Four
AS THE GUEST of honor, I stay later than I’d intended, telling myself that the private plane to Pittsburgh can’t leave without me in the morning, knowing that the press conference the Steelers have scheduled isn’t until two in the afternoon.
Finally, though, it’s time for me to git, which is the way my father used to say it.
All in all, even with the Crockett brothers drunk as skunks and having tried to start a couple of fights before their daddy and his driver got them into Briar’s Lincoln Navigator, it has been a great night.
“Thanks for putting this whole thing together,” I say to Laurance Most.
“You’re the one who did make this night necessary,” he says. “You and the best right arm God ever gave to anybody.”
I reach for my right shoulder now, rotating it slightly and grimacing as I do.
“This might not be a good time to mention this,” I say. “But I think I might have done something after all the glad-handing you made me do tonight.”
My agent gives me a look I’m pretty sure he usually reserves for the person on the other side of the negotiating table.
“Not funny,” he says. “So not funny.”
With that I walk over to Mitchell Garland, Gideon’s dad, and thank him for closing down Blue Yonder tonight, even knowing that Laurance Most has made doing that very much worth his while.
“You’re family, Silas,” Gideon’s dad says. “Like another son to me and a brother to Gideon. Nothing will ever change that.”
Gideon and I are on the street next to the Porsche a few minutes later. I open the passenger-side door and say, “Your ride is here.”
He shakes his head.
“I’m driving,” he says.
“I know you don’t drink,” I say, grinning at him. “So you can’t be drunk.”
“Come on, dawg,” he says. “You got to let me get behind the wheel of this baby at least one time. So toss me those keys like you’re tossing me one last pass over the middle.”
He’s always been able to talk me into things, sometimes even getting me to change a play I’d called in the huddle because he’d seen something on the previous play and promised to get open.
So I’m the one who gets into the passenger seat, feeling as if I’m trying to squeeze myself into a desk drawer. Gideon gets in on the other side, then just sits there for a few seconds, caressing the wheel like it’s one in the succession of his cheerleader girlfriends.
“Daddy’s home,” he says.
Before I know it, we’re out on 501, a narrow two-laner like so many other country roads in Carolina. And before too very much longer after that, Gideon has rolled the windows down and is shouting, “Let’s see what this baby’s got!”
“Are you absolutely certain you’re not drunk for the first time in your life?”
“Just drunk on life!” he shouts back.
I get pushed back into my seat by the thrust of the engine, as if the Porsche is a damn plane taking off. Then I glance nervously over and see how quickly the speedometer is past seventy.
And showing no signs of stopping there.
Before long, when we’re on a straightaway we both know, he’s got the speed up to one hundred, bouncing up and down in his seat, whooping like a maniac.
“Giddyup,” I finally say. “We now know what it’s got. So slow your ass down.”
“In a minute, dawg!” he yells. “This thing was made to be rode hard!”
I see the deer crossing 501 right before Gideon does.
Like making one more quick move in the open field, I reach over and twist the wheel just enough for us to avoid it.
Somehow Gideon manages to keep the car on the road.
“Okay,” I say. “You’ve had your fun. Now please slow the fuck down.”
“Okay,” he says, as if he can still see the deer. “Okay.”
But instead of easing back slowly to get down to the speed limit on this road we’ve driven so many times in his Jetta, he tries to do it all at once, pumping the brakes at exactly the wrong moment. It’s just as we’re going into a hairpin turn he must have forgotten about.
Then the Porsche is sliding and skidding out of control on its way off 501 and toward the woods, too bright and too close, and after that comes the deafening roar as the car crashes into the first tree.
Then my door is flying open, my seat belt can’t hold me, and I feel as if I’m the one still going a hundred miles per hour.
I’m the one crashing.