Nailed by Joseph Flynn Page B

Reverend Jimmy Thunder had been born Jimmy Leverette in East Texas. His father had abandoned his mother, his two sisters and him to run off to Shreveport with a Louisiana whore who needed a new pimp. That experience soured his mother on life in general and men in particular, including her young son, Jimmy, who bore a strong resemblance to his departed father.
    Deloris Leverette raised her son to obey her every command, and her daughters to be life long virgins. Discipline was enforced with a thump to the back of the head with the family Bible. Mrs. Leverette called this “driving out the devil.” Fortunately for the children, all the family could afford was a vinyl-bound copy of the Scriptures.
    Deloris also read from the Bible, and made her children read it to each other. Passages about children who didn’t honor their mother burning in hell were her particular favorites. And nobody dared tell Mama that wasn’t quite what the words on the pages said.
    For all the physical and emotional battering he took, Jimmy Thunder said his childhood prepared him perfectly to excel as a football player. He was literate, tough and not afraid in the least of being hit by an opponent or yelled at by a coach.
    Jimmy was also aided by a farseeing Texas high school football coach who, only twenty some years after Jackie Robinson broke the major league color barrier, figured out that he might have an advantage over the other schools on his schedule if he let a few talented colored boys play for his team. Jimmy’s coach had told the local paper he knew young Leverette was a natural athlete, just watching him walk down the school corridors. “He moves so smooth, it’s like he has roller skates on the ends of his legs instead of feet.”
    Jimmy was so clearly the best athlete on his team that the coach at first wanted him to play quarterback, even at the risk of alienating the local folks who might grudgingly accept a colored boy or two on the team, but surely were not ready to have one lead the school to glory. But the coach’s new star spared him that potential problem.
    He didn’t want to play quarterback, running back or receiver. He wanted to play defense. He wanted to hit somebody, as hard and often as possible. The coach knew the team’s fans could get behind that idea: having their own tough nigger keeping the opposition’s white boys from scoring. He acceded to Jimmy’s wishes.
    The team never won a championship, but it did have a winning record all three years Jimmy played varsity ball, and Jimmy took all-state honors as a defensive back who hit like a linebacker. He was given a full scholarship to Southwest Texas State.
    Jimmy graduated with a degree in television arts and sciences. More important, at the time, he was drafted in the first round by the Dallas Gunslingers. He made all-pro five times, and became known as the most devastating tackler in the league. On eight separate occasions, he knocked opposing players out cold and sent them to hospitals with concussions. Two of the eight players he’d separated from their senses, with clean hits, had to retire due to the severity of their injuries.
    For years, Jimmy was the toast of the town. The team paid him a small fortune, and the high rollers he met were happy to supply him with all the women, booze and cocaine he could consume. His lifestyle led to frequent run-ins with the police, but team officials and lawyers always smoothed things over before indictments could be returned. But even the team’s dedicated PR staff couldn’t keep the stories of Jimmy’s notorious behavior out of the papers and off TV.
    Jimmy didn’t mind. He’d clip the newspaper stories and send them to his mother. Let’s see her drive that ol’ devil out now, he’d tell his friends with a laugh.
    But Jimmy didn’t have the last laugh. Time and riotous living took their inevitable toll. In his tenth year in the league, the number of touchdown passes he gave up increased by 50% over the