The Eleventh Man - Ivan Doig [170]
Loudon looked at him, blank as a flatfish. The automatic velocity of voice started up: "Hey, let's not say anything we'll regret, I know it hits you hard about Mox—" The yammer stopped as suddenly as it started, something coming into Loudon's eyes now. "Purcell? Why bring that up?"
"You were in on it. You stood there with your hands in your pockets and watched Bruno run him to death."
"Ben, listen, you got it wrong. Bruno didn't have it in for Purcell, he had big plans for him on the team if he could turn him into enough of a man."
"He turned him into a dead kid."
"Sometimes things get pushed harder than anyone intended." Whatever it was in Loudon's eyes was matched now by the insinuation in his words. "It still bugs you that Bruno was turning Purcell into a starter, doesn't it. The team would've looked pretty different to you then, hey, Ben?"
"You slippery bastard, where did you come up with that, Purcell on the starting team? We had almost a week of practices yet before the season, Danzer had plenty of time to get his act—" Ben halted.
"In for Reinking at left end, Merle Purcell," Loudon maliciously mimicked broadcasting the substitution.
"What the hell are you talking about? I was captain of the team."
"That would have changed in a hurry if you were on the bench." The words came out of Loudon as if he couldn't resist the taste of them. "Bruno was going to bump you to the scrub team before the opening game, like that." He snapped his fingers. "Told me so, had me hold the story until he could put football religion into Purcell, on the Hill. He'd never give up on Danzer. Danzer was one of his. You weren't, sucker."
It reached all through Ben. "Then I'm not—" Purcell was the eleventh man. The famously hexed varsity lineup picked by Bruno at that last practice—I'm not on the list. The freedom from the odds built upon that jinx day dizzied him. Death had made its clean sweep. The skew in the law of averages brought on by Bruno's manipulations on the practice field and Loudon's at the microphone, that entire fatal scheme of things was not necessarily meant to have a place for Ben Reinking. He was odd man out. Am. The inevitability lifted from him. From here on, if the war claimed him, it would have to do it on its own terms, not by the Supreme Team's wholesale bad luck. A crazy laugh broke from Ben. No, he realized, the sanest one in a long time.
"Okay, we both have it out of our systems," Loudon was saying, nervous at that laugh. "Now let's forget all that and get busy on the script, airtime will be here in—"
"I'm not going on the show."
Loudon gaped at him.
"The Supreme Team is yours, it always was." Ben found he could say it calmly. "Give it a funeral any way you want."
"Listen, Reinking—Ben." The famous voice rose. "We don't have to be pals about this, we just have to do the show. You'll get your gravy from this as much as I will. Everything's set up for us. The network time. The news cameras. The whole USO—"
A rap on the door and the major was in the room almost before the sound. "I couldn't help hearing the ruckus. Something I can help with?"
"It's him," Loudon flared. "Says he won't go on the show. Drive some sense into him, Major."
"You most certainly are going on the show," the major scolded Ben as if he were a Sunday schooler. "I've looked over Ted's script, you're everywhere in it. Let's not complicate things for him."
"Let's."
The major took another look at Ben. "Captain, I order you to pick up that script and prepare for the show." Loudon at the desk whacked his hand down on his copy to second that.
"Not a chance, Major," Ben said, stepping away. "I am a TPWP war correspondent, I have a story to write about what killed Moxie Stamper, and I am going out that door now and write it."
Commotion had spread to the other side of the door, from the sound of it. The major raised his voice, "Quiet, out there! We're in conference in—"
He stopped short