California Football

            You are having a shitty night. You decide to go outside to smoke a cigarette; hopefully, it will exhume all your anguish. You hear a referee screech and a loudspeaker. People are resounding. Cheerleaders are chanting inaudible shanties about spirit and pride (presumably). You find your sister’s key to the car she left at the house you are stranded in and move towards the uproar after entering the vehicle.

            There are emptied cars blocking every sidewalk around the bleachers, so you have to walk one block to get there. Seeing that the game is in the 3^rd quarter, you convince the overweight mother sitting at the admissions table (who is also eating a Slim Jim and not closing her mouth when she gnaws its wax) to let you in for free. She offers you a raffle ticket, but you silently deny.

            You remember, from your high school days, how easy it is to spot the home side and place yourself on the stairs, staring at the parents. The has-been smell is overwhelming, and you feel winter slide its fingers between your ribs. You choose the group with the most uniforms that match the players on the field and rest on the thin metallic slab behind them.

            A touchdown is made. The bleachers bounce as the people rise: hands upwards, mouths gaping. The announcer commemorates the children for their lack of skill that is less than that of their opponents. Eventually the crowd calms and you say, “Fucking bullshit. These kids suck.” One or two heads slightly turn in your direction.

Minutes pass and another touchdown is made, but by the visiting team. This time you stand, cheer, then say, “That’s more like it. At least someone taught them how to play the game.” More than two heads turn and one father says, “Maybe you oughta sit on the other side of the field.” To which you respond, “Maybe you should shut the fuck up and let me cheer for whatever team I want.” He straddles his seat, opens his mouth and you swing a fist directly into his jaw. Your body follows your knuckles and you topple onto him and the others below, ragdolling down three or four steps. The bodies under you aggressively move to each side and your head is slammed against the cold aluminum repeatedly. You kick your legs and know you hit one person (hopefully a mother) in the stomach and another in the face. Your head is slammed again and what you can see becomes blurry. A man not far off (most likely a security guard) is yelling above those around you. You taste iron as your head is raised and then violently met with the aluminum once more. You smile as you remember something you read once: To be nothing – is it not, after all, the most satisfactory fact in the whole world?