The Legend of Jesse Smoke by Robert Bausch Read Free Book Online

although she was not particularly open about anything other than football.
    I only saw her play in four games, and except for the loss to the Fillies, the others were a breeze. She threw seven touchdown passes against the Baltimore Beauties. Six against the Pittsburgh Bombshells. Not once did I see her lose her cool. The only time she faced any real pressure and got hit hard, she got back up and kept playing. But even in that game she hadn’t allowed herself to bepushed too much. She could get rid of the ball so fast, a pass rush couldn’t agitate her.
    She did start throwing off her back foot against the Fillies, like I said, but the next time I saw her play she stepped into each throw as perfectly as always. Still, I was worried about that little kink in her delivery, because against a real pass rush it would be the end of her. I wondered what I should do about it.
    I knew if I brought her to camp and let Engram see her throw, he’d be impressed. But what then? I realized I was worried about how she would do in camp. Not for the little joke I wanted to play, but because I was beginning to see that she really was a damn good football player. But when Coach Engram saw her against the men—against that massive charge of flesh and bone—she absolutely could not fall away from it and throw the ball. They’d spot it in an instant and that would be that. Rather than try to work with her, they might laugh. A man, they’d work with—they’d drill him and strive through practice and repetition to get the kinks worked out. A woman, though, would be a different animal altogether. To win Engram over the way I was won over, she had to be perfect already, in every possible circumstance of the position. Even then, thinking about all these things, I insisted to myself that it was only a joke I wanted to pull; a shock to the system of some of the more comfortable fellows in camp.
    And at the same time, I wondered what she might be able to do with our playbook.

    One early morning, I called Jesse and asked if she’d meet me at the Divas’ practice field. To be exactly polite about it, I invited Andy Swilling as well. Of course, Nate showed up and so did Michelle Cloud, who looked at me as though I was a rapist.
    I had a playbook with me, and a bag of footballs that I’d brought from Redskins Park.
    “What’s the drill?” Jesse said.
    I gave her the playbook. “Study this.”
    “What is it?”
    “Our playbook. You know how to read one?”
    She held it in her hands and opened it as though it was some sort of ancient text. More than three hundred pages, it featured a wide variety of plays from almost every conceivable formation. “I can read it,” she said. If she was in awe, it was not because anything in the book was too complex for her, but simply because it was a real playbook from an NFL team.
    “Study it carefully, then—memorize it if you can.”
    “I can have this?”
    “Well, I’m lending it to you. I want it back when you’re done.”
    “Why are you doing this?”
    For a moment I was uncertain how to respond. “I really don’t know.” Everybody looked at me. “I just want you to show up at that camp, you know, as prepared as I can get you.”
    “Awful lot of work for a practical joke, isn’t it?”
    “I’m going to sign you,” I said now. All four of them looked at me as if I’d just announced my intention to part the waters of the Potomac River. “You’ll make a lot of money for it.”
    Jesse looked at the book in her hands. Then she closed it and held it against her chest. Her face was expressionless.
    Andy said, “Can I see it?”
    She handed it to him and he flipped through it while we all stood there awkwardly. Then I told Jesse what I’d noticed about her delivery. Andy piped in that he’d noticed it too. Nate and Michelle said nothing.
    Jesse mulled it over a bit. “Off my back foot.”
    “It’s pretty well-pronounced. I wish I had film so I could show it to you.”
    “No. I’ve seen