The Violation …

Coming in August, 2012

He looked into the heavens, rain streaming down his cheeks as if tears. “Why, Lord?”

And then a cold, chilling stare formed on his face. Ace Cleveland didn’t care anymore.

The entire sporting world was turned upside down. Everyone, including writers, broadcasters, coaches, athletic directors—even parents—were ignoring the fact that steroids were being used in college athletics.

And killing people.

No more. Someone, something, had killed his younger brother, the kid who used to tag along with him when he delivered papers. And, by God, someone was going to be held accountable not only for his brother’s death, but for all the other players who had died over the years. For the medical records that had been destroyed, for what happened to perfect physical specimens like 21-year old Jose Zoellers who now moved like an old man and looked worse.

And for the pitiful way Ace’s grieving mother wandered around her drafty old house, wondering how the University men who’d promised to care for her son and give him an education could instead just send him home in a coffin.

Ace Cleveland was hurting too, but was far beyond caring about himself. Too many dominoes had fallen. What did it matter that they’d shot his dog, torched his house, had his livelihood threatened by an F.B.I. agent. When his wife left him with their infant son that last straw had ignited a wildfire inside him.

Every university president in America had some explaining to do, but Ace no longer cared about the big picture. There were so many dirty secrets at State U., finding what killed his little brother would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. So be it. Danny Cleveland’s death had awakened the devil, opened the gates of hell—and in Ace’s hands a pitchfork glistened.

Chapter 1 excerpt:

Prologue

He quietly, oh so quietly, saved the contents of what he was writing to the CD in his external drive, waited for the information to be loaded, pulled out the disk and put it in the square paper envelope.

Footsteps sounded from down the hall. This late at night, probably a security guard, but he couldn’t take the chance. He quickly erased the file from his hard drive, made sure he emptied the little trash bin on the upper left corner of the screen, then pulled up a press release he had been working on earlier.

As the footsteps came closer to his door, he remembered the CD, grabbed it, swiveled his chair and jammed it where only he would ever know to look for it.

Time and time again during his first two years he had asked maintenance to repair that damned spot, now he was grateful they didn’t give a hoot about him.

When the door knob was jiggled, he called out. “It’s open, come on in.”

A security guard, one he didn’t recognize, stuck his head in. “Working late?”

“As always.”

Guard nodded. “Thought I heard someone in the hall earlier. Thought I’d check it out.”

“Haven’t heard a thing. Far as I know, it’s just you and me.”

“Good, that’s what I thought too,” said the guard, reaching behind his back.

Chapter 1

 

“Hit ‘em, Cleveland. Drive those feet. Use your butt. C’mon, son. Push…push…PUSH!”

Danny Cleveland fell hard to the grassless, August ground, a beaten red-shirt freshman. A scorching sun sizzled the creases in his neck, dust caked his nose and mouth, whistles blew as if a jail break, and it wasn’t even close to 9 A.M.

Grape-shaped sweat poured from under his scarred helmet and oozed from the rest of his exhausted body. His shoulder throbbed, his hand bled, and now the assistant coach was in his ear, spit and obscenities flying from his mouth.

“Get up, dammit! The ground is for fat asses and pussies. Are you a pussy, Cleveland?”

“No, sir,” Danny barked, quickly jumping up, heading for the back of the line.

“Where you going, Cleveland?” The coach screamed, grabbing Danny’s face mask and swinging him around.

“I’m going to show you how to drive block, Cleveland. You’ve been here a year already. You should know this. Watch. This is the way it’s done at State University. My offensive players kick ass, boy, not the other way around.”

The burly assistant coach with a shroud of whiskers on his face turned the bill of his ball cap around, spat a stream of chewing tobacco into the parched ground, untucked his T-shirt, got down into a four-point stance, then sprung into the defender, pushing the athlete off the ball and five yards down the field. He finished his block by hurling the player into some orange pylons, then turned back toward Danny, steam seemingly rolling out of his ears.

“It’s all in your ass, Cleveland,” the coach screamed. “Use your ass and you’ll beat the other guy this time and every time.” He slapped Danny’s helmet with a meaty paw. “Now get back in here and finish the fucking job, now!”

