T.K. takes a seat on the floor near Eddie Hougart, the team’s halfback/deep safety. Eddie is T.K.’s best friend. Rooming together in college started it. Saving each other’s hides in countless games solidified it. Eddie is big and loose. His stomach hangs out over his belt, his legs and arms jiggle when he walks. He gives the impression that his bulk is all fat. Nothing could be further from the truth. T.K.’s hit him often enough in practice to know that flab covers a nucleus of solid muscle.

Eddie is the team flake, a regular clown. He delights in practical jokes which usually involve such questionably humorous acts as throwing a rookie out a second story hotel window or secretly rubbing heating compound into a teammate’s supporter just prior to the start of a fifty mile run. Eddie carries a collection of pornography around in his billfold. Most of it he has taken out and displayed so often it’s become ripped, worn and unreadable. Eddie doesn’t seem to notice or care. He keeps dragging it out again anyway, blissfully unconcerned that most of the people he shows it to have already seen it, often several times.

“Take a look at this.” Eddie winks as he pulls a soiled piece of film out of his locker. “Ain’t that the shits.”

T.K., who has seen this particular item maybe fifty times already, obligingly takes it and holds it up to the light. It’s an X-ray shot of a limp penis with a broken bone depicted inside. “That’s some injury you got there, Eddie,” T.K. says, handing the X-ray back. “You ought to see the doc about a splint.”

“Yeah, a splint. That’s good. I like that.” Eddie holds the X-ray at arm’s length.

“So do I,” T.K. says, sadly watching his friend squint down his arm at the photo. Eddie, like T.K., is getting old. While T.K. is physically in good shape, Eddie Hougart is not. For the past several seasons, he’s been slowly losing his eyesight. He has several different sets of contact lenses, one set for sunny days, one for nighttime, one for snow glare, one for rain, et cetera. But even they don’t sharpen his eyesight as well as it should be. How does he play football when he can barely see? He mainly goes on instinct. And guts. As long as his instinct and his guts hold out, he’ll have a place on the team. When they go, so does he, one way or another.