It was hard for Ruger Floyd to watch another man making money like that, all those pretty mommas dropping hundred-dollar bills into a red gym bag the Black dude had set up in a lawn chair; couple footballs, six orange cones—and that was it. A twelve-hundred-dollar operation, if Ruger’d counted right, running back over the numbers in his head when a voice behind him said, “Which one’s yours?”
Ruger had both elbows resting on top of a chain-link fence. He pressed his chin to his shoulder, beard stubble scraping leather as he turned and saw a woman who’d gotten lost in the shuffle of the big-haired blondes, all those other women sitting in the stands on the other side of the field. They looked like Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders—shit, they probably were at some point—but this one was different. Had three solid black bands tattooed around her left wrist, and a nose ring. Jesus Christ. Hair parted straight down the middle like a hippie but wearing a five-hundred-dollar Patagonia jacket. A rich hippie. What was the word? A hipster? Ruger wasn’t sure but he guessed this one was real picky about what she ate. Open-minded when it came to other stuff, though. Ruger pictured himself in bed with the woman, a mosquito net dangling from the ceiling, sticking to his back as he gave it to her somewhere down in Mexico.
Ruger said, “Which what?” and the woman took a step toward the fence, getting right up beside him, almost like she was hiding, before nodding to the swarm of little boys in Dri-Fit Nike gear running around on the artificial turf. “Which kid. I mean—” She stopped and rolled her eyes. “Which quarterback?” Grinning at Ruger now. “They can’t even throw a ball yet, but here we are. Only in Texas, right?”
Ruger was in Mesquite—a suburb of Dallas—after serving sixteen months at Hutchins State Jail on aggravated assault charges. Two days on the outside and he was horny as hell but keeping his mind occupied hunting up work. Had applications in at a Pizza Hut and the Superfast Lube & Oil over on Kearney Street. A manager at the McDonald’s inside the Walmart just off East Main had asked to do an interview on the spot, like Ruger’s leather vest and cutoff T-shirt didn’t scare him one bit. Only thing that’d bothered the little guy, whose name tag read Chad, was the fact that Ruger’d been convicted of a felony within the last three years. Ruger cracking his knuckles as he told him, “That charge was bullshit. Didn’t have no knife. No gun. Nothing. Hit the dude square in his eye with my fist and broke his face. Not his nose. His face. Eye socket. Cheekbones. Everything on the left side. Got some kind of infection he’s in the hospital and died. Tried explaining all that to the judge and he told me to watch it. Said he’d slap my ass with second-degree murder and put me away for twenty-five to life. Know what I said to that?”
All Ruger’d said to the judge was, “Yessir,” and that’s how he’d gotten out of Hutchins after sixteen months. He never got the chance to tell Chad that, though. Didn’t even get to tell him about the guy he’d punched; how he’d hit him for less than sliding out of a McDonald’s booth and walking away, which was exactly what Chad did midway through the interview.
The old Ruger would’ve hopped the counter and pushed Chad’s pointy head under the McFlurry machine. The new Ruger was different, though. Reformed enough to leave the McDonald’s and take a walk to clear his mind, a walk that had led him to E. H. Hanby Stadium. Besides, there wasn’t any money in aggravated assault. There wasn’t any money flipping burgers for minimum wage, either. There was, however, over a thousand bucks in that Black dude’s gym bag, the big broad-shouldered brother out on the field now, chasing a bunch of White kids around some cones.
The woman said, “I noticed you right off,” and Ruger cut his eyes at her. “Don’t see many dads at the sessions when the boys are this young.”
“Well . . .” Ruger shrugged, glancing at the money bag. “I ain’t most dads.”
“You’re a good guy.”
“I’m just here for my boy.”
“You still haven’t told me which kid’s yours, Mr.—”
“Mine’s the one with the headband and the hair.” Ruger nodded toward the field, trying to decide whether to make up a name or just keep giving the woman his strong, silent act, when she said, “Cute kid. How long’s he been coming to see the Guru?”
Jade had to pinch her nose to keep from laughing when the burly dude coughed into his fist and said, “The Gu-ru?”
“The parents came up with that, four, maybe five years ago. Right after one of Daye’s quarterbacks signed a full-ride scholarship with UT.”
“The Longhorns?”
“You brought your kid here, paid the hundred bucks, but you don’t know the story?”
“Course I know the story.”
