The Three Dollar Phoenix by Walt Sautter (rooftoppers .txt) 📖

The Three Dollar Phoenix
W. Sautter

Copyright Sautter 2010

Chapter I

Newark, New Jersey - 1984
“Goddamn it!” Ed yelled as he stumbled from the shower towards the phone in the bedroom.
“It never fails - probably a wrong number too.”
He picked up the receiver.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Ed - Ed Bennett” the voice on the other end replied.
“Yes, this is Ed Bennett.”
The caller’s voice sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.
“Who is this?” he added immediately.
“Charlie Rhode” the voice said,
“Holy Christ! I haven’t seen you in seven years. How the hell are you doing?”
Ed hadn’t spoken to Charlie since, he had to think now, 1978. Yes, and it was June 1978 to be exact. Charlie probably didn’t even remember it. He was so drunk that he could just about talk, much less remember. That was the day the Raiders drafted him.
“I read about you being traded to the Giants” said Ed.
“I thought the only things you’d be reading by now would be x-rays and stock reports” Charlie quipped.
Ed drifted back to the days when dreams of success were a common bond between him and Charlie. They had spent many nights at Terry’s Tavern rehearsing the conversations they would have after Charlie made the Pros and Ed got his M.D. It seemed to Ed that he knew exactly what would be said next. It had all been said before, many years ago, at Terry’s. The next line would be about meeting to talk over the old days, if he’d remembered the script right.
“How about going out for a drink, now that I’m in town, and we’ll talk about old times” Charlie said.
“Somehow I thought you were going to say that.” replied Ed.
“How about I meet you at Finnegan’s Rainbow” said Ed.
“Tomorrow night O.K.? Around nine?
“Sounds good to me” said Charlie.
“We’ve got a lot of talking to do after seven years.”
Ed proceeded to give Charlie directions to the place.
As Ed put down the receiver, he flashed back to all the sights and sounds of his years at Penn State. He and Charlie had some good times alright. They both pledged Kappa Delta Chi. How Ed got into that frat still puzzled him. He was a pretty good athlete but not a jock. Maybe it was because he was a real good handball player. In four years nobody ever beat him, not even All American Charlie Rode. Handball had made him a lot of friends and kept him in drinking money for four years at State. It was joked that the reason he was asked to pledge Kappa was so the brothers could get the bill of sales back for their cars from him.
“How did I first get friendly with Charlie anyway?” mused Ed as he dried himself.
“I think it was because of old Dr. Lane. That bastard could give a mean chemistry test. I saved Charlie’s ass a couple of times in that course” thought Ed.
“That was when we first began to hang around together.”
Charlie wasn’t dumb. It was all that football that kept him away from the books. I guess it paid off for him though. He went to the Pros like he said he would.”
The next night Ed drove to Finnegan’s. As his lights flashed across the neatly lined cars, he saw the license plate, ALL PRO on a blue BMW.
“That’s probably Charlie’s car” he thought. Ed parked his car and walked into Finnegan’s. It was a large, dimly lit room. Charlie was sitting at the far and of the bar. Ed saw him immediately, he couldn’t miss him.
How could anybody miss Charlie? Two hundred and forty-five pounds takes up a lot of space. Charlie looked up and caught Ed’s eye. With that he instantaneously jumped to his feet and let out his old cowboy holler. The dozen or so customers sitting at the bar straightened up as if the stools had been electrified. Ed felt Charlie’s powerful grasp.
“You haven’t changed a bit’ exclaimed Charlie, “Only a little uglier.”
“You look good yourself, you two ton tub of shit” said Ed.
As the evening wore on, Ed and Charlie felt the old bonds of friendship regrew. Their conversation was a collage of old memories and old stories. It was as if time had been suspended for the past seven years.
“Last call for alcohol” came the bartender’s voice.
Ed glanced at his watch. Two A.M. already! It seemed like the evening had just begun and the bartender was closing up.
Give me a call tomorrow, afternoon that is, and I’ll show you around’ said Ed as they walked out into the parking lot.
“I’ve been here two dozen times but only to play and run so to speak. Now that I’m going to be living here it would help to know where I’m going.” replied Charlie.
“I’ll call you about two or three.”
Ed and Charlie saw each other several times the following weeks in between Charlie’s practice sessions and Ed’s hours at the clinic. it began to seem almost like old times all over again.
The huge gray gothic topped by dozens of fluttering red and blue flags rose out of the swamp plain. A large blue banner hung from its wall. it read “METRO STADIUM HOME OF THE GIANTS.” It waved in the light breeze off the meadows. The bright afternoon sunlight gave it all the appeal of an animated neon display as it gently moved. Ed pulled into the huge, almost empty parking lot.
