“Look, it’s the question you’re always going to ask. But that’s your focus; not mine. I don’t have fear. Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence and the downward spiral begins.

Know me as a man who stands before you today, of clear and sound mind, who would rather regret the things I have done…not the things I did not dare attempt to do.

No questions today, haoles.”

Exit Press Room Right. We have this morning a private look at Tuanigamanuolepola Donny Tagovailoa — known in conversation as simply Tua — as he punctuates his morning press conference. A young man protected by a suit of armor all held together by just one bolt. And through years of twisting and banging, someone removed the bolt and Mr. Tagovailoa’s protection fell away from him, stranding the koa a naked target. His insecurity perpetually shells him, his sensitivity has straddled him with humiliation, his deep-rooted disquiet about his own worth has zeroed in on him, landed on target, and blown him apart. Mr. Tua Tagovailoa, a quarterback who plays with speed and awareness will soon be, in a desperate reach for survival, flushed out of the pocket to….the Twilight Zone.

A Thursday night. The leader of his team, Tua is the last man in the building. Deftly dancing through his training motions for hours on end, he finally catches his toe and stumbles onto to the Hard Rock Stadium grass under silence of a non-existent crowd. Sweat beaded his brow. It was cold. He noticed and resumed the footwork drill, reminding himself with a mantra, as he always did when he failed to stay in the Present, “You miss the beat, you lose the rhythm.”

He made no more mistakes for the remaining 35 minutes of his training session. He was confident in his work and his abilities. He was also confident that there was no avoiding what what coming. There’s the body and then there is the mind. But finally, there is the ʻuhane – the Soul. And his ‘uhane was exposed. For three hours a week, however, he was confident he could stay sharp enough, fast enough, and wise enough to keep himself safe. He had done it just days earlier against the Arizona Cardinals, in fact. But it was the hours and days outside those white lines when his ‘uhane found itself under attack.

Walking the to the Brightline train terminal, Tua hears a hard top-down convertible with it’s stereo blasting pull up beside him. This was not unusual for the area. What was unusual for the area, was that the driver turned down the volume momentarily. On edge about his secret stumble earlier, Tua offered a quick glance to be sure the driver wasn’t anyone who may have seen him trip in training an hour ago. It was.

“HEEEEEYYYYY DONNY! HAHAHAHA! CATCHING THE TRAIN?!”

The driver leaned out and squinted so his orange sunglasses slid down his nose, exposing his upward glance that fully communicated disgust. Tua spoke first.

“Aloha Coach McDaniel. Yeah catching the orange line hopefully. I gotta get home to Annah and the kids. But, hey, while I got you — uh, sir. Thank you for your commitment to my health as well as my, you know, my other thing so I can keep playing football. It’s all I got, you know. It’s what I was raised to do. It’s what I want to do. I love the game and just how everyone has been around me –”

“YEAH LOOK THIS LIGHT IS GONNA BE GREEN IN A MINUTE HERE SO UH….HOW ABOUT YOU NOT FUCKING BAIL ON US AGAIN THIS WEEK? BEEN HARD ENOUGH TO COACH A TEAM WITHOUT OUR STUPID QUARTERBACK ONLY TRYING TO GET WORKERS COMP REPS!”

“Well Coach. I uhhh….”

The driver stepped on the clutch and rocked his foot on the accelerator.

“AND GET A FUCKING WORD FOR SNOW, TONTO!”

Tua’s skull pained as the car tires began to spin in place, generating a hazardous tire smoke that he inhaled and could feel adhere, in poisoned patches, to his ‘uhane.

Long after his coach had sped away and Tua sat alone on the southbound metrotrain car picking at his dinner — the taste of the burnt rubber overwhelming the spam musubi he had prepared himself that (and every) morning — he felt the exhaustion consuming his person flow over his body and drag him to sleep in his seat.

Tua awakes to find himself in a comfortable steam engine passenger coach coming to a gentle stop in a quiet island town that looks far from anxiety and bustle of Miami Beach. He peaks out the window and feels a desire to get off at this foreign station. He asks himself, “where is this place?” The speaker called to him in response.

“Next stop: Hamlin.”

Hamlin. A place Tua knew he had….approached but not quite set foot. But how? When? He murmured, “what is this place?” The speaker again called:

“Hamlin is a peaceful, restful town, where a man can slow down to a walk and live his life full measure.”  Tua watched the keiki playing in the surf, the kupuna watching them from the shore while weaving their own palm baskets. A quiet Main Street sat in line with the stopped train. The air was so clear. The ocean so blue. The noise — was gone. His head did not pound. He jumped up from his seat and made his way to the doorway of the train. Just down the steps and on the landing, a woman stood with her head down, a plumera flower behind her left ear, seemed to be waiting for him. He did not know why he knew this.

But he stood dumbfounded at the locale too long. The doors shut and he awoke back on the Brightline. He asked the Miami conductor about a stop for Hamlin. The conductor just laughed and suggested this passenger get looked at for a head injury if he thinks there’s a Hamlin on the orange line.

