Robofootball: Doublespin

The easy win against Wichita occurred on December 13, 2020, and there was a nice 2-week layover to prepare for the first playoff game against the New York Numbskulls, a rematch from game 5, one that Carly and her parents as well as Lenny and Isabelle had attended. The game had been a significant one for Jess since it was the one where he came back into his own consciousness; yet, his memories prior to playing football for the Robocats had not returned. It was still there, always had been, just a tiny part of it had awakened is all, right smack in the middle of the game.

The 2 weeks was a good time for the coaches too. The Robocats had lost to the Numbskulls or the Numbheads as Reynolds recalled from a conversation he had had with his Uncle Dano. The difference had only been 11 points and that gap had been due to quarterback play as he watched tape with Rudy & Dino, also known as the Gorilla and the Dinosaur respectively. Jess had been taken out and the New York Gen 3 QB had lit them up for 6 TD drives. Since then, the Robocat defense had gotten better, Jess and Antwan were more in sync with their play, and some important lessons had been learned, especially after the game with Texas on November 29th.

When Reynolds huddled with his coordinators he felt, and Dino agreed, that although they might have to go to the same well once too often, they had to take the chance that the water would be replenished. In conclusion, they’d bring the rain down on the quarterback. Try to disable the best players, that was the Texas motto. The extra motivation provided by his Uncle Dano Verlucci made Reynolds a paranoid man. Jess and Antwan took a few hits but had survived without any serious injuries. Jess had his bell rung once but with no lasting effects. Yuri and Doc Holliday kept the players in one piece, and to feed his worries, Reynolds paid extra for Holliday and his young Japanese protégé, Ichiro Nagasaki, to build a 3rd running back, #20 while keeping #22 and #21 in top form. They wouldn’t have #20 completed in time for the game against New York, but it could be ready if the Robocats made it to the Cosmic Bowl where they would likely face Texas. There was another week off between the semifinals and the big game which was to be played on January 10, 2021.

Rumors, intel, and reports abounded and it was no big secret that the Tin Cans were able to fix their prize Gen 3 quarterback while both New York and Chicago could not. Like Baltimore had done, both teams could perform weak band-aid fixes only, a little solder, some welding, some patches, and so forth. Reynolds was quite confident that some of his best defensive controllers, including the Kettering student with the toothpick arms at outside linebacker, and the pudgy 24 year old at left defensive end that he had paid repeatedly as his top quarterback killer. From the time football began, the quarterback had always been a prime target for opposing defenses if not “the” prime target. It’s as if the QB had a bull’s eye permanently tattooed on his chest. When they had their little coaching confab, half the talk was about quarterbacks, protect #18 at all costs, but kill #14 on the opposing Numbskull team.

Dino suggested and Reynolds agreed that a linebacker should be assigned to the quarterback at all times, and screw the possible late hit penalties, 15, 30, or even 45 yards was more than worth it to pop a Gen 3 QB. Stunts could be set up occasionally for the pudgy dude controlling the left defensive end, the one who had proven several times over that he could eat quarterbacks for breakfast and spit them out in several satisfying pieces. From the look at the dude’s soft hippo-like belly, it appeared that he wasn’t spitting much out these days once it went down. Reynolds couldn’t help but wonder where the iron or the stones were in these kids or boy-men; after all, the one controlling the left end was about as hard as a jelly doughnut. He took part of it back when he thought of Jess and Antwan, they were both tough as nails and young men to boot.

In the meantime, there was time to take a few days off over Christmas. Only Yuri, with no human family within thousands of miles, had taken a special liking to his mechanical players, treating them like children. He was Geppetto to an army of Pinocchios. Yuri would be spending Christmas Day in the shop, replacing armor, padding, joints, popping out dents like an auto collision shop, and fabricating more intricate parts as needed. He was Reynolds’ true Ace-in-the-Hole. Jess had become the adopted 3rd member of the Jackson Family, turning the Antwan-Gramma duo into an odd trio, the cream in the Oreo cookie with 2 solid support layers on either end. Jess’s dreams had become more vivid, and a pretty, intelligent girl kept haunting him, but in a good way. She called, beckoned to him like a siren, but was lost when he awakened.

Though he was off the steroids, Jess was still quite young, just 19 years of age, a golden time for an active lad who could eat virtually anything and burn it off, even Gramma’s sugary delights. Antwan had spent a good year of his life in physical rehab after his accident, and he filled his full spacious basement with treadmills, elliptical machines, exercise bikes, free weights, a 4-station weight machine, parallel bars, a Nordic Trak cross-country ski machine, and rowing machine. He had covered the floor with soft rubber mats and had a sweet 60” LCD TV and stereo system wired and cabled in. Jess had to suffer through a bit of hip-hop and rap music when Antwan was down there working out with him, but it wasn’t all bad. Jess seemed to recognize a little Eminem and mouthed some of the words that Gramma was not too fond of.

