The Pants That Fly Through The Night

Buck Duckett never hit anyone. He didn't need his fists. He had the law. Well, not exactly the law. More of a set of regulations set by the NCAA and agreed to by member institutions. Institutions that were trying not to see what was going on, what was teeming under the surface. He'd show them. He always did.

The Texas sun beat down on Buck Duckett's rental car but he didn't mind the heat. If he did he wouldn't be here sweating through his crisp white shirt and less crisp undershirt in a parking lot in Pflugerville looking at a warehouse owned by Texas booster Jutt Bumppo.

For three hours, the trucks had been coming in and unloading cargo. A real operation, Buck Duckett thought. But there was no sign of him anywhere. He had intelligence that it was going down here. It took bribing to two drunks and backhanding a mouthy fraternity brother, but he was sure that it was true, that Texas quarterback Holster Husston (Holster was actually his first name) was going to get a pair of pants today. And he wasn't going to pay. But if Duckett had his way he would.

Duckett wandered over to the warehouse, grabbed a clipboard, and put on his busy face. He could look bland and officious enough to enter all sorts of worksites-- car dealerships, apparel stores a body piercing studio once. No one looked at him twice. He quietly taped off a side door no one seemed to be using, squinted at the clipboard for a few minutes for effect, and then drove off, blasting the air conditioning. He'd come back when all illegal pants transactions go down-- at night.

Night. It was completely dark in the warehouse except for a faint glow coming from the bottom of a door above him but he didn't dare use a flashlight. He found his way into a corner and waited. Holster would be here. He'd come out. There was no mistaking what was on the quarterback's face the last game. Duckett had seen it a thousand times. that free pants look. Trouser-eyed. Those pants were already wearing him.

He waited. He waited. His colleagues once asked him what was going through his mind during one of his eternal sieges. It was nothing. It wasn't quite nothing. Something was going through his mind during those endless hours, but he never could remember what it was. He was simply there. Moss. Furniture.

At first there was nothing. And then there was light. Too much light. It poured on him through the ceiling. It tackled his eyeballs.

"Jesus christ is that Buck Duckett?"

There he was, Holster Husston himself with Jutt Bumppo. Caught in the act.

"Ok fellas, that's enough," Duckett said. "Hand over the pants."

"Which ones?" Husston said. He was smiling at him. Smiling.

That's when Buck Duckett looked up. This was not a textbook pants exchange. There were pants everywhere. The warehouse was bursting with pants. His head was spinning. He'd found three, four pairs of pants before. His colleagues once got a dozen pairs of pants on the table in the press conference. But nothing like this. This was too many pants.

"It's NIL, you dummy," Holster said.

"That's right," Bumppo said. "We're business partners, selling these here pants." They had an official Holster logo on them. "It's all legal, Duckett. Above board. Hell, the provost has a pair."

"This one's on me, Duckett," the quarterback said. "They're real nice. Wick away sweat from the crotch."

That's when he was hit. He never saw it coming. A pair of pants whapped him in the face. Damn quarterback had a hell of an arm. But there was nothing he could do. They were right. Biggest pants bust in the history of amateur sports and they were getting away with it. They were laughing at him. The quarterback was right, though. Those pants were well made. They didn't break when they hit him, but something inside him did.