It took Kelly forty-five minutes to move himself off the bed and onto the carpeted floor. It wasn’t his carpet. He moved slowly, silently, calling upon the tales of snipers in World War Two and Vietnam who low-crawled five hundred yards in a week to get the shot. By the time he reached the hallway and out of the door frame, his stomach, thighs and chest were raw and angry from the effort.

There were no lights on, that he could observe, anywhere. As he stepped achingly slowly down the hallway to the top of the stairs, Kelly returned to the task of figuring out where he was. The pictures on the wall didn’t help.

The first he recalled immediately. In the wake of the Pitt loss, though, the joy on the faces in the photo was hard to take. There he was at a private table at the LaSalle Grill, empty bottles and half-empty bottles and heaps of vanquished plates. Everyone was there, beaming, smoking cigars. Diaco had on sunglasses and no shirt. Alford was wearing Diaco’s shirt. On his head. Martin had his head tipped back, mouth agape. He was belting out “Rosalita.” Jack was there, too. More straight-laced, but he had a cigarette in his right hand. They all had their had their arms around each other. They were going to Miami.

Further along and down the stairs a way, another photograph. In it, Deonte Thompson hung suspended in mid-air, upside down, framed by the Florida players who put him that way. To Kelly, it was a symbol, perhaps unfair, of how he left his team. How they must have felt after he bolted for Notre Dame.

Now, after tedious minutes descending the carpeted stairs, Kelly saw light under a door across the foyer. A mumbled voice met him as a he crossed it, the polished wood cold under his bare feet.

“That’s not…fucking…targeting.” The voice was familiar, but different… and distant. The syllables were laced with disbelief and bourbon. The voice unsure. “Awful!” A bang and clatter. A glass had thumped onto a wooden table. Something jumped. “HOW DO YOU NOT DIVE ON THAT BALL??!! PICK IT UP!!!!” Kelly knew immediately who it was. He gave a light knock and a stage-whisper. “Pssst! Jack!”

Instantly the television noise behind the door ceased. The voice, now frightened, nervous. “WHO IS IT???!! I….I….I’VE GOT A GUN YOU MOTHERFUCKER! I’VE HIT THE SILENT ALARM YOU FUCKING FREAK!!!!”

Kelly recognized this as a very bad situation. He tried to turn and flee out the front door, but it was too late. The door flew open.

Kelly had never been hit that hard in his life. Had never heard a sound that loud. The flash illuminated everything, fleetingly. Swarbrick’s face twisted in agonized surprise. The gun, a Beretta, breathing a whisp of smoke. The television beyond, in the room, frozen on TJ’s fumble.

In the hours it took to fall to the floor, Kelly felt the searing pain of the wound in his gut and watched in vivid detail as the walls and ceiling arced across his gaze. His blood was thick and heavy and it gurgled silently through his fingers and around his palms.

Swarbrick, too, fell back, but he into the room, where he crawled to the window and sobbed into his hands, barking nonsensically at the glass. Perhaps he was screaming at himself, his reflection a panicked patina on the cold surface and the dark night beyond.

Kelly dragged himself with his remaining strength to the room and across to the table, where he felt for a phone. With agonized effort, he knocked the receiver to him. He pressed the 9-1-1 buttons, his pale fingers sticky with dark blood. He was empty of strength. Empty of blood. Empty.

The last thing he heard was the operator’s voice, trailing off as though the phone were moving away from his ear. “9-1-1 Emergency. What’s your location? 9-1-1 Emergency, What’s your location, please?”

http://youtu.be/ijZRCIrTgQc

Kelly opened his eyes. Everything was dark.

The post The Irish – Episode Fifteen – Everybody Hurts appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Inside the restaurant, hidden from view by the heavy drapes drawn down, the diners were unaware that mere feet from their tables, Kelly was into his fourth glass of Duckhorn merlot. They were also unaware of the effects the alcohol was beginning to take. They could not hear the music.

