First thing the next morning, we drove to the Athletic Center. We took the damaged SUV to be fixed and used Scott’s Porsche for transportation. The still incomplete center was on the south side of the Michael Jordan sports palace just west of the Chicago River on Grand Avenue. A crowd of reporters milled around the Grand Concourse. The entrance lobby of the Athletic Center was two stories high with pictures of Ernie Banks, Ryne Sandberg, Frank Chance, George Halas, and other Chicago sports heroes of the past blown up large on the walls.
We met Scott’s reporter contact, Doug Clangborn, in a quiet corner near the as-yet-unfinished gift shop. Clangborn was in his fifties, short, bald, and overweight. He rolled an unlit, expensive cigar between his fingers. After Scott introduced me, he said, “I get anything you guys find, right?”
We nodded.
Clangborn said, “The sports guys in this town would go nuts if they knew I was talking to you.”
Scott said, “They’re an okay bunch of guys.”
Clangborn pointed the cigar at me. “You found the bodies in both places.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the connection between the two guys? Strictly business? Lovers?”
“We’re not sure.”
“What do you hope to accomplish talking to Natlik?”
Scott said, “Doug, you know the ground rules. We want to talk to him to find out some information. Until we find out something substantial, we aren’t doing an interview.”
“I can get you an intro, but I can’t guarantee much more than that.”
Scott said, “See if my name makes a difference.”
“You being gay could just turn him off,” Clangborn said.
“We’ve got to try something,” Scott said. “Sometimes athletes will open up to other athletes faster than they will to reporters.”
We watched Clangborn shuffle through the distant mass of people. My lover and I had our hats pulled low over our eyes. We were past masters of blending in. All it normally took was a baseball hat and perhaps sunglasses. It’s surprising how many people don’t notice you when they don’t expect it to be you. No one paid us any mind. They were mostly harassing the detectives we’d met Saturday night. A few minutes later Clangborn returned.
“I’ve seen it a million times,” the reporter said. “Fame reaches to fame. I don’t get how celebrities glom on to celebrities.”
“Sure you do,” I said. “You’ve hung around them long enough. It’s the same for reporters, cops, teachers. Those in the group all speak the same language. For athletes the experience of being in a group together is extremely intense because of the fame and money. These men and women have had unique experiences all their lives. They are probably the star athlete of their hometowns. Did you see the movie
Varsity Blues
or read the book it was based on,
Friday Night Lights
? These men and women have been treated differently all their lives. It takes a strong or special person to come out of such a background even remotely normal. Often they feel that only someone with their experience will understand them.”
“So how does it work for you two guys?”
“We’re in love,” Scott said.
“Sounds sappy,” Clangborn said.
“Works for me,” Scott said.
The noise from the crowd grew. For a moment I thought we’d been recognized. The podium was filled with the dynamic presence and entourage of Cecil Macintire. He had to be over his spotlight-shy grief. Or maybe he wanted to make a spectacle of his sorrow. Cecil looked a whole lot like Charlton Heston after graduating to the role of God on a particularly wrathful day, and he wasn’t happy about it. Cecil had a mane of gray hair that he kept swept back from his forehead.
Cecil leaned into the microphone. “I have a statement to make.” He glanced at a thin sheaf of papers. He looked to be near tears, although I’m told he managed to do this in his radio show studio nearly every day. To what point with an unseen audience, I’m not sure. I was willing to be lenient in these circumstances. The man’s son had died. He said, “My son was dearer than life itself to me. I do not believe any of these ridiculous charges against him. I believe it is a smear designed by my enemies, you know who you are, to destroy me.”
On his shows, he seldom actually named specific groups that he considered enemies. I was told he’d make sly innuendos, roll his eyes, make faces, nothing designed to further rational discourse. All this with a live audience of less than ten people.
Scott said, “Let’s get out of here before I lose what little sympathy I have for the man.”
Outside the sports complex we split with Doug Clangborn.
