The Game
by Michael Boylan
It was early in the afternoon one day when Henry came to the park. We were just a bunch of guys engaged in our weekly game. The air was chilly, but not cold. You know, late October before the grip of winter has taken hold: the end of autumn. Each Saturday, after our chores were done–around noon, a few of us from the neighborhood would head over to the park, which lay just across the freeway, to play touch football. Sometimes we’d see some people already there and invite them to play in our game. At other times it would be just the six or seven of us.
But none of us, save Mucho Pani, had ever seen Henry before.
On this particular day Eddie Meyer was already running routes with Billy Washington. Billy is the only black guy in the neighborhood. He teaches up at Jefferson High. Eddie was, I guess you could say, the best friend Billy had in the neighborhood. Eddie didn’t have any pretensions. He said what he thought and was not self-conscious about living in the smallest house while having the largest family on the block. He was a foundry worker, I think, and I’m quite sure he never finished high school. Still, there was something dependable about Eddie.
I came down to the park with Lincoln McCrae and Angelito Domingez. We were going via the northern bridge over the freeway. It’s only three blocks to the park, but you have to enter it from one of two gates. The rest of the park has a high fence around it for security. The park itself is about two miles around with a lake in the middle. It is pretty nice, I guess, for an urban park. There isn’t much violence, and there are often games of baseball in the summer, and soccer and football in the early fall. Lots of kids use our park. Why there’s even a group of Latinos (our area has the second highest concentration of Latinos in the city) who play a game that resembles volleyball except they kick a small wicker ball over the net.
On this day there wasn’t anyone in the park except Eddie and Billy. We could see them from atop the hill that overlooks the north gate to the park. What an odd combination. Fat, little Eddie was running out for passes while the tall, nearsighted teacher (who never wore his glasses to our games) tossed him arching offerings. I almost laughed aloud except that I didn’t know what Lincoln might say. Lincoln was always so involved with things, you know: serious. Lincoln had been a member of the civil rights commission and the ACLU so that I didn’t feel comfortable making light around him.
Angelito didn’t say much.
I began to wonder if we would have enough for a game. We always required at least three-on-three. It made for a better afternoon. There didn’t appear to be any people in the park this afternoon who we could ask to play with us. At that moment we only had five.
“Maybe we won’t have a game,” I ventured to Lincoln.
“Don’t forget Mucho and Tattler. One of them is bound to show. Those two egos couldn’t both miss together.”
Angelito nodded and so we made our way down the hill. The field on which we played was field number one. It was designed for both soccer and football. On each side were smaller fields which served the same purpose. On Friday afternoons there were always three games going on from two until seven. Our park gets lots of use.
As we made our way down the hill I saw no one. The lowland basin, with its two baseball backstops and five-tiered bleachers, looked as bare as the trees were becoming. There was a ‘nippiness’ to the air, but it wasn’t cold. At least not yet.
“Hi Eddie,” I yelled when we got to the bottom of the hill.
“Send one over here,” cried Lincoln to Billy Washington who had the ball. Billy sent a wobbling pass to the senior member of our group.
Lincoln muffed it, but laughed it off as he generally did by declaring that it took his forty-five-year-old-bones awhile to warm up. Lincoln was like that. Said that a person should bide his time and wait for the opportunities. Who am I to disagree? Lincoln was a lawyer and, I didn’t even finish college.
Soon the four of us were tossing around the pigskin (or more precisely cowskin) and were feeling the sweat begin to flow when we heard the loud car stereo of Jimmy Tattler. Jimmy, who hated any other appellation, was perhaps the richest among our group. I use the superlative guardedly because though Jimmy certainly wanted us all to believe this about him, I’m not all together sure that this was actually true. What a man wears and what he drives can often be deceiving. Revolving charge plans on credit cards make it easy to become over extended. I never use credit cards.
We were tossing the ball pretty well. It was time to begin the game. But even as we were dividing up, there suddenly appeared, at the top of our natural green amphitheater, the forms of Mucho Pani and another, unknown man. I don’t know why, but we all looked up at the same time. They hadn’t called attention to themselves. But for some reason we were all transfixed.
“Have you started yet?” yelled Mucho as he glided easily down the hill. And without waiting for a response he added, “We would have been here sooner, but we tried to get through the south gate. It’s closed. Some road work, I guess.”
Mucho walked with a confident stride of a man who felt he was among friends. I think Mucho always feels he is among friends–wherever he is. Anyway, as the two approached, Angelito turned away and began to pace off the field. We usually do this as a group after the teams are formed, but the rest of us were still standing there and Angelito wanted to get things going.
“Where’d you pick-up that one?” began Jimmy in a needling tone.
