Football Hero (2008) (8 page)

BUT HE COULDN’T.

“I’m doing really good there,” Ty said, forcing a smile onto his face.

“You are?” Thane said, his eyebrows drifting up.

“Yeah,” Ty said, nodding. “They got a good school. The gym coach says I’m the fastest kid he’s got.”

“No surprise there,” Thane said.

“I have food, clothes, and a roof over my head,” Ty said. “That’s all you need, right?”

Thane tilted his head, pulling down the corners of his mouth, and nodded at the wisdom of it; then he mussed Ty’s hair and walked back up the steps.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go see our palace.”

“You don’t want to walk in the park?” Ty asked, looking back.

“Nah,” Thane said. “It’s getting late.”

“Maybe there’s a Jacuzzi tub?” Ty said.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Thane said.

Uncle Gus’s entire house could have fit inside their suite at the Palace. Brass lamps and crystal chandeliers glittered in the midst of rich brown wood paneling. Ty could smell the leather from the furniture. On the long dining room table a pile of gifts from ESPN awaited them. Thane let Ty open them all and told him to keep the watch because he already had one.

“Take all that stuff,” Thane said.

“No,” Ty said, slipping a new iPod back into its packaging.

“It’s free.”

“I can’t take all of it,” Ty said, lifting a hooded sweatshirt out of the pile of clothes. “Maybe something for Uncle Gus and Aunt Virginia and Charlotte. They’d be happy, especially if I told them it was from you.”

“Knock yourself out,” Thane said, picking up a can of mixed nuts and cracking the seal before he poked through the minibar. He came up with a 7UP for himself and a Coke for Ty before he jumped over the back of the couch and clicked on the TV.

Ty took a swig of soda and put aside a pen-and-pencil set for his aunt, the iPod for Charlotte, and a big leather travel bag for Uncle Gus; then he went into the bedroom.

“Hey!” he shouted out toward the living room.

“There
is
a Jacuzzi!”

“Get in it!” Thane shouted from the other room.

“This place is for fun!”

Ty ran the water and stripped right down. Big silver buttons gleamed at him from a panel along the marble wall.

“There’s tons of buttons!” Ty yelled out over the sound of the water.

“Push ’em all!”

Ty did, and the tub rumbled and spit. Next, he turned to examine all the little things on the white marble vanity between the sinks.

“There’s a toothbrush!” Ty shouted through the wall.

“Use it!” came the answer.

Ty grinned at himself and put some paste on the brush and scrubbed his teeth while the bath filled. Then he lowered himself into the bubbling water. He let his head fall back and closed his eyes, soaking up the warmth and letting the jets pound his muscles into butter.

“I could get used to this,” he said aloud to himself.

By the time Thane shook him awake, the sun had already cleared the buildings beside the hotel so that thick beams fell in through the curtains.

“Come on, sleepyhead,” Thane said. He wore shorts
and a T-shirt so drenched in sweat that it looked as though he’d been dipped in a pool. “I’m going to shower, then we’ll get something to eat. The car picks us up at nine-thirty.”

“I thought it doesn’t start till twelve,” Ty said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“TV, man,” Thane said, snapping his towel against the covers. “Everything starts before it starts.”

“I’m coming,” Ty said, swinging his legs out of bed.

Breakfast came right to their room, served by a waiter in a black bow tie who removed fancy silver covers from plates of sausage, scrambled eggs, and toast and who poured fresh-squeezed orange juice from a crystal pitcher. Ty watched his older brother, who dug in as if they were at home or in a diner, and so he did the same, enjoying the food without concern for the fancy surroundings.

The limo took them to the Javits Convention Center VIP entrance, where a woman from the NFL greeted them and led them toward the massive glass building. There were crowds of fans and kids on the other side of the velvet ropes waiting in the sunshine, and Thane stopped to sign dozens of Syracuse Orangemen hats, banners, and collector’s helmets. Finally, they were inside and led into a VIP reception area, where players milled about with their agents, families, and people from the NFL.

Morty appeared, looking frazzled. Dark circles
drooped beneath his eyes, and the smile on his face flickered like a loose lightbulb.

“I can’t call it. I can’t call it,” he said, crossing his arms and uncrossing them and holding out his hand to say no to the woman offering him a glass of champagne from a tray. “MacDougal is right over there. Look at that smile. Look at those gold teeth.”

