The crowd at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony clapped, a little more on the polite than raucous praise side, as Deion Jenkins and his wife, Candice, removed the covering from the bust of him that sat on the stage.
He stepped up to the podium. People had heard enough Deion Jenkins speeches from the Heisman Award to his retirement to know that he wouldn’t be giving the same kind of speech that the other inductees gave.
“I went back and forth on how to begin this speech and I decided that a story from my rookie year would be the right place. It was the third game of the season. We’d just beaten the Cowboys 45 to 10. It was our first win of the year.” He paused. “I don’t know if you all know this but people in Oklahoma don’t really like people in Texas. An old man caught me as I was leaving the stadium and said ‘Son, you’ve got God given talent that I’ve never seen.’ I looked at that old man, and at 21 years old, I said ‘God didn’t give me anything. I made myself who I am.’”
“You see for as long as athletes have competed, we’re expected to say some supernatural being gave us our ability. You’ve seen three men speak before me and they all thanked God. Let me tell you how I got here. Wasn’t any God with me when I got kicked out of two high schools. Wasn’t any God with me when I came close to dying in a car accident if not for my decision to go piss. Wasn’t any God with me when I went to East Texas for a football camp and got the last scholarship to Oklahoma State. Wasn’t any God with me when I won the Heisman, the National Championship, the first Super Bowl, the second Super Bowl, the third Super Bowl, the fourth Super Bowl. And there isn’t any God with me now. I did that.”
…
Kaley leaned over to Caesar. “Didn’t he send you to a Catholic school?”
“Because they could recruit,” Caesar whispered. “We didn’t exactly go running to Mass on Sundays.
He wrung his hands together and his foot bounced against the cement below. Kaley reached over and pried his hands apart before putting hers around one of his. She grimaced when his hand balled into a fist.
“You’re going to break my fucking hand,” she said through clenched teeth.
He relaxed his hand. “Sorry.”
…
Deion Jenkins took a deep breath as he went into the final bit of his speech, a whirlwind of subtle and not so subtle ‘Fuck Yous.’
“All of you bet against me. Every step of the way. The only people who believed in me were my parents, my wife and my son. And look where I am now. You can’t take this from me like you couldn’t take anything else from me.”
“To end, I’m going to give you another story from my rookie year. Before the draft, I was projected to go first overall. I know you all remember John Buckles who was supposed to win the Heisman over me. John was supposed to go second to the then-Los Angeles Blaze. The Blaze were so afraid the Outlaws were going to take John Buckles that they traded THREE first round picks, two seconds and some other third day junk to move up one spot. The one accolade I couldn’t have in my career. Number one overall pick.”
“I want to read you something.” He flicked his finger across the screen of his phone. “’Former Michigan star quarterback John Buckles found dead after suspected overdose. Buckles, 28, was found dead in a flophouse in Detroit following a three-day search. Buckles, who played two seasons in the NFL, one in the CFL, and one in the WFL.’ Y’all remember the WFL? ‘struggled with addiction and money woes following his brief professional career.’”
He pointed at his bust. “John’s dead. A broke, washed-up, never was, crackhead. I’m a Hall of Famer. Thanks for the motivation, John. Thanks for the motivation, everyone.”
-*****-
“Hey, that story he told about the fucking old man? One hundred thousand fucking percent a lie,” Ulysses Williams said, drawing laughter from the group of Deion Jenkins’ friends and family. “I was there. The old man was a Cowboys fan and called Deion a piece of shit.”“Ain’t security have to stop him from going after the guy?” Yonni Williams asked, sipping from a glass of whiskey.
“No, that was that time in Vegas. When we almost lost to the Raiders in the playoffs in ’33.”
“You’d think I was a fucking miscreant fighting geriatrics all over the United States listening to you two,” Deion said, but the smile on his face showed that he wasn’t bothered by them poking holes in the story in his speech.
Yonni looked at Caesar, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I know you’ve heard all the stories, but your old man used to shit talk more than DBs. He drew more targeting calls than anyone in the league for at least four-five years.”
“Four or five years? That’s probably why his ass got into the Hall,” Ulysses said.
Caesar laughed, but Kaley had to pinch his side as his grip tightened on her waist. He looked down at her and she mouthed ‘calm down.’ He nodded.
A couple of reporters, two women, with cameraman pushed their way through the throngs of people and planted their cameras down facing the group.
They all gave Deion their congratulations of his induction and his most recent business acquisition – the announcement of which seemed to coincidentally coincide with his speech almost to the minute. They asked him a few questions, but it was clear what they were there for after they introduced themselves as working for one of the recruiting sites.
One of the women turned to Caesar and directly her cameraman to do the same. Kaley tried to step away from Caesar to get out of the shot, but he subtly moved her back toward him.
“So, Caesar. What is it like being, hopefully, the third NFL star from the Jenkins clan?”
His lip twitched up into a fake smile. “I just want to live up to the name. I have some big shoes to fill.” He nodded toward his father. “Obviously.”
The other woman cut to the chase. “Are you ready to make your commitment yet? Everyone’s on the edge of their seats waiting for you to say where you are going.”