Antwan had some DVD’s with babes, both white and black, Asian too, working out in flimsy titillating outfits, little more than 2-piece swimsuits with revealing sports bras for tops. He’d keep his music on and mute the television. Antwan may have lost his legs, but his manhood was still intact, and he seemed to be a little partial to the scantily clad Asian women working out on the big screen with soulful eyes and pouty lips. Jess’s own private parts had luckily not shrunk at all given the steroid injections by Dr. Hobson. He had only been on them for a short a year and had been given light doses at that. He had gotten off of them before any long-term effects would sink in. His muscles had grown significantly, and now that he had them, he didn’t want to lose them. Playing with 80 pounds of heavy protective armor was not easy for either of them, and on a hot day like it had been in Texas less than a month ago, they drank cases of Gatorade in Reynolds’ office, but still shed pounds like a thick-coated Bernese Mountain dog in the spring.

It was Christmas morning when a new flood of memories assailed Jess’s ever-quickening mindset. Grandma, Jess thought, hell, he didn’t even know her name, he just started calling her Grandma or Gramma if he rushed it, just like Antwan. She had put up a new artificial tree, a nice 7-footer with lots of branches as she had always wanted, pre-lit too which saved the hassle of stringing lights. He and Antwan had to help her with the top branches. The lights she had had were so old that despite being an electrical hazard, didn’t work if a single bulb was out. She was able to purchase some new ornaments in with some old treasured favorites, even some crappy stained paper mache ones made by her son who was long since dead, and Antwan too. Nothing much matched and there was no overall theme, but it was a Christmas tree, unique and one-of-a-kind with her specific memories, the way it should be.

What shocked Jess was that she and Antwan had hidden presents for him in their respective closets without him knowing. When Jess went to bed Christmas Eve, they snuck them out like some version of Santa Claus only without the reindeer and use of the chimney, and arranged them neatly under the tree. Even Antwan wrapped a few with extra tape and bulgy quarters compared to the neat ones done expertly by Gramma. Jess woke to the wonderful aroma of bacon and eggs, an American favorite with no equal. Of course, Grandma baked some homemade blueberry muffins with an extra-sugary crumb topping.

Jess came down the stairs in a wrinkled pair of jeans and a plain black t-shirt. The short sleeves of the shirt strained unsuccessfully to encompass his biceps, they were forced to ride up instead. He didn’t really think about the fact that he didn’t have any money. It was like he was in boot camp. Reynolds provided a little extra, a few extra Benjamins to Antwan to make sure his basic needs were met – clothes, shoes, food, and a few bathroom necessities was about it. Antwan aided him with certain things like shaving. When Jess was 17, he was only shaving about once a week and had forgotten how. In a way, Jess was being rehabilitated and his sole concentration had been on football and recovery with the two going hand-in-hand. When he saw the presents under the tree, he stopped and sat down at the bottom of the stairs, and put his head in his hands. All of a sudden, it felt like his brain was about to explode as the synapses raced and lit up like multiple quick session lightning strikes as they fired in his head. He could feel the emotions pounding like thunder.

It was Christmas memories that broke the levees. He couldn’t have been more than 4, 5 at best when he tore up the paper around a box the size of a dishwasher. Inside was a massive teddy bear, bigger than him twice over. His dad got it out of the box by tipping it over and Jess smiled as he recalled trying to tackle the furry, fuzzy beast. Like a new car, it had fresh stuffed animal smell. It hadn’t been thrown up on, subjected to any drool from the dog, or had suffered any punctured wounds yet where the stuffing would start to come out like snow during a blizzard. It rolled over on him and his mom was there, pulling it off, laughing up a storm. Virginia Robinson, that was her name, but everyone called her Ginny, except him of course, she was just mom, always had been.

His dad was Mike Robinson. The dog was a Jack Russell terrier mix, mostly white with some brown and even black specks, his mom had named him Pepper. He was a bit hyper, bouncing around, tugging at the ear of the bear when his mother stomped and yelled at him, then threatened him with a rolled newspaper. His dad was laughing too. Pepper had been his mom’s baby before him, and it must’ve died by the time he was 9 or 10. She never did get another one. Funny thing is, after the initial thrill was gone like a one nightstand, the bear would just sit in his room. It didn’t seem to have lasted long. Pepper had prevailed by getting the ears, nose, paws, and tail, and once giant handfuls of stuffing came out the size of softballs, and his dad threw it out on the curb for garbage pickup. Then again, the box itself had been all sorts of fun. His dad cut out a door and a couple of windows, and Jess had taken crayons and markers drawing a sun, stick people, but mostly indecipherable scribbles that would have confused an experienced archaeologist.

