The voice. I had expected it to be a snarl. A growl. The hook-nosed old man in the Scooby-Doo cartoons. The nasty neighbor who chainsaws baseballs hit into his backyard.
Instead, I heard this soft Louisiana drawl, the kind I'd imagine from one of the heroes in a James Lee Burke novel.
Not that I was fooled by the voice. I had spent too many years hating the man who owned it.
"This is A.J. Duhe," he said.
"A.J. Duhe, the football player?" I asked.
"That's me."
"The A.J. Duhe who broke my heart when I was seven years old?"
He didn't reply. He may have been checking the locks on his doors. I continued:
"The A.J. Duhe, who in the 1982 AFC Championship Game, intercepted Richard Todd three times in the mud at the Orange Bowl and then ran the last one back for a touchdown? The A.J. Duhe who made me cry the most bitter tears of my young life? That A.J. Duhe?"
At that point, there may have been an uncomfortable silence.
I should back up a bit.
Author Brad Parks, age 9, doomed to a lifelong dedication to the Jets.
Because, yes, we have reached a familiar time of year, for those of us who have long suffered from the green malady known as the New York Jets.
Our team is 2-10 coming off a typically heartbreaking, 16-13, loss to the Dolphins on Monday Night Football.
Our coach, Rex Ryan, is the Dead Man Walking of New York sports.
Our general manager, John Idzik, might be the most reviled employee in franchise history — a real feat for a team once coached by Rich Kotite — and his firing is the stated demand of a website, a Twitter feed, several highway billboards and even a banner towed by a plane that flew over Jets practice a few weeks back.
Our passing game is an abomination, dead last in the league. Meanwhile, Mark Sanchez, our ex-franchise quarterback, who supposedly wasn't good enough, is a short ride down the Turnpike, throwing touchdowns all over Philadelphia.
To top it off, our owner, Johnson & Johnson heir Woody Johnson, seems to be presiding over the whole morass as if he has Band-Aids over his eyes.
And we are once again wondering: Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? Year after year. Decade after decade. Why?
"I can't believe we're 2-10," Ryan said after the Monday night loss. "It's a joke."
If it's a joke, we are not laughing. We are too busy suffering, just like we have been for so long.
And, for me, that suffering began with A.J. Duhe.
I should back up even further.
As a kid born in Passaic County, New Jersey, I had a choice when it came to my football fandom. Giants or Jets. Once such a decision is made — as any honorable fan knows — the results are irreversible.
For reasons that now elude me, I went with the Jets. (I blame my mother. She was a Joe Namath fan and may have filled my head with Super Bowl III propaganda while I was still defenseless in the womb. It's a wonder I didn't come out jogging and pointing one finger to the sky).
I came to sporting consciousness in the early 1980s, one of those rare moments in history when it was a good time to be a Jets fans.
In backyard football games, I pretended to be Freeman McNeil, the Jets' flashy, slashing running back. When I caught passes, I was Wesley Walker, the blind-in-one-eye receiver whose disability taught me about overcoming
adversity. On defense, I was any one of the vaunted New York Sack Exchange — Joe Klecko, Marty Lyons, Abdul Salaam, or, most of all, Mark Gastineau. (Stop snickering. He hadn't yet done boxing, acting . . . or prison).
When my parents decided I was old enough to receive an allowance, I saved it for months. My first purchase was a regulation-sized Jets helmet, selected out of the Sears Catalogue. During the first family dinner after it arrived, I forced my mother to use it as a centerpiece.
And that was before the Jets started their extraordinary playoff run that followed the strike-shortened 1982 season. Going on the road, they upset the defending conference champion Bengals, then the top-seeded Raiders.
They were one game away from the Super Bowl.
And then?
Then came A.J. Duhe.
It had rained for 72 straight hours. Yet, curiously, the field at the Orange Bowl had not been covered by a tarp, as was league policy. (I blame Dolphins coach Don Shula and now refuse to step foot in any of his steakhouses).
The result was a game played in a bog, neutralizing the Jets' superior team speed. Neither offense could move the ball. It was 0-0 at halftime.
In the second half, A.J. Duhe started one of the more devastating individual defensive performances in NFL playoff history. The final act of it was a play that, thanks to YouTube and a tendency towards masochism, I can view repeatedly.
It starts with mud-splattered Jets quarterback Richard Todd dropping back to throw a short little swing pass to Bruce Harper, a safe play.
Except A.J. Duhe, from his outside linebacker position, obliterates Jets tackle Marvin Powell. Then Duhe leaps, a great serpent breaching from the murky depths, tips the ball to himself and controls it.
Then the legendary Dick Enberg, his voice tinny — like a recording out of the Roosevelt Era — begins the call that still echoes in my head:
"Intercepted and that's going to be a touchdown. A.J. Duhe! What a day for Duhe!"
Jets strong safety Dawan Landry battles for the ball against Dolphins tight end Dion Sims on Dec. 1. The Dolphins defeated the Jets 16-13.Photo: Zuma
For the Jets, it is the death knell of a 14-0 loss. And somewhere (not pictured in the YouTube video) there is a 7-year-old future writer bawling his eyes out.
