Troika (11 page)

The coach looks around and points to one of our offensive players, a tight end, and tells him to go fill in for the player who just got hurt. The tight end is huge and not too fast, and he says coach, I never played corner in my life. That’s when Julian steps in, says coach, let’s put Roger in. Now, I’m standing right next to the coach with my clipboard and my pencil, keeping the stats, and I’m thinking this has to be some sort of cruel joke or maybe Julian got the name wrong, but Julian’s not the type of guy to make cruel jokes and he’s certainly not the type of guy to mix up a name.

The coach looks at Julian like he’s nuts, which in a weird, controlled way he is, and says
Roger
?
You want me to put
Roger
in? And Julian says yes, I want you to put Roger in. Just like that, real matter-of-fact. The coach looks at me and back to Julian and back to me, then pauses for a few seconds and says Roger you’re in. Julian’s got a way about him, you know. People tend to do what he says. And not because he’s threatening, but because he’s, well . . . Anyway, I’m so excited I can barely find my helmet. I run out on the field and the first thing I’ve got to do is cover Livingston’s wide receiver, who’s all-county and runs like a goddamn greyhound.

Their quarterback, a colossal prick named Ferrara, sees me limp out onto the field and he yells, real loud for everyone to hear, not just everyone on the field but everyone in the stands too, my parents included. He screams we got gimpy on the right, we’re going at gimpy. And sure enough, the first pass he throws is in my direction. I read the play correctly, because that’s all I do is study offenses and learn how our defense works, but there’s no way I can stay with their receiver. He blows right by me and picks up thirty yards on the first play. Now, no one is feeling worse than me, and in the huddle, I say to Julian that maybe I should get out, bring in one of the other guys. I’m afraid I’m going to lose it for us, but Julian looks at me and says don’t worry. Don’t worry? I ask. How
can
’
t
I worry?

Sure enough, the next play they go after me again. And it’s even worse this time because Ferrara names a play after me, and at the line he calls out
gimpy forty-five, gimpy forty-five.
And he screams so loud that I know my parents can hear. I cringe, try not to look up into the stands. So they beat me over and over, pass after pass, until they’re on our eight-yard line with five seconds left, and by this time I’m crying so hard I can barely breathe. Livingston lines up for a field goal, a little chip shot to win the game. We’re in the huddle and I’m sobbing, apologizing to my teammates. I can’t bear to look in the stands and see my parents, the pain on their faces. Just then, Julian puts his hand on top of my helmet, looks around at all of us and says don’t worry, it’s their time to suffer now. Julian looks at our nose tackle, the position right across from their center, and says I’ll take your guy.

So we line up, Julian right across from the center who is going to snap the ball. We all know what’s about to happen. The center is going to snap the ball. The holder will place the ball. The kicker will kick the ball and we will lose the championship. From this distance, it’s a gimme. But Julian apparently has another outcome in mind, and before the center can snap the ball, Julian smacks it out of his hands. Well, that’s a penalty, and the ref marches off four yards, half the distance to the goal line. That’s the rule. When you have a penalty that close, they walk off half the distance. Now it’s an even closer field goal, a chip shot, and we’re all figuring that Julian is just blowing off some steam, venting his frustration. The Livingston coach is furious, half the crowd starts booing and I just want the game to end so I can get the hell off the field and hide somewhere.

The center gets down in position and puts his hands on the ball, ready to snap it. And then Julian does it again! Smacks the ball out of the center’s hands. Now the booing is even louder, and the Livingston guys are calling him a sore loser and an asshole. Another
penalty, half the distance to the goal line and now they’re at the two. Then he does it again. A penalty and now to the one. And again and again and again and again; the half-yard line, quarter yard, eighth of a yard, sixteenth, and the ref is having a harder and harder time trying to spot the ball. Finally, after about the tenth penalty, the ref places the ball on the grass and the tip touches the goal line. Touchdown! the ref yells, and the game is over.

