Chapter 29
Gabe
Fourth and long.
Forty-three seconds left on the clock.
We’re down by five.
If we don’t get a first down, game’s over. The Chargers will get the ball and run out the clock. Not the most noble win, but this isn’t the time for nobility. Whoever wins this will be one game away from the Super Bowl. There’s no more room for error.
Blaise pats me as I lower myself down, letting my hand hover over the ball for another second. “You got this, buddy,” he says, but I don’t got this. This is part of his ritual, his need to settle his own nerves by playing like someone else is nervous, but it rubs me the wrong way.
I don’t got any of this.
We’re going to lose, management is going to see that I was the one who hiked the ball wrong when Blaise fumbles it or let through the guy who sacks him, and I’m not going to come back next year.
Everyone in Wilmington is going to know. No one will hire me. I’ll get a really nice compensation package, but it’s not living-off-of-it-the-rest-of-my-life money. I’m going to have to move. Joss won’t move with me, so I won’t get the chance to fix this shit between us. I’ll end up being a child support dad. I’ll never get to bond with my kid. I’ll be that weird, sad guy who shows his friends pictures of his kid being raised by some other guy.
It’s going to be Blaise. She likes Blaise.
My friends will recognize him because he’s a superstar, and I’ll just be a big loser.
I don’t got any of this at any level.
Blaise straight-up slaps my ass and yells, “You got this, buddy!” so the entire line hears.
And responds with, “We got this!”
Vedder gives me a nod, telling me this isn’t as self-serving of Blaise as usual. Everyone knows I’m nervous. Fuck me.
The guy standing nearly shoulder-to-shoulder across from me, Willis Brand, is a meat wall. He’s grinning at me like he doesn’t want to slip past me, he wants to slam me down and stomp on my spine. He’s an unnerving guy, everyone says so, but I’m not usually unnerved. The problem is he knows what we’re going to do. Everyone does. The penalty we got on the last play pushed us back another five yards, making a first down only possible with a long pass.
Merrick’s fucked. I’m fucked. We’re all fucked.
But miracles happen.
The clock is running out. We gotta go.
“Alex Trebek 47!” Blaise yells. “Alex Trebek 47!” It’s gibberish, everyone already got the play from me, but it makes him happy.
I count down from two and hike the ball.
It all happens in slow-motion. It’s like that sometimes. Not even necessarily big plays. Sometimes, it’s just another day at the office, and other days, it’s every speck, every minutia, decanted into single moments.
It’s the rough leather gritting along my fingertips before propelling away into Blaise’s hand.
It’s the head rush that comes from righting myself to brace for collision. Everyone else is prepared when that ball is snapped, but my neck’s a second’s delay from getting a nasty bend, a ringing of the old bell.
It’s my eyes filling with white streaked by yellow and blue lightning, the Charger’s jersey.
It’s the sudden dark of the collision.
It’s pushing back at Brand, but the next collision is with his knees as I go down and he gets over me.
The ball launches over my head. There’s a moment where I actually see it from the frame of my helmet.
It’s wrong. I only get a glimpse, but it’s wrong. I know where Merrick is supposed to be, and that not where that ball is going. Not even close.
There’s cheering in the stadium, always cheering, but it’s the Chargers fans who flew out to Wilmington to root their team on. They’ve won.
Our season is over.
I’m over.
Definitely did one or two more shots than I should have.
No more than five shots too many.
Jeff slams a can of coffee in my hand as he hoists himself back up into the work truck. When I start to open it, he takes it back and opens it himself, keeping the tab pulled forward so he can slide a slushie straw into the hole. Then he hands it back to me.
He kiddie-cupped my coffee. He fucking kiddie-cupped my coffee.
He pats my knee as I slurp it down. “Figure you’ve been throwing back so much alcohol lately you might need something to keep yourself from guzzling it like an idiot.”
