Safety Last
by Robert Nersesian
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
conclusion
The Illinois game.
With two minutes left to play, Syracuse leads by six points. But Illinois drives the ball down to Syracuse’s three-yard line. An Illinois touchdown will tie the game and the almost-guaranteed extra point will win it.
The Syracuse defense goes into overdrive, yielding only two yards on the next three plays. Illinois has one play left with a minute to go. They try to sneak their quarterback into Syracuse’s end zone. Syracuse’s tackles and linebackers stop him.
The Syracuse defenders celebrate, but their coaches know it’s too soon to cheer. With a one-point lead and forty-five seconds to go, the Syracuse offense has its back against the wall. It must advance the ball off their very vulnerable one-yard line while killing off the balance of time. It’s a matter of poise and ball control.
Armen is the go-to solution for this. Give it to the workhorse to punch things forward.
He trots out with the rest of the offense to the one-yard line.
Hey! Armen stops short. Looks around. You! That voice. He looks around, falcon eyes magnifying across each of the eighty-thousand spectators. Here. The brown wool clump. Up high in the rafters. Watching him.
Armen shakes his head clear. No good. Now, in the huddle. Can’t hear. He knows the ball’s coming to him but what’s the play?
The huddle breaks, the front men line up. What’s the cadence call? When do we start the play?
Stiggers, the Syracuse quarterback: “Green 80, green 80, hut-hut—”
The opposing lines detonate. Armen is a half-second late out of his stance. Stiggers hands him the ball. Armen stumbles. An Illinois linebacker and tackle go for his arm, the one carrying the ball.
The ball pops out in Syracuse’s end zone. Brahma bulls falling on the ball. A cascade of undaunted youth. The referees dig among the bodies. Who has the ball? An Illinois defensive end, cradling it like a newborn. Armen spooned against him in conjugal agony. Illinois has scored a touchdown, tied the game. Before they can kick the extra point for the win, Armen is carried off the field. He’s not unconscious; he pretends to be.
* * *
The next day, Sunday, the team — and Armen — must watch film of the game including the bitter end.
Then, the new depth-chart is posted to reflect who’s injured, who’s promoted. There, for the team to see, is Tommy Scatback. First-string running back. Armen’s name only appears on the specialty team list. Purgatory.
The next game is against Central Michigan. In the week of practice leading to up it, Armen placidly watches Coach M. retool Syracuse’s running attack around Tommy Scatback. Instead of Armen’s battering-ram power, runs are now about deception: how the blockers line up, new running lanes, options. Speed is penultimate. The Syracuse linemen, the “hogs,” the ones who block for Armen, are excited. Something new. Retribution for the Illinois loss.
The retooled offense clicks into place. Syracuse beats Central Michigan 42-10. Tommy Scatback runs rings around the Central Michigan defense, scores two touchdowns on long, swerving runs. He catches a pass for a third. He even performs the rare miracle, throwing the ball for a fourth touchdown.
Armen has neither caught nor thrown a ball in his career. Colangelo has built a two-ton deuce, not a Porsche.
Tommy Scatback is the Porsche.
After the game, Armen stands in the communal showers, letting icy water gush over him. He opens his mouth to gulp it down. He hasn’t played a minute. He’s been cut from the specialty teams for not hustling. Even so, he’s sweated through his pads and uniform like a mountain runoff. He has not forgotten his dehydration collapse that first day of summer practice at Douglaston.
Never again.
* * *
He knows which room in the athlete dormitory is Tommy Scatback’s. There’s already been a victory party that night in the room, a forbidden beer orgy along with rough-housing and shouted game sagas. It’s quiet now. 3:30 a.m.
Each room has a tiny balcony, good for wooing the civilians that walk by. The walls are built from cinderblocks, every fifth one jutting out slightly. Made for Romeos.
Armen lives in the dorm. He’s standing outside, at the rear of the building, barefoot in shorts and T-shirt. He enjoys the chill air. He can see Tommy Scatback’s fourth-floor window. He looks around for any passers-by. Seeing none, he begins his climb up the dorm wall.
He summits Tommy Scatback’s balcony. The door is locked. Armen quietly removes the screen from the room’s sliding window. He digs fingernails into a gap between glass and sash, and gently pulls back.
Then, a cuttlefish shifting shapes, he oozes through the window, controlling each move, careful not to disturb Tommy Scatback.
He sits on a desk chair. Watches the sleeping hero of the Central Michigan game. Tommy Scatback doesn’t snore. Barely breathes. His smell is sweet, pristine. Innocent.
Armen watches. He can assess a tackler’s intent before the tackler himself. Now, he’s trying to meld into Tommy Scatback. Gazing, listening, any clue.
Watching. Breaths synched. Ten, fifteen minutes.
Tommy Scatback’s eyes open. He looks at Armen, unsurprised at his presence. Expectant.
They stare at each other for a time. Each takes the other’s measure.