Thane buried his hands deep in his pockets looking around at the banners and balloons and tables heavy with food and drinks.

“Man, can you believe all this? This is fun,” Thane said with a shiver.

“Fun is when I’ve got the deal locked down,” Morty mumbled. “Come on, let’s get to our seats. What took you so long?”

“He signed a bunch of stuff for people,” Ty said as Thane put an arm around his shoulder and started to walk toward the exit.

“You gotta stop doing that,” Morty said. “People pay for that stuff. After today, I can get you twenty, thirty thousand to show up and sign stuff for a couple hours. You don’t want to just do it for free.”

“Come on,” Thane said, scoffing. “Are you serious?”

Morty looked surprised. “Do I joke about money?”

“I’m not asking people to pay for an autograph,” Thane said. “No way. People will be paying me by watching and coming to the games. That’s where it comes from.”

“We do live in a free market,” Morty said. “If people
will pay you for something, you deserve to get it.”

“Not me,” Thane said. “Not for kids anyway.”

Ty nodded in agreement without saying anything.

In front of a stage on one side were several hundred seats for players and their guests. In another section were the desks for all of the NFL teams’ representatives. Fans got to sit in the bleachers surrounding the floor. A few thousand were there already, creating a hum of noise that added to the excitement. A couple hundred at least were Jets fans, dressed in green and white and holding signs. Many of them flashed Tiger’s name, but there were plenty that said “MacDougal.” Morty took out three tickets and gave them to an usher, who led them to the front row. When the Jets fans spotted Thane, some burst out into applause that sent a chill down Ty’s back.

Thane sat with his hands in the pockets of his sweat jacket, looking around and smiling as if he were on a hayride back home in Tully. Other players began to file in. When Ty held up one of his hands, he saw the tremble in his fingers and he jammed them under his legs. A twitch tugged at the corner of his eye, and there was nothing he could do but hope it would go away. He couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering over the different team logos, reciting the cities to himself, seeing them on a map in his mind. Most of them were so far away from New Jersey that Ty knew he’d never see his brother. His heart thumped and his throat tightened.

Before he knew it, the seats around him were packed with people, and the commissioner stepped up to the podium and began the draft. The Lions picked the quarterback from Texas and the Cardinals took the quarterback from Tennessee, so there was no trade in the works. Ty looked over at Morty, who clutched a program in his fist and clenched his teeth. MacDougal was in the third row, surrounded by a big contingent that Ty presumed was his family. The tall, fast wide receiver sat nodding his head, like he knew what was going to happen next.

Thane still looked relaxed, smiling and enjoying himself as much now as when he was signing people’s hats outside. The Jets seemed to take forever. In reality, each team had only fifteen minutes to make their pick in the first round. Ty glued his eyes to the Jets’ desk. Two men in suits sat whispering to each other. One of them held a phone clutched to his ear.

“What the heck is taking them so long?” Morty muttered.

Finally, one of the men walked up to the stage and handed a sheet of paper to the commissioner, who stepped up to the podium.

“With the third pick of the draft,” he said, looking up and searching the crowd.

MacDougal leaned forward in his seat and began to stand up.

THE COMMISSIONER TOOK A
breath and continued. “The New York Jets select Tiger Lewis, wide receiver from Syracuse.”

Many of the Jets fans exploded with glee, cheering so loud that Ty heard the sound in waves.

Morty jumped up with them, hugging Ty and Thane together. An enormous smile lit Thane’s face and tears sparkled in his eyes. Ty didn’t know the extent of his own happiness until he felt the tears running freely down his own cheeks.

Charlotte shed the next set of tears. She sat on the edge of her bed, looking down and holding the iPod in both hands as if it were a small animal or a fragile butterfly. Her long dirty blond hair hung in two
straight curtains on either side of her face. Ty stood at the foot of the bed with his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans.

“Do you like it?” Ty asked. “It’s preloaded.”

“It’s,” she said, looking up with a sniff and blinking the tears from her big round eyes, “the nicest thing anyone ever gave me.”

Ty looked down and nudged a hole in the thin carpet with the toe of his sneaker.

“It’s really from Thane,” he said. “It was his stuff.”