Caesar looked at his father who drank from a glass of Bourbon, but otherwise showed no signs of what he expected Caesar to do.
“Um.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Well, I—”
“It’s got to be Oklahoma State, right? They’ve been in your top 3 since you were a freshman, you were born in Stillwater and the state of Oklahoma loves your dad,” the first woman said.
“Um.”
Kaley grabbed a glass of water from a nearby table and handed it to Caesar. He thanked her and gulped it down before handing the empty glass back.
“Some rumors say that you’ve actually had visits with Oklahoma. Any truth to that?” the second woman asked.
Caesar shook his head. “No. I’ve never been to Norman. Uh, I’m… I’m going to keep… Continue… Well, you know, keep the process open for next few months. Big, uh, season. My senior year. Just want to see what happens. Focus on winning State.”
“So, you’re not committing tonight?”
“No, not… No.” Caesar glanced over at his father who’d turn his back to the “impromptu” interview and was discussing something with his business partners. “If you’ll excuse me.”
Caesar broke away from the group with Kaley in tow.
-*****-
“Caesar, it’s really going to be okay. Can you just sit down for a second? Please?” Kaley asked. She sat on the bed, watching as Caesar paced across their hotel room. They’d been back from all the festivities for the better part of an hour. While she’d changed into a shirt and some sweats, Caesar still wore the suit he wore to the ceremony. It just looked much more disheveled from his pacing.
“You realize what I just did, right? It’s not going to be okay.”
“I really think you’re exaggerating. He didn’t seem that mad about it.”
He ran his hands over his face. “No, he’s definitely pissed off.”
As if spoken into existence, there was banging at the door.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.” Caesar started for the door but stopped and turned away from it.
“Do you want me to get it?” Kaley asked.
“No, I got it.”
He crossed the room to the door and glanced through the peephole. His father stood on the other side. He’d shed his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. Caesar opened the door and barely had time to get out of the way to keep Deion’s barreling through it from causing the door to smack him in the face.
“Dad, I can—”
“Shut the fucking door.” The older man went further into the room. He noticed Caesar and Kaley’s cellphones sitting on the nightstand and picked them up.
“One of those is mine,” Kaley said.
He looked over his shoulder as he dropped the phones into his pocket. “I’m aware.”
Kaley decided it was probably best just to be quiet.
Caesar stepped away from the door. “Dad, look. I—”
“I don’t recall telling you to open your fucking mouth.”
Caesar shut his mouth and nodded.
“Never in my life did I think that my own son would be this much of a fucking idiot. Here I am spending 17 years of my life setting my son up so that he could have the best chance to succeed and when I tell him to pull the trigger on the decision he decides that he’s going to lose all semblance of having a spine and not. FUCKING. DO IT.”
“I just didn’t want to steal any shine from you,” Caesar said.
Deion palmed his face, shaking his head. “I just got inducted into the fucking Hall of Fame. I just bought a fucking image rights company that’s going to triple my net worth. My son committing to MY SCHOOL is not going to take any shine from me, you stupid fuck.”
“Sorry,” Caesar said. He glanced at Kaley, wishing he’d told her to leave before all this. Too late now.
“I know what it is,” his father said, wagging a finger in his direction. He nodded over his shoulder. “You wanted to show your little girlfriend that you are your own man, right? That’s why you’d run to another school instead of Oklahoma State. That’s fine, but that’s not principle. You’re afraid to compete. You’re afraid to fail. You know you wouldn’t be fit to wear my number.”
“No, I just though—”
Before Caesar could say what it was that he thought, Deion backhanded him. Caesar stumbled back but grabbed the wall to steady himself. He reached his hand up to his mouth and pulled back blood-stained fingers. Running his tongue over his teeth, he could feel that one of his teeth had been chipped – probably by the Super Bowl rings.
Deion continued talking as if he hadn’t moved. “No, that’s not principle. You’re a fucking coward. That’s what you are. That’s why you do all the shit you do, fucking trailer trash that’s beneath you because they think you shit gold bricks. I’m going to tell you something, son. Sometimes, I wish I had more than one son. You know how dogs that you don’t feed will fight each other until the toughest one survives? Maybe, just maybe, if I had another son, you’d toughen the fuck up. Or you’d just keep being a worthless waste of space. Either or.”
He took the phones out of his pocket and tossed them onto the bed. Caesar turned away as he walked toward the door.
“I told Flash and Yonni to rescind your scholarship offer. I don’t want you at Oklahoma State. You aren’t good enough. Won’t ever be good enough.”
Caesar only nodded as his father left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Kaley got up and went to the bathroom, grabbing a towel. She pressed it to Caesar’s lip, but he took the towel from her and threw it aside. Walking over to the bed, he sat down and picked up his phone, scrolling through it as if nothing had just happened. His phone started to vibrate with new notifications. Slowly at first and then a non-stop vibrating that forced him to switch it to silent.
She sat down next to him. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?” he asked without looking up at her.
“Okay,” Kaley said. She went to the other side of the bed and laid down, grabbing her phone and pulling up a streaming app.
