…there was a pause of profound stillness, then a match flared, and David Dunn’s lean face appeared, worn, hollow, with downward folds and dropped eyelids, with an aspect of concentrated attention; and as he took vigorous draws at his pipe, it seemed to retreat and advance out of the night in the regular flicker of tiny flame. The match went out, and he continued his tale.

“The brown current ran swiftly out of the retreat of darkness, bearing us down towards Lake Michigan with twice the speed of our upward progress; and Rodgers’ career was concluding swiftly, too, ebbing, ebbing out into the inexorable flow of the NFL narrative. Brian Gutekunst – the general manager – was very placid, he had no vital anxieties now, he took us both in with a comprehensive and satisfied glance: the exchange had come off as well as could be wished. I saw the time approaching when I would be left alone in the company of the ‘immunized’. The cheeseheads looked upon me with disfavour. I was, so to speak, numbered with the dead. It is strange how I accepted this unforeseen partnership, this choice of nightmares forced upon me in this tenebrous land inhabited by insatiable gluttons infected with delusions of franchise ownership.

“Rodgers discoursed. A voice! a voice! It rang deep to the very last. It survived his strength to hide in the magnificent folds of eloquence the barren darkness of his retreat. Oh, he struggled! He struggled! The wastes of his declining talent were haunted by shadowy memories now – memories of victories and statistics revolving obsequiously round his unextinguishable sense of self-regard. My intended receivers, my touchdowns-to-interceptions rating, my division titles, my Super Bowl ring – these were the subjects for the occasional utterances of elevated sentiments. The shade of the original Aaron Rodgers frequented the bedside of the hollow sham, whose fate it was to be buried under a mound of defensive linemen and edge rushers in the swamplands of New Jersey.

“Sometimes he was contemptibly childish. He desired to have respected journalists meet him at midfield on his return from this ghastly Midwestern exile, where he had intended to accomplish great things. ‘You show them you have in you something that is really intangible, more than just the ability to fit the ball in through tight windows of coverage, and then there will be no limits to the recognition of your ability,’ he would say. ‘Of course you must take care of the ball – ball security, always.’ The long reaches that were like one and the same reach, monotonous bends that were exactly alike, slipped past the steamer with their multitude of secular trees looking patiently after this grimy fragment of another world, the forerunner of changes of possession, of field position, of turnovers, of mathematical elimination from the playoffs. I looked ahead – piloting. ‘Close the shutter,’ said Rodgers suddenly one day as we neared Chicago; ‘I can’t bear to look at this place.’ I did so. There was a silence. ‘Oh, but I will wring your heart yet again!’ he cried at the invisible urban jungle.

“His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines. But I had not much time to give him, because I was ironing out the details of the contract. I lived in an infernal mess of edits, redlines, workout bonuses, injury guarantees – with nonsensical notes of advice and concern from Aaron scribbled into the margins. His parents, siblings attempted to communicate with him; he spurned their efforts.

“One evening coming in with a candle I was startled to hear Aaron say a little tremulously, ‘I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.’ The light was within a foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, ‘Oh, nonsense!’ and stood over him as if transfixed. ‘It’s just a different team.’

“Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn’t touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror – of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision – he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:

“‘The horror! The horror!’

“I blew the candle out and left the cabin. I took my place opposite the Brian Gutekunst, who lifted his eyes to give me a questioning glance, which I successfully ignored. He leaned back, serene, with that peculiar smile of his sealing the unexpressed depths of his satisfaction. A continuous shower of small flies streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces. Suddenly Russ Ball – the director of football operations – put his insolent head in the doorway, and said in a tone of scathing contempt:

“‘Mistah Rodgers – he been traded to the Jets.’