Half an hour later Scott and I met Natlik in a tiny little restaurant on Orleans Street across from the Merchandise Mart. Natlik looked like a wrestler. He was maybe five eight and 160 pounds. His muscles bulged under his shirt. His neck looked thick and strong. His shoulders massive, his abs taut, his butt slender. He wore a black T-shirt, faded jeans, and a leather jacket.
We sat in a back booth. The place was dim and quiet. It looked as if they’d carpeted the walls and the floor. After we ordered—coffee for Scott, mineral water for Natlik, and diet soda for me—we talked.
Natlik said, “Doug Clangborn said it might be important to talk to you guys. You were in St. Louis and might know stuff. You found the bodies.”
I said, “Ethan and I went to high school together. Scott and I went to St. Louis at the request of his parents to try and find out why Ethan was killed.”
Natlik said, “This is all crazy. I never wanted this kind of publicity. What is someone going to think of me being naked all over the world? I’ve got a mother and father.”
“It wasn’t your fault, was it?” I asked.
“I certainly didn’t consent to it if that’s what you mean. I had no idea he was videotaping me. I looked up to him.”
“How was he as a coach?”
“I wouldn’t have gotten to the Olympics without him. He was great. The best coach I ever had. He was excellent at maximizing a guy’s talents and desires. He didn’t yell or scream. Very quiet and fatherly, soft-spoken. I liked it. My own dad thought berating me constantly would motivate me. Bullshit. I really liked Coach Ethan. That makes me even more pissed off. Why would he do this?”
I asked, “How did you find out he had tapes of you?”
“I heard the first media reports of porn. Then friends began to call with rumors. My dad is a Chicago cop. He has connections in St. Louis. One of his buddies was part of the group that started looking through the pictures. The guy saw mine and called my dad, who has gone nuts about these pictures. He thinks I posed for them. When it comes to porn, people think the worst. Plus a lot of people presume that if you’re a wrestler, you must be gay. Like wrestling is just an excuse for touching guys. You didn’t go out for the football team so you’re not as tough as you should be. You know how they talk about soccer fags or band fags.”
I knew. “Does it make a difference?”
“To my dad it does. I admire you guys for being honest. It’s tough being in the spotlight. Even the little I’ve been in it is rotten. The pressure on you guys must be immense.”
“But you’re not gay?” Scott asked.
“I’ve got a wife and a little boy.”
A classic evasion to a too personal question.
“Did you meet Cormac Macintire?” I asked.
“No.”
“How about Josh Durst?”
“Oh, yeah. Lots of times. He was kind of an assistant at Lafayette. He’d help out as kind of a trainer. He was great at folk remedies for injuries. You know like when the guy in the
Karate Kid
slapped his hands together and then ‘healed’ the kid’s leg.”
“Ethan and Josh were close?”
“They worked together. I never figured either one was gay. Now I think they both must have been. What would be the point of a straight guy taking pictures of naked guys?”
Scott said, “You mean it would be better if they were straight taking pictures of naked guys than if they were gay taking pictures of naked guys?”
“Well, yeah. Then they’d just be in it for the money.”
Isn’t capitalism special.
Scott said, “Isn’t that like a call boy saying that he isn’t gay because he only lets guys blow him?”
“Well, yeah, but isn’t that true?”
I may have realized the futility of debating, but Scott seems to enjoy engaging in rational discourse with everyone from the simplistically illogical to the willfully stupid and crazed right-wingers. I keep telling him rational discourse when connected to the religious right is an oxymoron. He refuses to give up. The man believes in the triumph of reason. I wish I did more than I do.
Before Scott could get in a rejoinder, I asked, “Do you have any notion of when they took pictures of you?”
“I haven’t seen them, but I think it must have been in Chicago at the national college wrestling tournament five years ago.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“I heard from some other guys. That’s when Ethan took pictures of them.”
He pointed to Scott. “He didn’t have pictures of you, did he?”
“No,” Scott said.
