Big Johnson

"This is no fucking salsa club. Ain't no motherfuckers who can dance but a couple," he says with a smirk. Johnson doesn't smile much. And he rarely dances. A friend from Vegas says Johnson can tear up the dance floor. But not here. Not tonight. Not in Kansas City.

Johnson is joined at the bar by Sean Deaver, a school friend of Chiefs return man Dante Hall. The men don't seem surprised to see each other.

Deaver jokes that he calls Johnson "King Pink" because of his attraction to white women.

A tall black man dressed in all white — clear up to his floppy fishing hat — comes in. Johnson and Deaver exchange looks.

Johnson explains that the newcomer is an ex-boyfriend of the tiny woman he spoke to at Vital. Johnson and the man never look directly at each other, but they're clearly posturing. "He's mad because I'm fucking his bitch," Johnson says.

Another smiling white guy approaches Johnson to congratulate him on his successes last year. He is with two women, one of whom Johnson has been eyeing — whether she's sexy has been the subject of a debate between Johnson and the agent. She is a willowy brunette who's nearly 6 feet tall in heels.

She leans in to meet Johnson. But they've hardly said much when the lights come up. It's 2:20 a.m.

The exiting patrons cluster on the corner outside. Battle loudly chats up the woman Johnson has just met, confusing her in the process. "Do you like peanut butter?" he asks her. "Do you like jelly?" Then he spots a thin, dark-skinned black woman striding across the street on high, high heels.

"That's Africa in the making," he says to no one in particular.

Johnson and the agent linger only a minute before getting into the Mercedes, which Johnson left in a no-parking zone out front.

In 17 hours, Johnson will take a handoff from Chiefs quarterback Trent Green and run 97 yards for a touchdown, leap into the arms of his fellow Chiefs players and bathe in the deafening roar of a packed Arrowhead Stadium.

That run, in the Chiefs' second-to-last preseason game, will amp the buzz about Johnson. The noise will grow louder after Johnson's thrilling performance in the season opener on September 11 at Arrowhead Stadium — and when a woman accuses him of assaulting her at another Kansas City nightspot.

Johnson has been the star of the Chiefs' young season.

He was great at the end of last season, after Priest Holmes was sidelined by a knee injury. Johnson scored nine touchdowns and ran for 541 yards in six games. Projecting those stats over a full season, Johnson would have run for 1,443 yards and 24 touchdowns — more TDs than any player in the league last year. His roll continued in the off-season camps and the preseason games.

Even Coach Dick Vermeil, who dissed the young athlete last season, raved.

As good as Priest Holmes was — he was the most productive running back in professional football over the past three seasons — he never ran a 97-yard touchdown. He never ran a touchdown longer than 35 yards.

Johnson's 97-yard dash left every Chiefs fan impatient for the team opener against the New York Jets at Arrowhead, eager to see what Johnson would do when it really counted.

As the game neared, even Johnson was excited. He flew in a woman he began seeing in his days at Pennsylvania State University.

The Friday night before the game, Johnson and the woman decided to go out. They chose The Drink.

In the tiny world of Chiefs nightlife circles, Johnson couldn't have been surprised to see another woman he'd been dating show up at the club.

According to that woman's account of the night's events, Johnson saw her from across the club and sent her a text message asking her to meet him downstairs. They argued, and Johnson pulled her to an exit and tried to have her removed by a bouncer. The club manager allowed her to stay, and she marched upstairs to confront Johnson's date. Johnson then became upset, pushed the local woman to the ground and grabbed her, scratching her wrist. She made a police report ten hours later. (When she is contacted by reporters the next Monday, she will tell The Kansas City Star that the police report was inaccurate, that Johnson had neither pushed nor grabbed her.)

When Johnson wakes up the next morning, though, he has no idea that a woman has filed a police report accusing him of assault.

Instead, he finds that someone has broken into his SUV in the driveway of his Leawood home.

Among the missing items are his stereo amplifiers, the game tickets he intended to share with his girlfriend and his manager, and his fat playbook, the loss of which will mean a $5,000 fine from the team.

He's clearly grumpy, but that doesn't mean he's canceling his photo shoot with the Pitch.