If I don’t, I know it’s high time for me to decide what I want to do with the rest of my—non-football—life.
Bumper is between us, as she always is when we’re out here at this time of night. EJ is off to a new book club. Vince Tarplay is living inBirmingham these days, having hooked on with the Birmingham Stallions of the United Football League as a running backs coach.
“It ain’t playing, dawg,” he’d told me when he got the job, “because nothing can ever replace playing. But it’s gonna have to do.”
“Who says they can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” I’d asked.
Helene Mayes had spent three months at the same rehab facility in Chapel Hill where I’d been. And now she and Jake Courville, working with the FBI, are just back after three months in Europe and finally Saudi Arabia, tracking down the rest of the kidnapped girls.
When Helene had called to tell me they were back in America, I’d asked how many of the girls they’d brought home.
“Every goddamn one of them,” she said.
The menacing sign at the city limits out on State Road 31, the one rumored to have been put there by the Crocketts, is gone. The good folks of Cross Rivers no longer need fear that their small town is ranked among America’s most violent because that’s no longer true.
Taylor is substitute teaching at Cross Rivers High, preparing to get a full-time job there in the fall now that she’s gotten her degree from Appalachian State. We’ve been talking about how excited she is at the prospect.
“Youknow,” she says, “they still haven’t hired a new football coach. I was thinking that might fill…”
I turn quickly to her, but make sure she sees me smiling as I do.
“No, it wouldn’t fill the competitive void for me, or whatever you were about to call it,” I say. “Vince might be able to get back on the field and be that close to the action and not be playing. Not me.”
“I won’t mention it again,” she says. Then she smiles and says, “At least not tonight.”
Briar Crockett and Lynyrd are in separate Carolina prisons, awaiting trial on charges of just about everything.
At the most recent hearing, when one of Briar’s lawyers had once again asked for home confinement, the state’s attorney, who’s eventually going to be prosecuting him on both murder and attempted murder, said, “Mr. Crockett remains a poster boy for flight risk.”
That had been this afternoon—just a few hours ago.
And the judge, much to the delight of the spectators in his courtroom, had actually said, “No shit. Request denied.” And remanded Briar back to Craven Correctional in Vanceboro.
Taylor and I had been talking some about that after dinner, as the judge had also announced today that he would have a trial date for Briar by the end of this week, because his latest appeal had been denied by the North Carolina Supreme Court.
“Man used to think he owned the whole world,” I say. “Now his world is the size of that cell at Craven.”
My phone is suddenly bouncing around on the table between us.
Vince
I put the phone on speaker so Tay can hear.
“Shouldn’t you be studying film for that big playoff game you got coming up?”
“Hush your smart mouth and listen,” he says. “I’m sitting here with somebody who wants to talk to you.”
I can hear a muffled voice in the background.
Then: “Silas, this is Clete Raymond. We’ve never met, but I’m—”
I cut him off. “The coach of the Stallions,” I say. “Hey, Coach.”
“Did you know my name before your buddy came to work for me?” he asks. “People don’t follow our league the way they do the NFL.”
“If it’s pro ball and they’re keeping score,” I say, “I’m following.”
“Anyway,” Coach Raymond says, “Vince says you’ve got no time for BS and frankly neither do I. So let me get right to it: Are you still interested in making a comeback on defense?”
