chin. Doing so brought me close to his hands and arms. Both were tinged with black grease. Like he’d tried to scrub it off but the shadow remained. “You moonlighting as a grease monkey?”
He brushed me off. Changed the subject. “Just keeping the world running.” He pointed at me. “And speaking of running, you should eat three more and shove two in your pockets. Man, you’re skinny.”
Wood ordered two milkshakes and we sat waiting. Something I was better at than him. Angelina Custodia’s voice showered us from the speakers above. Seductive. Raspy. Polished. Controlled. She’d never lacked confidence, but it’d grown since I’d been in.
He scratched his chin and didn’t look at me. “You’ve been on the news a good bit lately.” He spoke softly and let the statement float around us. He wanted a response, but I knew where he was going so I didn’t give him one. This time he looked at me. “One of the guards at Wiregrass told Jim Kneels at ESPN that you been doing more than three thousand push-ups and sit-ups a day. Said he personally saw you do more than sixty pull-ups—at once. Said you been doing the whole Hershel workout. Press is going crazy over it. Saying you’re making a go of it. That true?”
“Just keeping busy.”
He retrieved last Sunday’s Atlanta Journal Constitution and set it in front of me. “You take up most of the first couple pages.” I scanned the article. The headline read, FALLEN ROCKET: MISFIRE A DUD. WILL HE ATTEMPT TAKEOFF? He continued. “Two nights ago, ESPN aired a two-hour documentary. Called it The Best Who Never Was. They interviewed about a dozen guys who still think you got a shot. HBO Sports is said to have something in the works. And one of the major cable channels is talking about a reality TV show.”
“Showing what?”
“Your road back.”
I shook my head and said nothing.
He leaned in closer. “Somebody got a bootleg copy of a security tape of you. In prison. Shows you running 40s in the dark. Alone. All of them clock you in the 4.5s. A couple in the 4.4s.” I said nothing. He sat back. “Then there’s the thing that’s got everybody salivating. It’s video of you throwing with a guard and you make a fifty-something-yard rope-of-a-throw through some window and out into the exercise yard. Bunch of experts have studied it and say maybe one other guy in the league could make that throw. Maybe only a handful of guys ever. They interviewed the guard. Page, or Sage or—”
“Gage.”
“That’s it. He said you two threw every morning. Said he used to press paper cups into the fence at forty yards and you’d hit ten out of ten.” He folded his hands together. “You really thinking of making a go of it?”
I tried to stop him before he got out of hand. “Wood, I’m thirty-three. I’m a convicted sex offender who can’t get within fifty feet of children, schools, day-care centers, shopping malls, or movie theaters. I have about eighteen hours to register my place of residence before Big Brother comes looking for me.” I shook my head. “I have one thing on my mind, and it isn’t football.”
We drank our milkshakes in silence. A couple of minutes passed. He didn’t lift his eyes. When finished, he slurped the bottom. His tone of voice changed. “Matthew, we been knowing each other a long time, right?”
I nodded.
“Shared a lot.”
Another nod.
“You were in there a long time.”
I waited.
“Anything you want to tell me?”
“You mean, did twelve years soften me, bring me to my senses, and do I finally want to confess to something I vehemently denied twelve years ago?”
This time he nodded.
I knew he needed to do this. I also knew I wanted to nip it in the bud. “No.”
“But you still can’t prove that, can you?”
“We’ve been through this.”
“What about all that footage they had?”
“Still can’t explain that.”
“Seven different video cameras show you leaving the fitness center with her and then stumbling like a drunk sailor up the elevator and into her room.”
“I saw the video.”
“And what about the other video? The one they found in the room?”
I didn’t respond.
“Rocket, it’s video. The smoking gun.”
“It’s not me. I never did that.”
He sat back. “Even your wife admitted it looked like your body shape.” Wood leaned in. “You remember what she said, when they made her watch it before the jury?”
I did. “Yes.”
“It’s still your word against hers, and, look, you’ve been locked up, you don’t know. Hers is a lot more valuable than yours right now. Maybe more than yours ever was.”
“So you want me to tell them I did it just so they’ll stop hounding me? So this will all go away?”
“A confession would get you a better shot at a tryout than a continued denial.”
“I don’t want a tryout.”
“Explain the DNA?”
“Can’t.”
Wood paused. “Man, seriously. All that video, two other eyewitnesses—”
I corrected him. “Two Asian prostitutes who spoke no English. Everything they told the jury was through an interpreter and the questions were all leading.”
Wood interrupted me. “They both pointed to you in the courtroom when the judge asked who they woke up next to at the hotel room.”
I interrupted him again. “That’s because they did.”
“You don’t deny that.”
“’Course not. They were there when I woke up. I was just as surprised as they were, but that doesn’t mean I did what they said.”
He continued. “One of them wasn’t even sixteen. The other barely seventeen.” He held up his finger like quotation marks. “ ‘Underage prostitutes’ are still underage.”
