Quarterback Read online

  “Um, yeah, you, go ahead,” Dumari said, his voice monotone, pointing to an older man with graying hair on the front row.

  “Thanks, Coach. Hal Bursyn, KPTD News. You guys really seemed to have Salt Lake’s number out there tonight. Can you tell us what was working for you?”

  Dumari leaned forward and placed his forearms on the table, cupping either elbow in his hands. He worked his jaw up and down a time or two before finding the words he was looking for.

  “The defense really played well I thought. They controlled the line of scrimmage and dictated the pace of the game all night.”

  Bursyn nodded while jotting notes, one of the few on hand without a listening device. “And on offense?”

  “On offense, I thought we were finally able to put some things together.”

  Beside him, Kris kept his face impassive, fighting the urge to toss his cup of Gatorade into Dumari’s face.

  “Do you think this could be a turning point during what’s been a pretty disappointing season so far?” a young man in his twenties with blonde hair asked from the second row, ignoring press conference protocol and jumping to the front of the line.

  For his effort he earned a hard glare from Dumari and a masked snort from Kris beside him.

  “Disappointing?” Dumari asked, disdain hanging from the word. “Right now we are 6-5. I would hardly call that disappointing. We have five games remaining. If we win four of those we finish 10-6, take the division, and host a playoff game.

  “That’s all we’re thinking about right now, and that’s what I’m going to prepare for, starting right now.”

  Without another word Dumari stood from the table and departed, a dozen reporters rising to their feet to fire questions in his wake.

  Still seated at the table Kris watched as Dumari disappeared before shaking his head and rising himself. He nodded to the few reporters paying him any attention and finished the last of his drink, wiping his face with a towel before heading towards the locker room.

  “Dick,” he whispered under his breath as he went, just loud enough to draw a few chuckles from the reporters posted on the front row.

  Chapter Three

  A general buzz hung over the locker room, a conglomeration of the concentrated excitement of fifty men fresh off a victory. Stretched out over thirty yards square, lockers lined the outside of the space, all of them made from white oak polished to a gleam. What bit of wall could be seen above them was painted Warrior red, the carpet midnight black.

  In the middle of the room was the profile of a Warrior headshot, a composite of every generic Native American mascot ever used.

  Arranged in a circle with no clear beginning or end, the lockers were assigned by position. In the far corner of the room was the offensive line, the smallest of the group weighing three hundred and nine pounds. Between them sat three buckets of chicken, a special delivery from Rooster’s down the street, a personal congratulations from their position coach on a job well done.

  Opposite them was the defensive secondary, led by Merton Smith. Stripped to nothing more than a pair of compression shorts he stood in the center of the group, acting out a scene from just a short time before. Around him were eight guys of similar build, all of them laughing at his exaggerated display.

  The third corner of the room was manned by the defensive line and linebackers. Being situated closest to the stereo system gave them control over what hit the airwaves, Jay-Z’s American Gangster album pulsating out at a deafening decibel. No conversation was possible as they stood within feet of the speakers, many of them bobbing their head with the music as they stripped from their uniforms.

  The final quadrant of the room, representing the space to the top left of the Warrior mascot emblazoned on the floor, was the offensive skill position players. Over a dozen in total, many of them undressed in silence, their attention aimed up at a replay of the press conference on the television mounted on the wall above them.

  Montell Dickson stood in the middle of the group, his arms folded across his chest. Rising six feet in height and weighing an even two hundred pounds, he served as the starting running back for the Warriors. A series of scrapes and scratches lined his arms, bits of pink flesh poking out from his dark brown skin.

  On his right was Marvin Adler, starting wide receiver and the recipient of the touchdown that put the game out of reach an hour before. A couple inches shorter than Dickson, it was widely accepted that whatever he lacked in size was compensated for in unadulterated speed.