Kelly squinted into the courtyard’s corner, trying to lift the veil of wisteria using nothing more than his now fuzzy mind. He had not remembered a piano outside, but he hadn’t thought of much other than football since the Spring game. He could only glimpse the player in furtive glimpses, the breeze pushing the foliage teasingly.

“Everett?” Kelly finally asked toward the direction of the music.

“How you doin’ coach?” the player replied. “How’s the wine treating you?”

Kelly smiled, pouring himself another half-glass. “Pretty good, E. Better than many things at this point. You… you look pretty good in a tux, you know that?”

The player smiled. “Tough game, yesterday, coach.”

“Wha…. what the fuck are you doing playing piano in a fucking restaurant, E?”

The player continued, the notes tinkling and tinny, distant. Dreamlike.

“How you gonna right the ship, coach?”

The question rang into Kelly’s brain like a discordant terror. He slammed his fist against the brick and vines. “The fucking ship was fine until you got thrown out of school!” Kelly whacked the wall again and again, spitting purple merlot mist. The color matched his face.

“We knew we were losing Manti and Tyler and Harrison, but not you, E! You can sit down and script out a program, year after year, but then you get your fucking starting quarterback yanked because of some cheating bullshit?!!!”

“It wasn’t bullshit, coach. I copied that paper.”

“God dammit that’s not what I was talking about!” Kelly’s color had gone beyond purple to something approaching black. His thoughts were, too. “Jesus fucking Christ, Everett! You WRECKED this season, you know that?”

The figure in the wisteria seemed to smile as he leaned into the notes. “You’re blaming me, coach? That doesn’t sound like a lot of responsibility, there, now does it?”

“Oh, please.” Kelly gulped his glass empty and began pouring another. “You were special, E. You gave us, you gave ME the kind of quarterback I need under center. You grew so much last year. I was just, just so excited for this season. And then… poof.”

The player seemed to smile. “You can’t complain a lot, coach, if you put everything on one player. I’m what you call a ‘young man.'”

Kelly leaned back in his chair and stared up at the canopy, closing his eyes, inhaling deeply through his nose. “Doesn’t matter the adjective that comes before the word, E, you’re a man, and I and we have every right to be pissed off about it. Don’t give me any of this bullshit about how young you are or whatever. You were getting a boat load of money and support from the university and you have obligations because of that. And you fucked yourself and us, any way you look at it.”

The two fell silent, though the piano went on. “It’s not the NFL, coach. You might get NFL money, but we’re not professionals. We’re not perfect.”

Kelly smiled into his wine, remembering, blissfully that he hadn’t driven and had left his cell phone on his desk at the Gug. “Tell me about it. Did you watch our opening drive yesterday?”

“No. I don’t watch. It hurts too much.”

Kelly opened his eyes. Everything was dark. The only sound was Paqui gently breathing and the barely perceptible thump of the ceiling fan through the air above them.

http://youtu.be/-CGIii_eTOk

The post The Irish – Episode Ten – Piano Man appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Before his wife could answer, the door bell chimed, shattering the otherwise silent Sunday afternoon. Kelly threw on his track suit pants and jogged down the curving grand staircase. He paused by the video screen to observe who was outside. It was the Athletic Director.

“Come in, Jack,” Kelly said, opening the crystal, iron and oak door. “Can I offer you a….”

The AD whirled around, forcing Kelly to recoil against the wall. “You can offer me a fucking idea of what the fuck you and your band of village idiots are doing out there, Brian!”

Kelly immediately grew defensive, angry. He jabbed his finger into his boss’s chest, pushing him across the marbled foyer. Snarling through clenched teeth, “You wanna know what the fuck we’re doing out there, Jack? We’re winning goddamn games.”

“Brian?” It was Paqui’s voice from upstairs. “Brian? Who is it? Is everything okay?”

http://youtu.be/th370QmFtk8

Hearing her voice, Kelly steadied himself and grew calmer, guiding Swarbrick into the kitchen, over to the island. “Fine!” he shouted. “It’s just Jack, honey! We’ll be in the kitchen!”