“Wood…”
“What about the way”—he pointed at the speaker above us—“she sat up there and told the story. Where’d she get the detail? She knew stuff that only Audrey could know. And she had no reason to lie. I don’t…”
“Wood, the trial ended twelve years ago. You want to reopen the case?”
He pointed down the highway. “The trial in that courtroom ended, but the one taking place in the court of public opinion is just getting cranked up.” He shook his head. I let him finish. “You realize that in Webster’s, under the definition of ‘guilty as sin,’ sits your picture.”
“I know.”
He continued, but at this point he was piling on. “Look up the word ‘deviant,’ and you’ll find the same picture.”
I frowned.
“And you’re okay with that?”
“Didn’t say I was okay with it. Said I understood my situation.”
During my trial, the nail in my coffin had been a grainy video that, though kept under tight security, had somehow been leaked to the press who called it “irrefutable.” The first time Audrey saw it, she said, “It’s like watching my soul die.”
br />
I finished my milkshake. Wood was about to speak when I interrupted him. “At the end of the documentary, what was the last film clip they played?”
He nodded and looked away.
I prodded him. “How many snaps have you and I taken together?”
“What?”
“How many times have you put the ball in my hands?”
“Including practice?”
“Yes.”
“Thousands.”
“And of those, in how many did we run motion away or counter?”
He weighed his head back and forth. “More than half, easy.”
“And why did we do that?”
“ ’Cause you at one time could read defenses better than anybody maybe ever, and you saw something nobody else did or could.”
“Even if that was true, I had to have a reason, so what was that reason?”
“Misdirection.”
I leaned in. “There’s a difference between what you see and what is.”
“Even if what you’re saying is true and she made all this up—which, while she’s good, nobody is that good—the only way to get your life back is to get her to admit, before a judge, that she lied, and your chances of that happening are about zero.”
“I’m not after her, Wood.”
He leaned in. His neck was turning red. “Newsflash, Rocketman—you may not be after her, but you need to realize that while you’ve been away, people have not forgotten. And they certainly haven’t forgiven.”
“You want me to walk back to Wiregrass and knock on the door? See if they’ll take me back?”
“Might be easier for you.” He fiddled with his car keys on the table. “You may not be interested in the truth, but let’s assume for three seconds that you actually find Audrey, and you can bet your throwing arm that she is. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to confront that.”
He was right and I knew it. I rested my head in my hands. “Got to find her first.”
CHAPTER SIX
Two hours later, Wood drove into Gardi. The rain fell steadily. Rippling along the roadside. He pulled over by the railroad tracks just before town and cut the engine. He wouldn’t look at me. “I want to get you over for dinner, but Laura just needs some time…” He shook his head. The admission was painful.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “She’s protecting you. You should listen to her. I’d probably do the same.” I stepped out. “Thanks for today.”
“You got a plan?”
“Well…” I chuckled. “I have no money, no home, no car, no career, no wife, no family, and, to my knowledge, only one friend who half believes what I’m telling him.”
He pointed down the tracks. “I knocked off the cobwebs. Stacked some wood. Canned foods in the pantry. Some eggs in the fridge. Propane’s full. Window unit’s busted so sleeping should be a real joy, but the ceiling fan works. You might have to tape up a few cuts in the screens to keep the mosquitoes out. And if you’re looking for some clothes, when Audrey disappeared, I gathered up what was left of your stuff and put it in that old cedar trunk on the porch. Right next to that old trail bike. It sputters, but it’ll get you where you need to go.”
Wood’s great-grandfather farmed shade tobacco on several hundred acres contiguous to St. Bernard’s. The business peaked under his grandfather, then slid into oblivion with his father. When hard times hit, Wood could never bring himself to sell the acreage, making him cash poor and land rich. I’d always admired him for keeping it when his own business tanked. In addition to shade farming, his grandfather had a penchant for moonshine, which he cooked out of a cabin he built on site. The block of property sat, oddly enough, a short walk from the tracks. The cabin lay near the middle of the property, and the dirt road leading to it was gated. On Friday nights, after games, a lot of us piled in there on sleeping bags next to the wood-burning stove. I smiled. “Thanks.”
“It should offer you some privacy. Keep the paparazzi at bay.” He chuckled. “And speaking as your attorney, ’cause I know you can’t afford one, it’s legal in terms of distance from the school.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Oh—” He raised a finger and shook his head. “You might should steer clear of the barn.” He handed me an official-looking letter from the stack of papers crammed between the dash and the windshield, which I had a feeling doubled as his mobile desk.
I scanned the letter. “What’s this?”
“About six months ago, the school busted some kids in there smoking dope. To deflect attention from their dope-addicted kid, one of the parents made a stink about the barn’s condition. The county investigated, agreed with the parent, and told me it was a lawsuit waiting to happen.” A shrug. He spoke almost to himself. “If they wouldn’t trespass, it wouldn’t be a hazard, but despite the fifty obnoxious yellow NO TRESPASSING signs hanging everywhere, somehow I’m responsible for their kid’s trespassing and dope smoking.”