  To the left was Matt Mills, team tight end and self-appointed smartass, a look of amusement on his face. Despite the game ending a half hour before he still wore his game pants and socks, eye black strips under both eyes. The remains of a late summer tan still gave his skin a bit of a golden hue, his blonde hair shorn close to his scalp.

  “The defense controlled the game?” Adler asked, his face twisted in confusion, a hand held out in front of him for effect. “That’s all he’s got for us? Not even a damn mention of the offense hanging thirty-four on them?”

  “I hear you,” Dickson agreed, glancing to Mills. “What’s his problem?”

  “Don’t look at me man, this is all his fault,” Mills replied, thrusting his chin out towards the open door of the showers nearby. In unison Dickson and Adler both looked over to see Kris emerging from a plume of steam, a plain white towel wrapped around his waist.

  “My fault?” Kris asked, running a hand back through his wet hair and shaking it out. He pulled up to a stop beside the other three, turning his gaze to the screen above. “What the hell did I do?”

  “Not a damn thing, far as I’m concerned,” Adler said. “Appreciate you showing me some love, Hop.”

  “You got it,” Kris said in an off-handed tone, his attention raised to the television.

  Mills rolled his eyes, shifting his focus back to the screen. “Don’t give me that. You and Dumari have been at each other’s throats since he got here. That man would rather get his ass bit by a Doberman than compliment the offense.”

  A smile creased Kris’s lips as he turned away from the screen, slapping Mills on the back as he went. “I don’t know Millsy, something tells me if you offered to take a nibble he wouldn’t say no.”

  Dickson and Adler both coughed out laughs as Mills gnashed his teeth at Kris, the sound of his teeth slamming together audible over the music in the far corner.

  Still smiling, Kris walked on towards his locker, shaking his head as his bare feet padded across the soft carpet. Upon approach he dropped the towel from his waist and tossed it over the back of the folding chair set out in front of his locker, grabbing a can of body spray and applying it liberally over his chest and torso.

  “They’re right you know,” a voice said, drawing Kris’s attention to the side.

  Jon Walsh deposited himself in a matching folding chair in the adjacent locker, his long brown hair hanging lank to his shoulders. Just a rookie, he was a full fifteen years younger than Kris, still able to pull off the surfer vibe without appearing to be trying too hard.

  “About you and Dumari,” Walsh added in an attempt to clarify his opening remark.

  “Yeah, I know, Rook,” Kris replied, stepping into a pair of boxer briefs and pulling them to his waist.

  “So what’s the deal?” Walsh pressed. “Something happen before I got here? Why do you two hate each other so much?”

  “That is a fantastic question,” a female voice purred behind them, causing both men to turn towards it. The owner approached across the middle of the locker room floor, the rest of the press corps right on her heels. Long blonde hair swung free behind her as she walked, a credential lanyard slapping against her flat stomach.

  It was without a doubt the first time she had ever entered the locker room before.

  Glancing over to Walsh, Kris pursed his lips and twisted his head to the side. “Do I know you?”

  “Janice Meers, Portland Gazette,” she replied, thrusting a hand towards him.

 
; Kris returned the handshake, nodding. “Kris Hopkins.”

  “I know,” Janice replied, glancing down at the underwear Kris was wearing.

  “The Gazette? What happened to George?”

  “Heart attack,” Janice said, raising her eyebrows as if to shrug, her face relaying a complete lack of concern.

  “That is just too bad, isn’t it?” Kris replied, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

  “Tragic,” Janice said, matching the expression. “Can I have a minute?”

  “You can have as many as you’d like,” Kris said. “Give me one to dress and I’ll meet you in the hallway?”

  Again the eyebrows raised on Janice’s forehead. “Not one second more.”

  She whirled on the heel of her shoe and stepped back across the center of the room, ignoring the dozen half-naked men staring as she went. In her wake, Kris and Walsh both joined in, neither making any effort to hide their gawking.

