Robofootball: Doublespin

While Jess and Carly were eating pizza, in what was considered a routine patrol in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, U.S. Marine Sergeant Antwan Randall Jackson had his body armor on which included Kevlar padded clothing, helmet, and combat boots. It did little good when the Iranian surface-to-air missile shot by a group of Afghani dissidents, one of the last surviving factions of the Taliban, struck the H1 Hummer or Humvee that Antwan was riding shotgun in. During the explosion the vehicle split in half or more like the front third that Antwan was riding in when it separated from the rear two-thirds. Antwan was a tall man at 6’5” in height and his legs were neatly severed above the knees at the lower thighs.

He may have died in less than a minute from the loss of blood, but the ensuing instantaneous fire cauterized the exposed arteries. Shrapnel peppered his chest, right shoulder, and right arm too. He experienced little immediate pain as the concussive force of the explosion knocked him senseless. Like many wounds however, the real pain comes later. If there was one piece of good luck to be had aside from the burning cauterization, it was the Kevlar vest combined with his muscular frame that prevented the little metallic missiles from penetrating his internal organs. The other piece of luck vital to his survival was that he was not wearing a seatbelt which did not conflict with standard procedure. Although safety belts are in general, 7 or 8 times more likely to do good than harm in a vehicle accident, it could also leave soldiers and police too vulnerable to decreased mobility. All it did in this instance or Antwan was to pitch him from the vehicle with his lower legs on fire like a roman candle. Then again, he would no longer have legs to feel.

As the attackers slithered away, a support vehicle which was a second Humvee came to the rescue. Antwan would be the only survivor as the other 3 had been crushed and burned alive within the 2-piece skeletal remains of what was left of the H1. He would spend 3 weeks in a Saudi hospital before he could be moved enough to be flown back to the states, and then 6 months in a VA hospital in Detroit, his home town. When all was said and done, he would be halfway between a paraplegic and a quadriplegic with no legs and only one arm. The right arm had taken too much damage and had to be amputated near the shoulder. Out of his 4 limbs, only the left arm was intact.

Antwan survived mostly because he was tough, both physically and mentally. Aside from being a marine where he barely broke a sweat in boot camp, he grew up in Detroit, south of 8-Mile Road, the vaunted border that separated Wayne County in the south from the more affluent Oakland and Macomb Counties to the north. Then again, the area between 8-Mile and 10-Mile is much like a buffer zone between the haves and the have nots. Antwan never knew his father and his mother was a crack whore. He was raised by his mother’s mother, a strong survivor type who kept not one, but two shotguns in her house to ward off trouble.

Antwan played some football in junior high and made the junior varsity team as a freshman in high school. His height coupled with excellent hands made him a very good receiver. He had quickness too but not break-away speed. As he was growing, the high school coaches had him pegged as a future tight end; nevertheless, he quit after his freshman year despite the pleadings of the coaches. Money was tight and most public as well as private schools had to enforce a pay-to-play system whereby the student’s family had to fund equipment and various other dues and fees. Antwan had about $300 in life savings and he had had to make the choice between driver’s education and football. He chose the former. His grandmother was uneducated, poor, and worked little more than part-time jobs most of her life, whatever work she could get no matter how menial. They survived without health benefits too.

Antwan’s grades were not great, nor were the public schools that he attended. He was a slider, getting C’s and D’s though he could easily have done better with more effort. Despite the pleadings of his grandmother, he was unable to avoid fighting. It was Detroit after all, and one in his size and position had little choice but to join a local gang for protection above all else. It was nearly a kill or be killed world and fighting was necessary to survive. Luckily, he never received any sentences or fines beyond juvenile misdemeanors which in turn, did not restrict his eligibility for the armed forces. The marines seemed like a good bet, especially when his best friend Will Johnson, better known as Willy J, was shot several times from a drive by shooting by a fellow gang.