I glare at him as I suck on the straw, not that he can see. I’ve chosen mirrored sunglasses for today, in the style that hugs the face to keep the sun from getting in around the sides. It seems like it hasn’t stopped snowing since I blew the game a week ago. I’ve been able to hide inside in a cocoon of blankets and alcohol, but I told Jeff I’d help him and his crew with the deck once the season was over.
Surprise, the season’s over.
I’ve already had two coffees, and yeah, I did shotgun the second one in the parking lot of the hardware store, so Jeff’s concern is valid. Everyone was cool with me in the hardware store, even signed a couple autographs, lots of comments about better luck next season, but I know.
No one from Jugs management has talked to me about it yet, but I know.
I’m done. Everyone knows.
We pull up to Joss’s place as I’m flipping the straw around to stick the spoon side in my mouth so I can make obnoxious slurping sounds in Jeff’s ear. He does contract stuff at the stadium, usually constructing platforms and sign posts, the extra stuff we need for special events and the VIP tailgate village. He gets passes to a lot of the events he crafts for, so I knew him well enough I was comfortable with him working around Joss’s place when I couldn’t be there.
But I prefer to be here, even if I am hungover.
His crew’s already arrived. Just two other guys, Sam and Dennis. Sam’s his dad, Dennis is his cousin. Wilmington’s like that. They’re sitting in a car, engine and heat on, holding their coffees close to their faces to warm up in the pre-dawn frost.
Nah, that’s not for me.
I haul myself out of the truck, toss my can in Joss’s recycle bin and straw in the trash, unsure of the type of plastic it is, and pull the flag off the pile of lumber at the back of the truck. It’s a massive stack of 2x8s and 6x6s, and I go straight for the thick ones, hauling two up onto my shoulder.
“Well now, don’t go hurting yourself,” Jeff warns, attempting to take one back.
“I’m good.” Technically, I feel like I’m going to barf, but I’m good with the weight. “Why don’t you get started on digging those post holes? That’s going to be a bitch.”
It takes me an hour to unload the truck. Or, it takes me fifteen minutes to unload the truck and forty-five minutes to shovel and salt the path after I nearly bust ass with 250 pounds of lumber on my shoulder. The guys use a propane torch to thaw the earth as they go, so we’re all working at about the same pace. By the time I’ve got all the lumber sandwiched between tarps and join them, I’m winded and working up a sweat, but I want more. Dennis swings a pickaxe to break through the spot he’s working on. It’s loud as fuck, giving me a damn headache, but I wanna do that.
I strip off my winter coat and shirt, sopping sweat off with it and tossing it onto the tarps. Jeff gives me a look like I’ve lost my mind, and sure, it’s below freezing, but I’m Minnesotan, born and raised. My skin may have thinned out some in the more moderate climate of Wilmington, but I’m basically a polar bear.
Dennis hands me the axe, and the rest of the crew steps back as I take a swing. And another. And another.
And another.
It feels good. Just beating the shit out of the earth for a minute while drifting snow steams off my skin feels good. When I start hitting frozen earth again, Sam brings the torch over, but he’s been torching another spot. I don’t need to stop swinging. So I don’t.
I hit a rock on the next swing, one too large for the pickaxe to break through. It bounces off the impenetrable wall, reverberating through my arms and into my body. Usually, I would hate this sensation. I’ve done this sort of work for my dad enough times, and it always sets my teeth on edge. It does now, but it’s also one of those sensations that at the right time can scratch an itch. A deep, metaphysical, cosmic itch.
My arms go limp at my sides, the pickaxe landing with a thud against my calf as my shoulders roll back and my head tips up. I groan at the sky, loving this second where every kink in my body, not just from last night’s bender or my recent stress but the whole season I’m meant to be recovering from, melts away.
The sun feels good on my face.
And there on the second floor, her coffee in her hand and her forehead pressed against the window, her jaw lax and her eyelids heavy, Joss is watching me.