The Vultures. Mark Hannon
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The owner of the Buffalo Bills, Paul Eigen, sat in the middle of the banquet table and looked over its occupants. A well-fed bunch, they were finishing up coffee and lighting cigarettes, one frozen food company owner firing up a Dominican cigar. The right mix, Eigen thought, as he looked over the collection of businessmen, politicians and reporters, for maximum impact. Eigen remembered C.P.O. Shober at Great Lakes. When he wanted 100% of your attention, he would kick things. Kick open doors. Knock over bunks. Send footlockers flying. It worked, every time.
“All right, gentlemen,” Eigen said, “shall we proceed to see the new, improved Civic Stadium?” The Mayor of Buffalo nodded and smiled at that old name for War Memorial Stadium, buttoning his suit coat like he was getting ready for a graduation picture. The score of men rose and exited into the suburban parking lot as Eigen signed the bill for the meal and stuck a few twenties into the hand of the headwaiter who shook hands with him.
“Share this with the staff, Joe.”
“Always a pleasure, Mr. Eigen.”
The men approached the private bus and got on board, Eigen watching to make sure they didn’t head for their own cars and away from his control.
“Not your basic school bus, eh, Paul?” the county executive said, running his hand over the plush upholstery on the seats.
“I got the top of the line for this crowd, Mr. Burgos,” Eigen answered.
Sitting next to Eigen up front, the mayor turned around to talk to the reporters.
“The Press Box has been completely overhauled,” he said, “new phone lines, air conditioning installed and heat reworked.”
“Thank God,” the football writer from Sports Illustrated said quietly to a compatriot from the Buffalo Courier Express. “I was glad they didn’t make the playoffs last year. The thought of covering them in December makes me cringe.”
“The windows,” said a reporter from the Daily News. “I remember you could barely get them open when it was hot, and they didn’t keep the wind out when it was cold.”
“The new draft choices will love the bigger lockers,” the mayor added, smiling as the bus rolled down Broadway, passing commercial occupancies, some open, some closed with graffiti covered roll up doors. As they turned on Jefferson, the reporter from The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle pointed his chin at an empty lot.
“Used to get good rolls and sandwiches at the bakery that was there.”
When they pulled into the weedy parking lot, the Herald-Journal’s rookie reporter said to a dismayed city councilman, “This place looks like some old Roman ruins.”
Once off the bus, the mayor led the way, trotting eagerly up the concrete steps under the Bison friezes on the towering concrete gateways. Inside, he led them down to the home team locker room that smelled of the new royal blue paint covering the concrete block. The guests crowded around the two scarred wooden benches in the 30’ room. Spreading his hands wide once everyone was inside, the mayor said, “New lockers, new paint,” and gestured towards the dimly lit shower room where a man in white coveralls looked up from his work on the floor, “and new tiles in the showers.”
“What’s that smell?” the Democrat and Chronicle said.
“You mean the paint?” the Plain Dealer asked.
The tile man looked up. “Nah, he probably means the shit smell,” pointing at the shower drain. “We’re right above the sewer here. Been smelling it all week.”
The reporters laughed. The mayor forced a smile and blinked.
When they left the locker room and began to trudge up the long, wide ramp towards the press box area, the group fell silent except for the mayor.
“I remember walking up this ramp the day we won the AFL Championship in ‘64,” he said. “There was electricity in the air. Standing room only. Thousands of excited fans, everyone anticipating the game. What a day that was!”
As they approached the press box, Eigen stood on the ramp waiting for them, his arms folded across his chest.
“Gentlemen. Before you look in on the new remodeled press box, I’d like to point out a few items. Firstly,” he said, pointing to puddles emanating from the rest room to his right, “the plumbing in this place is shot. Hasn’t been overhauled since they put it in in ‘37. Second,” he said, kicking the wall as hard as he could and dislodging large chunks of concrete, “the concrete walls are spalling. The weather has been at work on it for over thirty winters and is winning. Thirdly,” he said, looking at the open-mouthed mayor, “there’s only enough parking in the lots for about a third of the stadium’s capacity, and everyone else either takes at least two buses to get here or parks in people’s driveways and yards out there,” nodding his head in the direction of Jefferson Street with its boarded up and burned out businesses.
“We need a new stadium, my friends, and we need it now,” Eigen announced. “I’ve just come from Seattle, where a group of investors is ready to build a football-only stadium on the order of the Astrodome in Houston,” which got all the reporters scribbling furiously. “I hope we can save the football franchise here in Buffalo, but if not, other places have the welcome mat out. With that, Eigen walked through the crowd and down the ramp to a car that awaited him, leaving the mayor and the other politicians open mouthed as the reporters crowded up the narrow stairway to the press box to grab the newly installed phones.
3.
When Tom got home from classes, he dropped his books on the dining room table and started looking through the mail.
His mother called out from the kitchen, “Hi Tommy. How’d it go at school today?”
“Ok,” he said, finding a blue envelope with his brother Rory’s writing on it.
“Rory sent us two letters, Tommy,” she said over the sound of sizzling pork chops on the stove. “Did you find yours?”
“Yeah, Mom,” he said, opening his letter as he sat down in the den where the five o’clock news was on.
“Three more weeks until he gets out of there,” she said, grabbing the medal of St. Michael around her neck and saying a quick prayer.
Tom looked down at the pale blue stationery.
Tom,
Just one month to go. I’ve finally earned my short-timer’s stick. I cut a notch in it every day until I get out of here.
The patrols have picked up a lot since we got mortared twice last week. Two guys got hurt, nothing really bad, but with the three guys out for malaria, we’re down five in the platoon, and only two guys came in to replace them, and they don’t know shit. They say the NVA has moved a lot of people in around here and are terrorizing the villes by night. A few of the local headmen disappeared, and a couple of them got found dead in a ditch just outside camp. After that a lot of the local men disappeared, too. We figure they got “drafted” by Uncle Ho, the dink bastard. Remember how Dad used to talk about how the French and Belgians were happy to see the Americans show up during WWII? Well, nobody’s friendly to us anymore. When we went through this one ville, we searched it for weapons but didn’t find any. The ARVN scout found a cache of rice he said was for the NVA, so we set the cache and a bunch of hooches on fire and left. These people get their asses kicked no matter which way they turn. I’ll be glad to get the hell out of here. I don’t know if we’re doing any good for anybody.
I’ve been saving up my money, and when I get home, I should have enough to buy a car. A few months after I get back to the states I’ll be out of the Army – that will be before the end of the summer, and we can go to the beach whenever we want.
Send me a letter, you bum! It reminds me that the whole world isn’t 110 degrees and full of bugs. I swear to God, when I get home I’ll never complain about the snow in Buffalo again.
Your Big Brother (and don’t you forget