Sweetness_ The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton - Jeff Pearlman [229]
Three years later, following his near-fatal crash at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, Payton underwent a liver biopsy assessment because, as cited in a report issued by the Mayo Clinic, “there was concern of toxic exposure in the cockpit of the car.” Again, the test results showed elevated liver enzymes. Again, nobody seemed especially concerned.
In the summer of 1998, Walter Payton was a busy man. In the process of shedding himself of his nightclub holdings, Payton had become one of three owners of Walter Payton’s Roundhouse, an enormous brewpub/restaurant in the suburb of Aurora. He also co-owned a CART racing team, and was heavily invested in the future of his son, Jarrett, who by now had emerged as a superstar quarterback/running back at St. Viator High. Rated the nation’s number fifty-eighth overall prospect by The Sporting News, Jarrett was being recruited by most major Division I colleges. Walter attended nearly all of Jarrett’s games, sitting atop the home press box to avoid crowds and commotions. He delighted in seeing his boy follow so ably in his footsteps, and loved speaking to recruiters from Notre Dame and Northwestern, Miami, and Minnesota. The whole experience made Walter Payton feel special again—this time not for something he did, but for someone he created.
Through all the commotion, Payton hardly noticed that his appetite had started to wane. Nothing especially alarming. It was just that, for a man used to eating like a blue whale, food no longer held much interest. “I wasn’t as hungry,” Payton said. “Things that I ate did not digest as well.”
Because he was a football player, and because football players are instructed to ignore pain and irritation, Payton paid the discomfort little mind. He swigged from bottles of Pepto-Bismol and continued with his days. Here was a man who made a living out of running over defensive ends; who had survived a fiery race car crash and who could count on one hand the number of sick days he had ever taken. Upset tummy? Waning appetite? Not a big deal.
“I had been traveling between Chicago and Panama for a potential business venture and I figured I must have caught an intestinal bug from eating some uncooked crab,” Payton said. “I had been eating a ton of crab in Panama. I loved it. But the pain and discomfort didn’t go away. Each day that summer I felt a gradual progression of fatigue and just an overall sense of feeling lousy.”
Because Payton took such pride in his appearance, friends rarely mentioned the physical changes that were beginning to manifest. The bulging white acne puffs along his neck. The yellowish tint to his skin. “Different things started to click in,” said John Gamauf, the vice president of Bridgestone/Firestone and a partner with Walter on a racing team. “He was still such a powerful, muscular man that they were less obvious. But they were there.” In particular, Gamauf recalled a July trip to the Raceway Laguna Seca in California. Upon spotting Payton for the first time, Gamauf expected the usual sternum-splintering bear hug. “This time he didn’t give me one,” Gamauf recalled. “He said, ‘Man, my back has just been killing me. I don’t know what’s wrong.’ ”
On August 25, 1998, Payton showed up at his Roundhouse restaurant in Aurora to serve as a cohost of The Monsters of the Midday, a weekly radio show that aired every Tuesday on WSCR. Now in his fifth year with the program, Payton shared the microphone with Dan Jiggetts, the former Bears offensive lineman, and Mike North, a local media personality. Once per month, the eatery played host to the show. Scott Ascher, Payton’s partner in the business,