No one on the field feels worse than I do, because I’m the one who lost the game for us. I’m crying and I look up in the stands and see my parents standing there in the front row. My mom has her hand over her chest and I can tell she’s having trouble breathing. My dad is standing up straight, stiff and proud. He grinds his teeth, which is what he always does when he feels powerless. It’s also his way of holding back tears.

I walk off the field, trying my hardest not to limp, trying not to be noticed. And then something magical happens. Julian walks over to the ref. He puts his arm around the ref’s shoulder and says it’s not a touchdown. And the ref says it sure is a touchdown, the ball’s touching the goal line. Julian shakes his head, smiles, says it can’t be, because what we’ve got here is Zeno’s Paradox. Zeno’s what? the ref wants to know. Zeno’s Paradox. Zeno was a Greek philosopher, Julian explains, said if you keep moving half the distance toward a fixed end point, you can never get there. The ref looks confused. Think about it, Julian says, there’s always a smaller amount of distance that can be covered. You might need a damn microscope to calculate the distance, but you can never get to the end point. The ref is pulling at his chin with his thumb and index finger, starts nodding his head up and down, and says yes, yes, I think I see what you mean. And then he waves his hands wildly and declares no touchdown, the ball will be placed at the one-centimeter line. Zeno’s Paradox, the ref yells.

Well, the Livingston players go nuts and their coach starts screaming who the fuck is Zeno? And the ref says he’s a Greek philosopher, and the coach responds, well, what the hell does a Greek know about American football? And the ref says Alex Karras was Greek, and he played pro for the Lions and knew a hell of a lot about football. Then the coach screams at the ref, says coach, your mother must have been a mongoloid, and the ref understandably calls an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, because who uses a word like that,
mongoloid
, that’s just terrible and bizarre, and the ref sets Livingston back fifteen yards. Next thing, one of their players sticks his finger in the ref’s chest and says Zeno was a mongoloid
and
a homosexual, and damned if anyone has any idea what that even means, but the ref gives Livingston another fifteen-yard penalty, and now they’re backed up to the thirty-yard line. Plus a centimeter. It takes a few minutes for them to calm down, and they finally get lined up again for the field goal. But because they’re so far out now, the kicker has to change the trajectory of the ball, has to hit it lower to get the distance.

The center snaps the ball and the kicker takes his shot, but hits it so low that Julian blocks it and the ball hits the ground. It bounces right in front of Julian, and all he has to do to end the game—there’s only a couple of seconds left at this point—all he has to do is to fall on the ball. But instead he picks it up and he grabs me by the jersey and says you’re coming with me. And before I can say no, he hands me the ball and pushes me forward, toward Livingston’s end zone. Everyone is so dazed by what happened that I’m halfway down the field before anyone notices. Julian is running by my side, keeping his eye on the Livingston players, blocking for me.

I’m fifteen yards from the end zone and I glance up to the stands and there’s my parents, clapping like circus seals and my dad is crying, he’s so happy. Ferrara, the prick who called gimpy forty-five, is
chasing me and I’m running so slow with my bad foot that he’s getting closer and closer, and I don’t think I can make it. So I try to lateral the ball to Julian, put it right in his hands. But he just hands it right back to me. Unfinished business, he says, and he’s gasping for air, maybe because he’s exhausted or maybe it’s the adrenaline. Ferrara is now within a couple of yards of me. Julian trails behind, his eyes on Ferrara. Five yards from the end zone and I’m pushing as hard as I can. My bad foot hurts because it’s just not designed to run this fast, this hard, and I don’t think I can make it. I look back and Ferrara is just a couple of feet behind me now, but Julian is right there between us.