Whatcha’ got in you? If I ran at you, could you take me, bring me down? I know you don’t play defense but... could you?
Tommy Scatback is silent.
They continue to gaze at each other. It’s not a stare-down contest. Something else.
Are you me?
Tommy Scatback turns his head a millimeter left and then right. He gives a tiny grin.
You know why I’m here?
Tommy Scatback tips his head. Affirmative.
So what do I do?
Tommy Scatback goes still. Almost a corpse. No, a ventriloquist’s dummy. Glassy eyes, curved rictus of a mouth. Mocking Armen.
Another ten minutes. Just staring at Tommy. Awaiting an answer. Anything. But Tommy isn’t giving anything up. He knows. He is the golden boy now. The chosen.
Armen understands. He has his answer. He rises, exits through the window, descends from the balcony.
* * *
This day, October 1982
He knows what to expect when he tells Coach M he’s quitting the team. The cajoling, the threats, the dystopia. He has a goddamned Syracuse scholarship and he had goddamn better honor it. No one quits the Syracuse Orangemen. Get your uniform on and be on the field for practice.
Practice field = no Armen.
After a week of practice no-shows, he gets a letter shoved under the door of his dorm room. He’s off the team for unacceptable behavior, the scholarship rescinded.
He goes to the bursar’s office to change his major from physical education to accounting, though he’s not sure what accounting is all about. It’s a foreign land. A black hole. That’s all right. It’s the perfect place for him to travel.
He then proceeds to the financial aid office to apply for work-study assistance. He’s given a job in the cafeteria at 30 hours a week, which allows him to stay at Syracuse. He starts as a busboy, then a line server and, the following year, an assistant catering manager.
In his first weeks working the dining hall, he develops the best possible techniques for cleaning tables and chairs. There seem to be no books on the art form, so he’s happy to be a creator. Sometimes clean-up assignments include the football section. Teammates glance his way, but he’s now the invisible man. Which doesn’t bother him.
Tommy Scatback still quietly presides over meals, and once in a while tilts his head toward Armen with a little hopeful cast in his eyes. Armen, juggling his cloths and spray bottles, wonders about this.
When he returns home for Thanksgiving break, he tells Pops about his decision. No reaction.
Football fades. Now, accruals, cash basis, and variable costs are the elements of his daily workout. He has a knack for it.
This day, 2022
Somewhere along the way, he’s fallen asleep again in the apartment. When he wakes, Csonka, Pops, and Tommy Scatback are standing over him, giving him the eye. How did they get in?
Csonka puts a big paw on Pops’ shoulder. “Good kid.”
“Hmmppff.”
Tommy Scatback looks past Armen, angelic, shimmering.
“What do you have to say?” Armen asks him. “Clamming up as usual?”
Yes.
And, as usual when this happens, Armen rages. He jumps up from his sofa, lifts one of the club chairs, and throws it at Tommy Scatback. The chair passes through him, just like every other time. This only makes Armen angrier.
Csonka and Pops, bemused, step aside to watch the festivities. Armen hurls an ashtray like a discus thrower, missing his mark by ten feet. He picks up the newspapers and tries to cover Tommy Scatback with them. No good. Tommy Scatback simply takes their form, grinning, tossing his head back. Armen clean-and-jerks the sofa over his head and drops it on Tommy Scatback, who pops out through the lower springs, smiling, laughing.
Armen screams in frustration, rushes toward his apartment door, and pulls away the floor lamp jamming it. He spear-chucks the lamp at the three.
He pulls the door off its hinges, rushes down the building corridor and onto Elm Street, still in his underwear.
There’s something going on. Band music, lots of people. Something about this day. He sees marchers on the street, older men wearing stewardess caps. No, that’s not right. His eyes can still magnify things from afar. The cap insignia reads “American Legion, Henry J. Sweeny Post 2.” It’s Veterans Day. The annual parade.
Armen dashes, cutting one way, then another. Back on the field. Dodging the pedestrians, the parade watchers. He hurdles over the police barrier and sprints to the head of the procession. There, he adopts the pace of the seniors, but raises his knees high: a drum major in skivvies, honoring their war service. He escorts the American Legion to City Hall.
There, the Manchester cops can barely keep a straight face as they haul Armen off to jail. Nor can Judge Gatsas, who slaps him with a fine for indecent exposure and a night in the Valley Street lockup to teach him a lesson.
The next morning the guards, who treat him like a local celebrity, send him out the door. Wearing jailhouse paper togs, he shuffles along Elm Street. All along the way, he’s applauded by the junkies, hustlers, homeless denizens of the Queen City. They all know about the Veterans Day Parade, the lead story in the Union Leader.
Past the bars, the deep-fry joints, the empty store fronts, he trudges. He’s the man, their man. Armen kindly waves to his fans.
Beloved. He has returned. Excelsior!
Copyright © 2024 by Robert Nersesian
