Читать книгу Hooper's Revolution - Dennie Wendt - Страница 15

SEVEN

He awoke the next morning in the old-lumber-money comfort of the Benson Hotel in downtown Portland, Oregon, USA.

He was still jet-lagged and had suffered a restless sleep, but he had a job to do, and he put on his trainers, a pair of shorts, and a drill top over two or three layers of T-shirts. He went down to the lobby, had a cup of tea, and began his wait for Molly by picking up a copy of Portland’s morning paper. And right there at the top of the Sports section was Danny’s face smashed against a ball, bearing the facial expression of a man who might eat animals alive in the woods. “Heads Up!” said the headline. Big man, big beard—he even looked like he had big teeth.

Molly was right on time, waving her own copy of the paper. “Danny Hooper! You’re a star!” She made a show of asking for his autograph. She asked the hotel’s employees behind the front desk if they knew who their famous guest was.

One of them said, “A basketball player?”

By nine o’clock they were in Molly’s car, heading uphill toward the forest that had captured Danny’s curiosity on his way in from the airport.

Molly said, “Today the team runs. You ready for a run? How was your sleep?”

Danny said, “Horrible. I’m shattered, to be honest. Cream crackered. Haven’t a clue what time it is, what country I’m in, what club I play for. Don’t know that I’m up for much of a run, but I’ll do what I can.”

Molly reached over and up with her right hand and put it on Danny’s shoulder as she drove. She squeezed a couple of times and said, “Ah, you’ll be all right. This whole league is full of players who don’t know exactly where they are or why they’re here. And most of them can’t run at all. Once you get body, mind, and spirit aligned, you’ll feel fine. You have my word, Danny—you’ll love it, and the folks here will love you right back.”

Danny just wanted her to squeeze his shoulder again.

In what seemed like mere moments, Molly’s car left a concrete cityscape and entered a forest. “Where are we?” asked Danny.

“Still in Portland.”

He wondered at these trees that could so easily loose themselves from the soggy, saturated ground and crush four or five homes in one stormy, tumultuous moment. But then, what’s one more rainstorm? They’re trees after all, Danny reminded himself, not impetuous center backs with chips on their shoulders... Why should they wish to end it all for the fun of crushing defenseless people who just happen to be in the wrong defenseless place at the wrong defenseless time? Why would a tree do something that cruel? A chasm opened beneath them to his right—a steep ravine of impossibly deep green. Trees grew from trees, ferns grew from moss, ivy grew from whatever it could find and climbed whatever it wanted. He said, “So this is Portland, huh?”

Molly said, “This is Portland. Roll down your window. It’ll be cold, but it’ll feel good.”

Danny did as Molly said and suffered the first blast of what was now, finally, March air, and it did feel good. East Southwich still smelled coal-heated and fish-fed—the local industry was the local smell, and you couldn’t escape it with anything other than cigarettes and beer. Danny wasn’t even sure what he smelled rising up out of that Rose City ravine, dripping from the green canopy above, streaming past his face, and now getting stuck in his beard as he hung his considerable head out the window of Molly’s car. Was it a natural smell? He had no idea.

Molly turned and drove up a windy road, past numerous runners, walkers, bicyclists, dog-walkers, gravelly parking areas, and muddy trailheads, until Danny spotted a rocky shoulder in the distance filled with men in combinations of red, black, and gray football gear. The Rose City Revolution stretched, hopped, jogged, smoked, or stood in a loose orbit around Graham Broome, who looked not one bit like a man who could manage more than half a mile in these hills—though he was hardly the only one.

Molly pulled over, parked her car, and said, “Time to join the gang.”

Danny stepped out of Molly’s car and felt the stares of the twenty men he had silently met yesterday. Not one had offered him much more than a half-hearted handshake or a light nod of the head. Half of them—the fullbacks and the defensive midfielders—saw his arrival as a rebuke to their abilities and an open threat to their jobs, and the other half—the forwards, wings, midfielders, and goalkeepers—wondered how on earth someone of his astounding mass could possibly be agile enough to keep the league’s strikers—mostly small, lightning-in-a-bottle Latin demons and sorcerous Slavic craftsmen—away from the besieged Revolution goal. Only Broomsie amongst them smiled as Danny crunched the pebbly grit beneath him on his approach to his new team.

“Danny!” Broomsie shouted. “Haven’t seen you since I looked at the paper this very morn! Good to see you in the flesh, my boy! All right, lads, we’re all here! Take a few minutes to stretch what ails ye, and you know what to do from there. Down that hill, take a left every time you can. It’s four miles to the next car park. I will see you there.”

No one said hello to Danny. And a few minutes later, Broomsie said, “Right then, let’s go!”

