“Because of you?”
“Because of the weather.” He laughs once. Nothing funny in it. “That’s what they call it now. Bad timing.”
“Who is they?”
He looks at me.
Fine.
I try again.
“Why meet me if you do not want to be named?”
“Because I read your Houston piece.”
“That makes you one of several thousand people currently mad at me.”
“I wasn’t mad.” His thumb rubs at a scar near his wrist. “I thought you missed the bigger thing.”
I sit still.
Reporters learn this early: when someone has carried a sentence too long, do not crowd the door while it tries to come out.
He looks toward the counter, where the waitress pours coffee with her back turned.
“Everybody talks about guys hiding injuries like it’s pride,” he says. “Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s fear. Sometimes it’s a room full of men pretending a guy made a choice when everyone knows what choice keeps him paid.”
I write nothing.
He notices.
“Thought reporters liked notes.”
“Sometimes notes make people stop talking.”
That earns me one quick glance.
“Smart,” he says, like it is not a compliment.
“Did someone pressure you to play hurt?”
He shakes his head immediately. Too fast. “Not like that.”
“Then like what?”
Another silence.
The waitress brings coffee. He waits until she leaves before answering.
“Nobody says, ‘Play hurt.’ They say, ‘Can you go?’ They say, ‘We need bodies.’ They say, ‘It’s your call,’ while the scratches are posted and your replacement is sitting two stalls over hoping you blink first.”
I think of Ryan saying everything matters when you put it in print.
I think of Finn going quiet in a room where quiet does not suit him.
He leans closer.
“You’re asking about policy,” he says. “Policy is paper. Paper’s easy. Ask what happens when a kid thinks telling the truth costs him his sweater.”