Natlik turned to me, “Did you know he was a pornographer?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t it make a difference to you?”
“Not particularly.”
“Why not?”
“Pornography in and of itself doesn’t offend me. His parents and my parents are exceptionally close. He’s an old friend. We care that he died. We’d like to find out why. Can we talk to some of your other friends he took pictures of? Especially to anybody who knew about what was going on.”
“I’m not sure who knew at the time. Nobody ever said anything. A bunch of the guys are going to get together secretly without the press being there. I guess I could invite you guys. You’re not reporters.”
We followed Barney Natlik out US 90 to a sports bar in Schaumburg across from Woodfield Mall. The place had the usual red leather, brass, and ferns surrounded by memorabilia-covered walls. Photos of the 1985 Bears, the 1908 Cubs, the 1917 White Sox. There were also nineteenth-century pictures and scenes of downtown Chicago pre- and post-Great Fire.
Seven guys were gathered at a table in the back of the bar. Two were in their early thirties, muscles gone to seed with potbellies drooping over too tight pants. Two were slender, in their early twenties. Another was a tall redhead. The sixth was muscular, in his late twenties with short, blond hair. He wore construction boots, faded jeans, and a flannel shirt. He looked as if he’d just walked off a building site. Turned out he had. His name was Derrick Kaufman.
The seventh was Shawn Ranklin. We greeted each other warmly. I had not seen him in many years. I remembered him mostly as a redheaded moppet when I’d baby-sat for him when he was five. Now he was tall, thin, and lanky.
After we were all seated, we did a round of “You’re the famous ballplayer,” “You’re the gay guys.”
I call this the
Notting Hill
effect. In that movie Hugh Grant brings Julia Roberts, as the famous actress, to his sister’s birthday party. All of Hugh Grant’s friends and/or relatives are strongly affected by the star’s presence. Imagine if Mark McGwire walked in as your daughter’s or son’s date. All that out of the way, we asked about the pictures.
Instead of answering, Kaufman asked, “Did you guys really find the body? What was it like?”
I was annoyed. It wasn’t that my stint in the marines had made it easy to deal with death, but I was a little less likely than the average person to become upset by coming upon it unexpectedly. I just wasn’t all that eager to get into gross and disgusting. I said shortly, “Cold and bloody.”
“Here and in St. Louis?” Kaufman asked.
I said, “Both places, cold and bloody.” Several of them shivered.
Natlik said, “I don’t want to talk about dead bodies. I want to find out what the hell Ethan Gahain was up to.”
They had all been coached by or at least known Ethan. The older ones, Derrick Kaufman, Ranger Fresten, and Benny Mydans had known Ethan at Carl Sandburg University. The younger ones, Cass Manguel, Floyd Nelis, and Pavel Voronezh, had known Ethan in St. Louis. Only Shawn had known him in both places. They were small enough schools that all the coaches and players from the different sports pretty much knew each other. Only Voronezh was actively being coached by Ethan. Ranklin, Manguel, Nelis, and Voronezh had come to Chicago at Natlik’s urging.
“I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” Kaufman said. “I think it’s cool. I’d like to see what pictures they have of me. I might want a few. I think I’m a stud. I think I still look good naked. If any of them are hot, I’d like to blow it up and put it in my living room.”
“Wouldn’t you feel odd when your mother came over?” Voronezh, the redhead, asked.
“She’s seen me naked.”
“Not as an adult, I hope.”
Kaufman shrugged.
One of the overweight ones, Benny Mydans, agreed with Kaufman. “I looked good back then. I was a runner. I liked wearing the tight shorts. I liked thinking that people could see my prick bulging out. I’m an exhibitionist.”
“We know,” Kaufman said.
There was obviously a story there. “We know what a stud you were with all the girls,” the other overweight one said. He was Ranger Fresten. “We heard enough times about how big your feet were. How they made you a great runner. How their size meant you had a big prick. And how all the women were impressed with your endowment. I heard it more than most because I went to high school with you, too. None of the guys cared then. I doubt if anybody cares now.”
