The Legend of Jesse Smoke (11 page)

She watched me. There was something less innocent about her expression. “You’re a pro now,” I said. It was just beginning to sink in, what I had done, and my own old heart was beating like a revved-up engine.

“I was already a pro.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m nervous,” she said.

She didn’t look nervous and I told her that. I said she looked as calm as she ever looked in a game.

“I’ll be calm when I play,” she said.

“Well, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?”

After a while, she said, “Are folks going to hate me?”

“Why would anybody hate you?”

She shrugged. “Maybe some of the men on the team? You know, people don’t like things to change and … this is definitely gonna change a few things.”

“You’ll get paid a lot of money. Right?”

She nodded.

“Far as I know, the worst thing that can happen’s we won’t get permission to put you on the field in a game. Even then, you’ll turn a few heads, that’s for damn sure. And some folks will learn a few things about themselves, maybe.”

“That’s it?” She put her hands around her half-empty glass of beer, studied it for a minute, then looked at me—looked right through me as a matter of fact.

“I don’t want to mislead you, Jesse,” I said. “You probably will never really get a chance to play. But if that turns out to be the case, it certainly won’t be for any lack of talent, that’s for sure.” As soon as I finished talking, I wished I hadn’t gotten so sensible and matter-of-fact on her. She cast her eyes down a bit, then took another gulp of her beer.

“I don’t want to be some kind of sideshow,” she said. “Not for any amount of money.”

“You won’t be.”

“I’m going to earn this money, or I give it back.”

“Don’t even say such a thing, Jesse, you hear? You don’t give back one red cent of it.”

“Then they’ll have to let me play,” she said. “That’s all.” And then she turned back to me and the steely look in her eyes sent a chill down through me. “Somebody’s going to have to
tell
me why I can’t—that I’m not good enough.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, and so just gave a chuckle at this marvel of a woman I was sitting beside.

“You get me on the field, Skip.”

“I will.”

“I’ll do the rest.”

This woman was a quarterback right down to her toes. I found myself chuckling again.

“What’s so funny?”

“No, it’s just—you remind me of a quarterback I played with.”

“Really?”

“It’s just the way he used to talk. They all have confidence; if they lose it, the game is over for them. But some, you’d have to amputate an arm or a foot to get their belief to sag even a little bit.”

“Who was he?”

“Jonathon Engram,” I said. “The head coach of the Washington Redskins.”

I finished my drink and got up. “Look, I’m not staying for the interview. You take it from here.”

She nodded.

“Only, remember, it’s—”

“A secret. I know. I won’t mention it.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

“This better be good,” Coach Engram said. “A woman better than I was.”

“Just follow me.” I led him out to the practice field, where I already had Darius Exley and Rob Anders waiting for me. I had Dan Wilber, our center, out there, too.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t something I had to work very hard to arrange. I knew the players worked out every Thursday from midmorning to early afternoon, so it was easy to ask them to step out to the field with me when they were done so I could show them something. I had called Jesse that morning and told her to be there at 4 p.m. Now that she’d been officially interviewed by the
Washington Post
, it was only a matter of time before the whole thing came out anyway. “Besides,” I said. “Coach Engram needs something to perk him up for the coming weeks.”

She didn’t laugh.

“You aren’t nervous are you?”

“No. Well, a little maybe.”

“How’d the interview go?”

“He was nice. Wanted to know all about the Divas. Our games, schedules—everything.”

“Did he ask you about the Redskins?”

“He mentioned how absurd it would be if what Roddy said was true.”

I laughed a little, but there was silence from the other end. Then I said, “How’d you manage to keep from showing him your contract?”

“I wouldn’t do that. I promised you I wouldn’t.”

“Even so, I don’t know how you resisted it.”

She drove out to the park around three thirty that afternoon. By the time I had Coach Engram on the way out to the field, she had already thrown several dozen or so passes to Rob and Darius.

“You warmed up?” I asked.

She smiled. I introduced her to the coach and he shook her hand. I saw him look at her hand when she let go of his. She was not a limp handshaker. Her hair was a bit matted with sweat. She was wearing a Redskins jersey, black shorts, and high-top tennis shoes. Her eyes looked as if they gave off light.

