Read Online The Legend of Jesse Smoke by Robert Bausch - Free Book Online Page B

our drills, but I was so wrapped up in the mechanics of how I was going to show her off to the guys in camp, having her run a few plays against the men, that I’d forgotten one important skill necessary to play quarterback. And then, when I heard her yell during the celebration, it hit me. Her voice. I’d never paid much attention to it. From the stands I hadn’t been able to hear it, and she never called signals when we practiced. (I started every play by hollering “Go,” which is pretty stupid, even for an NFL assistant like me.) Her form was so good—the whole picture she presented when she dropped back to pass and let the ball go, the accuracy of every throw one after another, the way she handled the ball, faking a handoff to the running back—it filled everything I thought and believed about her. So I’d never really thought about calling signals. The thing is, you got to shout pretty loud to do that. And when you do, you better have a voice men respond to.
    Jesse had a pleasant voice when she talked, but I have to say, when I heard her during the celebration, when she hollered so she could be heard above all the others, it sounded a little too much like a bleat—like somebody just stomped down on a guinea pig. Hearing that, I got this sudden blast of fear that cramped my heart, and maybe that is what got me started; maybe her high-pitched voice prompted me to think about the future with such nerve-racking anxiety. I didn’t want her to be hurt by any experience I might be setting her up for.
    Others in the loud celebration talked to me and hugged me, but my eyes never left her. I saw how her eyes lit up for every face, how she pulled her teammates together for photographs and videos, the way she refused to hog the limelight. She drank a toast to Michelle, Cissy, and Brenda. Then to the defense. Then she yelled again, a god bless to her coach, Andy Swilling. He picked her up again and then the other players joined him and they held her over their heads.
    I drove home that night with the contract I was supposed to get her to sign still in my pocket.

    Now I’m telling you, it was not my conscience that plagued me. I didn’t think I was actually doing anything wrong. I just got cold feet thinking of all the cards stacked against what I knew for sure now I wanted to do. And I felt as though I might have manipulated Jesse somehow—okay, that would involve my conscience, sure. But it wasn’t that. I can’t really explain how I was feeling except to say that she was young, and she trusted me—working together I’d even gotten to know her a little—and I couldn’t help realizing that, on some level, I was engineering this situation in which she would very likely be totally humiliated. More likely than not, they’d laugh her off the field. She was a woman, and football is a man’s game. No matter how well she threw the ball, they wouldn’t let her do enough of it to really see it; she would be this freak in a football uniform, a curiosity. And I didn’t want that for her. I could just imagine theoffensive linemen laughing at that high-pitched voice of hers as she called signals. I even wondered on some level whether they’d be willing to block for her, to give their best effort in protecting her when she dropped back to pass. And would any of the men be willing to play for her? Follow her?
    Thinking about all of this made me more than sad. I was already grieving a terrible loss and nothing had even happened yet. I kept asking myself what I was trying to do. What was going through my mind when I told Coach Engram I had found a quarterback; when I bothered to get a contract for her? It hit me, then, that the whole thing might very well cost me my job—especially if I spent any of the team’s money to sign her.
    I could pay her out of my own pocket, I supposed, but what if she got hurt? What if somebody fell on her and crushed her rib cage? Who would be liable for that?
    The more I thought about it, the