That night in bed — the only time his wife, Annah, cared to see him was when he was completely spent from the day — he casually brought up the experience from this evening. Having celebrated her daily shopping spree and social network posting with a three-martini dinner, Annah was in no mood to hear her husband was interested in anything other than football.

“You’ve got to focus, Donny! Your years away from your next big contract and you’re over here worrying about model trains!? You need to be focused! Buffalo Bills are up next!”

She didn’t listen to him. Didn’t need to. He was what he was. Her job was to keep him that.

“I know, my Ipo, I’m just….It’s been a lot. I’m just thinking about the next chapter, you know, when that day comes. The kids are in school now but maybe later, you know, I could maybe return to The Gathering Isle with my family.”

Annah did not appreciate this conversation. “So you’re going to run off an be a train conductor? Gonna take some passenger tickets with your pudding brain? What are you thinking? Your body works, your brain doesn’t always. We’ve got a good thing with you playing football. Let’s not go mess another good thing because little Donny had to go off imagining toy trains on the commute home instead of studying film like a champion! JEEZE! This is just like you! You can’t focus long enough to see a good thing right in front of your face and……I swear, if it wasn’t for me, you just…..you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself! Why are you even fucking here tonight? Aren’t you the leader of some two-and-five loser football team? Shouldn’t you be at WORK?!”

Annah slammed the door before Tua could return a word edgewise. He could not sleep a wink and, when he emerged from the bedroom in the morning, a note awaited him on the kitchen counter explaining Annah had taken the kids and they’d be away until Tua got his priorities straight. THIS MEANS WINNING, DONNY! she emphasized in bold at the bottom of the letter. No hearts.

His morning commute back to Hard Rock Stadium started late and was met with a slew of operational delays. Tua’s head pounded. He could not keep it together. He had no one to support him and, inside, Tua knew he could not be depended on by those who leaned on him hardest. He knew he could not win. He knew his days were done. But his coach would not hear it. Neither would his wife, who was now leaving with his children. He had no easy way out. He had no hard way out. He was trapped. A slave to his own success. Reserved to a life of running from the inevitable, the exhausted quarterback again fell asleep on the Brightline.

And, again, he awoke in a steam engine pulling lazily into Hamlin. Hamlin! The familiar place he’d never been and longed with all his heart to see! The shores were as golden as before! The green mountains protruding into the clouds slowly swirling the paradise town. Coconuts were lined up on the station table, tops chopped off, with straws sticking out, all but crying for Tua to ingest his favorite all-natural refreshment!

And the citizens welcomed him! It was the Aloha Spirit! The violent game and the violent world that had consumed him was oceans away from dear Hamlin! He was alert as ever and, he noticed as Tua took his place square in front of the exit doors, his old back injury was not acting up today. The train stopped and, with only his helmet hanging from his hand, Tua was ready to step through to Hamlin. The steam cleared but the doors did not open. He watched passengers exit from the other cars but his opportunity to leave the train never came.

The train pulled away from the station. He panicked. Tua cried out for his home. For his ʻohana. He pressed his face against the window until the town was lost in the smoke and trees far in the distance. He ran across the car and jerked violently at the door handle, his flesh and bone no match for the hardened steel barrier locking him safely inside. He cared not for the gashes his mania had caused to his throwing hand. His heart strained. His mind split. He lifted the helmet over his head and felt it explode into shards when he smashed it to the floor with his supreme arm speed.

And, for one last time, Tua awoke to find himself on the Brightline. Far from his people. Far from his home. He reached out to nothing and, in return, nothing took him in its care.

His final days and hours were a blur. A blur of running. A blue of throwing. His physical body operated without contribution from his waking mind. His mind was simply….done. He was now a man only of flesh and and of ‘uhane. He was only witness to himself boarding the team plane and flying to Buffalo, New York on Saturday evening. In the morning, he took no control as his body, trained as it was, walked to Chapel of Western New York and said his Hail Marys.

He watched his pregame warmups. He watched his coaches and teammates yelling at him from all directions. He watched himself take the field following a midfield kickoff return against the Buffalo Bills. None of it mattered to him.

But finally.

Finally he was only witness to himself standing tall in the pocket without a care in the world as Death himself, wearing a blazen number three across his front, broke free on a safety blitz. The physical pain reached his ‘uhane only momentarily and then there was nothing.

This time there was no dozing off to a comfortable rest and slowly awakening in the peace of his island hale. There was no steam engine. There was no warning. Tua had simply come home. That was all. That was the end.

Hamlin. Maybe it’s wishful thinking nestled in a hidden part of a man’s damaged mind. Or maybe it’s the last stop in the vast design of things—or perhaps, for a man like Mr. Tuanigamanuolepola Donny Tagovailoa, who climbed atop a world that simply runs too fast —it’s a place down the line and around the bend where a man might finally step off, find a wahine, and settle down into his next chapter….in the Twilight Zone.