Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears? by Robert Coover

unexpected maneuver.” There’s a famous maxim, attributed to him, on the subject: “Take the offensive, show no fear, do the unexpected, but do nothing rash!” But since all his moves were studied out and practiced, how could they be surprises? This became his master task: to make the response mechanism so intricate that the patterns were invisible. A million new drills, then, and to make room for them, he had to abandon his music, fraternity, edifying outside reading, hamburger-grinding, presidency of Christian Endeavor, baseball and tennis, oratory, school newspaper editorship, friendly conversations, and Latin club. Though he cut back sharply on the time spent on acting and debate, he clung to them, as well as to his campus politics and studies, the latter because he had to pass his courses to stay in school and play football, the others because they doubled as verbal calisthenics for lockerroom banter and picking up new girls.
    While to the casual observer the results of all this rigor and sacrifice may not have been spectacular, they were nevertheless impressive enough. Before classes had begun next fall, to the surprise of the coach he had made the varsity football squad, and to the surprise of the head cheerleader had gently sucked her left pap. In fact, he had sucked it three times in succession, starting from scratch with the wink, pickup, and handholding each time through, and all she could think of to say was: “Don’t you like the other one?” “He looked so surprised,” she said after, “that I don’t think he knew there was another one.” On the football field he was neither brilliant nor imaginative, but he was consistent. The coach still didn’t trust him in the backfield, but he did let him play right end in the second half of the fourth game of the season. He did well, staying onside until the ball was centered, taking out his man, throwing textbook blocks, and running convincing decoys, until on about the seventh or eighth play he was thrown a pass. He floated far out on the right flank, shook off his opponent, sprinted downfield, turned at just the right moment, leaped gracefully, and made a phenomenal catch of a wobbling, overthrown pass—the students and fans in the stands went wild. But when he came down, he just stood there, smiling blankly. For a moment, everybody on the field was like that, stopped dead, staring at him, dumbfounded. Then they hit him. So hard in fact that he fumbled the ball, the opponents recovering. Once again, they had to carry him off.
    â€œWhat the hell happened?” cried the coach as they carried him by, in pain but still smiling.
    â€œI couldn’t remember what came next, Chief,” he said.
    The coach was nearly crying, but what he said was: “Y’know, if they’d had more guys like you in the cavalry, maybe we wouldn’ta been the ones to end up on the goddamn reservations!”
    â€œGosh… thanks, Coach…”
    Gus, when he was able, went back to the practice field. Fields. He no longer had time for campus politics, little theater, or debate society. Every minute in his daily timetable not used for eating, sleeping, toilet, and classwork went into learning everything there was to know about girls and football. He’d had an experience with a girl from his chemistry class much like the one he’d had on the football field: he’d got her skirts up all right and knew what the equivalent of a touchdown was, but he’d forgotten to practice getting an erection. He’d expanded his practice schedule, apparently determined never to let these things happen again, although his brother said he didn’t think it was determination. He thought it was more like grabbing a tiger’s tail: no conscious decisions, just one desperate thing after another. “One fact you oughta understand,” he told me as we sat in my back room looking through the scrapbook (he’d