On Saturday, November 21, the Eagles flew on a charter to Knoxville for another game they would have preferred to avoid. Playing in front of 20,000 fans, none of whom were rooting for them, the Eagles fought respectably but still lost by 20. Afterward, back in the dorm, Murray would explain that the big schools need a few easy wins early in the season and were happy to pay a weaker program up to $100,000 to drive over for a butt-whipping.
“So Tennessee paid us to come into their place and get slaughtered?”
“Sure. They’re called ‘guarantee’ games. They’re guaranteed a win and we’re guaranteed a check. Everybody does it. Just part of a typical season. Plus they cover our travel expenses.”
“What do we pay our victims?” Sooley asked.
“A lot less. I’ve heard ten thousand. Plus they buy their own bus tickets.”
“Only in America.” At least once a day Sooley was stopped cold and shook his head in amazement at the excesses of American culture, especially college athletics. He still had trouble grasping the idea that his full scholarship, valued at about $22,000 a year, was free, and that Central was paying him $7.25 an hour to fold towels and clean up after the football team.
On November 24, the last day of classes before the Thanksgiving break, Central hosted Campbell in another sleeper. With only a few hundred fans watching—the students had already fled—the Eagles proved that twenty-year-olds can easily lose focus. They were going home tomorrow, for four days of Mom’s cooking and no practice and no classes to worry about, and they didn’t bring their game. But Campbell did. According to the Vegas odds, another American oddity that Murray was still trying to explain to his roommate, Central was going to win by a dozen points. Instead, the Eagles lost by 10, at home, and Coach Britt was furious. He told his players to get out of his sight—he didn’t want to see them until Sunday afternoon, at which time they had better show up ready for a grueling practice.
CHAPTER 29
For the past fifteen years, Christine Moran had tended to the dire medical needs of the poorest people on the planet. She was from the lovely town of Besan?on in eastern France, near the Swiss border, but had not been back there in a decade. She had studied nursing in Paris and wanted to see the world. Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders, signed her up and sent her to Bangladesh for two years. From there she went to Tanzania and spent three years caring for people from Burundi who were fleeing genocide. After five years with refugees, she returned to France and worked in a hospital in Lille, but quit after four months when she realized her patients were hardly ill compared to those in the developing world. She returned to Africa and was assigned to the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, home to 200,000 displaced souls, most from Sudan and Somalia, though they came from twenty other countries as well. Many of them were children with no parents, and it was those faces that haunted her when she tried to live in France. The sad hopeless faces of malnourished children, some dying, others hanging on and slowly improving. She had held hundreds of them as they drifted away forever.
Three years ago, she had been assigned to Rhino Camp South and found it to be a better settlement than most. They were all overcrowded and depressing, all packed with displaced people who had lost everything, but the Rhino camps were somewhat organized and the food and water usually arrived on time. DWB ran two large tent hospitals, and the staff, a mix of European, American, and African doctors and nurses, worked nonstop for at least twelve hours a day. It was an arduous schedule, a challenging way of life, but they were driven by a deep humanitarian desire to make a difference, one patient at a time. Most burned out after a few years and retreated to the safety of the civilized world, but even then they never forgot their work in the camps and took quiet pride in the lives they saved.
Christine kept her cell phone close but not on display. Their coverage was limited and air time was cherished. She enjoyed sharing it with a few of her patients, those with relatives in the U.S. or Europe. She had spoken to Samuel on two occasions and asked him to call relatives of other people in the camp, and he happily agreed to do so.
Each Wednesday at precisely 2 p.m., she walked to a certain corner of the hospital tent, made eye contact with Beatrice, and led her to a small room where supplies were stored. They waited until 2:05. The phone rang. Christine said, “Bonjour, Samuel.” She handed the phone to his mother for a brief chat and went outside.
* * *
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Lonnie’s wife kicked him out of bed at six because he was fidgety and kept waking her up. It was obvious, at least to her, that he couldn’t sleep. But she could if he would just leave.