In the distance, atop a promontory overlooking a dark, churning ocean breaking over the rocky shore below, stands what appears to be a modern day castle, with thick stone walls topped with turrets surrounding an inner keep. It isn’t called a castle by its occupants or even those who make their lives writing and talking about them. It’s the alternatively referred to as the Cape Complex or the Brady Complex and it is always capitalized to signify its importance for this is the home of Thomas Edward Patrick Brady, Jr., his supermodel wife Gisele Bundchen and their impossibly beautiful children, Ben and Viv.
It is 2017 and Brady is coming off his fifth Super Bowl win and his fourth Super Bowl MVP. His lawyers are preparing to argue on his behalf before the Supreme Court. The NFL, having lost the en banc hearing before the 2nd Circuit Court, has appealed the Deflategate case to the nation’s highest court.
Brady is one of the most famous people on the planet and like many renowned personalities he evinces strong and polarized opinions. Despite the science, despite his performance in the past two years, there are still those who believe he cheated. Despite the fifth Super Bowl ring there are still those who argue his bona fides as the greatest quarterback of all time. His disapproval ratings are high enough to qualify him to run for President, a fact that is not lost on Brady and his inner circle as he considers his post-football options. Not that Brady is contemplating retirement, not coming off a Super Bowl LII performance that may have been the greatest game of his career, if not the greatest game authored by a quarterback in a championship game. His 47 of 51 for 512 yards, 7 TD and 0 INT performance so beggared the imagination as to leave the haters to wonder what new, nefarious ploy - as yet undetectable - Brady, Belichick and the Patriots had devised to tip the field in their favor.
Privately, Brady has come to grips with the reality that all great men and women must face; that he will have to die before his greatness is recognized.
He is meeting now with his kitchen cabinet in the inner sanctum deep beneath the surface of the public face of the Cape Complex, a subterranean level that includes a meeting room secured against electronic surveillance, a batting cage with a pitching machine, living quarters stocked with a year’s supply of food and water as insurance against the sudden onset of a dystopian future and the launch bay for the custom-built submarine in which Brady, his family and Julian Edelman could escape to the sea if necessary.
Edelman is seated at the grand round table in the meeting room along with Brady, Gisele, Don Yee, Bill Clinton, Steven Spielberg, Maria Menounos and Mark Zuckerberg. On videoconference, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Narendra Modi and Pope Francis are also in attendance. Brady is thoughtfully carving out a spoonful from his small bowl of avocado ice cream as Don Yee speaks.
“I realize you’re not ready to retire,” Yee begins as Brady nods in agreement. “But the time is now to pivot to the next phase.”
Merkel is first to speak, “Are ve still agreed the show biz step is actually necessary? The vorld has problems that need solfing now.”
Gisele says something that sounds like an angry counterargument in German to Chancellor Merkel but then everything in German sounds like an angry counterargument. Merkel responds in kind before former President Clinton can interject.
“Ladies, ladies. You know I love the musicality of the German tongue as much as any man but if I’m not mistaken, we agreed to English only for these meetings.”
Gisele locks eyes on Clinton and hisses something in Portuguese.
“Yes,” Brady says. “He has to be here. We need him.”
“Look, I know we’ve talked about this before so forgive me,” Spielberg said. “Tom might be the man who could do it but no former professional athlete has ever become President. A former actor has. Three or four movies, an Oscar nom, Governor of California and then the Presidency. It’s a solid plan but we’ll never get it done if we don’t commit to it and follow through.”
Zuckerberg added, “I have to agree. No plan is perfect and no doubt we’ll face challenges and course corrections but one sure path to failure is a lack of commitment on the part of senior leadership. We’re together on this or we’ll fail. Agreed?”
“Well said, Mark,” Pope Francis said. “D’accord.”
“Agreed,” Chancellor Merkel offered. “Continue.”
Yee resumed his pitch. “The James Bond thing in the mattress commercial was a nice touch but I’d like us to continue our discussion regarding film genre for Tom’s Hollywood years. I think action-adventure may be too cliche.”
“Not as cliche as a remake of the Warren Beatty ‘Heaven Can Wait’,” noted Spielberg, giving Maria Menounos the stink eye.
“It was merely intended as a conversation starter,” Menounos muttered.
“Maria may have been guilty of being a little too literal but I do see where she was coming from,” Gisele said, “and taking advantage of Tom’s football persona has it’s obvious appeal but rom-com’s are off the table and at it's heart the Beatty ‘Heaven Can Wait’ is a romantic comedy.”
Tom looked up from his avocado ice cream and reached out his hand to his one true love. “You’re beautiful when you’re jealous.”
Gisele took his hand and replied, “I’m always beautiful. Just like you my darling.”
