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was new. One of the few predictable things about the man was that he usually entered Three Alarm Park from the west path.
    â€œAre you Marcus Jordan?”
    Marcus peered through a gap in the greenery. A tall, cadaverous man in dark green coveralls was waving for his attention. One of Barker’s assistants? he wondered. Who else knew him in Kennesaw?
    â€œThat’s me.”
    In reply, the man simply turned on his heel and marched away, disappearing behind the foliage.
    Confused, Marcus ran after him. “Wait—I’m Marcus!”
    But by the time he could make it to a park exit, the man was gone. Instead, standing thirty feet in front of him was Charlie.
    â€œHey, Mac—you going to stand there all day, or are you going to throw me the ball?”
    In their evolving parlance, that was actually an invitation to drill it at his face. Marcus cocked back and unloaded with full power. Charlie got his quick hands up and caught it a split second before it would have pushed his nose out the back of his skull.
    Charlie could opt for a return missile, but he generally lobbed the ball back high and slow. The old guy had the timing down pat so he could charge Marcus and level him the instant his fingers touched pigskin.
    The pain was unbelievable, but there was something about these workouts that Marcus couldn’t duplicate anywhere else. No one on the Raiders could hit like Charlie. It wasn’t just the brute force he used but the technique. When Charlie made contact, he didn’t just knock you down; he sent you in a specific direction, propelling you exactly where he wanted you to land. He used his own body as a piece of equipment, the way a tennis player used a racket. It jarred your teeth, but it also opened your eyes.
    Back in Kansas, Marcus had always looked upon the physical contact as a necessary evil—something to be avoided and occasionally endured in the course of the pure passing game. For Charlie, the contact was the game. Not only did he love the “pop,” he understood it, the way Einstein understood the space-time continuum. It was like the guy was a professor of tackling. And in the same way a good teacher can transmit his love of the topic to his students, Charlie’s enthusiasm for smashmouth football was beginning to rub off on Marcus.
    A hit used to mean failure and heading back to the drawing board. Now Marcus was starting to anticipate the contact, analyze it, and make split-second adjustments so the collision could be advantageous to him. And once he saw that there could be advantage in it, the fear faded, and he began almost to look forward to it. The pain was still there—doled out by Charlie, there was pain to spare. But it was exhilarating. It made him feel totally in the game and in the moment. It made him feel alive.
    Mom had begun asking about the profusion of cuts and bruises. “When you played football in Olathe, you didn’t come home all beat up every day.”
    â€œThat was JV— junior .” There were many words to describe Charlie, but junior wasn’t any of them.
    Anyway, Charlie seemed to be as good at administering first aid as he was at creating the need for it. They were constantly leaving the park for ice, bandages, and rubbing alcohol. And Gatorade in large quantities.
    In town, everyone they met greeted Charlie by name and seemed genuinely happy to run into him. For his part, Charlie was affable, friendly, even charming. But he never stopped to talk to anybody.
    At the pharmacy, Charlie loaded his arms with drinks, PowerBars, and first-aid supplies. Then he breezed blithely out the door, not paying a cent for anything, as usual.
    The man at the register just chuckled and made a note on a ring-bound pad. “Have a good one, Charlie!”
    Marcus must have looked bewildered, because the cashier explained, “His wife comes by over the weekend and settles up. Don’t sweat it. You get used to Charlie.”
    Okay,