Swarbrick pulled a red seedless grape from the bunch in the bowl on the table and popped it in his mouth. “I’m not happy, Brian. I’m really not…dammit that’s a wonderful grape.” He pulled a handful from the bunch, holding them to the light. “What’re these, organic?”

Kelly took his bottle of Green Spot from its and put two rock glasses on the counter, pouring into each. “Jesus Christ, Jack, I don’t know. Meijer? They’re grapes from the fucking Meijer, okay, Jack? Did you come over here to break my balls about the fucking produce or the game? And why are you here? You couldn’t wait the ten minutes for me to get to campus?”

Swarbrick spoke through a mouthfull of grapes. “I’ll be candid, Brian. No one is happy, right now, and I need to know what you’re going to do to change that.”

Kelly dumped the whiskey down his throat and banged the glass against the counter top as he pushed the other glass towards the AD. “You mean other than win? You saw that we won yesterday, right?”

“Brian,” Swarbrick smiled sarcastically, “of course I saw that we won, but I didn’t think you’d need to dial up P.I. quite so often to get the job done. Do you honestly think that game felt like a win?”

“You mean anymore than Pitt or Purdue last year felt like wins? For Christsake Jack, what do you want from me?”

“I want confidence-building Brian. Two straight wins and we’re still sitting at twenty-second in the polls, Brian. You think that’s good enough to get me my game against the SEC and do you honestly think that if you get me that game that we have a real chance?”

Kelly walked to the Florida room, leaving his AD and his grapes. He fell into his recliner, admiring the ice in his glass and the thin width of whiskey at the bottom. He thought to himself, “I’m a bad interception away from 4-0 and I got this guy breathing down my neck.”

Swarbrick stepped into the room, his shoes lightly tapping on the polished concrete floors. “You know that winning isn’t enough, Brian. You need to be winning big with these boys.”

“Do I, Jack? For who, Jack? The fucking boosters who care more about those goddamn gold mums than they do about the game going on between them? You know what, for a team that’s not a full strength, I think we’re doing pretty good, and we’re a couple of missed assignments away from being a great team.”

Swarbrick choked down his drink, not moving further into the room. “What are you going to do about Oklahoma, Brian?”

“What about Oklahoma, Jack?” Kelly pushed his legs down, vaulting from the recliner. He loped into and through the kitchen, throwing on and zipping up his track suit top as he went, Swarbrick now trailing in his wake.

Kelly opened the door, heading down the path of slate pavers to his truck. “Brian!” Swarbrick called “Don’t you walk away from me!”

Kelly had by now climbed inside his truck and slammed the door closed. The tires spun in the drive, decorative gravel spitting away as the truck rolled down toward the street. Swarbrick began running down towards it, his black trench coat billowing behind him like disjointed bat wings. Paqui appeared in the bulls-eye window upstairs, watching.

The white truck dropped into gear and squealed forward, a cloud of exhaust and red brake lights as he observed, then immediately sped through the stop sign on the corner. Swarbrick ran after him for a few steps, “Brian! Stop the goddamn truck and get back here!” Realizing the coach was gone, he stopped at the corner, now doubled-over with his hands on his knees. “Jesus Christ, Brian!” To himself, he could only mutter over his gasping, “Is everything okay?”

The post The Irish – Episode Nine – Is Everything Okay? appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

He heard the door, heavy, heaving, and rose, moving to the sound. Inside, Kelly’s boss, Jack “The Brick” Swarbrick, stood in the shadows, his black trenchcoat giving him a bat-like appearance. His eyes darted quickly from the porch’s inky blackness, looking for others inside the illuminated space. Kelly joined him and fell back into the shadows, too, standing opposite. “Heckuva place for a meeting, Brick. Does the literal cloak come with a figurative dagger?” he asked as he pulled the lapel of Swarbirck’s trenchcoat.

Swarbrick’s voice was a whisper. “Brian, I’ve just finished speaking with Father Jenkins. He’s very concerned about Saturday. When he’s concerned, I’m concerned.” He noticed Kelly’s face and his chin move to speak. He raised his pointed index finger to his own lips, commanding silence. 