He shut off the car and sat motionless for a moment. He had been here hundreds of times before, but not since the stadium was built, but many years ago, when he was a kid. All this was nothing but marshes then, marshes and garbage. Thousands of sea gulls and rats lived here, all eager to attend the daily banquets brought to them by the convoy of garbage trucks moving continuously in and out of the meadows. The air was heavy with the foul odor of decaying refuse. Even now, an occasional unfavorable wind brings that same unpleasant reminder of the past up from areas further south that are not yet completely finished. As a boy Ed had been on many a treasure hunt here. He could still hear his mother’s screams as he entered the house after one of those expeditions. He would have to take off his clothes on the outside porch and put them in a plastic bag to contain the gagging smell. After he showered and changed she would give him a dollar and send him to the launder mat to wash them. Well, all that is gone now, the marshes/the garbage and most of the time the smell. Not so much as an empty beer bottle is left in view. It’s all buried below where he was standing waiting for the year five thousand to become the priceless artifacts found by some lucky archaeologist. For a moment the whole thing seemed unbelievable
Ed awoke from his momentary trance, and exited the car. He walked towards a waiting security guard at the main gate. He instinctively reached for his wallet and withdrew the pass Charley had given him. As he entered the mammoth building, he could hear the echoes of a callisthenic cadence resounding through the thousands of rows of empty seats. He walked in the direction of its source. As he rounded the final turn of the maze he had been following and walked into the center of the stadium. he glanced upwards towards the rim of the bowl like structure. The rows of vacant seats appeared to be endless in all directions. He tried to imagine how it would look four weeks from now. The Giants opened against Detroit on September 10th. It would be a sea of yelling, screaming bodies, about sixty thousand to be precise.
Out at the center of the field, he saw five neat rows of bright blue clad players, all responding in perfect unison to We instructions barked by several men whom they were facing. Ed looked for number sixty-six. That was Charlie’s number. it was usually easy to spot him in a crowd. He stood out like a grizzly bear at the zoo. This time it wasn’t that simple. They were all grizzlies. Ed sat down at the edge of the field by the railing and watched. He never was a football nut but he’d watched a game now and then. It was usually a Penn State game or a pro game in which an old friend from State was playing. Three guys were in the Pros now, Buck Horn for Miami, Joe Petaliza for Dallas and of course Charlie.
Soon the lines of players separated and formed several smaller groups. Ed caught a glimpse of number sixty-six in the group closest to the far sideline. He tried to keep his eyes keyed on that number. From what he knew about football appeared to him that number sixty-six was doing a pretty good job or at least he was in on most of the Ed hoped Charlie would do well. Of course there was no reason to suspect that he wouldn’t. He had been All Pro two years ago at Oakland. Ed liked the idea of having Charlie around and he didn’t want to see that
About two hours passed. The hot summer Sun had
moved around to where Ed was sitting and it was uncomfortable now. He wanted to move but he had to be by the entrance to the locker rooms. This was the third time he’d promised Charlie that he would be there. This time he’d made it. He had to be sure that Charlie saw him. Just then he heard a long, hard whistle sound. All the players moved hurriedly to the center of the field. Two minutes later another loud whistle and they headed straight towards him. He saw Charlie clearly for the first time during the session. He looked even bigger than usual in full equipment. He looked at Ed and smiled.
“No emergencies at the clinic today? Wait for me. I’ll be out in a few minutes” Charlie said as he disappeared under the stands towards the lockers.
Ed looked at his watch. It was 4:25. He was due at the clinic at 6:30 and that was a twenty minute drive. If the traffic was bad downtown, it could be thirty minutes or more.
In about fifteen minutes, Charlie emerged from the doors leading under the stands wearing a smile almost as broad as his shoulders.
“How’d I do?”
“Looked pretty good to me” replied Ed.
“The way things are going so far, I think I’ll be here for a while“ said Charlie.
“Let me show you around this place” he said eagerly.
One of Charlie’s greatest assets was enthusiasm. He did everything with enthusiasm, no matter how trivial the task and when you were with him it always seemed to rub off a little. In a few moments Ed found himself a willing member of Charlie’s private tour.
“This field is a miracle of modern science. Astroturf. Out in Oakland it was strictly grass.” This stuff is great. I met a guy here on the grounds crew that I knew at Oakland. He left there about four years ago to come east. His wife’s mother was sick and so he had to come out. He got a job here because he had experience out there. He says even the guys on maintenance love it. All they need