Sweetness (75 page)

“I need to see you.”

The words were spoken by Rob Chudzinski, the tight ends coach for the University of Miami football team. On the other end of the telephone line was Jarrett Payton, the Hurricanes’ freshman halfback. He was sitting in his dormitory room.

“OK, Coach,” Jarrett said. “I’ll be right over.”

Upon entering Chudzinski’s office, Jarrett sat down and heard the words he had hoped would never come. “You have to go home right now to be with your family,” Chudzinski said. “Your father wants you there.”

That night, October 28, 1999, Jarrett boarded a flight from Miami International to O’Hare. He knew few of the details, only that his father was in Waukegan’s Midwestern Regional Medical Center and nearing his last breath.

“I hated hospitals, just like my dad did,” said Jarrett. “So instead of immediately going to see him, I went home, got one of my dad’s cars, and just drove around. Before I left for college, Dad liked to drive around with me for hours. Just the two of us driving. So that’s what I did now. This might sound strange, but driving that day, all alone, I felt like he was hanging with me. It was just the two of us, doing what we loved.”

The preceding few weeks had been rough on Walter. There were several emergency trips to the hospital. No longer able to eat, he was receiving nourishment solely via an intravenous tube. The majority of his time was spent in bed atop an enormous heating pad, and he kept his finger permanently affixed to the morphine pump by his side. “In that last week or two he looked awful,” said Quirk. “His nails were long and yellow. His beard had grown in. I had never seen him with scruff. Ever. This was a guy who would shave a couple of times per day if it fit the need. I had never seen him with a beard. It had grown in gray. He looked like a street person. He was in a hospital bed at that point. The bed was put in Connie’s bedroom, but only because he had no say.”

There are people from Payton’s life who like Quirk and others who considered her to be pushy and overly eager to please. All seem to agree, however, that during Payton’s last stand she had his best interests at heart. Quirk had spent nearly fourteen years glued to Walter’s side, and even as he drove her insane with nonstop calls, she continued to love and defend him.

As Quirk watched her boss and friend fade away, she found herself disgusted. Not by his physical appearance, but by the behavior of Connie.

Payton had asked to come home from Midwestern Regional Medical Center to enjoy a last meal of take-out Chinese, and on October 29, 1999, his wish was granted. A handful of media outlets reported that Payton was in a critical state, and two sports talk stations, New York’s WFAN and WYSP of Philadelphia, erroneously told listeners that he had died. “Walter probably weighed a hundred pounds at the end,” Quirk said. “You wouldn’t have believed it was him. He had more pride than anyone I’ve ever met, and there’s no way he would have wanted people to see him like that. But Connie led a parade past his body. Anybody who wanted to come through there, it was, ‘Oh, no problem. Come see him.’ ”

Added Kimm Tucker: “I’m guessing Connie had nine different preachers come by to see Walter—men he’d never before met. It was as if there was this rush of everyone wanting to say they saved Walter Payton’s soul.”

According to Quirk, she finally confronted Connie during Walter’s last week. Through the years, she had resisted any temptations to get involved in a truly odd relationship. Now, enough was enough. “If he does snap out of this,” Quirk told Connie, “he’s going to kill you. Because what you’re doing to his dignity is atrocious.”

On the night of Sunday, October 31, 1999, Jarrett Payton took another long drive before coming home to bid good night to his father. When the son walked into the bedroom, Walter—dazed, weakened, near death—lifted his head ever so slightly. His brother, Eddie, and sister, Pam, were in the room, as was Alyne, Walter’s mother. “Where have you been?” Walter whispered.

“I was out,” replied Jarrett, “looking at some motorcycles.”

Without uttering another word, Walter gave his son the glare from hell. “I’m joking,” Jarrett said. “Dad, I’m joking.”

