May 13, 2010

Until this past week, the last time you saw Lawrence Taylor, the former New York Giants All-World linebacker wild man and a member in good standing of the Pro Football Hall Fame, he was a stumbling, fumbling contestant on ABC-TV’s hit inexplicability show, “Dancing with the Stars.”

Or, at least, that’s the last time you saw Taylor if your significant other actually watches this stuff, which mine does. If, on the other hand, you don’t know from “Dancing with the Stars,” you can probably recall one of Taylor’s post-football court appearances, which featured such groovy charges as crack possession and twice trying to buy cocaine from undercover cops.

Or maybe you saw the 2003 “60 Minutes” interview in which Taylor told Mike Wallace he used to send prostitutes to opponents’ hotel rooms the night before big games in order to wear them out (the players, not the prostitutes.) He also, just because it’s fun to know, told Wallace he used to submit his teammates’ urine when he had to participate in league-ordered drug tests. How, I wonder, do you broach the subject of wanting someone’s piss?

In 2003, Taylor said, "L.T. died a long time ago, and I don't miss him at all...all that's left is Lawrence Taylor." Now, though, Lawrence Taylor has deftly combined two of L.T.’s favorite pastimes into one kick-ass reemergence on the ever-popular celebrity police blotter scene.

No, he hasn’t danced a badly timed rumba with a drug dealer, at least not as far as I know. But he has been arrested at a New Jersey hotel, where he allegedly raped a 16 year-old prostitute. Even in Jersey that kind of thing can get you into trouble.

New York sports fans, who are notoriously forgiving when it comes to assholes in their stadiums, both on the turf and seated around it, have been twisting their brains like street vendor pretzels for the past several days, trying to convince themselves what L.T. allegedly did with that kid at the hotel isn’t as bad as it first seems. If you think about it, all the mountain-like man did was force himself on a cowering teenager who was in the room solely because a pimp slapped her around for refusing to go. It’s not like he killed somebody. Plus, it sounds like he was...um...set up. Sort of.

Just to give you an idea how far you can get by being a beloved sports figure in New York City, the very girl Taylor is accused of raping said this to “The Daily News” yesterday, and why she was talking to “The Daily News” is anybody’s guess: "I was a huge Giant fan," she said, "and I used to look up to him." She added, "I don't want to ruin his reputation," despite what happened in the hotel room. "After all," she said, "He's in the Hall of Fame and he won two Super Bowls.” (My astounded italics.)

Really? That’s a fair trade-off? Really?

Taylor has her delivered on a platter to a hotel room in New Jersey, he rapes her, then gives her $300, the bulk of which she undoubtedly had to hand to the pimp who earlier slapped her around. And she doesn't want to ruin Taylor's reputation because HE’S IN THE HALL OF FAME AND HE WON TWO SUPER BOWLS?? Did she forget he once appeared as himself on "The Sopranos?"

This girl is a victim, and her head surely must have been in a bad, bad place even before she entered that hotel room. But if that isn’t the atomic bomb quote of the year, I don’t know what is.

Taylor’s defense in all this, now that he’s tried the “she didn’t look 16” angle, which means not a bit of difference in a court of law and nobody believed anyway, is that he never touched the girl. That’s right— he simply masturbated while she was in the room, which is several steps removed from both the rape charge and the graphic testimony the girl delivered to the cops when Taylor was first arrested.

So, yeah. Taylor paid $300 for an underage hooker who was forced into the act through an ass-kicking from her pimp. But all he did was jack off while she was there, man. Then, undoubtedly, he lectured her on the dangers of possibly getting raped in exactly that situation, braided her hair for her, and packed her a sandwich in a Hello Kitty lunch box before she left.

Forget “where have you gone Joe DiMaggio.” I’d settle for “where have you gone Sonny Liston.”

Paul Tatara