And he turned his misshapen body down the hill behind him, disappeared along a trail, all bow-legged and jangly, and was followed in obedient silence by the Rose City Revolution: the Englishmen went first (except for Big Lou), then the Yanks, then Juanito and Juan, and finally the two goalkeepers. Danny watched it all, the men queuing at the top of the trailhead as if waiting for a beer or a toilet, giving the runner in front of him five or ten seconds before following (at first Danny thought this must have been out of a kind of forest-running etiquette, but he soon found that if you were any closer to the runner in front of you, your face would be caked in mud within your first twenty steps), and then plunging down the hill. Danny waited, taking his proper new-man place at the end of the line. When everyone else had gone, he went.

For a good quarter of a mile, Danny enjoyed himself. It was quiet in this forest, even with twenty-some other men. And Danny hadn’t really moved his body in a meaningful way since crushing that Welsh boy’s tibia at the Auld Moors. He could feel his pores reopen and gasp in delight at the clean, fresh air. He looked up and saw the mighty trees flicker by, the slivers of milky-white sky above them spitting down tiny capsules of unsoiled water onto his hairy face. He looked down and loved the mud beneath him on the trail. Mud, yes, mud, yes, he thought. He was cold, he was wet, and while he wasn’t entirely content, he had his first hints of American happiness—

But that was only for a quarter of a mile.

At the trail’s first curve, Danny slipped and nearly fell, just steadying himself with a deft left hand on the ground. It was muddier here, down the slope some; Danny could hear the subterranean drip-drip-drip of water rippling and settling into the hillside mud, something he’d never heard before. While Danny placed his feet in careful, almost dainty increments, trying to place as much of his soles on the ground as possible, the other players navigated the sloppy path like native creatures of the wood, surprisingly sure-footed in the mud. His new teammates. By the second turn, Danny could feel them drifting away from him, and he worried he might end up lost in this deep American forest, thousands of miles from home. He supposed that Broome would make his way to the back of the pack in time, and Danny figured if he couldn’t catch up to Broome, then he was a sorry excuse for an Englishman. But still he worried.

At the third bend in the trail, at a dead hollowed-out fir tree—that’s bloody huge, Danny thought, I’ve never...—Danny felt a sharp pain in one of his calves. For the briefest instant, as he felt his legs give out and as he extended his arms to ease his eventual collision with the ground, he thought one of his Achilles tendons had ruptured—just now, bloody just now, and here, he thought, bloody here. The thwacking sound he’d heard seemed to have been the sound he’d heard before, usually in players in their declining years, the slow terror of the mid- to late thirties, when no one was even near them. They’d try to accelerate with the ball, a move they’d made thousands of times in their footballing lives, and SNAP!, like the full sound of cricket bat against ball. They’d scream, go down, you’d run over, and the look on their faces was more of grief than pain: I’m done, the look would say. I’ve played this game since I could walk, I’ve scrounged a living out of it, built my identity around it, let it lead me around by the nose, and now here I am, on my back, in the mud, and one of my legs doesn’t work and will never really truly professionally play again. That was the sound Danny had heard as he plunged to the soft Portland ground, in this deep and wild American wood. Do I really have the Achilles tendons of a thirty-seven-year-old man? Am I really about to be alone here in this forest with at least one destroyed Achilles?

The answer to both of those questions was no.

Before he could turn his face to the sky, two men were upon him, wrestling him into the hollowed fir. One of them had a hammer... a bloody hammer. Danny screamed a generic arghhhhhh and then a mighty heyyyyyy, calling the men a great variety of names; he swore mightily, threatened to kill them, even yelled for help—but the men remained silent until Danny was settled against the rough interior of the dead tree. Then one of them uttered a heavily accented, “We know why you are here, Mr. Hooper.”

One of the men picked up Danny’s left foot and held it aloft, creating a forty-five-degree angle out of Danny’s leg and the ground. Danny thought it was a strange thing to do, but he was in no position to resist. Then the man who had spoken held the hammer up in the air. He said, “We are also knowing what you did to that Welsh player in the FA Cup.” It had been difficult for the man to say “Welsh.”

“I will maybe do that to you right now.”

Danny said, “No, no. Don’t.” It was all he could come up with. He felt like an idiot, but his mind had been softened by the events of the last few days.

“Oh, and why not, Danny Hooooper?”

Danny thought that was a pretty good question. He said, “Well, first off, who would you be avenging exactly? I mean... you don’t look like Dire Vale supporters to me, though they’ve got some frightening characters of their own...and I wouldn’t guess you’re much bothered about the future of the Welsh national team, such as it is. And here I am, trapped in these woods with the worst team in the American league, in a bloody tree with you two—I’ve been well punished so far, haven’t I?” It was the most he had spoken at a stretch since meeting Three.