“Coach Gahain obviously cared,” Kaufman said.
“Yeah, well, he was gay,” Fresten said.
I asked, “Was he known as a gay coach? He was married four times to women.”
Fresten said, “Well, I didn’t think he was gay until this picture thing came out. If you’re taking pictures of naked guys, it stands to reason that you’ve got to be gay, doesn’t it? Why else do it? Although, I did meet one or two of his wives. They were nice. Maybe he was like one of those transsexuals or something.”
Kaufman said, “Transsexuals have that sex change operation.”
Fresten said, “No, I think that’s transvestites.”
I wasn’t going to start correcting their sexual misinformation yet.
“Did any of you think he was gay?” I asked.
“What difference does that make now?” Kaufman asked.
“I don’t know about Coach Gahain,” Voronezh said, “but that buddy of his he brought around to help out, that Durst guy. He had to be gay. He always managed to be around the locker room when it was time to shower.”
“There must have been other gay guys on the teams,” Scott said.
“There might have been,” Voronezh said, “but they never told us about it. Durst wasn’t exactly on the team. He was a good athlete. He sure knew how to do a massage to ease sore muscles.”
“Maybe he knew how to massage athletes for another reason,” Kaufman said.
Voronezh looked as if this were a brand-new thought to him.
Cass Manguel, one of the younger ones, said, “I don’t care if he was gay or straight. I’m pissed about this whole thing. I’ve still got sports to play. I could still get to the Olympics. Gahain only coached me my first year out of high school. How can I show up at events with everybody knowing my body’s been plastered all over the Internet? How are you ever going to get any kind of endorsement contracts? Sponsors hate any kind of negative publicity. Nobody says let’s hire the guy who used to be in porn pictures. I love athletics, but I’d also like it to make me rich.”
“You always get so hyper,” Kaufman said. “You were never going to get endorsement contracts. Your ego was always bigger than your common sense. You always get sick before every track meet. You’re always in the john barfing your guts out for half an hour before any competition. How would you being naked on the Internet make a difference in your chances of winning?”
Manguel gripped his bottle of beer. “I’m talking about pride and dignity, two things you obviously don’t understand.”
Fresten said, “You’re a shit, Derrick. You never did win anything. How would you know how it felt?”
“I won plenty.”
“Not when it counted.”
Manguel said, “I think at the very least this must be some kind of sexual harassment.”
“Don’t be dense,” Kaufman said.
Natlik held up a hand. “We didn’t get together to fight.”
“Why did you get together?” I asked.
“We wanted to find out if anybody knew anything,” Natlik said. “Who else there were pictures of. Maybe discuss a classaction lawsuit.”
Ranklin said, “I wanted to be supportive. I don’t think he got anything of me, but if he did, I want to know about it. I think we have good reason to be outraged.”
Manguel said, “I wanted to find out if any of this was mob-connected. Maybe we’re in some kind of danger.”
“Why would we be?” Kaufman asked.
“Are you too stupid?” Manguel asked. “Everybody knows the porn industry is mob-connected.”
Several nods around the table.
“I guess I heard that,” Kaufman said, “but I never associated anything about Coach Gahain with the mob.”
“How would you know?” Manguel asked.
Kaufman said, “I don’t suppose those guys advertised themselves as being mob-connected on their Web site.”
Manguel said, “It’s not funny.”
“Get a grip,” Kaufman ordered.
Natlik said, “I think presuming we’re in some kind of danger because of what we did is irrational. I’m pissed about it, but it’s just pictures.”
Voronezh asked, “Has anybody tried the Internet sites to see what’s actually on them?”
“I did,” Manguel said. “I thought I might have recognized a couple guys from a few of the teams we had meets with, but I didn’t recognize anybody from our program. As the cops go through them, they’ll be able to notify the colleges by the uniforms. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
“We’ve got to try and look at every picture they took,” Voronezh said.