I laughed, though no one else did. Jimmy was right that the stranger had a peculiar look about him. He reminded me more of a machine–a computer perhaps–than a being of flesh and bone. Though flesh and bone he had in abundance. He must have outweighed any of the rest of us by forty pounds. I was glad we were playing a friendly game of “touch.”
“This is Henry,” said Mucho. “He’s going to play with us today.”
There was a note of authority in Mucho’s voice. Mucho was the manager at the supermarket on Capitol Court. He sometimes forgot who he was talking to. I suppose it’s easy to mistake your friends for a couple of stock boys.
Everyone except Lincoln and I walked away to help Angelito. It was up to the four of us to choose teams.
I suggested that Eddie, Billy, Lincoln and I stand Angelito, Jimmy, Mucho and Henry. The others agreed except Henry. He scowled.
The first two possessions went all right except that Henry didn’t seem to be doing much. He appeared to be studying us. At the time I thought he was trying to get the hang of our style of football. I wouldn’t find out until later that I was totally wrong.
The score was one touchdown to none when we had the ball about midfield with a good chance to increase our lead. It was then that Henry declared sharply, “Rule change!”
“What’s the matter?” asked Lincoln.
“The defense should be able to use their hands,” was his mechanical reply.
“There’s nothing against that,” said Lincoln, “provided that you don’t grab someone and that it doesn’t get too rough.”
Henry muttered something and the game went on. We had driven down near to the other team’s goal when Billy Washington went out for a pass and Lincoln threw him a perfect strike. Billy had it for a touchdown when suddenly Henry sent his hands, as though propelled by pistons, into Billy’s back. The play should have been over. Billy was unprepared for the blow and was thrown to the ground.
All of us were stunned except Tattler and Pani who chuckled at Billy’s misfortune. I think Tattler is a closet racist.
“What you think you’re doing?” cried Billy as he pugnaciously arose. “The play was over. You don’t hit a man after he has made a touchdown.”
“All I did was ‘two-hand-touch.’”
“It was pretty hard for two hand touch. Besides, that was a late hit.”
Henry didn’t respond but walked down to the other end of the field with his team for the kick-off. Billy was muttering to himself. I was in some confusion. Billy never played roughly at all. He was a finesse player depending upon speed and agility. To change the style of our game would not be to his advantage. But there was more to it. This outsider was coming in and trying to run our game for us. I resented this. I also resented Mucho for bringing us this bore. He made Mucho seem like a decent kind of guy. Still, no one wanted to make a big thing of it, so we went on.
In the next series the other team had gotten halfway down the field when Henry picked up the snap himself and ran right over Lincoln and Billy. Lincoln was knocked over by Henry’s shoulder hitting his ribs. Billy had taken the full brunt of Henry head-on.
Billy lay flat on his back. The soft-spoken schoolteacher looked hurt. A bunch of us ran to his aid. But Henry kept us away.
“I’ll see to this,” he said in a flat voice. There wasn’t any great loudness to his speech, but somehow it seemed to carry great authority.
Henry helped Billy to his feet. He only had the wind knocked out of him. None of us did anything. All we did was stand there and watch.
“Billy better play on my team for awhile,” he concluded.
This seemed like a logical arrangement so we left it at that. We got Jimmy Tattler in the exchange. In the next play Henry gave Billy the ball. The nearsighted schoolteacher followed Henry’s block which flattened me and Jimmy.
I felt something hot and flowing. I had a nosebleed.
“I think this is getting a little rough,” said Jimmy.
Billy, who had just made a touchdown, said, “How does it feel being on the other side of it? You seemed to think it was pretty funny when I got it.”
“Get screwed, sambo,” said Jimmy quietly, but so that Billy could hear.
Henry didn’t say anything. He gathered his men and kicked off. The kick was right to Jimmy who got it and was instantly flattened by Billy.
“What in the name of shit are you doing?” yelled Jimmy as he got up hot and ready to punch Washington. “You nearly ripped my $300 Carabinni body suit.”
Billy’s eyes flashed. He wouldn’t have minded laying into Jimmy right there. Then Henry intervened.
“Rule change,” proclaimed Henry. “From now on tackling is allowed.”
“Just a minute,” Lincoln put in. “We play touch here. We’ve never played tackle.”
Henry stepped up to the lawyer. “We’re playing tackle now.”
“I’m not. I’m leaving.” Lincoln turned around to go when Henry stretched out his left arm and grabbed Lincoln by the shoulder and turned him around. The lawyer’s eyes showed a fear which I had never seen. He had faced many important cases and had stood up to all odds, but now the threat was physically immediate.
“Let me go. I don’t want to play anymore.”
“You have to play. The game depends upon your presence.” Henry’s voice seemed almost to echo. There was a quality to it which reminded you of a loudspeaker system sending out its message to some crowd.