Uncle Larry and Aunt Jenny were there for dinner, but now it was a few years later. The names and faces were appearing all too clearly now. Glen’s, the Spartan store in Harrison, like virtually every grocery store in America, ran specials on turkeys in November. His mom would buy two in back-to-back weeks to take advantage of the special buy one sales price. They’d naturally have one on Thanksgiving, but she’d squirrel one away for Christmas dinner. Since there was a good solid month between holidays, she’d go easy on poultry in between other than the 3 days of mandatory leftovers following each mammoth bird roasting.

Jess sat rocking his body at the bottom of the stairs and barely heard Gramma when she bellowed out in her outdoor voice from the kitchen doorway: “Ten minutes ’til breakfast boys!” She didn’t see Jess behind the railing on the stairs and Jess didn’t hear Antwan scuttling about upstairs. Jess was busy opening presents in his head. His dad came through with bats, gloves, and numerous balls – baseballs, soft balls, footballs, basketballs, and soccer balls. To increase the quantity of presents, it became a running joke about the usual socks, underwear, and a shirt or two that appeared under the tree every Christmas as far back as he could remember, at least until his mom died. His argument was that his parents were supposed to get this stuff for him anyway, but killing two birds with one stone was a parent tradition. Every Christmas for Jess there was a 6-pack of white tube socks, at least one pack of Fruit of the Loom underwear, and shirts. His dad got him a funny t-shirt if just from Wal-Mart while mom might get him a button down long sleeve model from the same store. Jess could vividly recall some of the t-shirts, one had a bear with a rifle that said: “I Believe in the Right to Arm Bears,” another had a pirate face with a tri-corner cap and eye patch that read: “To Err is Human, to Arr is Pirate!” His favorite had been a large white stick figure on a black background running with a pair of scissors, no words or motto. Antwan would have appreciated that one he thought, maybe Carly too.

Carly! Holy shit! There she was on the lake, like a young Norma Jean, filling out every inch of her swimsuit in the most stunning of ways, laughing, and splashing water at him when he threatened to dunk her though purposefully never catching up with her though he easily could have. They were in the old burgundy scratched-up Silverado pickup, making out, kisses, and god, the soft feel of her and he hardened at the thought. She was in his room. On top again, her breasts dangling and jiggling in his face like lush tropical melons, ripe and as inviting as a glass of water to a man who had just spent a full week crossing the desert on foot.

“Come on boys! It’s ready!” His reverie was broken by both the voice and Antwan as the surprisingly agile partial quadriplegic man nearly tripped over him at the bottom of the stairs.

“What ta fuck cracker boy, what you doin’ here?”

“I uh, I uh,” Jess was coming out of another dreamy daze, but this time he had been awake and the memories did not disappear like a light fog in the rising bright sunshine.

“Awe, shut ta fuck up, you heard the lady, get yo ass up! Let’s get the food man!”

“Yeah, right,” Jess stood up, stepped down, and then Antwan crowded around him as he gave Jess a friendly but hard shove so that he could get to the dining room first which was just off the kitchen naturally.

Gramma had come out of the doorway and was about to bellow again like a cow having birthing difficulties when she saw Antwan push Jess out of the way. “Antwan Randall Jackson! Where’re yo manners boy, I oughta take dis here fryin’ pan and smack you upside yo’ head.” It was ordinarily never a good thing when a parent or grandparent for that matter called you by your complete full 3 names in succession, but Antwan always got slack from his grandmother. It was Christmas too, the most wonderful time of the year, well, maybe not for everyone, but in general, it was a good day.

Antwan hugged her instead, “Merry Christmas Gramma!” And then he planted a big wet kiss on her cheek.

“Git off me you lout! You okay kid?” She directed her attention to Jess who was looking a bit confused as she wiped her face in faked disgust.

“Yeah,” Jess said in his awe-shucks voice, he’d always been a quiet but likeable kid, and the steroids had not made him mean or aggressive like some, except for maybe on the football field.

“Don’ just stand there, come get some food.”