“We found a huge storage facility full of possible porn,” Scott said. “The police are never going to let you look through it.”
Natlik said, “My lawyer said we might be able to get some kind of court order. The cops said all that stuff might be evidence in a murder case.”
“Nobody’s going to care about whether we were naked or not,” Kaufman said. “A year from now, no one’s even going to remember our names connected with this.”
“None of you knew or were suspicious about this beforehand?” I realized as soon as I asked it that this was a fatuous question. Why would anybody admit this in front of witnesses? Then again, maybe somebody secretly knew and had been afraid to tell until now. So I quickly added, “Or heard a rumor or got a notion about what Ethan was up to?”
They all shook their heads.
I asked, “Did he ever try and seduce any of you?”
Head shakes no.
I said, “We heard he asked people to make some videos.”
Except for Kaufman, this didn’t seem to be the kind of crowd that would be willing to discuss voluntary participation in pornographic videos. They’d have to be talked to individually, and they would have to trust us far more than they did now.
“I would have made them,” Kaufman offered. “I’ve always wanted to be in a pornographic video.”
“Why?” Natlik asked.
“Why not?” Kaufman responded immediately. “It would be fun. I’d get to fuck women without worrying about commitments or entanglements. I wouldn’t have to talk to them. Maybe I’d get to fuck two or three at the same time. Maybe even do twins. I’ve always fantasized about doing that. I like fucking. I enjoy coming. I’m not afraid of sex. Maybe doing a video would lead to some great sex, new things. Plus getting paid for screwing, why not? You guys are overreacting. It’s just naked pictures.”
The others denied being offered roles in videos or being willing to make them.
Floyd Nelis spoke up for the first time. “It’s just not right. It’s a violation of who we are. We’re amateur athletes. We were just kids. He took a bit of our childhood away from us.”
“We’re not really kids,” Natlik said. “We know what the world’s like.”
“You really think it’s that bad?” Kaufman asked.
“Good and bad aren’t the real issues,” Voronezh said. “He took away my choices. I don’t like it. If there are pictures of me, I want them. I want all the copies I can get my hands on. Then I’m going to destroy them.”
Kaufman said, “If they’re on the Internet, anyone can get them.”
“We could get an injunction,” Fresten began, “like with that Napster company.”
Kaufman said, “Logistically tough to shut down an operation set up in the Internet ozone.”
Fresten said, “I think part of the problem is that people are going to think we did this willingly. They’ll presume it was with our consent. Maybe people will think we’re gay. No offense to you guys, but still, you know what I mean.”
Kaufman said, “You were changing clothes, for Christ’s sake. What’s the big fucking deal?”
“Some rumors say they caught guys pissing,” Natlik said.
“So fucking what?” Kaufman demanded.
Natlik said, “You may want to be a porn star. I don’t. You could never understand how the rest of us feel.”
“Now it’s feelings,” Kaufman sneered. “Bullshit!”
Natlik said, “I’m going to sue. Coach Gahain had to support all those ex-wives and kids, and he sure lived a rich lifestyle. I’m going to make him pay.”
“It’ll be his estate that pays,” Scott pointed out. “The only people who will be out money will be those ex-wives and kids.”
Natlik looked as if he hadn’t thought of this. The other seven of them grumbled for a while about the unfairness of the world and getting even in some vague way. Other than suing somebody, they didn’t have much of a plan. I wasn’t sure there was much of a plan they could have or needed to have.
I asked, “Did Ethan ever mention somebody named Mike? The last words he said were ‘I love you, Mike.’ I’d like to find out who that was, and if he has any connection to the murder.”
They all looked thoughtful. Natlik said, “I think maybe one of the starting basketball players at Lafayette last year was named Mike.”
Kaufman said, “Wasn’t one of the pitchers on the baseball team named Mike?”
Voronezh said, “Maybe it was a kid from one of his classes. There had to be lots of Mikes.”
Fresten said, “If his last words were those, he must have been gay.”