The man lowered his hammer—slowly, to his side. Danny continued: “And besides that, if you really know why I’m here, then you know nothing can happen to me.”

Danny couldn’t believe he had said this, because he couldn’t believe he’d thought it. Maybe his mind had caught up to his body—both were in America now, totally engaged in a situation that was getting stranger with every move Danny made, or that was made upon him. Yes, he thought, yes, Danny, you’re goddamned right these probable Russians have to leave you alone... because if anything happened to you... “Whoever it is that knows whatever they know and sent me here will know that you know what they know.”

The men shot puzzled looks at each other and then back at Danny. “Say that another time please,” said the one who hadn’t said anything yet.

Danny said, “You know what I mean.”

“Yes,” said the man, suddenly pensive, and suddenly seeming like an entirely reasonable chap. “Yes, we do.”

The men stood inside the tree for a confused moment. Then one of them, the more reasonable seeming of the two, said: “You are here to foil a plan that has been in place for many months, Hooooper. The American imperialists and their Western conspirators will fail. They cannot conquer the world without football, but we will not allow them to conquer the world with football.”

Ah, for Christ’s sake.

The other man took over: “America’s ignorance of football will be its downfall. We will conquer from within. You may report all of this to your man in England. He will not stop us. This season, the bicentennial year of the great U.S. of A., we will use American soccer to make the greatest announcement ever—ever!—of Soviet power.”

Danny looked for a means of escape. Inside a moldering former tree, with raindrops finding their way through the ferns and ivy and sundry fauna that occupied the space between ground cover and treetop in this greenhouse of a green space, Soviet agents were laying bare their intentions of using the 1976 AASSA season as a major milestone in Cold War brinksmanship.

“Yeah? Well, you can both sod off,” said Danny inside that tree. He rose, and neither man could stop him. As he stood, he stumbled from the pain in his calf, but he still towered over each man. He pulled back a fist as if to punch the nastier of the two, who cowered, but Danny restrained himself. “You’ll fail, I promise you that. You will fail. I never want to see either of you ever again, you got that?” Danny knew he’d see them again.

The men inside the tree were clearly scared of Danny’s fist—but they weren’t entirely intimidated.

“Danny Hooooper,” one of them said, “you may go. But you will never be far from us. Remember, Danny—we know why you are here.”

“I’m here to win a championship. That’s it,” Danny lied, though he sure wished he were telling the whole truth. “Now you can bloody well leave me alone.” Danny ran out of the tree and down the hill, before realizing that he had no idea where he was going. So he ran back up the hill, past the tree, screaming terrible, terrible words in as intimidating a voice as he could summon, in the event the men were still there, which they most likely were. When he reached the car park, he considered waiting there for help, but thought that was too close to the Communists and probably useless, so he ran down the road—his calves hurt, oh, they hurt—thinking Molly, or Broomsie, or someone, would come along in time and rescue him.

It occurred to him to cry, and he did a little. Not tears of sadness or self-pity, but of confusion. He could hardly comprehend the madness that had overtaken his life since strolling out at the Auld Moors to the cheers of the good people of East Southwich, in the royal blue he loved so dearly, what, a few days... a week ago? Something like that. Since the first few moments of that match, since heading that goalkeeper’s punt back up into the coal-choked East Southwich air, since scrambling for the ball with that whelp of a winger, almost nothing had made sense. He just wanted to be home, home in England, anywhere in England. Or on a football pitch, even here in America—a plastic one would do fine. He just wanted desperately, passionately, dreadfully, frantically to be somewhere he understood and as close to now as absolutely possible.

But he was on the side of a mountain road, on the side of a mountain, as far as he knew, in a distant and wild semi-metropolis, and he had no choice but to choke back tears and run and walk and run and walk until someone found him.

“Danny,” Molly yelled out of her rolled-down window, “what are you doing here? I was just coming back to get the balls out of Graham’s car...” She pulled over, got out, and put her arms around Danny, which felt good. “Oh my god,” she said. “You look horrible. Get in the car.” She guided Danny over to the passenger-side door and eased him into the seat. “You poor thing,” she said. (She really said that! Danny thought.) She had a blanket in the back and she put it over him.

“Let’s get you somewhere warm,” she said. “Danny, what happened? Where have you been?”

Danny would have loved to tell Molly everything. But he knew how it would sound—he knew he would eventually have to say, “There were Communists in the tree”—and he knew he would have to find a decent place to start and he had no idea how he would do that, and he really just wanted to get into a nice long conversation with Molly about anything—anything—other than what had just happened. Instead, Danny just said, “I got lost. I’m new here, you know.”