I laughed.
He continued. “To make sure they got their point across, the county sent me a—” He gestured to the letter in my hand. “CYA note via certified delivery informing me that I should bulldoze it before I get sued and lose my land. I get a new one about every other month.”
“That thing still standing? It was a hazard back when we were running around.”
“Evidently, the county would agree with you, and given its proximity to the school, and knowing that kids have a penchant for hanging around it—”
I smirked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“They keep telling me it’s got to come down.”
“What’s the holdup?”
He sucked through his teeth and weighed his head side to side. “It’s complicated.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see when you open the door. And for the record, I had nothing to do with what you find there. Neither did Ray. It all just appeared a couple years ago and every few months something new pops up. It’s like that scene in Jeremiah Johnson where the Indians leave stuff at his old house where the crazy lady now lives. Nobody sees them coming or going, stuff just appears.” He sat quietly a moment, wrestling with something on the tip of his tongue. Finally, he slid a sheet of paper off the dash and handed it to me. “Laura did some digging. There’s no record—at all—of an Audrey Rising in or near south Georgia or north Florida.” He glanced at me and then looked away. “She checked under ‘Audrey Michaels,’ too.” A single shake of his head.
The rain felt cold on my shoulders. I tapped the top of the car. Not knowing quite what to say. Rare is the friend who will stick by you when most think you’re a deviant. Rarer still is the one who believes. “Wood, thanks.”
His eyes welled up. “You’ll find out soon enough that I haven’t helped you any.” He waved his hand across a town oblivious to my return. “If you thought they loved you then, wait until you see how they hate you now.” He put the car in drive but kept his foot on the brake. “My office is in the old Mater building. Second floor. I do—” He shrugged. “Bail bonds.” He wouldn’t look at me. “I can see the jail from my window.” Another shrug. “It pays the bills. Or most of them.” He reached into his pocket and handed me a small wad of cash. Dirty twenty dollar bills. “You’ll need this.”
Based on his appearance, whatever he was giving me was a lot. Maybe all he had. I waved him off. “I’m good.”
He offered it a second time. “Come on. You need—”
I raised my hand. A stop sign. “Laura’s right. Be smart. Stay away from me.”
He tapped his chest. Eyes welling. “When I close my eyes and think back through the worst and toughest times of my life, I see you looking back at me. Telling me that I could do what I never thought I could do.” A pause. “No matter what I do, I can’t bring myself to hate you.” He shook his head and stared at the national championship ring he wore on his left hand. He and I won seven championships together—four in high school and three in college. The one he was now wea
ring was our last.
The memory returned. A good one. Late in the third quarter, we were down by thirteen. We needed to cross the goal line twice and they were killing us, both on the line and in the coverage. The nose guard was pushing Wood around like a rag doll. I stood in the huddle asking myself what to do. He’d never asked or told me what to run, but in that second Wood just got mad. He stuck his face in front of mine and grabbed my jersey. “When I snap the ball, follow me.”
“Wood, he’s been eating your lunch all day.”
Determination sprinkled with rage spread across his face. “You just hold on, and I’m gonna push this country boy back into his lineage.”
And he did. When he snapped the ball on the six yard line, I tucked my head and he plowed a path to the goal line. Carried the nose guard, both tackles, the weak side linebacker, and the free safety with him. You could have driven a truck through the hole. It wasn’t until after the game that I learned he’d broken his left arm—in the first quarter.
Wood had always had a high pain threshold, and sitting in the front seat of his Suburban, he was in pain. He wiped his nose on his shirt sleeve. “I think back to the trial and—” He pounded the steering wheel. “I cannot reconcile the man I knew in the huddle with the man they put on trial.”
That made two of us. I waited, saying nothing.
A tear spilled down his cheek. “Matthew, these people are going to rip your head off your shoulders, pour gasoline down your neck, and light your body afire.”
I nodded. I knew that.
“You’re either the worst kind of man who lies to his wife and friends and self. In which case twelve years wasn’t enough, never will be, and God alone will deal with you. Or somebody, for reasons I can’t fathom”—his giant paw pounded the console between the seats—“did this to you. Stole what you had and everything you were ever gonna have.” He wiped his face on his sleeve. “And I’m not sure which scenario hurts worse.” The pain had spread across his face. “I’ve had twelve years to think about it, and I’m no closer to figuring it out.” His voice rose. “Today certainly hasn’t helped. Seems like five minutes ago, you threw that backside pass to Roddy in the end zone. I carried you on my shoulders around the field. People were holding signs that read ROCKET FOR PRESIDENT and ROCKET, WILL YOU MARRY ME? Moms were naming their kids after you. Ninety-six thousand people were screaming—” His voice fell to a whisper. He stared out through the windshield and into our shared past. “ ‘Rocket! Rocket! Rocket!’ ” He closed his eyes. Finally, he looked at me. “Call me a fool. Call me gullible. Call me the town idiot. I been called worse. I was your friend then. Am now. And will be.”