More than three decades later, there should have been ample time to heal. And with any other team, perhaps there would have been.
But every time the wound started to scab up, something else would rip it open again.
Right after A.J. Duhe happened, Walt Michaels — the coach who resurrected the franchise — unexpectedly quit. More heartache followed: the 10-1 start that fizzled to nothing; 11 straight seasons without a winning record; too-brave wide receivers with too-fragile heads; Vinny Testaverde and his shattered Achilles; Bill Belichick, deciding he couldn't be the HC of the NYJ.
Yes, the classy Herm Edwards brought us some respectability. And, yes, there was the early promise of the Ryan years and those two AFC Championship Game visits. But it's been four disastrous seasons since then. And through it all, the name A.J. Duhe has continued to haunt me.
It was sometime during this season's repeated brutalization — sometime after the slaughter in San Diego but before the beating in Buffalo — that I got this idea:
What if I called A.J. Duhe?
What if I confronted my personal demon?
Adam Joseph Duhe Jr. — date of birth: November 27, 1955 — is not a hard man to find.
He remains active with the Dolphins Alumni Association. He does occasional radio gigs, whenever someone wants to talk about the old days. His son sells real estate.
It took only one phone call. In less than an hour, he was calling me back. And I was telling him, in so many words, that I had basically despised him for 32 years.
After the long silence that followed — I assume he was taking time out to arm his home security system — he finally spoke.
"Seven years old is too young to have your heart broken," he said.
"No, seven years old is the exact age when you get your heart broken by sports," I insisted. "You don't know any better. There's nothing like the first time. You broke my heart, A.J."
"Well, it was me along with 40-something other guys," he said.
"I don't remember any of the other 40-something other guys," I said. "I only remember you."
At this point, he may have been typing "how to get a temporary restraining order" into his search engine.
Seven years old is too young to have your heart broken. - Adam Joseph Duhe Jr.
Nevertheless, we started talking. He shared his memories of the game. Not that it endeared me to him. And then he said something that I thought I must have misheard.
"It surprises everyone, but I'm a closet Jets fan."
A what?
"When I was coming up, Joe Namath was one of the players who really caught my eye," he said. "Being raised where I was, it was mostly Saints and Cowboys. But I followed the Jets more than a kid from Louisiana should have.
I pulled for them."
And then A.J. Duhe — of all people — got this idea.
"Maybe this will help you get over it," he suggested. "Maybe doing this story will clear your pain. You know, because you start to realize, 'This guy is not a bad guy. I mean, yeah, he kicked our asses. But he was just doing his job.' "
I was skeptical. But we kept talking. We talked about what it meant to be a fan, about how strange it was that one game from 30-odd years ago could still torment a man, how sports can . . . just . . . matter.
Photo: AP
Super Bowl. And I had tears rolling down my face."
That's what we wait our whole lives for, of course. That moment. The payoff. When all our suffering suddenly feels worthwhile.
And, in the meantime, we hope. Isn't that what keeps us coming back? The hope that quarterback Geno Smith, after having been benched, will suddenly discover his inner Tom Brady; that running back Chris Johnson will start
making like it's 2011 . . . er . . . 2009 again; that Rex Ryan will be replaced by the next coming of Vince Lombardi.
That someday we'll have tears in our eyes and, for once, they'll be the good kind.
This just in: A.J. Duhe really isn't a bad guy.
He's been married to his college sweetheart, Frances, for 34 years. They raised two boys and a girl, now ages 24-31. He settled down in Weston, Fla., not far from Miami. He works in casino marketing, the last 11 years for Caesars Entertainment. Between that and his NFL pension, he lives comfortably.
We talked about fatherhood — I've got two children myself — and how we never stop worrying about our kids. We talked about the squeeze on the middle class, about health care.
That's what being a fan is all about. It's about that irrational fervor you know is shared by so many others. It's about seeing a guy in the grocery store with a Jets hat on and giving him a nod because he understands you.
Even about his health. He needs shoulder surgery and a knee replacement, the inevitable ruin caused by eight seasons in the NFL. But, so far, he counts himself blessed that his mind remains clear.
"I told my wife and my kids to tell me when I'm having a problem," Duhe said. "Right now I'm OK."
At that moment, I had to admit, I was actually glad to hear it. I didn't hate A.J. Duhe anymore.
Because, of course, it was never really about A.J. Duhe, was it? The guy who shattered me that muddy day at the Orange Bowl wasn't No. 77 for the Dolphins. It was all the guys in the green and white.
I just couldn't hate them for it. Because I was too busy loving them.
That's what being a fan is all about. It's about that irrational fervor you know is shared by so many others. It's about seeing a guy in the grocery store with a Jets hat on and giving him a nod because he understands you.
It's about wanting John Idzik canned but also praying he's named Executive of the Year next season because it will mean things are finally turning around.
And maybe A.J. Duhe was right. Maybe writing this story really has helped. I certainly hope so.
He should probably keep his doors locked anyway.
Brad Parks is a Shamus-, Nero- and Lefty-winning author of crime fiction, most recently "The Player" (St. Martin's Press).
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