“Okay,” by the time Jess got to the dining room table, Antwan was scooping out big serving spoonfuls of scrambled eggs. There was plenty as Gramma had cooked a baker’s dozen given that she had one lone egg in one carton and combined it with the 12 in a fresh one. The boys could eat and she was never happier than when they did. It was a bit odd having a white boy in the house and she could recall stories from her own grandmother. Her grand mammy had worked as a maid in Savannah, Georgia, raising white children along with their own, dong all the little mothering things that the white ladies did not. Jess was a quiet polite boy she had observed and usually spoke only when spoken to first. There was nothing wrong with that, but he was more so today, just muttering one word answers like “Yeah” or “Thanks” if something was passed to him.

She had fried up a pound of bacon, not those damn 12 ounce packs the grocery stores artfully set up around the bigger packs for about the same damn price too. Everything had been downsized it seemed in the greater name of profits. It was hard to compare products including cereal boxes for instance, some were 11 ounces, this one 13, that one 12 ½, and on, and on. In her younger days, the pound was the standard, but now everything was 14, 13, or 12 like those damn smaller bacon packs. She stared more closely at Jess who still had food on his plate while Antwan wolfed it down as if the pack hadn’t eaten in a month. Like Antwan, the boy could eat, but he was uncharacteristically picking at his food.

“Wassamatter Jess? You okay?” There were 2 pieces of thick bacon left on the serving platter. Ordinarily, she’d of just dumped one on Antwan and one on Jess, but Jess still had a slice left on his own plate that he was not eating.

He was so lost in thought that the levees had not only broken, but had been completely washed away like those in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. The waters rushed in and soaked his brain like a high pressure fire hose from a well-maintained hydrant. Even Antwan stopped plugging his face for an instant and spoke with hamster cheeks full of bacon on one side and blueberry muffin on the other, “Yous awe rot kid?” Antwan gurgled out.

“My heavens, my lord! Yo manners are gone today,” Gramma scolded, but Jess still did not answer. Gramma finally rose up from her chair and waddled over the Jess and put a wrinkled hand on his shoulder.

He started, as shocked as if he had stuck a fork in an electrical outlet.

“Jess, wassamatter?” She asked.

“I, I, I don’t know…”

“Was ma cookin’ aw raht?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. Even Antwan was paying closer attention now as he washed his food down with a big glass of milk.

“Go awn, spit it out,” said Gramma.

“I, I think I remember,” Jess finally blurted out.

“Remember what?” Antwan butted in.

“Well, everything I guess, it’s just all coming back to me, all at once.”

“Whew,” Gramma stepped back and sat down, “Do ya know yo name?”

“Jess Michael Robinson.”

“How ’bout you birthday?” She shot back.

“Born July 14th, 2001, what’s today?”

“Christmas Day!” Gramma laughed out loud.

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” said Jess who was grinning now, “its 2020, that makes me 19.”

“Do you know where you’re from?” Antwan broke in.

“Harrison, Michigan, my mom died, but my dad’s probably still there. I had a girl friend too, Carly Tucker, she was born the day after me,” Jess was running wild now. “God I haven’t seen her since high school, let’s see,” he was mentally calculating, “God, it’s been like 2 years. She’s probably gone, off to college, got a new boyfriend….” He trailed off. Memories could be both good and bad, and he felt sad again thinking of Carly and how she had likely moved on.

“Now ya don’ know dat honey,” Gramma soothed and looked over at Antwan who just shrugged, wondering if this day would ever come, he guess it had, on Christmas Day of all days. Gramma had tears in her eyes.

“Antwan? Why don’ you take Jess to da livin’ room why I’s do da dishes, I’ll come out when I’s done.” She also had a ham to baste with her special milk, cream, and a ton of brown sugar mixed with a bit of honey to complete the glaze. She would cut up the apples for a pie after they had opened the presents.

“All right Gramma,” said Antwan as he turned to Jess, “I heard you played some ball in high school.” Antwan rose up, gently grabbed Jess by the arm, and guided him to the living room. Antwan sat in a Lazy Boy chair and Jess took the sofa.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Reynolds.”

“Yeah, what else did he tell you?” Jess had a few gaps to fill in that he was not aware of.

“Not much, you know Reynolds, doesn’t tell ya much more than you need to know.”

“Yeah.”

“So you from the north part of the state Jess, you ever go huntin’ or shit like that?”

“Yeah, went out with my dad and Uncle Larry, maybe I was 12 or 13 last, after that, I guess I got too busy with sports.”

“All I knowed was that you was a quarterback.”

“Played 3rd base, could play about any position in basketball.”

“You don’t say, but you’d be short for center.”

“Small schools around Harrison,” said Jess, “Not a place where you find 7-footers.”

