Don DeLillo - End Zone

"We could all live somewhere," Myna said. "I have all this money that's in my name. We could go to Mexico. A friend of mine knows where to get good stuS in Mexico City. We could buy a RollsRoyce and pick up some stuff in Mexico City and drive into the mountains."

"You have money?" Esther said. "Gary, she has money?"

"Half a million."

"Oil depletion," Myna said.

"Half a million dollars?"

"My father wanted to send me to Bryn Mawr. So I had this decision to make. Either I could lose all my excess weight and kill my blemishes with cobalt or whatever they use and go to Bryn Mawr and be a beautiful and charming young lady and risk being supermiserable because of the responsibilities of that kind of thing. Or I could come a little west to out here and be emotional and do what I want. They're both better than staying home and out here you don't get nagged by responsibilities like the responsibilities of beauty."

"What are you going to do with the money?" Vera said.

"Gary," Esther said, "what's she going to do with the money?"

"I don't know."

"She should keep it."

"She should do whatever she wants," Esther said.

"She should keep it," Vera said. "She should hold on to it."

"I don't know much about things English. But the idea of riding around in a RollsRoyce sounds pretty neat. And it's her money."

"But she shouldn't just throw it away. She should do something positive with it. Maybe open a shop. I'm into handicrafts, Gary. We could think up something worthwhile."

"She can throw it away if she wants to. It's her money, Vera."

"Don't call me that. You know how much I hate that name. You know how much I loathe and despise that name, you damn bitch."

"Our mother named her after herself," Esther said.

"She should have named you Vera. You're the damn Vera. I'm not that damn person. I'm just me. You're the Vera. You're more her than I am."

"She gets this way, Gary. It's a real laugh and a half, isn't it?"

"You're the only damn Vera in the vicinity that I know of. It's the honesttogoddest truth, Gary. She's the damn Vera, not me."

"Quiet," I said.

"We can all go live somewhere in Mexico," Myna said. "We can live in a house in the mountains with a garden that's always full of flowers, the wildest colors in Mexico. We can buy a RollsRoyce and go. Gary, you drive."

"We can buy four RollsRoyces," Esther said.

"You don't need all that money to go to Mexico and live in a garden," Vera said.

"But we're getting four RollsRoyces."

"I think we should get just one," Myna said. "That way we stay together."

"That's right," Vera said.

"That way we insure staying together. And we can all study the works of Tudev Nemkhu who's this Mongolian sciencefiction writer who's got a real big underground following. He's in exile in Libya because his government frowns on scifi."

"All of us in the mountains smoking our little pipes," Vera said.

We sat around for a while longer. Myna read to us, bouncing on her haunches, pausing after certain passages to bite her nails. We heard the wind then. It came up suddenly, fanning sand into the air . We tried to cover ourselves. Esther wore a large button with the word carrots printed on it.

The football team filled two buses and rode a hundred and twenty miles to a point just outside the campus of the West Centrex Biotechnical Institute. There the buses split up, offense to one motel, defense to another. We had steak for dinner and went to our rooms. All evening we kept visiting each other, trying to talk away the nervousness. Finally Sam Trammel and Oscar Veech came around and told us to get to bed. There were three men to a room. The regulars got beds; the substitutes were assigned to cots. Bloomberg and I had a reserve guard, Len Skink, sharing our room. For some reason Len was known as DogBoy. In the darkness I listened to the cars going by. I knew I'd have trouble sleeping. A long time passed, anywhere from an hour to 'three hours or more.

"Is anybody awake?" Len said.

"I am."

"Who's that?" he said.

"Gary."

"You scared me. I didn't think anybody would be awake. I'm having trouble sleeping. Where's Bloomers?"

"He's in bed."

"He doesn't make a sound," Len said. "I can't hear a single sound coming from his bed. A big guy like that."

"That means he's asleep."

"It's real dark in here, isn't it? It's as dark with your eyes open as when they're closed. Put your hand in front of your face. I bet you can't see a thing. My hand is about three inches from my face and I can't see it at all. How far is your hand, Gary?"

"I don't know. I can't see it."

"We better get some sleep. This stuff isn't for me. I remember the night I graduated high school. We stayed up all night. That was some night."

"What did you do?"

"We stayed up," he said.

In the morning we went out to the stadium, suited up without pads or headgear and had an extra mild workout, just getting loose, tossing the ball around, awakening our bodies to the feel of pigskin and turf. The place seemed fairly new. It was shaped like a horseshoe and probably seated about 22,000. Our workout progressed in virtual silence. It was a cool morning with no breeze to speak of. We went back in and listened to the coaches for a while. Then we rode back to the motels. At four o'clock we had our pregame meal-beef consomme, steak and eggs. At fivethirty we went back out to the stadium and slowly, very slowly, got suited up in fresh uniforms. Nobody said much until we went through the runway and took the field for our warmup. In the runway a few people made their private sounds, fierce alien noises having nothing to do with speech or communication of any kind. It was a kind of frantic breathing with elements of chant, each man's sound unique and yet mated to the other sounds, a mass rhythmic breathing that became more widespread as we emerged from the runway and trotted onto the field. We did light calisthenics and ran through some basic plays. Then the receivers and backs ran simple pass patterns as the quarterbacks took turns throwing. Off to the side the linemen exploded from their stances, each one making his private noise, the chant or urgent breathing of men in preparation for ritual danger. We returned to the locker room in silence and listened to our respective coaches issue final instructions. Then I put on my helmet and went looking for Buddy Shock. He and the other linebackers were still being lectured by Vern Feck. I waited until the coach was finished and then I grabbed Buddy by the shoulder, spun him around and hit him with a forearm across the chest, hard. He answered with three openhand blows against the side of my helmet.

"Right," I said. "Right, right, right."

"Awright. Awright, Gary boy."

"Right, right, right."

"Awright, awright."

"Get it up, get it in."

"Work, work, work."

"Awright."

"Awright. Awriiiight."

I walked slowly around the room, swinging my arms over my head. Some of the players were sitting or lying on the floor. I saw Jerry Fallen and approached him. He was standing against a wall, fists clenched at his sides, his helmet on the floor between his feet.

"Awright, Jerry boy."

"Awright, Gary."

"We move them out."

"Huh huh huh."

"How to go, big Jerry."

"Huh huh huh."

"Awright, awright, awright."

"We hit, we hit."

"Jerry boy, big Jerry."

Somebody called for quiet. I turned and saw Emmett Creed standing in front of a blackboard at the head of the room. His arms were crossed over his chest and he held his baseball cap in his right hand. It took only a few seconds before the room was absolutely still. The cap dangled from his fingers.

"I want the maximal effort," he said.