Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [180]
The Bears overran Bourbon Street, drinking like sailors and boasting one sexual conquest after another. Having supplanted the Dallas Cowboys as the nation’s most popular team, the Bears owned the city. By one player’s estimation, for every New England fan there were five hundred people pulling for Chicago. “The Super Bowl was pretty much a home game for us,” said Calvin Thomas, a Bears running back. “In the streets, all you saw was blue and orange.”
As had been the case for much of the regular season, Payton took a backseat to Perry and McMahon. His saga was a fine one in the conventional sense (veteran finally makes it), but Super Bowl XX symbolized a new era. This was about immediate pleasure and neon-lit entertainment value. The game was being covered heavily by, of all outlets, MTV, a network that knew little of rushing yards and touchdowns but specialized in shock and imagery.
The talk of New Orleans was Perry’s sizeable gut (How much gumbo could one man eat?) and McMahon’s bruised buttocks (Why wasn’t Hiroshi Shiriashi, his acupuncturist, allowed on the team plane?), which he gleefully flashed for a low-flying news helicopter soaring above Bears practice. “It was the craziest thing I’ve ever been a part of,” said Kevin Butler, the rookie kicker. “Thank God they didn’t have camera phones back then, because you can’t imagine how over the top we were.”
As McMahon made his way through the city with kinetic glee, Payton laid low. He ate primarily room service, and spent much of his time on his bed, watching TV. One evening, to the delight of teammates, he rented a couple of buses and had the Bears escorted to a seemingly abandoned clubhouse in the middle of Louisiana. From the kitchen emerged Justin Wilson, the famed Cajun chef, armed with vats of crawfish. “That was remarkable,” said Greg Gershuny, the team’s director of information services. “We ate like kings.” With most of the players’ wives not scheduled to arrive in New Orleans until a day or two before the game, there was ample opportunity to fool around—and many of the Bears did. Whether Payton took full advantage remains unknown. Two nights before the game, however, Payton called one of his friends in Chicago who had chartered a seventy-six-seat jet to New Orleans. “I need a spot on the plane,” Payton said.
“You can’t fly with us,” the friend said. “You’re already there.”
“No,” Payton replied. “There’s someone I want you to bring to New Orleans for me. I need one seat.”
“Under no circumstances could I turn him down,” said the friend.
“First, he got us about twenty tickets to the game. Second, we’re good pals. Third, we were all caught up in Super Bowl hoopla, and much of the hoopla was about Walter. What was I to do?”
When Payton’s “someone” arrived at the airport hangar, she was exactly what the friend expected—long legs, large chest, blond hair, short skirt. Her name was Jennifer, and she worked as a bartender. On that same day, Connie, having flown commercial, arrived in New Orleans with the two children. “I actually sat near Connie at the game,” said the friend. “We all sat at the fifty-yard line, and I had to act as if nothing had happened.”
Indeed, despite having fathered a child out of wedlock only one year earlier, Payton steadfastly pursued other women. It was around this time that he was diagnosed with genital herpes, a sexually transmitted disease that causes recurrent painful sores. Payton was initially shocked and dismayed by the diagnosis, but rarely—if ever—found it necessary to inform future sexual partners of the viral infection.17 “There was a certain pressure that came with being idolized,” said the friend. “Walter was away from home a lot, and he felt pulled. He lived two lives—the loving husband