“I feel like the mouse with the lion in that story,” she said, sniffling and wiping at the corner of her eye.

“What could I ever do this nice for you, right? I don’t have a dime to my name. But I will. Some thorn in your foot or something.”

An embarrassed smile flickered onto Charlotte’s face before she laughed, stuffed the earpieces into her ears, cranked up some music, and began to bob her head to the beat. Then she reached out, took his hand from its pocket, and gave it a squeeze.

Ty felt his cheeks heat up, but he squeezed back, happy to have a friend.

The summer crept along, worse than any summer in Ty’s life.

Thane had one more class to get his college degree, and so he stayed at Syracuse University, training and studying. While everyone agreed that Thane’s
contract would be in the millions, Morty and the Jets couldn’t come to terms, and the agent told Thane that he should expect to have to hold out of training camp.

When Ty heard this over the telephone, he said, “So you might not get the money until August?”

“Maybe even September,” Thane told him.

“Sometimes first-round picks don’t get signed until the week before the season begins.”

Ty couldn’t explain why, but news of this delay bothered him, even though Thane didn’t seem to mind.

When school had ended, Uncle Gus, still behind in his payments to Lucy, took on even more work. Ty and Charlotte spent their days cleaning a dingy nearby motel. The three long, low buildings lined up along the highway were usually empty during the day, and without air-conditioning the tiny rooms sweltered in the humid summer heat.

Uncle Gus would supervise them from outside, where he’d set up a lawn chair under the shade of a big old oak tree. He kept a small red cooler beside him, sipping down cans of Nestea and listening to WFAN, the big New York sports radio station or, when he could find them, afternoon baseball games. They worked in silence. Although Charlotte was friendly to Ty, she wasn’t one for talking, no matter how hard he would try to drum up conversation. When he’d ask her why she didn’t like to talk, she’d only shrug, put her iPod earpiece back in, and concentrate on her vacuum.
When they finished cleaning the motel, they’d head for the Breakfast Nook and start right in on all of Uncle Gus’s usual clients, six days a week.

By the time Ty got home at midnight, he could only keep his eyes open for two or three pages of his book before he’d conk out for the night. In the morning, they’d have breakfast and start the whole thing over again. On Sundays, they’d go to church and have a decent dinner before Uncle Gus would put on his fishing hat, scoop up his tackle box, pole, and a cooler of beer, and trudge back through the woods to a secret pond he had, for what he called a well-deserved day of rest. Ty would spend Sunday afternoons curled up in the coolest place he could find to catch up on his reading.

They did have one break in this routine. Uncle Gus had a small winning streak betting on baseball games with Lucy and decided to take them all to Atlantic City for two days. While Uncle Gus spent his time in the casino, Ty, Charlotte, and Aunt Virginia got to splash around in an overheated pool laced so strongly with chlorine that Ty had bloodshot eyes for an entire week. For the first time in his life, he couldn’t wait for summer to be over so that school could begin.

On August 16, a puddle of vomit greeted Ty in the men’s room at Lucy’s. He sidestepped it, gagging and trying not to let his mind think about the source of the chunks. He knew from experience that rotten smells
would go away after about ten minutes. In science class they called it olfactory extinction. A really bad stink could only go so long before a person’s brain just stopped registering it.

Ty knew if he tried to clean the puke first, he’d throw up himself, so he started in on the toilet. He was elbow-deep in toilet water when Uncle Gus banged open the bathroom door, shouting something about Tiger.

Ty peeked out of the stall just in time to see Uncle Gus’s foot hit the puke with a slippery squelching sound that sent his feet flying up over his head. The cell phone shot out of his hand, banged into the metal stall, and clattered to the tiles. Down Uncle Gus went, flat on his back in the puddle of vomit.

He rolled, screaming, and got it all over his hands. Some must have gotten in his eye because he pawed at his face, covering it with the slimy stink. He screamed again, until his own retching cut it short. With his head bumped back up against the urinal, Uncle Gus puked on himself before he pulled himself up by the sink and stuck his head under the faucet.

Ty bit hard into his lip. When Uncle Gus finally stopped choking, he raised his dripping head halfway out of the sink, cursed, and stabbed his finger at the phone on the floor.

“Your brother needs to talk to you,” he said in a weak voice. “He says it’s important.”