Walter & Me (5 page)

Walter didn’t take to baseball like I did. He played with me in Little League, but he didn’t stay long. Since he wasn’t a starter like me, he got bored real fast. He quit after I moved up to Babe Ruth and never played Little League baseball again. I really missed the time we spent together traveling to practice and games, but as it turned out, that wouldn’t be the last time we played baseball together. Walking away from Little League didn’t mean he would be able to walk away from who he was. And when someone is as gifted an athlete as Walter was, people eventually find out about it. So, despite quitting Little League, Walter did end up eventually playing a little semipro baseball with us, based solely on his raw, God-given, athletic talent.

Now, when I say “semipro,” you’re probably thinking of something better than it actually was. We had athletes, no doubt, but we didn’t have much more than that by today’s standards. Some guys, like Walter, didn’t even have gloves at times. And our days in semipro baseball could’ve easily been called “pasture ball.” We literally played in cow pastures, complete with dried cow patties. So, we had a little something extra in our cleats from time to time. Still, we had a place to play, and we were thankful to Kurt Jefferson (no relation to George) for providing it. Kurt was the manager of an opposing team, and he owned the pasture we played in. Kurt also provided the umpire each week. And though we appreciated having a place to play, we didn’t always appreciate the umps.

Kurt had this one ump named D.D. D.D. was an ex–Negro League baseball player and, as they say, he was kind of a homer. No matter your perspective, though, D.D. had a tendency to make some terrible calls. Everyone agreed on that. He also apparently had rabbit ears because he could hear us players talking about his terrible calls.

One time Walter and I were in the dugout laughing and picking on ump D.D. He seemed to always have bad days, but he was having an unusually bad day, even for him. D.D. seemed to just be alternating between calling “strike” and calling “ball.” It was “strike, ball, strike, ball” all day long, and it didn’t matter where the ball was. One pitch would be chest high, and he’d call “strike.” The next pitch would be in the exact same location, and he’d call “ball.” Walter and I picked up on this pretty quickly and started yelling, “Strike! Ball! Strike! Ball!” Well, that didn’t sit well with D.D. No, not at all. He got crazy mad…and then he was running over to our dugout.
Uh-oh.

“I don’t care who you are, I’ll kill both of y’all right here! Y’all don’t know who you’re messin’ with!”

We just sat there, expressionless while he spewed—perhaps even spat—forth the above words of insanity. Crazy-mad D.D. had to be restrained. The older guys in the league held him back, and we heard a lot of, “They’re just kids, they’re just kids, man!” They had to pull on him so hard that I’m surprised he didn’t end up shirtless. Even so, Walter and I were scared shitless. Let’s just say we never messed with crazy-mad D.D. ever again. We just kept our mouths shut around him and played ball.

Walter just played because he could, but I absolutely loved the game. Baseball dominated my summers as a kid, all through junior high. There really wasn’t much else in terms of sports or extracurricular activities at the time (unless you want to count my other love, of course). But even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to play for Ole Miss, the idea of playing organized football began to creep in on baseball a bit. As I was getting ready to move on up into the ninth grade, I decided there was room in my organized sports life for more than baseball. I was going to go out for the high school football team, and I knew Walter would soon be movin’ on up right behind me.

4. Flirtin’ with Football

Sleigh bells were ringin’, carolers were singin’, and Santa Claus was bringin’ something new for Walter and me that Christmas. I was nine and Walter was six. I’ll never forget looking under the tree to find two single-bar helmets and some shoulder pads that just never seemed to fit us right. Not top of the line stuff, but for two little boys, it was like hitting the jackpot. I just couldn’t figure how we pulled it off. I mean, Santa sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. But he must not have known about all the whoopin’s we got from Daddy that year, for goodness’ sake. Walter and I looked at each other and knew what the other was thinking, but we were keeping our mouths shut about it. Santa done screwed up. But that gear was ours, and we were gonna play us some football.

Walter and I were pretty small when we started playing football, but that Christmas gear made us feel like Goliath. In reality, we must have looked more like little David in his oversized armor, but it was good enough for the front yard where we mostly played as youngsters. Nothing organized with coaches and refs and such, just playground ball. We’d get out there with some of the other neighborhood kids, divide up teams, throw the ball up over our heads, and it was on. From age nine all the way up until I was 14 and heading into high school, whenever we played football, it was pretty much only out there in the front yard, except for when we were playing in the school yard at recess. Playground ball was all there was for Walter and me. We didn’t play organized football together until we were in college (more on that later in this book). There was no Pee Wee ball where we’re from, no junior high ball, nothing organized until high school—at least for black kids. As an adult, I often found (and still find) myself wishing Walter and I would’ve been two years apart in school instead of three. Walter didn’t play until he was a junior in high school, and I was already in my sophomore year in college. With Walter and me in the same backfield at Jefferson High, we’d have been unstoppable.