Molly blurted a spurt of air through her lips and said, “Yeah, right. The entire front of your body is covered in mud, you’ve scraped the side of your face that already has a black eye, it looks like maybe you’ve cut your lip—likely story, big man.” She looked over at him with a dubious face that was nonetheless the most appealing sight Danny had seen in a good while, maybe even ever. Danny looked at her, held Molly’s gaze until she looked back at the road, and said nothing.

“OK,” she said. “That’s fine. You got lost. I guess I’d be a little embarrassed too. Lost in the woods. Maybe attacked by a bear? Let’s get you back to the hotel and get you cleaned up. You’re off to one hell of a start!”

He kept his mouth shut, leaned his head against the window, and just watched the greenery go by as Molly drove him back downtown. He was anxious to speak with Three, a condition he had not anticipated.

After a shower, Danny sat on the bed in the hotel room and wondered if there even was a smart next thing to do. He wondered if he was just plain stuck—stuck here in Portland on this crap team that was unlikely to win a championship—and for his troubles he was doomed to be harassed by ninja woodsmen Communists whenever he let his guard down. He got out the manila envelope Three had given him in East Southwich, flipped through the Rose City Revolution match program. He read Graham Broome’s bio. He took notice of the club’s 1975 tagline—THE REVOLUTION KNOWS WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU—and thought it sounded fairly Soviet. And he read a history of the club that clearly had not an ounce of truth to it: “It was a simpler time. A time when roving Mexican revolutionaries could just stroll into Portland, Oregon, and get up a decent game with the first eleven guys they came across. And that’s just what happened one summer day in 1959, when a lost band of Castro’s men—separated from their regiment after the infamous Battle of San Berdoo—challenged a local guild of white-collar unionists known as the Stumptown Rosemen to a series of goodwill matches. The visitors defeated the Rosemen in game after game in stifling hundred-degree heat; eventually, the sympathetic Mexicans donated their uniforms to the Americans (who had played each game in full baseball flannels). In gracious response, the Rosemen renamed themselves in solidarity with the Mexican dissidents, and everyone adjourned to the Skyline Diner for a milkshake. In the years to come, the team fought bravely in local leagues, until one Sunday in 1965, when the Revolution got lost on its way to a game in Clackamas and, having lost the inspiration of their forebears and seven players (who were never seen again), just decided to stop off for a beer and forget the whole thing. But the 1970s herald a bold new era for Portland soccer, and the scent of fresh Revolution is in the air. The spirit and the club are reborn, determined to carry the legacy of rebellion, defeat, and frozen dairy products into a severely limited future.”

“Is this true?” he would ask Molly. “Sounds rather fanciful. I thought the Revolution was a new creation.”

“Oh, Danny, of course it’s not true. But Broomsie thought the club needed some history, even if it’s fictional. Says all English clubs live off the past. There was no Battle of San Berdoo. Who’d ever believe a load of BS like that? The Stumptown Rosemen... honestly, Danny.”

Folded into the program was a sheet of paper with a list of phone numbers. First on the list said, When you get to Portland, call this number. Danny reached over to the phone, pulled it into his lap, and realized just how badly he wanted to tell someone about the Communists in the tree. He dialed the number.

“Hello?” said the voice on the other end. It was a sweet voice, a kind voice, it was—

“Molly?”

“Yes.”

“Molly Hart?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Molly Hart of the Rose City Revolution?”

“Maybe. Who’s this?”

“Molly, it’s—it’s me. It’s Danny. Danny Hooper.”

“Oh, hi, Danny. I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

“Excuse me?”

“How did you get the number?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“That’s not true, sweetheart. You called me, remember?”

“But that’s because your number is on a piece of paper. This piece of paper in front of me here. This piece of paper I got from...”

“I know how you got it.” She paused, then said, “You’re not just here to help us win a championship, are you? Of course not.” Her voice lost a little of its sweetness, and she said, “Wait forty-five minutes. Then walk downstairs to the front door of the hotel. Turn left. Go down a block. There’s a Chinese restaurant. Go in, order, have a seat. Once you’re settled I’ll come in.”

Danny didn’t answer. He thought Molly sounded ridiculous. “Molly, this is crazy. You’re talking like Three... like a—”

“Not on the phone. See you down the street.” And she hung up.

Danny held the phone in his hand and looked into it as if it might let him in on the joke. But the phone was done talking, and finally Danny set it back on its handset. “Good Christ,” he said out loud. He hung and shook his large head, rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, and let a great huff out of his big lungs. Then he got up and started getting himself ready for a walk to the Chinese restaurant a block down the street from the hotel.