  “The reason Dumari doesn’t like me is exactly because of moments like this,” Kris said, shifting his head a bit to get a better angle on Janice as she departed.

  Beside him Walsh twisted his head into the same pose. “You’re going to nail her, aren’t you?”

  The smile on Kris’s face grew into a grin as she passed through the double doors and out into the hallway. He raised his head back up to level and shook it once, clearing the image from his mind, before going back to dressing.

  “What do I keep telling you, Rook? It’s good to be the king.”

  Chapter Four

  The incessant buzz of the alarm clock pulled Kris from his slumber, the monotonous tone piercing the darkness and finding his ears. With a soft groan he snaked his right arm out from beneath his pillow and slapped at the top of the device. His fingers found the button they were looking for without so much as a glance over, muscle memory guiding him in a movement performed thousands of time before.

  Bending at the elbow, Kris’s hand returned to his face, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, drawing another guttural moan from deep in his throat. His left hand reached across his body and peeled back the covers, his body naked between the satin sheets.

  One foot at a time hit the hardwood floor as Kris perched himself on the edge of the bed. His elbows rested on his knees as he leaned forward and ran his hands over his face, the abuse of the day before roiling through his body.

  Reaching out, Kris slid open the drawer on the nightstand beside him and extracted a vial from within. In the silence of the room the tiny plastic instrument rattled like a maraca as Kris shook out three pills and dry swallowed them, rolling his head towards the ceiling and letting them slide down his throat.

  Hands braced against his knees, Kris pushed himself to a standing position, no less than a dozen pops and cracks sounding out in protest. He stood rooted in place a moment to let a bit of dizziness pass before picking up a remote and aiming it at the wall in front of him.

  On cue, heavy black drapes parted from the middle, peeling back to either side.

  Bright morning light flooded in, washing over his body, bathing the room in illumination. The corner of Kris’s mouth pulled upward in a smile as he stepped forward and surveyed the city of Portland below.

  Already traffic was lined up on I-5 headed north, the working crowd back at it on a Monday morning. The gondola connecting the two OHSU medical campuses moved slowly between them, no doubt filled with blurry eyed students and workers in scrubs. A series of boats and tugs worked their way up and down the Willamette River, cleaving the city in half from north to south in a jagged blue ribbon.

  “Ugh, what the hell?” Janice said, rolling towards the window and raising a hand to cover her eyes. Her blonde hair was almost white in the early morning sun, a single leg extended out from beneath the sheets. “Why so early?”

  Kris twisted back to look at her, a trace of mirth on his features. “Seven a.m. Time to wake up.”

  Reaching across the bed, Janice pulled Kris’s pillow over, smashing it down over her face. “Why?” she asked again, the sound muffled and distorted.

  “You don’t last as long as I have without discipline,” Kris deadpanned, shifting to stare back out the window. “Seven o’clock wake up. Fruit and oatmeal breakfast. Training room by nine.”

  Janice lifted the pillow a few inches, peering at Kris through squinted eyes. “You realize we only went to sleep like two hours ago, right?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Kris replied. “Time for me to get up, time for you to get out.”

  “Wow,” Janice said, tossing the pillow aside and sitting up. She drew her knees towards her chest and hugged them, the sheets tented up around her. “Not even a morning cuddle?”

  Kris turned back from the window, fishing his underwear out from beneath the corner of the bed. “Want to cuddle? Get a dog.”

  He didn’t look up at Janice as he said it, but could sense the shock rolling off of her as he stepped into his boxer briefs and pulled them up around his waist.

  “Jesus, you don’t have to be such a prick,” Janice said, tossing the sheet back and climbing out of bed. “It’s not like I mentioned you need to visit your hair salon and take care of a few grey hairs.”

  Kris paused with his hands on his hips, the skin around his eyes tightened in annoyance. “I do not dye my hair.”

  “Right,” Janice replied, bent at the waist and collecting her clothing from the floor. “And that’s not a tanning bed I saw in the back bedroom either.”