“I see,” said Antwan, “Oh yeah, got a good northern joke for you, you should get it bein’ a white boy growin’ up that way.” He was thinking back to when he had tried to explain it to Willy J. “What’s the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts?”

“Don’t know,” Jess shrugged.

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

“I think I remember that one!”

“Got any other jokes you remember?” Antwan was paying close attention now.

“I think I remember an old hunting joke with Indians.”

“You got Indians where you live?”

“South in Mt. Pleasant, there’s a reservation, one of those casinos too, the Soaring Eagle.”

“Oh yeah, forgot about those, they all over up there ain’t they.”

“Yup.”

“Tell me the joke.”

“Well, there’s this guy.”

“A brotha?”

“No, a white guy, wants to learn how to hunt.”

“Where are the Indians?”

“Dang, let me tell it!” Jess said with a little irritation, “I’ll get to it.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry man,” Antwan was like a kid in a candy shop, only the line had 6 fat kids in front of him, all immensely impatient for that potential sugar high.

“The guy figures that he’ll hire an Indian guide, cause the Indians were always the best hunters. He finds one, hires him and the Indian says, ‘Today we track deer’, so the Indian shows him what deer tracks look like, you know, a pair of hoof prints curved inward a little bit. The Indian finds some fresh ones that they can travel upwind, and when they see the deer, the Indian shoots it. The dude says cool and asks to go out with the Indian one more time, only to hunt something different. Next week, the Indian shows him some black bear paw prints and some scat too.”

“Scat?”

“Bear shit, dark stuff.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Like the deer, they follow the tracks, see the bear, and the Indian shoots it. So the white dude figures that he’s ready to go out on his own, but ends up in the hospital in a full body cast.”

“What’s funny about that?” Antwan was thinking back to when he was all bandaged up for weeks upon weeks.

“Dang Antwan, I’m not done yet, patience.”

“Oh, sorry man.”

“The Indian finds out that he’s in the hospital and goes and visits him and asks the man what happened? The dude says, ‘I was following the nicest straightest tracks you ever seen for a long time, not sure what I was hunting. I followed them into this cave all ready to shoot.’ The Indian asks, ‘What happen next?’ The dude says, ‘I got hit by a train’.”

Antwan laughed out loud, “Not bad kid.”

“What all dis commotion?” Gramma came in and asked.

“Jess was jus tellin’ me a joke.”

“You and yo jokes Antwan, if I had a dolla for every one I’d have me a Cadillac.”

“Let’s open da presents,” Antwan sprang up on his specially designed high tech legs courtesy of HAL, the Human Assisted Limbotics Corporation, the same one who made most of the arms and legs for the Robocat players.

Suddenly Jess felt terribly bad. He hadn’t thought about presents that hadn’t been there last night, at least since he first sat at the bottom of the stairs. “I didn’t get you guys anything,” he protested weakly.

“Shh Jess,” Gramma sat next to him on the sofa and put her hand on his thigh. “When ya young and little, da presents are nice. When yo old like me yo realize it’s much mo bettah to give dan receive. Yo remembah dat some day when yo have da little ones.”

“I will,” he promised. He opened a football and a throw blanket with the Michigan Robocat team mascot, the somewhat blocky computer animated Inca or Mayan jaguar-like cat. When he opened a 6-pack of white tube socks, it was all he could take. He held them clutching them as Gramma looked at him then at Antwan, and she and Antwan were more confused when tears started pouring down Jess’s face. He couldn’t recall crying since his mother’s funeral and the tube socks brought back memories of her.

“Dare, dare,” Gramma wrapped her arms around him and held him for several minutes. Even Antwan looked away, out a window, observing the lawn that had a thin blanket of fresh snow upon it. It looked like Christmas and he wondered what people did in warm climates, Christmas didn’t seem right without a little of the white stuff. Antwan really hadn’t given it much thought in what he’d do if the kid regained his memory; however, the timing wasn’t that good given that they had that semifinal game against New York in 2 days and a train ride tomorrow.

A few hundred miles to the East, Jess wasn’t the only one crying. Isabelle “Izzy” Mendoza unwrapped a little Tiffany Blue Box with a 3-carat flawless diamond expertly and perfectly cut from the highest clarity class in the world. One could have purchased a flawed diamond far less clear that size for thousands less, but Lenny could have gotten a Mercedes SLK AMG model for the price he paid with enough left over to add a Fiat 500. In the great scheme of things, he had some inherited wealth, and relatively speaking, it wasn’t any of a harder hit to his pocket book than a blue collar union guy dropping a couple of G’s as Reynolds would have put it on a diamond engagement ring for his best girl.

“The first points are the hardest so get’em when you can.”

John Madden