The guy didn’t know shit. That kid he’d claimed was his with the headband and the hair was one of Daye’s prized pupils. His older brother was the one who’d put the Zen QB System on the map. The first quarterback from the program to sign a D1 scholarship. Jade glanced across the field to the mothers in the stands, focusing in on the skinny blonde wearing Lululemon leggings and a neon-green sports bra, wondering if the woman could see her too, and if she could, how much did she know? Jade knew one thing for sure—this guy was lying. What she didn’t know was why he was hanging around a quarterback training session for five- to eight-year-olds on a Saturday afternoon, dressed like an extra from Easy Rider.
“That quarterback who signed with UT?” Jade said. “He was drafted last April. Daye got to go to Las Vegas with him and everything. ESPN did a segment called ‘The Guru and the Kid.’ Things got crazy after that.”
The guy said, “Who’s Dave?” and Jade told herself to walk away right then. Wait till she was back in her car and call the cops. But instead she felt herself staring at that green sports bra again, six inches of cleavage going up and down, as she said, “Daye,” then spelled it out for him. “Like night and—”
“I got it.”
“Daye Jones. He played quarterback for the Cowboys back in the mid-2000s. Filled in for Romo here and there.”
“Ah, shit. Yeah,” the guy said, wagging a finger in Jade’s face. “Course I remember Daye Jones. Muffed the hold on the extra point would’ve sealed the division for the first time in forever. Jesus. Now he’s stuck running kiddie camps for a hundred bucks a day?”
Jade laughed. She couldn’t help it. “It’s a hundred dollars an hour, man. Daye’s had three sessions this morning. Four more after lunch. Didn’t you sign the waiver?”
The guy had hair on his shoulders, curly black sprigs trapped under his leather vest as he hunched forward over the chain-link fence. “You’re telling me he’s got close to ten grand in that bag? And that’s just from today?” The guy shook his head. “But he was just a backup. A backup quarterback that muffed—”
“Daye says that extra point—the one that cost the Cowboys the division back in ’09—was the singular turning point in his life.” Jade took a long breath in through her nose, still not sure what she was doing there, why she was wasting her time with the hairy trucker-looking dude, but not quite ready to walk away yet either. “It made him slow down, really focus on what he was doing. You know, live in the moment. Meditation. Mindfulness. All that Zen stuff.”
The guy sucked his teeth, still staring out at the field. “Why the hell you know so much about him, huh? You like a groupie or something?”
“A groupie? No,” Jade said and glanced at the stands again. “I’m his wife.”
Ruger didn’t see that one coming, but he played along anyway, letting the woman explain how her husband made his living teaching little boys to breathe in real deep through their noses. “Everything starts with the breath,” the man’s wife said, waving to the field where the twelve tiny QBs were sitting cross-legged on the goal line, eyes closed as Daye walked behind them, tapping their heads with the back of his hand. “Posture’s important too,” the woman added. “Daye calls this opening sequence the Uncarved Block. It’s a way for the kids to clear their minds before they get into the meat of the session.”
“They ain’t even thrown a ball yet,” Ruger said, eyes jumping from the row of boys to the red gym bag stuffed full of money sitting right out in the open, all those orange-faced women in the bleachers behind it. What Ruger needed was a distraction. Something that’d get the momma bears looking the other way long enough he could grab the money and go.
“The ball’s not important,” the woman said. “Daye teaches the boys to focus on the process instead of the result. The ball will find its way . . .”
Ruger said, “Jesus H. Christ,” and slapped at the chain link. “I’m sorry, lady, but your husband’s full of shit.”
The woman didn’t say anything, and that surprised Ruger, the ex-con watching her as the boys straddled the goal line in the distance, standing over it now, palms pressed together in front of their chests.
“You hear me? I said your husband’s full of—”
“I know.”
The woman’s voice was so soft, Ruger could barely hear it. He leaned down, close enough to smell her hair, watching her lips move as she said, “But the parents don’t. They eat Daye’s shit up. Which says something about you, doesn’t it?”
Ruger straightened.
“What’re you doing here, man? What’s your angle?”
Ruger took a step back and raised both hands, palms out toward the woman.
“You some sort of perv?”
“Shit, no,” Ruger said. “Told you, that’s my boy out—”
“That kid’s mom is the blonde with her tits hanging out in the top row of the stands. His name’s Sailor. You believe that? Sailor. Stacia used to be a Cowboys cheerleader back in ’09.”