Gimpy forty-five! Julian yells at Ferrara. Gimpy fucking forty-five! Then Julian digs his cleats into the ground and plants his legs. He cocks his shoulder and launches himself into Ferrara with a violence and a force that is difficult to describe. I’m right there and I hear the crack of bones, the blast of air expelled from a person’s lungs, an inhuman groan. As I cross the goal line, I look back. Ferrara is on the ground. He’s unconscious. His left arm is splayed out like the broken wing of a bird. Blood pours from his nose. Julian stands above him, defiant, victorious. He looks like Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston in that famous picture. You know the one?

Gimpy fucking forty-five, Julian yells at Ferrara, at Ferrara’s body. He pauses. Gimpy forty-five, he says. Then, in a soft voice, he whispers gimpy forty-five. He whispers something I can’t understand. It sounds like
moht
. Years later, I would learn what he said. Mother. He said
mother
, in Russian. And then Julian starts to cry. First, soft tears, then stronger, louder. Gimpy forty-five, he wails. He kneels down and pounds his fist in the mud. And all of us, all of his teammates, gather around him, standing in a circle around Julian. We’re quiet, shielding him from the crowd, from the
Livingston guys, who are furious and trying to lift Ferrara off the ground, get him medical help. We’re respectful of what is happening to Julian. And even though we don’t fully understand it, we know it’s important.

We wait in that circle for five minutes. We hold hands, real quiet, rock back and forth on our feet. We’re patient, awaiting a cue from Julian. Then he rises. There are quiet hugs and pats on the helmets. Not the euphoria of a championship, but a somber satisfaction. It’s not a time for celebration. It’s a time for reflection, a time for each of us to recalibrate our understanding of the world and the extent to which a person can go when pushed to a limit, the extent to which a person
should
go when he finds himself standing before that line—the line where things really start to matter.

Why Julian cried, Roger says, I don’t know. And I never asked him. Maybe it was Ferrara’s cruelty. Or maybe having to right a wrong—and using violence to do it. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe it was something entirely different. Maybe he wasn’t avenging me. Maybe it was his own rage, his own trauma that he was trying to fix. Maybe this was Julian righting a wrong done to him. His childhood, losing his parents so young. In a way, it didn’t matter,
doesn
’
t
matter, because it can be any one of those things. Or it can be all of them, right? It just depends on who you are and how your life goes. If you got lucky or not.

Roger finishes off the beer. He holds the empty bottle up to the light. It’s pretty when the light hits it, he says. He holds it up at a different angle near my eyes so I can see for myself. There’s a blinking red light above the bar that hits the amber glass and creates a pretty color—and I say it sure is nice when you look at it like that and almost makes you forget that we’re in such an ugly place. Roger smiles. I guess so, he says.

He stands up, struggles with his bad foot and I grab his arm to
keep him from falling over. He looks at me sort of embarrassed, I’m thinking maybe ’cause he almost fell or maybe ’cause he told me such a personal story, and he leans over and kisses me on the cheek. Nothing creepy, but real sweet like Old Pepe used to kiss me. He says nice to meet you, Perla, but I have a flight to catch. And before he turns to leave, he touches his hand to my cheek, again real sweet and caring, and he says Julian will be back one day, I’m banking on it. And if you could, please be kind to this man. And patient, too. Because things are more complicated than you think. A
lot
more complicated.

J
ulian Pravdin awoke—not to the sound of her choking, and not to a remarkable clearing of the throat, but rather to nothing more than the faintest hint of a gasp emanating from the parched throat of his paralyzed wife. The brain, he once read, has malleable properties. Neuroplasticity, they call it. The injured brain, the weak brain, the brain with diminished capacity can evolve, mutate, compensate for its deficiencies. It can create new neural pathways, new connection points, new wiring. The brain, he learned after the accident, can remap itself.

And so it was, after Sophie became paralyzed from the waist down, that not only did her brain crackle and spark and mutate into a different organ, one that allowed her to exist, to eat, to drink, to brush her teeth, to communicate, to laugh, to grieve—to extract some modest amount of pleasure from a life that had become
irreversibly less enjoyable, but so did Julian’s own brain undergo a conversion.