Willy J had been sitting on a porch of an abandoned house that they had used as a hang out while Antwan had been inside. At the sound of the automatic gun fire, Antwan had hit the deck as several bullets shattered the last single pane of glass present in the home and struck the walls and ceiling too. It only lasted a few seconds as the driver slowed to a crawl but never stopped as his buddies let it rip. Willy J had taken one in the head and another in the stomach. When Antwan came out after bobbing his head up to make sure the car was gone, Willy J was unconscious and bleeding badly. The amount of blood was staggering, far more than one usually saw in the movies.

Antwan was temporarily at a loss of what to do. Where he came from, no one called the cops, but it looked like Willy J was still breathing. He took out Willy J’s stolen cell from blood-soaked torn jeans and dialed 911. It took 38 minutes for the ambulance to arrive and Willy J died long beforehand. All Antwan could or would say was that it was a black car, something like a plain Chevy or Ford from 10 years ago, maybe a Malibu or Fusion or something. He didn’t see any faces which was true since he had been inside, but even if he had, he likely would not have told the police.

He looked sadly as they bagged up Willy J. Willy J was or had been his best friend, but Willy J was always a little on the simple side, and skinny too, probably a hundred pounds lighter than Antwan and a shade under 6 feet. Antwan could always make him laugh, even with the corniest of jokes. “Hey Willy J, yo’ mama so fat that when she sits around the house, I mean she sits around the house!”

“Dat funny Antwan, but you don’t talk about my mama like dat.”

“Willy J, yo’ mama so fat that they could run messages on her belly and fly her in the sky.”

“Shut up Antwan!” But then Willy J would laugh and laugh until he had tears in his eyes, “Tell me another one bro.”

“Okay Willy J, did you hear about the flasher who wanted to retire?”

“Whatsa flasher?”

“You know, a dude who flashes his Willy!”

“Oh yeah,” Willy J said, “They call me Willy J for JUMBO you know, I should be J Willy now that I think of it!”

“Yeah right, more like Junior Willy,” Antwan laughed and shoved him so hard that Willy J would go flying off the porch.

Willy J would hope right back up and say, “Okay, tell me ’bout the flasher.”

“Well, he was going to retire but he didn’t have enough cash money, know what I mean?”

“Yeah? What’s funny ’bout dat?”

“Lemme finish,” said Antwan. “He decided to stick it out for one more year.”

Willy J paused thinking, and then laughed, “Oh I get it! Gimme another one man.”

“What’s the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts?”

“Dunno.”

“Beer nuts are $1.79 while deer nuts are under a buck.”

Willy J paused a lot longer this time, “I don’t get it.”

Antwan sighed, “You dumb Willy J, you know a buck, the deer with the antlers, the dude?”

“Oh,” Willy J said but was still confused.

Antwan sat back down smiling and gritting his teeth at the same time. The ambulance was gone but it didn’t flash its lights, no rush or big-time emergency for a DOA. He was reminiscing about all the times he told Willy J jokes, smiling when Willy J didn’t get half of them, and smiling too when Willy J tended to laugh long beyond the acceptable range for laughter when he did. It was all good, until now.

“Okay son, about time for you to leave,” a portly white lieutenant was urging him onward. The officer handed him back his driver’s license after running it through the computer. There were no outstanding warrants or traffic citations for Antwan, just a couple of misdemeanor assault charges from other delinquents that he had beaten up. Since Antwan didn’t have a car, he rarely drove, and gramma as he called her wouldn’t allow him use of her old Chrysler 300 without her in it. To the cop, his record was cleaner than most that lived in this neighborhood where every 4th house was vacant or abandoned. Antwan slowly got up, stretched, and started walking back home at an aimless, lazy pace. Without legs now, the walking back home and really stuck out in his memory nearly as much as the swimming pool of blood that Willy J had spewed.

“The only football players in my time were fellows who really loved to play football. They were not in it for the money. There wasn’t much money there. They would have played football for nothing”

Red Grange