PROBABLE
QB Jim Perkins (elbow)
QUESTIONABLE
WR Louis Howard (toe), WR Dequan Pope (groin), CB Trevor Rolle (biceps)
DOUBTFUL
TE Anthony Geraghty (knee), DL Tim Plumley (concussion), DL Ross Harris (years ago, in Buffalo, where he grew up, he had a lawnmowing business. He was an enterprising teenager and managed to put away a considerable amount of cash. One day, he was hired by the Lawrence family over on Jasper Street. He jumped at the chance because Mr. Lawrence, Don, was the head football coach at the university, and Ross, who was already a high school star, harbored dreams of playing for Coach Lawrence one day. Ross mowed the Lawrence’s lawn all summer. He gave coach Lawrence a discount. Mrs. Lawrence brought him lemonade or water sometimes, and once she invited him to stay for dinner. The Lawrences had no kids of their own, and for a while there Ross almost felt like part of the family. Then, one week in August, he was over at the Lawrence place when a young woman he hadn’t seen before came outside. “Hi,” she said. She was in her twenties, he figured, older than he was but younger than Mr. or Mrs. Lawrence. She introduced herself as Anita, a friend of the Lawrences from out of town. Anita vanished back inside the house and then returned with a bottle of Italian beer for Ross. “Coach Lawrence loves Italian beer,” she said, “so I’m thinking maybe you will too.” Ross had never had it but he nodded. When the woman handed him the bottle, he noticed a small deep scar at the side of her mouth. It made her look a little cruel but also more attractive. She caught him looking. “I went through a car window in an accident when I was seventeen,” she said. “My husband says it makes me look like a gun moll.” Ross was seventeen and he said so. Anita laughed and told him that when he was done he should come inside, because the Lawrences, who were out of town, had left him an envelope. She thought it might contain a summer bonus. “Might contain,” he said when she left. He liked the sound of that. He hurried through the rest of his job and went inside. Anita was sitting on the couch and called him over. She kissed him once and asked him if he wanted to go upstairs with her. Ross was big, and though other kids thought he was experienced for his age, the truth is that he had never been with a girl, let alone a woman with a scar on her mouth and a husband who said things like “gun moll.” He stammered an answer that he could only reconstruct later, when his heart had slowed. No, he said, but maybe they could just stay on the couch. They did stay on the couch, mostly, though they also used the chair next to it and a bean bag-type thing in the corner of the room. Anita was a little cruel; in that regard, the scar was an accurate predictor. Ross collected his clothes and left in terror, forgetting the envelope with the summer bonus. The next week, he came to the house and rang the bell. Coach Lawrence answered the door. Before Ross could even speak, Coach Lawrence blew up at him. “That was my sister,” he said. “She was between hospitals and staying with us for a few days.” Ross was dumbfounded. “Hospitals?” he repeated. “Psychiatric facilities,” Coach Lawrence said, biting every syllable. “When we were kids, she tried to burn down our house a few times a year. She got that scar from one of those times, when she stayed in the burning house too long and then had to jump through a window. People around town know about her. You mean to tell me you don’t?” Ross said he didn’t gossip much on account of devoting himself to football. Coach Lawrence steadied himself against the doorway. “She was fine until she was thirteen, and then her mother, my mother, went through a difficult time, and she somehow passed that on to Anita. They call it folie imposée.” Ross said that he was sorry. Coach Lawrence’s face, which had softened momentarily, hardened again. “She’s in no condition to be taken advantage of,” Coach Lawrence said. “You had better pray she isn’t pregnant.” Coach Lawrence closed the door, more in defeat than in anger. A few weeks later, Coach Lawrence resigned suddenly from the university to become a pro coach, an assistant with an expansion franchise. Ross attended the university, where he was a two-time All-American, and was drafted high in he second round by San Francisco. His rookie year, he led the team with 9.5 sacks, finishing third in rookie of the year voting. In the offseason, Don Lawrence was named the head coach of the Buffalo franchise. When Ross found out that San Francisco was traveling to Buffalo in the second game of the season, he waved his hands in front of him like he was fending off a rumor. “Can’t play,” he said. He made the trip to give his team emotional support and then, on Saturday night, drove slowly by the old Lawrence place. The lawn was well kept. On Sunday he holed up in his hotel where he watched TV and drank a six-pack of Italian beer, for old times’ sake).
OUT
CB Antoine Harris (hamstring)
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