Even though Walter wouldn’t be there, I still wanted to play high school ball pretty bad. And if you wanted any chance of playing in high school back then, you had to either get so big in stature or so good on the playground that head coach Charles Boston had no choice but to take notice of you before you even got there. I wasn’t very big as a kid, so I figured I had to tear it up in my front yard and hope Coach heard about me through the grapevine. I also figured I’d get an edge if I helped tote helmets, towels, and stuff for the high school team, just to show Coach I cared. Well, Coach noticed, but that wasn’t the only benefit I got from carrying their equipment. I also learned a lot from the team by just being around. I’d do my duties and then sit and watch practice, and I’d take all of that with me back to the playground. We’d play touch football from time to time, but we mostly played tackle, so what I was learning from the high school boys translated perfectly. And I was starting to get pretty good, if I do say so myself. I’m sure all the boys I knocked around at the time would say the same thing.

We’d mostly play a game called “You It.” It was a simple game, and I absolutely loved it. You’d take the ball, throw it straight up as high as you could, and the guy who caught it would try to score or, if we didn’t have a clearly marked goal line that day, just run until he got tackled. That was it, and it was beautiful. I’ll never forget the first time I played. The game had started and some guy was running with the ball. I hit him with everything I had, and the ball popped up into the air. Everyone got up off the ground to catch the ball (except the guy I clocked, of course), but it landed it my arms. That thing could have been a bolt of lightning, because I definitely felt juiced. I took off running, cutting this way and that. One guy missed, and I flew on by. Then another tried to grab me, but I shook him, too. Then a third guy. Then a fourth. No one could touch me. I made it to the other end leaving nothing but footprints and wannabe tacklers behind me. Touchdown!

From then on, football was easy. I could always just make ’em miss. And once I did that, it was over. There was just no way one of them cats was going to catch me. I was too fast for them, and they all knew it. They started telling me I should go out for football in high school, and I knew that the playground wasn’t the only area where I was way ahead of them. I already knew I’d be going out for football in the fall during my freshman year. There was no question about that. The one question I did have was, would I make the team? Well, all my playground shakin’ and bakin’ had me convinced the answer was “yes.” There wasn’t a shadow of doubt in my mind about it. But that’s not to say there wasn’t a different sort of shadow hanging around the Payton house. The day I made the high school football team, I became the big man on campus, and Walter was now the little man in my shadow.

I felt good about my upcoming first season in organized football. I felt mature and ready to take on the world. I was practicing at a high level, and the stage was set for opening night of the “Eddie Payton Show.” When I imagined my family beaming with pride as I took the field, I’d practice harder. When I closed my eyes, I’d see everyone going nuts as I waltzed into the end zone, and I’d practice harder still. I could hear all of my soon-to-be fans telling me to break a leg out there on the field, and that’s exactly what I did. I practiced so hard one day that it ended with a nasty fracture about an inch above my knee. Just like that, my imaginary stardom came crashing down. My freshman season was over before it started, and the shadow Walter was in started to engulf me, too. It was a dark, dark shadow…not at all like my doctor.

Frank Fortenberry was his name, and he was one of the few white doctors who’d take black patients. I wasn’t really worried about whether my doctor was black or white, though. I was worried about whether his news would be good or bad. And it wasn’t good. After looking at my X-rays, he came to my room trying to explain to me that if he set the leg, with a break so close to the growth line, it would probably stop growing. In short, one leg would be longer than the other, and I knew that would make it nearly impossible to keep playing running back and linebacker, especially at the level I’d planned on playing. No more shakin’ and bakin’, no more fakin’ and quakin’. There would just be breakin’ and achin’ for little ol’ me.

Momma and Coach Boston were in the room when I heard the news, and they could tell I was devastated. But Doc Fortenberry wasn’t done talking. He had something else up his sleeve, and he was fixin’ to pull it out on us.

“I’ve been toyin’ with this idea,” he said to my mother. “I’ve seen it done before, but I’ve never done it myself. If we put a pin through Eddie’s leg to hold it still, and then place his leg in a pulley with weights while it grows together and heals, it might reduce the chance of one leg being shorter than the other.”

Momma and Coach didn’t seem too happy to hear all the “I’ve never done it myself” stuff, and the idea of using pulleys and weights to reduce the chances of one leg being shorter than the other didn’t give any of us much confidence that I would ever play ball again, much less have two legs that were the same length. But we didn’t really have much of a choice at the time, and we agreed we wanted to try anything that could work. Anything at all—even pulleys and weights and a white doctor who’d never done any of it himself.

So, we reluctantly agreed to a six-week stay in the hospital. Still, Coach in particular was pretty worried that Doc Fortenberry was going to ruin my leg. Coach was probably angrier at the message, but he directed it toward the messenger. Good thing for Doc Fortenberry that he was such a huge man, or I think Coach might’ve put an ass-whoopin’ on him right then and there. Momma wasn’t exactly all warm and fuzzy about it either.