“Brian, there’s a reason I asked you to meet me here. And it’s not because it’s far, far from Domer Fest.” His right hand followed the stones of the basillica to the fixture on the wall and he carfully turned the dimmer, the light from the helmet above and between them slowly increasing.

“Jack, I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but like I said the other day, we’re ready for Temple week, we’re…”

Again, Swarbrick silenced him. “Brian, endulge me, if you will. I didn’t run from Father’s office like an extra in a Harry Potter movie, darting from tree to tree, for no good reason. I am here to convey a message: win flawlessly and win big.”

Kelly cocked his head, puzzled. Brick continued, “I’ll get to the point, Brian. There’s a lot riding on the Temple game. A lot of plans are depending on a big, big win. The stadium renovation? You think we’re getting the video boards and the Field Turf if we don’t absolutely blow out Temple? Makes it harder, Brian. Lose to Temple and they’ll build more seats and a meeting spaces, sure, but are they going to give us video boards? I want those video boards, Brian. I want a stadium, as you do, that every five-star recruit wants to play in. That means FieldTurf and JumboTrons and Macklemore.”

“You and your boys did amazing things last season, Brian. Far, far beyond our expectations. But there were too many close-shaves. Purdue? Pitt? We had two guys with the same number on the field, for God’s sake, Brian! Wins like that don’t help us, Brian. There’s more to this than just wins and losses, and, honestly, with the plans that are in the works, we can’t have any losses. Not against the Skunkbears, not against the Tree, not against the Sooners.”

“Gosh, Jack,” Kelly interrupted, raising his voice slightly. “You wanna put a little bit more pressure on me? I promise you, our boys are going to be ready, absolutely ready, every Saturday.”

Swarbrick stepped to Kelly, standing under the inverted doughboy’s helmet, jabbing his finger into the coach’s chest. “This is all about USF, Brian. Neither you, nor your boys, were ready for that. I know you’ve got so much progress between the team and that game, but we’re not having something like that happen again, capisce? You don’t fill the stadium with all those boosters and board members and stupid fifty dollar pots of mums and lose to USF. And I know Temple isn’t even close to USF, Brian, but our plans depends on you blowing out Temple.”

Swarbirck relaxed and fell back into the shadows. “Brian, we’re going after the SEC and that starts with you destroying Temple. I want to see Big Lou under center by the third quarter, okay? I want Tommy’s arm in an ice wrap because he hooked up deep with TJ2Smoove  and Toot Daddy Fresh a hundred times. Once we’re playing, and beating, an SEC team a season, it’s going to make it so much easier to deal with our next target: Mark May.”

“What’s Mark May got to do with this?”

Swarbrick smiled. “Mark May represents institutionalized anti-Irish bias, Brian. It’s ironic that we’ve moved almost one hundred and eighty degrees from the days of Fielding Yost, but that’s what it is. Every time he gets in front of a camera and bloviates about Notre Dame, he wears away at our brand. It’s why we put a man on the inside, right next to him, Brian.”

Kelly’s jaw dropped. “You mean?”

“Yes, Brian. ESPN thinks they were so clever to pair him with Holtz and it seemed that way for so, so long. But what they didn’t know is that the University let it happen. They saw what was happening to the program and they started planning for it. Honestly, they saw the bad years that were coming, the cancer that started under Davie. We just chose the wrong surgeons to cut it out, Brian. Charlie started to help, but it was so far gone at that point. You were able, finally, to contain the disease and start to kill it. We need you to keep going. That will let so many things happen.”

With that, Swarbrick eased open the black metal door handle, opening the Memorial Door to the warm air outside and the distant safari sounds of the still writhing campus. Kelly put his hand on Swarbrick’s shoulder. “You’re not saying…”

Swarbrick again held up his finger for silence. “I’m not saying anything, Brian, but big wins will let us, and Coach Holtz, do what must be done.”

With that, he stepped out into the shadows along the basillica and began quickly walking away. Kelly was left alone, between the Archangel Michael and Joan of Arc, to consider what this all meant.

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