The Throwback Special (20 page)

Gary shrugged. “It was a weight,” he said.

Derek leaned toward Gary's ear. “A wait?”

Gary nodded. “A big weight.”

Trent stood in the narrow alley between the wall and the bed. He surveyed the room, nodding. He was satisfied with his work as commissioner. He had had to make some difficult decisions. He had had to guide the group through some unprecedented challenges. He had had to clean a nasty bloodstain out of a jersey in the middle of the night. He reached across the bed to shake hands with Vince, Bald Michael, Gil, Wesley.

“Time to write your memoirs,” Gil said to Trent.

Typically, the commissioner's final duty as commissioner was to select the next commissioner, but Trent could see that the ping-pong balls had at some point been dumped on a bed, and were now dispersed entropically throughout the room—beneath furniture, under the curtain, in the cleat pile. One ball was in the bathroom. Two had been stepped on and dented. One was held tightly in Randy's noninjured hand. One was stuck to a curled piece of athletic tape like a mouse in a trap. It was not a process, Trent observed, that could be easily reversed.

“Guys,” he said.

“Hey, guys,” he said.

Carl stood on a queen bed. His jersey was untucked, and his thigh pads and knee pads had shifted radically away from his thighs and knees. He turned in a circle. He could see everything from up this high. He tried to kick a ping-pong ball, and missed. Andy shuffled past the bed with a bottle of sparkling wine. “Trick or treat!” Carl yelled at Andy, leaning over, pushing his cup into Andy's face. “Say when, brother!” Andy shouted, lifting the bottle, pouring. Carl did not hold the cup at a forty-five-degree angle. He never did say when. Someone flicked the lights off and on, off and on. Someone, maybe Vince, had a few words to say. Tommy raised his cup to Robert, who stood across the room. They had never really spoken that much in all these years. The sparkling wine foamed over the edge of Carl's cup like a fountain, and the men, several of them, howled.

David, the young Web specialist, left the bathroom and stepped past the pile of cleats at the door. None of the men saw him leave the room. He closed the door behind him quietly, then hung the
Do Not Disturb
sign on the handle. He walked down the hallway, past the surveillance camera, toward the elevator. His regular shoes felt strange and soft, and they made no sound on the carpet. He patted his pockets—phone, keys, wallet, mouthguard. His girlfriend, far away, knew nothing about his night. He pressed the button, and waited. Standing by the elevator doors, he could still hear the voices of the men in Room 324, chanting.

It occurred to David only now, outside the room, divested of his gear, that he could do this again next November with his own group of guys. He would not convene here, of course. He would meet in a better hotel, with a better conference room, a better breakfast. He'd use a projector and a big screen, a podium with A/V controls. He'd get new and better uniforms and equipment. He'd find twenty-one guys, the right kind. Certainly he would need a better field, with bright lights and chalked lines. His uncle was an assistant athletic director at a private high school. David nodded. That field was nice. He imagined wearing the old helmet with the single crossbar, breaking the close huddle, jogging to the line of scrimmage, calling the signals, the colors and numbers. He didn't care about a lottery drum—that thing back there on the bed was ridiculous—but he could make something simple, a box with a small hinged opening on the top or the side. And the thing is, there had to be some kind of lottery system, with meticulous rules so that everything was fair. The same guy couldn't be Theismann every year. Everyone would get a chance.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Lisa Bankoff.

Matt Weiland!

Sam MacLaughlin.

Dave Cole.

Remy Cawley.

Lorin Stein.

Nicole Rudick.

Michael Griffith.

The Sustainable Arts Foundation.

The Taft Research Center, University of Cincinnati.

Alice and Claire.

Jennifer Habel.

Kathy Buckley (1947–2014).

Alice Rightor (1920–2015).

Thank you.

Also by
Chris Bachelder

Abbott Awaits

U.S.!

Bear v. Shark

Copyright © 2016 by Chris Bachelder

All rights reserved
First Edition

Portions of this book appeared in a slightly different form in
The Paris Review
.

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Bachelder, Chris.
The throwback special : a novel / Chris Bachelder. — First edition.
pages ; cm
ISBN 978-0-393-24946-0 (hardcover)

1.  Male friendship—United States—Fiction. 2. Masculinity—Social
aspects—United States—Fiction. 3. United States—Social life and
customs—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.A34T48 2016
813'.6—dc23

2015028394

ISBN 978-0-393-24947-7 (e-book)

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