Then Eddie Meyer stepped forward. “You can’t do this. If Lincoln wants to go, then so be it. I’ve had enough of this myself. This isn’t football; it’s butcher ball.” Eddie stood up to Henry. There were two of them in front of this man and his dictatorial output. If only we had all taken that opportunity to rush him just then. We had our chance, but we muffed it. We just watched–myself included.
Henry wheeled and stared at Eddie a moment, and then with a terrible swing, he knocked Eddie’s head at the temple with such a force that the stocky foundry worker fell to the ground. Eddie didn’t get up. I rushed to Eddie’s aid, but Henry told me to get back in my place.
Why hadn’t we done something? Even then the six of us could have subdued him. But even Lincoln seemed impressed with what Henry could do if he wanted to. Henry could kill, and none of us wanted to be next.
“The game goes on. We play tackle.”
None of us wanted to continue. Even Mucho seemed to lose that air of self-confidence he always tries to affect. But continue we did.
It was with a different feeling that we resumed. Henry was now making more and more changes in the rules. Lincoln whispered to me that we should watch for our chance to jump Henry and so effect our escape.
This seemed like a good idea, but I could not help going over in my mind the fact that we had had the opportunity to jump Henry and we hadn’t taken it.
Henry was now making up all the plays. He assigned Mucho and Angelito to tackle Lincoln. When the lawyer had taken several jarring tackles he began to send sharp punches to the bodies of his hunters. After this had occurred three times Angelito sent a fierce blow to Lincoln’s jaw. The lawyer went reeling. Angelito didn’t stop there. He tackled the former civil rights activist attorney, and pushed Lincoln’s face into the dirt. Lincoln fought back.
Jimmy yelled to Lincoln, “Take care of that wet-back, Link. It’s time we got the garbage out of here anyway.” As he said this he looked back to Billy who responded by putting the salesman and his designer athletic costume down to the ground. Mucho went in to help Jimmy against Billy. I didn’t like to see two against one so I got in to help Billy.
I’m not sure how long we were on the ground, but it wasn’t long. Soon Henry stopped it. We had fought with passion, but for some reason we did not turn our violence against Henry. He had intervened. We obeyed.
“The game must proceed,” he said.
We stopped fighting. Billy had a puffy ear and a cut over his left eye. Jimmy was suffering from abdominal pains. Mucho seemed pretty good except for shoulder stiffness. My nose was bleeding again. This time it was broken.
The teams were rearranged again. Lincoln, now without two teeth, was playing alongside Angelito. None of seemed to same. We just kept doing what Henry said.
I looked around hoping someone would come and rescue us. The park is normally very busy. But today it was completely vacant. I hoped someone would come and stop Henry. If only we had acted earlier when we had had the chance.
Now Henry ran every play. We did what he told us to do. I kept waiting, as Lincoln had suggested earlier. But now, none of us were allowed to talk to each other so that organization would be difficult. The only one we could talk to was Henry. I felt he could be stopped, but I couldn’t do it alone. I needed help. But how could I get it when everyone was so badly divided? No one was himself anymore.
If only someone would come. We continued with the game. Each of us waited–waited for a way out. In the center of the field was the body of Eddie. It was getting stiff by now. Strange, we all seemed to ignore it. We shut it out. We played the game. We waited, and we played the game.
Michael Boylan (Ph.D. University of Chicago) is professor of philosophy at Marymount University and a Fellow at the Center for American Progress (a Washington, D.C. think tank). His most recent book, The Good, The True, and The Beautiful (2008) is a popular application of his worldview theory to many of the traditional problems in philosophy. The Extinction of Desire (2007) is a bold experiment in narrative philosophy. A Just Society (2004) is his manifesto on ethics and social/political philosophy (and the most complete depiction of his normative worldview theory and is the subject of a forthcoming book of exploratory essays by scholars from seven countries: Ethics and Morality: Reading Boylan’s A Just Society, March, 2009). He is also the author of Basic Ethics (2000, 2008, 2nd ed.) an essay on normative and applied ethics, Genetic Engineering: Science and Ethics on the New Frontier (2002, with Kevin E. Brown), Ethics Across the Curriculum: A Practice-Based Approach (2003, with James A. Donahue), and Public Health Policy and Ethics, (ed. 2004)/ International Public Health Policy and Ethics, (ed. 2008) along with 13 other books in philosophy and literature and over ninety articles. He is the general editor of a series of trade books on public philosophy with Basil Blackwell Publishers and another series of books with Prentice Hall as well as being the ethics editor for the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Presently, Boylan is working on an extension of his worldview theory to international problems Global Ethics (2010, forthcoming) and further exploration of the relation of narrative to philosophy with Charles Johnson, Philosophy Live (2010, forthcoming). Read more at Blackwell Public Philosophy