“While it is hard to argue with the taking of such a position,” Narendra Modi observed, “I do believe we may be slightly off topic. Might I once again suggest we at least consider a musical and before I am also again shouted down on this proposal let me remind you all that Mr. George Clooney did not do his own singing in ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou’ which was a most successful cinematic accomplishment in its own right. Is it so terribly difficult to picture Tom in the role of Everett McGill.”
“I love that movie!” Edelman exclaimed. “Not as much as ‘The Big Lebowski’ but it’s still good.”
“I’m as big a fan of the Coen brothers’ movies as my diminutive, Semitic friend,” Pope Francis said, “but I think the objective of the Hollywood Phase has to be to make Tom not smaller but bigger; larger than life itself. He must play the role of a man who saves all of western civilization, if not the planet itself. As a man who trades in salvation, I think you should trust me on this one.”
“I still say a rom-com would go a long way toward humanizing Tom’s public persona, but, it is hard to argue with the man who’s never wrong,” Bill Clinton observed.
“I think something like the Dennis Quaid role in ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ where he’s a good family man who saves his kids and the world,” offered Don Yee.
“Too old,” observed Gisele.
“And he’s kind of a dick at the beginning of the movie,” Menounos added.
“Technically, he doesn’t save the world though he does save many thousands of lives,” Narendra Modi said.
Turning to Zuckerberg, Steven Spielberg asked, “Has nobody seen any of my movies?”
“I think the problem may be that they have,” Zuckerberg answered.
“Fair point,” Spielberg acknowledged.
“Forgive me if I note that there really hasn’t been a good Jesus movie in a long time,” noted Pope Francis. “Like all the way back to Jeffrey Hunter. It certainly checks the ‘saves the world’ box.”
“After Emma Stone in ‘Aloha’ and ‘Oscar So White,’ not to mention Gerard Butler in ‘Gods of Egypt,’ I’m not sure this is the best time for another blue-eyed Jesus movie,” noted Maria Menounos. “Just sayin’.”
“Dis may zound crazy comink from me but I’m zure Mr. Spielberg und Mr. Edelman vill agree there are no villains like Nazis. A what do you say, rock ‘em sock ‘em kisses you never got kind of World War II movie?”
“That’s a quote from ‘M*A*S*H.’ And okay, who doesn’t love Robert Altman but you couldn’t reference Tom Hanks in ‘Saving Private Ryan?’” Spielberg asked of nobody in particular.
“No,” Gisele said. “Tom can’t die in his movies.”
“Look, the ugly truth of American politics is that you’re going to need to turn out some white supremacists to vote for you,” Bill Clinton noted. “I’d stay away from Nazis. Aliens are always best. You’re not losing any votes with aliens.”
They’re all quiet for a moment.
“He’s not going to win an Oscar in an effects-driven action adventure movie,” Gisele observed.
“No,” Spielberg agreed. “Tom will win his Oscar playing a man who saves a single child; symbolically saving the collective future of mankind.”
“Like The Rock in ‘San Andreas!’,” offered Maria Menounos. Spielberg hangs his head for a moment and sighs.
His avocado ice cream finished, Tom Brady stands. “I like where this is going. It’s better to have too many good ideas than not enough. Don, let’s get them on the big board and we’ll start breaking them down when we get back together in two weeks. Jules, let’s go have a catch. Super Bowls don’t win themselves, you know.”
Edelman is on his feet in an instant, heading for the doors to the bank of elevators. “On it, boss!”
Brady continued, “And thanks again to all of you. I may be the face of this ‘franchise’ but I know how important each and every one of you is to our future success. To those of you on conference, thank you for staying up late or getting up early as the case may be. To those of you in the room, the chopper is ready and waiting to take you to Logan.”
The “thank you’s” from the video screens and from those around the table echo off each other as Brady leaves.
“Good meeting,” declared former President Clinton. “Anyone else laying over in Boston tonight? I could use a wingman.”
Gisele stands and they all rise from their seats. She smiles grimly at Clinton, then turns to leave. As she reaches the door she calls over her shoulder, “Don will see you out.”
A few minutes later, she watches from her office as her husband’s advisors board the AgustaWestland AW139 idling on the helipad on the landward side of the keep. She turns to her left and smiles as she sees Tom and Jules on the regulation sized football field below, playing catch. “Thank god for you, Jules,” she says in a whisper.
Yes, she thought, looking back as the chopper lifted haltingly from the helipad, we need him, we need all of them. And yet she also knew that in the end, it would all come down to her considerable powers, powers that none of Tom’s advisors knew about - they’d agreed it was best they didn’t know.
When the time comes, she thought, I will act without hesitation or mercy.
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