Рита Браун - Full Cry

She smiled. “I agree. Always do business locally. Nothing can replace that connection to another person.” She scratched Tonto’s head as he bounced over, sat down, then put a paw on her thigh.

“Too cute,” Raleigh sneered.

“Gag me,” Rooster coughed.

“I love everyone in the world!” The half-grown Welsh terrier cocked his head as Sister scratched him.

“Terriers are mental.” Rooster closed his eyes, feigning boredom.

“Born to dig. That’s it. Dig.” Raleigh felt his calling in life of far more importance than ridding the world of vermin.

“Tonto is a most engaging creature.”

“I’m a terrier man,” Walter said, then hastily added, “hounds first though, I know that.”

She laughed. “Working with a pack is different. But yes, I love foxhounds. I’ve spent most of my life studying them, and I’ll still never know as much as the late Dickie Bywaters.” She looked up from the dog and beamed at Walter. “Wonder if Rooster likes being back here?”

“I do, but I miss Peter,” Rooster replied.

The two humans looked at the harrier.

“Maybe he heard you,” Walter said.

“I expect they know a great deal more than we give them credit for knowing. Which is one of the reasons I’m here— not about dogs, I mean.” She leaned forward. “Tell me about athletes and drugs.”

“How much time do you have?” He rose to ladle more soup in his bowl.

“I made it. I should have done that.”

“Miss Manners isn’t here.” Walter pointed to the pot of soup on the stove. “More?”

“Yes.” She handed him her bowl.

As they started on their second bowls of soup, Walter tried to answer her broad question. “Football, basketball, baseball, weight-lifting, and track and field would collapse without drugs. For runners or endurance sports, um, not as prevalent. Well, let me put it this way: they aren’t on steroids or human growth hormone. Those are the drugs of choice.”

“What about women’s sports?”

“To be competitive, you’ve got to be strong and fast, as strong and as fast as your competition. Gender is irrelevant.”

“Do these drugs really work?”

He put his spoon down. “Without a doubt.”

“I see. So if you truly want to compete at the highest levels, it’s better living through chemistry?”

He nodded. “If you’re the defensive tackle for the Oak-land Raiders, facing someone in the trenches, and you haven’t taken drugs and he has, he’ll beat you seven out of ten times—or more. For one thing, his ligaments will be stronger.”

“Bigger muscles?”

“Yes, though that can be a disadvantage. One of the problems we’re now seeing, especially in football, is the number of injuries has escalated because these men now have bodies that are so big and heavy, they slam into one another like a train wreck! Three hundred and twenty pounds of lineman beef, say, a center, crashing into two hundred and eighty-nine pounds of defensive guard. And they’re quick. Big as they are, they’re quick. They’re slamming into each other at speed. And then if one of the linebackers really clocks a halfback, it’s ugly.”

“Do they take painkillers to play?”

“Yes, legal and illegal.”

“And the efforts of the governing bodies are ineffective?”

He nodded. “The coaches are scientists. And then again, let’s lay it on the line, Sister, the American public craves violence. If the mayhem dries up, there go the advertising revenues; there goes the ticket sales to say nothing of all those empty skyboxes. I don’t think the commissioners of any of the professional sports—men’s or women’s—are going to try too awfully hard, although they’ll talk a good game. Again, forgive the pun.”

“Was that a true pun?” Her brow furrowed.

“Uh.” He wondered now, too.

“No matter. Okay, next question. As profit has transformed professional sports, what about college sports?”

“College sports are nurseries for professional sports. Only baseball supports and pays for minor leagues. For the rest of them, they siphon the players right out of college without pouring money into the colleges. A good deal for the NFL and NBA.”

“Why is baseball different in your opinion?”

“It’s such a difficult game to play well. Apart from the phenomenal hand-eye coordination, for every situation there are maybe three possibilities. You really have to think in baseball. It’s not enough to learn your position. I love baseball.”

“Thought you were the halfback on Cornell’s football team?”

“I was, but I played center field for the baseball team. Love baseball.”

“Actually, I do, too.” She sipped her tea. “So the college athletes are taking steroids and whatever?”

“You bet. The coaches are right in there with it or turning a blind eye. You can’t have a kid go home during the summer of his sophomore year, return for football practice thirty pounds of muscle heavier without drugs. Just throwing hay bales on the farm isn’t going to do it, although, truthfully, it will give you a better body.”

“Really?”

“Sure. More flexible. Natural muscle is different than muscle enhanced by steroids. Once you get used to looking for it, you can always tell the difference.”

“Why so?”

“An athlete who has taken steroids has a rounder, fuller look. Essentially, the muscle cell has been pumped up with fluid. I won’t bore you with a long explanation. You and I don’t have muscles like that. Our muscles are less full but have a harder, almost shredded look.”

“I thought the bodybuilders were the ones who got shredded.”

“They do. Lots of purging water from their systems before a contest, but you can still see the difference. The only way I can explain it is those steroid bodies have a real roundness to the muscle.”

“Dangerous?”

“Sure. In excess, the drugs can shut down the liver, shrink the testicles on a man, give men what they call ‘bitch tits.’ For women, we know much less. In fact, we know much less about women on so many levels of medicine that it’s a sin. Man has been the measure of all things.”

“This is fascinating. I had no idea.”

“Sister, kids are using steroids in high school. A kid wants to make All State and then wants to play for Nebraska. He starts shooting up.”

“With the help of the coach or the trainer?”

Walter shrugged. “I really hope that a high school coach knows better, acts as a father to those kids, but,” he said, holding up his hands, “a high school coach is under pressure, too. Although not nearly as severe as the college coach at a PAC Ten school who makes one million dollars a year in salary and God knows how much in benefits.”

“Good Lord, I picked the wrong sport.”

“Far from it.” He patted Tonto, who now pestered him. “One of the things I most love about foxhunting is that it can’t be corrupted by money.”

“But racing can. Three-day eventing. Show jumping. Drugs?”

He shrugged. “Not steroids. Not for people, anyway. You know more about the horse end of it than I do. I know some racehorses have been loaded with the stuff. Saddlebreds, too. But the drugs in the horse world for humans are almost always alcohol, cocaine, or some kind of pain-killer.”

“Makes sense.”

“I have yet to meet a horseman without broken bones.”

“Me, neither.” She sat for a moment. “You haven’t asked why I’m on this track.”

“You’re the master.” He grinned, his white teeth straight, although a few had ragged edges from his playing days.

“Before I get to why, what about human growth hormone? What’s the deal there?”