  Folding his arms across his chest, Kris stood and watched her fumble about. He pushed one loud breath out threw his nose, waiting as she pulled on the same clothes she’d been wearing in the locker room ten hours before.

  “I got it,” Janice said. “I’m going.”

  “Good,” Kris replied, turning away from her to stare back out at the city below. Not until he heard the door close as she left did he move, off to begin his day.

  Chapter Five

  The set for the Warriors Radio Talk Show was housed inside the WWAR studio, an offshoot of the local news affiliate by the same name. The entire space measured no more than twenty feet across and fifty feet in length, every last inch of it covered in Warriors or Trailblazers, the local NBA team, paraphernalia.

  On the right side was all things basketball, ranging from an autographed Clyde Drexler jersey to a poster of the 1977 team, a motley crew led by Bill Walton that somehow turned an unorthodox style and the ability to run for days into a championship.

  The left was adorned with Warriors gear, almost all of it from the back half of the team’s thirty year stint in Portland. A few team photos and game programs from the early days were used as spot fillers, but by and large the entirety of the display covered the years with Hopkins at the helm.

  The first image that greeted visitors was a life size wall decal of Kris about to pass, ball tucked beneath his chin, eyes downfield. The last was a blown-up picture of him holding the Champions Cup, a flurry of red and black confetti hanging in the air.

  In between was every imaginable jersey, photo, program, and ticket stub from the last fifteen years.

  After over ten years of visiting Kris was long past noticing any of it, walking through to the back room of the studio. Dressed in black jeans and a charcoal quarter-zip sweater, he greeted the young secretary by name before heading on inside.

  An overweight sound engineer with thinning hair and a Warriors t-shirt nodded as Kris approached, a pair of enormous headphones jammed down tight over his ears. He pulled them down, letting them hang around his neck, and thrust a greasy hand towards Kris.

  “Hop.”

  “Hey, Mickey,” Hop replied, returning the shake and waving through the window into the booth. Inside sat a middle-aged man with thick hair that was beginning to grey around the temples. Dressed in shorts and a Warriors replica jersey, he leaned forward into the microphone positioned before him, speaking in a rapid-fire sequence. “How’s it going today?”

  “Phones are blowing up. You guys played
a hell of a game last night. Has the whole town thinking you might be about to go on a streak.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Kris said, smiling and glancing over at Mickey.

  Inside the booth, a single finger went up into the air. The man spoke another minute, keeping his hand raised, as Mickey pushed his headphones back into position and hit a series of buttons.

  The moment the man inside finished his monologue, Mickey cued up a commercial, a red light kicking on inside the booth.

  “We good?” Kris asked.

  “Head right on in,” Mickey replied.

  Kris pushed inside the booth and extended a hand, the man behind the microphone doing the same. “Jimmy, how are you?”

  “I am excellent, sir,” Jimmy Burns said, running a hand back over his mane. “My job gets a helluva lot more fun when you guys are winning.”

  “Happy to be of service,” Kris said, a tinge of mocking in his tone.

  Outside, Mickey knocked on the glass and raised a finger in the air. Jimmy settled back down into his seat as Kris did the same across from him, pulling a microphone over in front of himself. Both men waited in silence for the red light above to kick off before Jimmy leaned in, his voice a decibel higher, his cadence much quicker than just a moment before.

  “Alright sports fans, it is another beautiful morning here in Portland, made all the more so by the Warriors lambasting the Salt Lake Cougars last night. Here with me to rehash the win is Warriors quarterback Kris Hopkins.

  “Hop, always good to have you on the show.”

  “Always a pleasure to be here, Jimmy,” Kris replied, his forearms resting on the table as he spoke.

  “So let’s start right at the top,” Jimmy said. “That cougars secondary last night, were they even trying?”

  An involuntary burst of laughter slid out of Kris, his head rocking back.