“Staci-a?” Ruger said. “Shit,” starting to get the picture now, the dates coming together in his mind. “ ’09, huh? The same season Daye muffed that hold.”
The woman went quiet again, squinting at the Black man on the field. Ruger followed her aim, watching as Daye Jones hovered over the longhaired kid with the headband, all the other boys milling around in the end zone, bored because the Guru had his mind on Sailor’s momma’s monkey.
“Listen, if you’re after the money,” the woman said without turning, “I don’t care. I’ll even help you get it, but you’ve got to do something for me first. Okay?”
The guy looked like a professional wrestler walking onto the football field. Jade’s daddy was a Hacksaw Jim Duggan fan, always hollering at the TV whenever Hacksaw’d face off against Kamala on WCW Monday Nitro, a redneck with a two-by-four going up against an obese Black man from Mississippi, James Arthur Harris portraying a Ugandan giant dressed in a loincloth, toting a shield and a spear.
Maybe all those Monday nights had given Jade the idea, or maybe she just couldn’t stand the thought of spending another Saturday staring at Stacia’s tits. It didn’t matter now. Things were already in motion, the big guy whose name she still didn’t know was halfway across the field carrying a piece of metal pipe instead of a two-by-four but other than that looking exactly like her daddy’s favorite wrestler. Daye didn’t need to wear a loincloth or an African tribal mask, his name had already been given to him, “the Guru” looking up from Sailor’s shock of bronze hair as the big guy said, “You and me, brother. Right here. Right now,” sounding like Macho Man Randy Savage doing a Slim Jim commercial, all the boys huddled together, wide-eyed in the end zone.
The way Daye rolled his head around his shoulders, a look on his face like, Here we go again . . . , surprised Jade but also made her feel better about telling the big guy she’d pay him half of whatever was in the gym bag to rough Daye up, publicly. The guy’d said, “Come on. Not in front of the kids.” But that was the only way it’d work. Jade wanted a front-row seat to the show.
Daye said, “Hold up, man. Hold the fuck—” and the big guy swung the pipe but whiffed, Daye sidestepping the lumberjack, a Black ninja walking sideways and backwards at the same time, both hands erect and ready in front of his chest. All those hours spent talking about Zen, Jade thought, maybe Daye’d picked up karate through osmosis. She wasn’t sure, but the women were stampeding down the bleachers now, Stacia leading the charge, pumping her fists as she hollered, “Whoop his ass, Daye!” Like her son wasn’t right there in the middle of it, Sailor and the other eleven boys forming a loose circle around the men.
Jade stood on the other side of the field, taking in the spectacle and guessing maybe this sort of thing happened more often than she’d realized. She only came to a few sessions per month—whenever Daye was in or around Dallas—but he worked six, sometimes seven days a week. The Zen QB System took him all across the country. Daye probably had housewives lined up at every stop along the way. Probably had to deal with pissed-off daddies from time to time too. No wonder he’d learned karate, or maybe jujitsu. Whatever it was was working. Daye had the big dude in a sleeper hold now, his bicep flexing around the guy’s neck as he brought him down to one knee, then the other.
The pipe slipped through the man’s fingers and hit the turf without a sound.
Jade whispered, “Shit,” and took a deep breath in through her nose, telling herself to focus on the process instead of the result. Then thinking, Fuck that. There was still one angle left she could play.
Sirens wailed in the distance. That’s what Ruger heard when he opened his eyes, darkness giving way to blue Texas sky, twelve smiling faces staring down at him.
“Daaamn,” said the boy with the long blond hair. “You just got knocked the fuck out!”
It was the kid Ruger’d tried to claim as his own. He looked different up close. Darker. The one with the funny name. What was it?
“Sailor,” a woman’s voice said. “The man got choked out, hon. Not knocked out. Watch your words, hon.”
Ruger blinked, trying to make sense of what had happened, how he’d let that Black dude slip around behind him, but then the huddle of boys began to part, clearing a path for the guy. The Guru. Shit. He had the pipe Ruger’d found beside the gate in one hand, that red gym bag in the other.
“The hell you think you doing,” the Guru said, smacking the pipe against his palm, “coming at me like that, man?”
Ruger said, “I’s aiming to whoop your ass.”
The Black man leaned back and laughed, glancing around at the kids, then to their mommas behind them, arms folded over silicone sweater mounds. The Black guy had a goofy name, but Ruger couldn’t remember it. He was still thinking of him as the Guru when the guy squatted down and said, “You was aiming to whoop my ass, huh?”