“Jesse Smoke,” Engram said. “Where have I heard that name?”

“I mentioned her to you a while back,” I said.

“Really?” He looked at me.

“Well, Jesse,” I said, “how about you show us something, then.”

She stepped onto the field at the 15-yard line. Darius and Rob lined up about 20 yards on opposite sides of the center, where Dan bent over the ball. She got up under center. I didn’t bother to watch much of the action, my attention fixed on Engram. She’d call out a route for Exley, then one for Anders. She’d been doing that for the past half hour or so and at first both were shocked that she not only knew the terminology but understood the routes she called. By now they were used to it. She’d take the snap, drop back, and fire the ball the way she always did. Neither Exley nor Anders had to break stride.
She threw fades, quick outs, quick ins, and hit each receiver where he wanted to be hit. (I had filled her in on that.) The ball never touched the ground, except for when Wilber set it there to hike it again. She hit them from 20, 30, 40, 50 yards. When they got back over to us, they were out of breath. Coach Engram couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Then I said, “From sixty, boys.”

Exley looked at me.

“You don’t have to run it if you don’t want to. Walk on down there, and when you’re sixty yards away from her, start running, do a post pattern.”

But he and Anders both acted like they wanted to see this. They caught their breath, got themselves ready, then stood on the line of scrimmage. Jesse got the snap from center and Darius took off. She dropped back about seven steps and Darius, running full speed, cut at the 35-yard line all the way on the other side of the field, toward the goalposts, at which point Jesse snapped the ball off and dropped it just over his right shoulder, at about the 18-yard line. It was nearly 70 yards in the air. It should have dropped over his left shoulder, so the pass was off and he had to twist himself to get it, but get it he did.

“Over the wrong damned shoulder,” she said. She picked up another ball. Then more to herself than anybody else, she said, “Could score on a play like that.”

Then Anders took off. He could run, too. She hit him at the same distance, but this time she put it out in front of him so that he ran under it. It had to be 70 yards at least. She was really on. Of all the balls she threw, only one of them was even slightly off target, and the receiver had caught it anyway.

Coach Engram turned to me, smiling. “Goddamn,” he said. “You’re right. She can throw it better than anybody on this team.”

“You owe me a dinner,” I said.

“Sign her up.” He was making a joke.

“I did,” I said.

It was priceless watching his face change in the silence that ensued. You could see it hit him—first the shock of it, and then the realization. “You actually
did
?”

“It’s on me,” I said. “You had nothing to do with it.”

But he was smiling. “You son of a bitch.”

I thought I’d won. His smile seemed the satisfied kind—as if he was glad I’d taken care of this thing, glad I’d protected him from ridicule. “Okay. Back to the office,” he said.

I walked over to the guys. “Not a word of this to anyone. You got it?”

Exley said, “What’s it all about?” That was four words more than I’d heard him say in a year.

“Just keep quiet about it until we tell you otherwise.”

Dan Wilber patted Jesse on the back. “I didn’t hurt your hands did I? Snapping you the ball?”

She gave him a look.

“I didn’t do it as hard as we’re supposed to, you know.”

“So do it,” she said. “As hard as you want. I won’t drop it.”

“Really?”

“My father was a center,” she said. “He hit my hands a lot harder than you’re going to.”

“We’ll see.”

“How ’bout right now?”

Coach Engram had walked a bit up the path toward his office, but he was close enough to hear this exchange. He stopped and turned to watch. Jesse took snap after snap from Wilber. He kept hitting her hands with the ball as hard as he could. You could hear the sound the ball made slapping her palms. She’d take it, step back, and then flip it back to him. “You can start anytime,” she said. You’ve never seen anybody more calm. She was being tested and she knew it, but she turned it around and after a while, it was Wilber who was being tested. He couldn’t even make her wince.

Finally he gave her a sheepish smile. “You can take it, I’ll say that.”

“Come on, Granger,” Engram said.