“Yes, sir,” Danny said as he put his mouthpiece in, knowing that it was his feet he needed to move quicker, not his ass.

The coach crossed his arms and waited for the two players to position themselves over the football. The defender across from Danny was a senior and twice Danny’s size. They each got into their stances, then the whistle blew and mayhem broke out. Within seconds Danny was shoved aside. The defensive unit screamed at their man’s victory. The offensive linemen shook their heads. The coach was back in Danny’s ear.

“Get the fuck off the field, Cleveland.” He grabbed Danny’s face mask again and pointed to the locker room. “Get your ass off my field. And don’t come back until you’ve learned how to drive block. You won’t play a down this year until you start acting like a man instead of a boy.”

Danny nodded miserably.

“And don’t come back until you’ve got some iron in your bones, fire in your eyes.”

Danny limped away, exhaling his own quiet obscenities that stuck to his faceguard like snot.

~

Hurling his helmet through the empty locker room, he plunked down heavily at his stall. Wretched coaches were always pricks this time of the year. Jackson, his friend from high school, had said Marine boot camp was a killer, but this had to be worse.

Welts and open wounds decorated both arms and hands as if he’d just climbed through a field of penitentiary razor wire. He had a bright red scratch under his neck, a gash the length of a pencil zig-zagged down his right calf, and the mouse below his left eye oozed puss. He felt none of it. All he could think was that he had to get better. Bigger and better. And stronger.

He clinched his teeth, unlaced his dust-caked shoes and removed his bloody socks. He looked up when he heard a trainer across the way making Gatorade.

“Coach Nutt has a burr up his ass today, Danny,” Quincy said as he stuck a green water hose into the huge orange cooler. “Don’t let him get to you. He’s an ass…hole. They’re all assholes.” A shout echoed down the runway, Quincy jerked his head. “They’ll be screaming at me if I don’t get this outside pronto.” He rolled the Gatorade toward Danny on a rusted dolly with one bad wheel. “Here, man, get something to drink. It’s hotter ‘an hell out there, and it looks like you sweated out a quart. Hydrate now so you don’t get sick. Supposed to be over a hundred again tomorrow. Fuckin’ Ohio Valley humidity.”

“Thanks, Quincy.” Danny gulped the orange liquid, then poured another cup. “I don’t know what else I can do out there,” Danny wiped his mouth with the back of his sweaty hand, spit out the dirt the senior tackle had made him eat. “I lift and run every day, but I’m being pushed around out there like a feather.” He put his head in his hands. “Might be time to hang it up.”

The trainer sat down beside Danny, and poured himself a glass of the Gatorade. “Some of these guys you’re going against are three, four years older. Makes a big difference. How much you weighing, anyhow?”

“About two forty-five before practice. But I lose about five to eight pounds a day from the heat during these two-a-days.”

The trainer nodded. “I hear you. Zach Crawford lost ten pounds yesterday just during the morning session. We were afraid to let him go out during the afternoon.”

“Maybe if I double up on the protein drinks.” Danny wiped his face with a towel. “But they taste awful.”

The trainer looked around, walked across the spacious locker room and closed the door that led into the training room. He sat back down, helped Danny remove his shoulder pads, and said quietly, “I can help you with your strength, dude, long as you keep it between me and you and the goalposts.”

Danny tossed his jersey into a pile with his socks and shoes. He picked grass off his arms, and from an open wound under his elbow.

“You hear me?” Quincy asked.

“I heard you,” he said without looking up.

“It’ll put you where you want to be. You saw what it’s done for some of the others.”

“That crap is bullshit,” Danny sneered. “If you can’t get bigger in the weight room—”

“Yeah, I know the sermon. But you think Darnell only swims, bikes and runs?”

Danny stared at Quincy. Darnell was a legend on campus, after finishing second in the international Ironman competition the previous year. “I thought he was all about nutrition and supplements.”

“For those funky ass public service announcements, sure.” The trainer leaned over, held a finger to his lips, and whispered a short word in Danny’s ear.

“Huh?” Danny said, a startled expression on his face.

“You didn’t hear it from me.”