“That’s what I said.”
The Guru tapped the pipe gently against Ruger’s left knee. Ruger was so busy watching the pipe, he didn’t notice the gym bag between his legs.
“Where’s my money, man?”
Ruger stared into the empty bag, licking his lips before he said, “Your wife, she—”
The pipe touched Ruger’s chin, making his eyes cross as he looked down at it, then back up at the Guru.
“You say something about my wife?”
“Yeah, she—”
“Hold up.” The Guru turned his head but kept both eyes on Ruger. “You hearing this, baby?”
The boys shifted as the woman pushed through the crowd. Ruger looked down. His head felt fuzzy, like the morning after a night spent drinking prison wine. What had he been thinking? A woman like that coming on to him, two days out of Hutchins? He hadn’t even had time to shave. He should’ve known it was a setup. Two days out, he should’ve known better. Eyes still down, Ruger saw the woman’s rainbow-colored tennis shoes snap to a stop on the turf.
“You know this man?” Daye said, the name coming back to Ruger just like that. Night and—
“Daye, baby. Look at him. He’s got hair on his shoulders.”
Her voice—it was all wrong. Ruger looked up, straight into the biggest pair of knockers he’d ever seen on a woman didn’t weigh over two hundred pounds. Jesus Christ. They were something, wrapped tight in a green sports bra, but they didn’t belong. The woman who’d said she was the Black dude’s wife had gymnast tits, peeking out from under her puffy jacket a couple times while she was telling Ruger to go whoop her “husband’s” ass.
“You got sixty seconds,” Daye said, still squatting in front of Ruger, cocking his ear to the sirens in the distance, getting closer now, “maybe less, before the police get here. So let me ask you one more time. Who the hell took my money?”
Ruger said, “Was this girl, man. I’m telling you.”
“What’d she look like?”
“Different. I don’t know. Said she’s your wife and I believed her ’cause she looked like the kind a woman—”
“—that’d fuck a Black dude?”
“Marry a Black dude,” Ruger said, frowning. “She was cute. Like a gypsy or something. Had a nose ring and three black bands tattooed around her—”
Daye stood up, quick. “Get the hell outta here, man.”
Ruger blinked and saw Daye waving the pipe across the field now, pointing toward the nearest exit, saying, “Go on. Before I change my mind.”
Ruger stood and took one step before the big-breasted woman in the green sports bra said, “That’s it?” planting both hands on her hips. “You’re letting him go?”
“You see the money on him anywhere, Stacia? I whooped his ass already. What else you want me to do?”
Daye looked from his wife—his real one—to Ruger, and the ex-con finally saw the truth in his eyes, the reason the man had stopped asking questions. The same reason the man wanted him gone.
“Excuse me, Mr. Guru?” Ruger said and raised a hand. “Since I didn’t take the money and you already whooped my ass, like you said, I’s wondering if you might be willing to tell them officers pulling up in the parking lot over there”—Ruger pointed—“that this’s all just been one big misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding my ass,” Stacia hissed. “You came at my husband with a pipe!”
“Yeah, and I’m real sorry about it, but what I’m talking about now don’t got nothing to do with that. Ain’t that right, Daye?”
Ruger gave the Guru a grin and a shrug, knowing he could get away with anything now. All it’d take was a couple more words, a few more details about the girl in the Patagonia jacket, and surely Stacia’d realize her husband had been fucking around.
Daye pressed his fingertips together upside down above his waist and said to Ruger, “You and me, we gonna go talk to the police together. Put this whole thing behind us. Aight?”
Ruger nodded, then winked at the man’s wife, picturing her in that bed down in Mexico, the one with the mosquito net, the other woman rolling around in there too, but not Daye. He could keep his ass in Texas. Shit. The Guru’d had both women already—probably a whole bunch of other ones too—and all it’d cost him was a measly ten grand. 
Eli Cranor played quarterback at every level, peewee to professional, and then coached high school football for five years. These days, he’s traded in the pigskin for a laptop, writing from Arkansas, where he lives with his wife and kids. Eli’s novel Don’t Know Tough won the Peter Lovesey First Crime Novel Contest and will be published by Soho Press in 2022. Along with fiction, Eli writes a nationally syndicated sports column, and his craft column, “Shop Talk,” appears online monthly at CrimeReads. Eli is currently at work on his next novel.