Brittney Payton was at a Halloween party hosted by her friend, Molly. Fourteen years old and a freshman at Barrington High School, Brittney was trying her best to maintain normalcy. “My closest girlfriends were there,” Brittney said, “and I just broke down and I was crying to them about my dad and how sick he was. All my friends were lying on the floor with me, in a big group huddle, and they were crying with me.”

The following afternoon, around twelve thirty, Brittney was sitting in class when she was summoned to the principal’s office. Miss Luna was there, waiting to bring her home. “She didn’t say anything,” Brittney said. “Just that I needed to go.” Upon reaching the house, Brittney found Connie and Jarrett in her bedroom, crying and hugging.

“Do you want to see Dad one last time?” mother asked daughter.

Brittney nodded.

Walter Payton was all alone. His eyes and mouth were closed. His skin was cool to the touch. “I hugged him,” Brittney said. “I told him I loved him. I was sad, but a part of me was relieved.”

For nearly a year, a man accustomed to pain had endured unspeakable suffering.

“Now,” said Brittney, “he was at peace.”

Walter Payton, age forty-six, was dead.

CHAPTER 27

LEGACY

ON THE MORNING OF APRIL 5, 2000, CONNIE PAYTON SERVED AS THE KEYNOTE speaker for the community prayer breakfast at the Glendale Lakes Golf Club in Glendale Heights, Illinois.

Standing before a crowd of approximately a hundred people, Connie spoke of the love she and her husband had shared for twenty-three years of marriage. Through it all, she said, the Lord was present to guide and coax and lead through the highs and lows. “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle,” she said. “I have no regrets. I can really say I’m at peace with everything, even his passing. Even on the day he died, he was ready. I couldn’t be upset.”

The words were moving. When she finished, Connie received a standing ovation. “She’s one of the most heroic people I’ve ever heard about,” said Mary Jo Sobotka, a spectator who left the event with tears streaming down her cheeks.

Indeed.

Though few question Connie Payton’s sincerity when it comes to her faith in God, some of those who knew Walter well—
really well
—remain baffled by the way she handled his illness, and especially the aftermath of his passing. When Walter decided to ask someone to serve as executor of his estate, he first approached Ginny Quirk. When she suggested he turn elsewhere, Payton asked the trustworthy Matt Suhey. Connie,
his wife
, was never considered. “It’s sort of like there’s the truth,” said Linda Conley, a longtime friend of the Paytons, “and then there’s Connie’s version of the truth. They’re pretty wide apart.”

Three months before Walter passed, Conley invited Connie her to her house for a conversation. The two had been close for a long time, and Conley felt compelled to finally share an important detail. When Connie arrived, Conley told her about Nigel, the out-of-wedlock son who was now fourteen years old. “I think you deserve the chance to confront Walter about this before he dies,” Conley said. “You have that right.”

Connie’s response stunned Conley. “She told me she’d once asked Walter if he had any other children, and he said no,” she recalled. “Connie said she believed him. I don’t see how she could have, but she said she believed him. Maybe she just didn’t want to believe the entire truth, because it killed her whole narrative.”

Walter Payton took his final breath right around noon on a Monday afternoon. As is the case with most passings, a prolonged numbness ensued. Family members and friends grieved, former teammates were contacted, the Chicago media was alerted. President Bill Clinton issued a statement, marveling how Payton, “faced his illness with the same grit and determination that he showed every week on the football field.” As the news began to make its way across talk radio, one listener after another called in, sharing stories and memories of a man who ranked alongside Ernie Banks as a Windy City icon. Bob Armstrong, an Oswego, Illinois, resident and lifelong Bears fan, was driving past the Roundhouse restaurant when he learned Payton had died. “With tears in my eyes I pulled over to visit the little museum they had inside,” Armstrong said. “I knew the hostess, and she said, ‘Bob, what brings you here?’ ”

“I just heard,” Armstrong said, “and I wanted to pay my respects.”

“Heard what?” she replied.

“Walter,” Armstrong said. “He’s dead.”

