Sudden Death

Tom Michaels, overweight by more than a few six-packs, wasn’t going to catch Dash Carter from his living room easy chair. Then again, no one on the football field was going to, either. Carter had just intercepted another pass...already his sixth of the young season...and was on his way to returning it 90 yards for a touchdown.

It was a typical Dash score. He had outraced the pack some 20 yards back, so the rest of the jaunt was showtime. A high step here, another one there. Switch the ball from hand to hand, and extend each arm. For the grand finale, he tossed the pigskin ahead of himself at the five-yard line, turned and caught it behind his back one step into the end zone.

A little bow for the crowd at the opposite end of the field, and the performance was over.

If Carter had been in New York, where his Jets were surprising the rest of the league, he would have brought down the house. Old Anna Grazzanti...who sat in row two, near midfield...would have tossed out the huge bouquet of red, white and blue roses she brought to every home game. But in Pittsburgh, Carter nearly incited a riot. The Steelers’ faithful punctuated its chorus of boos by showering Dash and the Jets’ bench with batteries, golf balls, loose change and empty half-pint brandy bottles. Fortunately, Carter’s teammates on the side lines knew enough to put on their helmets as he raced toward the end zone. Coaches raised their clipboards and play cards over their heads.

"If I were there right now, I’d shoot that f---er," Michaels said to his two friends, before chugging the rest of his beer in anger. Dash Carter, who was only in his second season, had been sticking pins in Tom’s already troublesome life.

Michaels would be the first to admit that he had brought on most of his own problems. He’d been addicted to sports long before he’d gotten married, and that dependency was stripping away the other layers of his life. His wife had left him for good 18 months earlier, narrowly missing his right ear with a strong fling of the TV’s remote. Her toss, Tom remembered clearly, came during the third period of a Bruins playoff game, tied 2-2 at the time. Boston’s center had just skated into the neutral zone at the instant the remote crashed into a large, Ikea-vintage picture frame, cracking the glass in two.

Tom had accepted that Gina wasn’t coming back, same as he knew the Red Sox weren’t coming back from 15 games out with 30 left to play. He had buried his emotions and let his mind lose itself in on-base percentages, hang times and goals-against averages. Anyway, that’s how his closest friends had analyzed it and, fortunately for Tom, he still had a couple of friends left. No doubt they shared his symptoms, but could shake them when they wanted to by switching the channel, taking the wife to dinner or the kids to a movie. Neither had the full-blown illness that was consuming their friend, and that would infect them if they didn’t watch themselves.

"Who needs another?" Tom asked, ambling toward the kitchen.

"Yeah, what the hell." Bob Kennersy was good for one, especially if it saved him from getting up.

"How ‘bout you, Richie?"

"Got anything better than Bud?"

Tom pushed aside a bag of triple-washed lettuce and an oversized jar of salsa verde, and stuck his head in the fridge. "Two Sam Adams and two Bass Ales."

"Gimme the Sammy," Rich Pawlowski shot back.

"Pretty smart move for a polock," Kennersy said. "Bring the cheap sh--, then drink all Tom’s good stuff. Wish I thought of that."

"Like you’d appreciate good beer, anyway."

Suddenly and involuntarily, all heads turned to the 31-inch. There, larger than life, was Dash Carter, mugging for the cameras. Long strands of blond hair were sticking out from the sweat-soaked, green-and-white skullcap pulled tight around his head. Across the front, completely against NFL rules, the word "Dash" was emblazoned in a funky cursive typeface.