Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [154]
“I took a lot of pride in my cars, and I had a lot of them,” Payton said. “I had the Lamborghini . . . I had a Rolls-Royce, I had my Porsche, and then at any given time we had eight or nine vehicles in my family. I know it sounds crazy, but coming from where I grew up, I just always found cars, fast cars, a kind of ‘I made it’ statement.”
The cars were not merely show-and-tell items. Payton made use of every ounce of performance in his vehicles. His CB handle was Mississippi Maniac, and it fit like a sock. When Payton, Doug Plank, and Len Walterscheid once made an appearance at a Kawasaki-sponsored event, they were gifted with motorcycles. Payton’s teammates chose the (relatively) tame 750 LTD. Payton, velocity addict, went with the KZ 1100—“a genuine crotch rocket,” said Walterscheid.
The stories of Payton’s wild road antics are endless. “My second year in the league [1979] Walter and I had to go to a picture signing set up by the PR guys,” said John Skibinski, a backup fullback. “We were in Lake Forest and we got out of practice at four fifty. It was snowing flakes the size of pancakes and we had to get to a dealership fifty miles away in a half-hour.” Payton insisted the two take his new Porsche Carrera. Having never driven with Payton, Skibinski complied. “Before we get going Walter picks up a hamburger, some fries, and a milkshake,” Skibinski said. “He’s driving a stick in the snow, a hamburger in one hand, the shake in the other, picking up fries, going about a hundred miles per hour. I was shitting in my pants, thinking, ‘If we die, my name will forever be immortalized in the headline SKIBINSKI AND PAYTON KILLED IN CAR WRECK. Well, we got there with two minutes to spare.”
Hunting, meanwhile, relaxed Payton. In the basement of the home he had built in 1984, there was a state-of-the-art shooting range encased in soundproof glass. “He’d go down there and blast his rifles and semiautomatics,” said Jeff Fisher, the Bears safety. “That was a weird peace for Walter.” One year, as a present for his offensive linemen, Payton presented Remington 11-87 shotguns with the inscription THANKS FOR LEADING THE WAY engraved on the side. He spoke dreamingly to teammates of faraway trips to distant lands, where plump animals roamed free and hunting season commenced on New Year’s Day and ended December 31. “He wanted to go to Alaska and chase down some grizzly bear,” said Tim Clifford, a Bears quarterback and Payton’s occasional hunting partner. “But he didn’t want to use a gun, just a bow and arrow. I said, ‘You know, Walter, I’m not going anywhere with only a bow against something that can outrun and outclimb me.’ ”
Payton, Harper, and other teammates used to take long treks into the woods, chasing down turkeys and squirrels and wild boars. Though their motto, “If it flies, it dies,” might have been a tad crass, the sentiment was genuine. “It was like therapy for us,” said Harper. “No worries, no other people—just the woods, the open air, and a lot of game.”
Following the 1981 season, Payton, Harper, and Skibinski planned a five-day boar-hunting excursion to Crossville, Tennessee. Skibinski had spent considerable time with Payton in duck blinds and on lakes, and he relished the experiences. “The best moments I ever had with Walter were outdoors,” he said. “We’d sit in a boat and not say crap for an hour. Then he’d say, ‘That’s enough. Let’s get something to eat.’
“So we go on this trip to the backwoods of Tennessee, and we rented a Ford Bronco truck at the airport, but all they had was a Lincoln.