In response to her injury, Julian’s hearing became acute, animal-like, so that he could now register in the early morning darkness her somnolent gurgle before it occurred. His myopic vision, once the object of Sophie’s playful ridicule, could now detect in the lilac twilight a nearly invisible, purplish hue in her calf, a ruptured capillary that foretold a circulatory crisis. And his sense of smell became so acute that, from a distance of twenty feet, enveloped even amid the foul stench of a Chinatown street in August, the odor of feces from her soiled diaper would rip through his nasal concha and set off his olfactory receptors—prompting Julian to move his wife to a bathroom and clean her up as she grimaced in shame.

And it was these heightened sensitivities that allowed Julian to care for his wife, to keep her alive, to ensure that her reservoir of dignity would remain protected, untouched.

When Julian heard her gasp, a result of the sleep apnea that had plagued her since the accident, he turned and reached for her shoulder—and at that moment of contact, the muscles in the back of her throat flickered and tensed, opening the passageway and again permitting the free flow of air. Julian reached for a pillow. He watched her lips twitch, listened for her raspy exhale. He lifted the pillow and observed the contour of her face, the bump on the bridge of her nose, the beauty mark on her right cheekbone, a pale scar along her hairline—imperfections that perfected her.

As if he were strangling the last breath from his most odious enemy, Julian squeezed the pillow. He calculated the angle of his approach and cleared a strand of hair from Sophie’s forehead. Then he lifted her left shoulder and wedged the pillow underneath her, elevating her upper torso and turning her slightly to the side—
a position that drew her tongue away from the back of her throat and allowed her to breathe more freely.

Julian rose and moved to the foot of the bed. There, he checked to make sure that the compression machine was functioning, that it continued to slide up and down Sophie’s attenuated legs every five minutes, stimulating the flow of blood, maintaining what little muscle tone remained. Satisfied, Julian returned to bed. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. He listened to Sophie’s breathing—smooth, metronomic. Grateful, he closed his eyes and wished for a quick transition back to sleep, the opportunity for two more hours before the day started.

Julian reached for Sophie’s hand. It was gelid, wet. He squeezed tightly, hoping to transfer his body heat to her. He stared up at the ceiling, at the ornate molding surrounding the room. He recalled their first visit to the apartment, an innocent time when they were propelled forward by a surge of optimism, giddy, buoyant—how Sophie gasped when she saw the twelve-foot ceilings and the intricate molding, how she pressed her hands to her chest and mouthed the word
wow
. Julian had noted his wife’s reaction. He turned to the broker and said we’ll take it. It’s ten million, the broker replied, and they received an offer this morning for the asking price. Then make it ten-five, Julian said. All cash.

The recollection of that joyous day had a soothing physiological impact on Julian. His heart rate slowed, his breathing deepened, his jaw loosened, his otherwise busy mind approached stillness. But then, mere seconds from unconsciousness, a siren roared down Fifth Avenue and the frantic howl created in him an instant mental acuity that precluded sleep.

Conceding the hopelessness of it all, Julian lifted the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He repositioned the cashmere blanket so that Sophie’s shoulders were covered. He stepped
out of the bedroom and down the hallway—toward the bathroom—in a manner designed to reduce noise and thus avoid waking Sophie: shoulders hunched together and pushed up toward his ears, forearms pressed against his rib cage, and tender steps taken not on the soles of his feet, but on the balls and toes. Still, despite this deft technique, it seemed that each such carefully orchestrated step transferred to the wooden floor the same amount of pressure as any uninhibited step—and as Julian made his way to the bathroom, each step noisily announced his departure.

Sophie’s eyelids lifted. She scanned the room, the scope of her vision limited by her immobility—a range of no more than 135 degrees, as she had once calculated from this very same position. A strand of warm drool slid from her mouth. She reached over and felt the empty bed next to her, the perspiration, the dampness left behind by her husband. She closed her eyes.