American Outlaw - Jesse James [39]
“What’s up, James?” Coach Meyer asked me after one game.
“What do you mean?”
He stared at me. “Zero sacks tonight. Only a couple tackles. That’s not your typical performance, is it?” He frowned and pointed to my knees. “Are you having issues, son?”
“No,” I said, surprised. I wore a knee brace in every game, but only as a preventative. I’d worn them all throughout high school, to the point that it felt totally natural to me. “I’m fine.”
“Then why aren’t you coming off the line?” he snapped.
After staring me down for a few more seconds, Meyer put up his hands in frustration, turned on his heel, and left.
I couldn’t figure out why, but all that week in practice, I was slow off the line. I just couldn’t dig in the way I used to. The other guys had an edge on me. I felt useless.
“Damn, Jesse, you suck,” Anton Jackson said. He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Time to quit, man, don’t you think?”
I racked my brain for reasons for my demise. Maybe it was the knee brace? It was technically possible. Maybe it was slowing me down, impeding my natural first step. Perhaps my only recourse was to play without it. It was risky, certainly, but it might be worth it. My head reeling, I walked all over campus. Finally, I headed back to the dorms to change for dinner.
As I returned to my room, I found Josh Paxton slipping a note under my door.
“What the hell are you up to?” I demanded.
“Oh,” Josh said, whirling around to face me. “This ain’t nothing.”
“Bullshit,” I said, annoyed. “What’s on the note?” I pushed past him to pick it up. “To whom it may concern?”
“I was gonna leave it anonymously,” Josh explained.
“Yeah, I can see that,” I snapped. I read aloud: “To whom it may concern. Your girlfriend is seeing Dan Konte behind your back.”
I stared at the big man. The two of us were alone in the hallway.
“Man, I wish you hadn’t come around,” said Josh sadly. “I was trying to leave that anonymously.”
I felt numb. Dan Konte was a teammate of ours, a huge lineman who had a stereotypical lineman dumbness to him. “Should I take this seriously?”
Josh nodded mutely. “Konte told me,” he said, finally.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah,” Josh said, looking down at the floor. “He said . . . well, he said she’s real sexy.”
I stood there, trying to get a hold on the emotions that were running over me.
Finally, I managed to nod. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess that’s true.”
That next Saturday, for the first time in five years, I played a game without a knee brace.
Trust no one, I thought. Fuck ’em all.
My knee felt light. My whole being felt light, in fact. The anger ran in me like a fever, and I absolutely dominated. I got three sacks in the first half.
“Killing!” Coach Meyer exclaimed at halftime, shaking his fist joyously. “That’s cold-blooded killing, son!”
It was true. I was out there murdering everybody. The second half began, and we continued to destroy them. All the life and enthusiasm drained out of the Long Beach City College football team like a warm, gentle piss. Can’t stop me, I thought, deeply vindicated. You might as well go home . . .
“Killing!” Josh Paxton screamed, as we ran up the score on them, ran their hopes and dreams into the muck.
With four minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, I sacked the quarterback for a final time. Standing up, I raised my arms up to celebrate. It was the best I’d felt on a football field since arriving at Riverside Community Shithole. No adversity could stop me. Not poverty, not drunks in my dorm, not Rhonda, not my deadbeat dad.
Meanwhile, the hugest lineman on the Long Beach team sped toward me.
I am Jesse James, I thought with satisfaction, my helmet tipped down over my eyes. And I am headed for greatness!
Just then, the lineman drilled me right in the knee. My pain was so immediate and so intense that I puked in my helmet even before I hit the ground.
“FUGGGHHH!” I wailed, vomit spraying out of my mouth and coating my chin.
It was a crippling hit. The force of impact folded my leg up completely, until my ankle touched my hip. In a single instant, I realized what had happened. Staring at my