“But what about the side effects?”

The trainer rolled his eyes. “There are side effects taking aspirin. Don’t sweat it. Everyone’s doing it. You gotta know that.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I’m telling you, everyone.”

“Like who?”

The trainer’s eyes inspected the locker room again, then he said in a hushed tone, “All the starters, except the QB and the kicker—and others.”

“Jesus. Do the coaches know?”

“Officially, no one knows. And you don’t either, or else.”

“Or else what?”

“Or else you come in one day and your name is no longer on the depth chart—your scholarship is yanked.” The trainer took his index finger and dragged it across his throat.

“How come I never heard any of this?”

“Couple years ago,” Quincy leaned over and whispered, “one of the guys got drunk.  Started mouthing off about it in the Rathskeller.”

“Yeah, and…?”

“Got taken out on the Ohio River, wrapped in chains, and just dropped over the side of the boat.”

The trainer grinned at Danny’s shocked expression. “Ha, gotcha. But listen, you want to sit at the big table, right?”

Danny stared at the dirt on the towel from the drubbing he’d taken earlier. He didn’t want that anymore. “And you can…?”

“Just see me in the morning.”

 ~

The empty campus gave Danny an eerie feeling as he walked alone through the commons toward his dorm. Two hours to kill, time enough to run over to the Fruit Market in St. Matthews and see Becca. No one would know, and he’d be back in plenty of time for dinner. He could do that, but just as he was considering it, he heard his big brother Ace’s voice saying, “Champions do the right thing, even when no one is looking.”

Big brother or girlfriend. Girlfriend or big brother. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a nickel, flipped it, caught it and covered it on the top of his right hand with his left.

He put the nickel back in his pocket without looking at it and hurried to the parking lot. A bus rolled by with the State U. football schedule on it. Texas Elpaso was first. He couldn’t wait.

 ~

Becca was busy at the register, so Danny walked through the store and studied some of the nutritional drinks in the refrigerated glass case lining one wall. Most were all natural products, the only thing natural about some of the others was the can.

“Hey, you didn’t say hello,” came a soft voice over his shoulder a moment later.

He turned. “You were swamped.”

“Yeah, been busy today.” She paused and studied his face. “Everything okay? You seem—”

A shrug. “You know, two-a-days.”

“Jesus, you’re all banged up.”

“Not as bad as having a coach screaming in my ear.”

She took his hand. “Tell ‘em to kiss off. There’s more to life than football.”

He smiled. She was calling him out. She knew telling him to quit was only going to inspire him. “Maybe I will. Would that make you happy?”

“What would make me happy is if you kissed me right now.”

“I thought the manager said…”

“You have coaches screaming in your ear, I’ve got a little creep of a manager asking me to join him in the steam room.”

Danny cringed, but held his tongue.

“Kiss me,” she said.

Danny did as he was told. They locked lips for fifteen seconds. He pulled back and held her by the shoulders. “You’re going to get fired for this. But tell that little dwarf if he so much as lays a finger on you I’m gonna break him in two.”

“Don’t worry, I can handle myself. I’m a little tired of it, that’s all. That’s why I’m in nursing school. To control my own destiny. To work wherever I want.”

“Becca, we just got to get through this, and then one day, we’ll be sitting on our own porch with a couple of rugrats running around, and—”

“You mean that?” A huge smile crossed her face.

“Gee, I don’t know, do I mean it?” He asked himself playfully. She poked him in the ribs. He grunted. She’d found a bruise. “Well, maybe just a little.”

She frowned and said: “How little?”

He spread his arms as wide as possible, unveiling another wide smile. She kissed him again, then quickly moved away when she saw the store manager starting toward them. “You git. I’ll give you a call later. You love me?”

He winked, but didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. The truth was in his eyes. He watched as she hurried away, swaying like she was walking a Victoria Secret runway. They promised each other they’d wait until they had their degrees before getting hitched, but man, that felt a million years away.

He heard his brother’s voice again, and he was right. Champions do the right thing even when no one is looking.

“Yes, I love you, Becca,” he whispered as she slipped behind the counter to man the cash register. Loving her was the rightest thing he knew.