Silence.

The
Chicago Daily Herald
asked readers to send in their best Payton anecdotes. A former Burger King drive-thru worker named Phil Lawitz recalled the time he screwed up Payton’s order, but still landed an autographed napkin. Sue Matthews told of Payton passing a little boy his Super Bowl ring through a crowd at the Chicago Auto Show. “I had always admired Walter Payton as a role model for children,” she wrote, “but from that moment on I also looked at him as a truly gentle man.”

Quirk had worked with Payton for fourteen years. She was now five months pregnant and, upon receiving the call from Matt Suhey, in a state of shock. “How could he be dead?” she said later. “Even though we all saw it coming . . . it still didn’t seem real. Walter Payton no longer alive?” After collecting herself, Quirk realized there was nobody inside the home at 34 Mudhank who would take the initiative and handle arrangements. She went ahead and called the Davenport Family Funeral Home in Barrington, booked the date and time, even picked out the blue suit Payton would wear for his family’s final private viewing. She spent fifteen hundred dollars on flowers and paid a handful of moonlighting police officers thirty-five hundred dollars to provide extra security in the coming days.

When Quirk arrived at the house, she was disheartened to hear Connie and Alyne, Walter’s mother, discussing burial options. “Alyne was a devout Baptist, and apparently Baptists don’t believe in cremation,” said Quirk. “But Walter had told me, in very direct terms, that he was to be cremated, not buried. He even wrote it in his will. The truth was, in fifteen years I never knew Walter as someone who willingly went to church. Ever. He was not a religious man, and he wanted to be cremated.”

When Quirk told the family of Walter’s wishes, they resisted. There was a lovely cemetery a stone’s throw away from South Barrington, and beneath an oak tree Walter could . . .

“Guys, I’ll help you with everything, but I’ll go to war on this,” Quirk said. “He’s going to be cremated. He wished it. He wrote it. The least we can do is honor that request.”

The family begrudgingly acquiesced, and the funeral parlor agreed to perform the cremation. When it came to the memorial service, however, Connie had her own ideas. Although Payton spent many of his final days staring up from his bed at a vulture-like gaggle of preachers and reverends, he was hardly a man of deep faith. Did he believe in God? Yes. Did he believe that Jesus was Lord? Perhaps. Had he lived what any rational human being would describe as a wholesome, Christ-like existence? Not in years. The young Walter Payton who attended team Bible studies and spoke glowingly of God’s magical ways had existed a long time ago. On his deathbed, a medicated Payton listened as Keith Russell Lee, pastor of the Destiny Church and Walter’s self-described “spiritual coach,” utter the words “Jesus” and “heaven.”

Does that make a man a believer? Apparently so.

The funeral was to be held on Friday, November 5, at Connie’s place of worship, the Life Changers International Church in Barrington Hills. Because of Payton’s celebrity status, it would be an invitation-only affair. Quirk consulted with Kimm Tucker and Ken Valdiserri, the Bears vice president of marketing and broadcasting, and the three compiled the guest list. Even though Payton disdained politics and barely knew the men, Governor George Ryan and Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley were must-haves. So, Quirk initially thought, was O. J. Simpson, Payton’s gridiron rival who, in the years since his retirement, had gone on to fame as an actor, football commentator, and alleged murderer. When Marcus Allen, the legendary Raiders and Chiefs halfback, said he wouldn’t attend if Simpson were present, the Juice was left off the list. The most complicated issue had to do with Lita Gonzalez, the girlfriend of nearly eleven years. On the day after Payton’s death, Gonzalez called Kimm Tucker to find out when she should fly in for the funeral. Tucker nearly dropped the phone. “Lita, I don’t care what relationship you had with Walter,” she said. “If you come the world will look at you as the mistress. I don’t care that he didn’t live with Connie. When the rubber hits the road she’ll be the widow and you’ll be the mistress, and people despise the mistress.”