“Be right there.” I turned back to all of them. “Listen, you guys. And that means you, too, Jesse. Not a word of this to anybody. You got it? Until we tell you.” I gave Jesse a wink, then followed Engram back to his office. All the way back I could see him thinking. He said nothing. As we were entering the building, I looked back to see Jesse flipping the ball back and forth with Anders and Exley. Wilber stood there watching her, his arms folded. I figured if I got him on my side, the others might fall in line. He was a team captain and the players respected him.

In the office, Coach Engram sat behind his desk and motioned for me to take a seat across from him. I thought we’d talk about how we would spring it on the owner and the rest of the players. The media would be a problem, too. I hadn’t realized I still had some work to do.

“Tell me this is one of your practical jokes,” he said. “It is, isn’t it?”

“Not at all.”

He opened a box on his desk and offered me a cigar. I declined, but he took one out, cut the tip off it, and, in the ominous silence that had come over the room, lit it. When he was puffing, he looked at me. “You all right, Skip?”

I nodded.

“You didn’t actually sign that—you didn’t actually sign a woman to the team.”

“I did. You approved it.”

He shook his head slowly.

“You did. The very last time I sat in this office. You told me to go to Charley and get a standard contract. A one-year rookie contract.”

“How much did you give her.”

“The standard.”

“And the bonus.”

I swallowed hard. Then I said, “Seventy thousand.”

“God
damn
it, Skip.” He pushed his chair back. Now the cigar looked like a weapon. He held it up, pointing it at me as he spoke. “You realize the trouble you’ve gotten us into?”

“What trouble? She can play. You saw her.”

“I saw her throw a few balls to wide-open receivers with nobody in her face. A lot of people—men, mind you—can do—”

“Not at seventy yards, they can’t.”

“Come on, Skip—distance doesn’t mean a thing.”

“Did when
you
were playing.”

This quieted him a bit. He puffed, looking out his window.

“I signed her, Coach. You didn’t. It’s on me. Put the whole thing on me.”

“And what do you think we’re gonna do with her?”

“Put her out there with the team, let the boys charge at her, watch it. Damn it, Jon, I’ve seen her under game conditions.”

“Where?”

“She plays women’s professional football.”

He smirked. “Really?”

“I’ve watched her in rain; I’ve watched her get slammed to the ground as hard as any linebacker in this league can slam a guy down. I’ve seen her under pressure, laying it up or firing it on a line. She can do it all.”

Now he was laughing. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Did you notice her footwork?”

“Goddamn it, Skip.”

“Look,” I said. “You’ll take the heat for this, no matter what we tell folks—I know that. You just have to trust me.”

“It’s not a matter of trust.”

“What can it hurt to give her a shot? You ever heard of Branch Rickey?”

“What?”

“The guy who put Jackie Robinson on a baseball field and—”

“This is not the same thing.”

“Maybe not exactly, but it’s sure as hell close.”

“Women aren’t clamoring to play professional football.”

“They got their own leagues. Just like the blacks did.”

“You could lose your job, Skip. I do hope you know that. And that seventy grand’s coming out of your pocket, too. Did you think of that?”

“I’m willing to take that risk.”

“I can’t do anything to save you. You gotta understand that, okay? I want nothing to do with this. You sell it. You take the heat for it.”

“I’ll take the heat,” I said, and I meant it. “He can fire me if he wants. I’m not crazy, I’ve got good sense. She can play. I know it.”

He shook his head. He kept shaking it, looking at me. Then he said, “Damn it to hell.”

“You once told me I had an eye for talent.”

“Yeah, minus some mental faculties, apparently.”

“I’m telling you, Jon, she’s the best I’ve ever seen.”

“Are you involved with her?” His right eyebrow shifted up a little.

“What? I’m old enough to be her father.”

“And that doesn’t answer the question.”

“No, I’m not
involved
with her. I don’t even think she’s
got
a boyfriend. Look, she’s as good as you were, Jon. And that’s the truth.”

“Can she run?”

“You bet she can. You should see her footwork. Didn’t you notice how smoothly she took the five- and seven-step drops?”

“I didn’t, actually.”

“Looks like Bob Griese. Or you.”