I think the less-than-enthusiastic response Doc got about the whole thing from Momma and Coach made him nervous. When he started his treatment and got me all set up in that leg-pullin’ contraption of his, he’d come in the room, look at me and Momma, not say a word, and then he’d leave without doing anything to me. Momma’s face must have been sayin’, “You better not do nothing to mess up my son’s leg!” It’s only when Momma wasn’t in the room that he’d work on me. He must’ve been hidin’ and watchin’ from just outside or something, waiting for his small windows of opportunity to do his thing without a mad black woman in the room, ’cause whenever Momma would leave for whatever reason, Doc would walk right through the door. Most of the time, he’d just come in, look at my leg, and then pull and twist it a little. The only thing I remember clearly is that I was in some kinda serious pain. Doc wouldn’t give me any kind of anesthetic or nothing. I think he was too worried about the pain my momma might inflict on him to mess around with taking time to limit mine. Looking back, I guess I don’t blame him. I mean, my momma would do anything to help her kids, and Doc got that message loud and clear. Momma could’ve come on back through that door at any moment, so yeah, I probably would’ve moved in and out as quickly as possible, too.

Pain or no pain, I didn’t feel like it was working. I was starting to think Coach and Momma were right—that Doc might be messin’ up my leg and that I might not ever walk again, let alone run with a football. I stayed in traction, flat on my back with my leg twisted up in Doc’s painful pulley system and my mind wrapped up with worry. There was nothing to numb the pain, and nothing could take my mind off the situation I found myself in. That is, not until I was introduced to my nurse.

I didn’t even catch her name, but I saw enough when she walked in to know that her name didn’t matter. Whatever her name, it definitely was not her best feature. That nurse was the most beautiful, brown-skinned, fine-lookin’ woman I’d ever seen. She was probably something like 23 or 24 years old (a true woman to a high school kid), and she was all legs. I was in love. You know, that instant, knock-you-to-the-ground, bust-you-up-with-lust kind of love. She would come by to clean me up, and it was just the best part of my day. My pain went away whenever she walked in, and my worries were wiped clean with each stroke of her sponge. All of a sudden, being in that hospital room didn’t seem like such a bad deal. I’d look forward to that visit every day and would get so worked up and excited about it that, most of the time, I’d have to ask her to wait a few minutes before pulling back the sheets. Hey, I was a high school kid. What can I say?

Coach Boston would come by and visit me every day, too, but I just didn’t like his legs as much. I did appreciate all the fresh fruit he brought along with him, though. I ate most of it, but I had other plans for the grapes Coach gave me. I’d throw ’em at the only thing in the room that was sweeter. A grape would hit that nurse in the thigh, and she’d throw it right back at me. Every once in a while, I’d earn a giggle or a flirtatiously raised eyebrow. The only thing better would’ve been getting her to feed me those grapes.

Thanks to my nurse, my six weeks stuck in that hospital bed and chained to that pulley system flew right by. Would you believe that when the day came for me to go home, I asked if I could stay another couple of weeks? You’d believe it if you saw that nurse. Coach, Momma, and Doc all knew what I was up to, though, and they made me leave. I imagined the nurse sitting in the middle of the room, cryin’ hysterically over my departure as she threw grapes against the wall. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

I traded a broken leg for a broken heart there in that hospital room, and I still came out of there with a cast on my leg. There was good news, though. At least I didn’t have a limp. In fact, I could tell my leg was going to be perfectly fine. Doc Fortenberry had done it! Momma and I were thrilled, of course. And then it was Coach Boston’s turn to fall in love. He turned to the good doctor with a look that said, “You just have to be mine.” That’s when Doc Fortenberry became the Jefferson High School football team physician. If only they would’ve also brought Miss Thing along to be the team nurse! Oh, well. I was on the road to full recovery, and it didn’t take me long to start focusing on what was ahead of me instead of what I left back there in that hospital room. My leg was going to be fine, and I was going to play football again.

Then came Momma’s words, like the scratch of a record.

“I don’t know if we’re gonna let you play that ball anymore.”

Okay, so no nurse, and now no football? My teenage heart couldn’t take it. “Momma,” I protested, “I’ll be ready in the spring!”

“I don’t think so, baby.”

Calling me “baby” didn’t soften the blow, but I tried to be optimistic. I just thought I’d wait and see how she felt once the cast was off my leg and I got through rehab without any issues. Well, I got the cast off in late October, and though I obviously wasn’t playing any football that year, I thought the leg felt good enough for me to start looking forward to playing the next season. It was time to rehab.

After football season was over, Coach Boston decided to take me bird huntin’ with him almost every day. I think he wanted to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. We were able to spend some time together doing something we both enjoyed, but Coach also knew it was good for my leg. We walked the fields, following the dogs up and down hills, and the leg got stronger and stronger. Coach also had me spending some time with Quitman Lewis, a former Jefferson High fullback who also played at Alcorn State. Quitman showed me what weightlifting was all about. He was straight-up ripped, and I couldn’t have had a better guy showing me how it’s done. I followed his lead and really started to develop physically, and my leg just kept getting stronger. It wasn’t long before I felt like it was even stronger than before I broke it.

I was ready. Spring rolled around, and I wanted to play. It was time to see if Momma felt any different about it.

She didn’t. Momma said I still couldn’t play, despite all the great progress I’d made. I wasn’t sure what else I could do to make her feel confident enough about my leg to allow me to start taking handoffs again. Then she surprised me and handed off the decision to Doc Fortenberry. “Okay, how about this…? If the doctor writes me up a note saying you can play,” Momma offered, “then we’ll talk about it.” Good enough for me.