Game Day

They will arrive at the flag football field in ones and twos and threes, those with licenses driving those who lost them to DUIs or other infractions.

They will be men with boys’ names, the core of their old high school team, the ones who won the city championship twice but never made it to state finals. Tommy and Johnny, brothers two years apart and still living in the back room of their mother’s paint-blistered bungalow. Billy of the sculpted pecs and biceps, dropped off in his girlfriend’s white Trans-Am, face red beneath an artificial tan from the inevitable fight on the way over. Donnie and Denny and Bobby, the three musketeers, who work third shift at Bolton Machine, red-faced from their breakfast boilermakers. Joey and Bobby, nine-to-fivers with houses and kids and practically identical green station wagons. Georgie and Markie (Mahkie in the local dialect) who work at Smitty’s, their father’s bar, arriving in the Smitty’s van. James—never Jimmy—the lone exception regarding names and the only Black player. No one will ever know what he does outside the team.

Some will come dressed for the game—shorts, cleats, jerseys, and striped socks pulled just below the bulge of their calves. They will lean against their cars or lamp posts draining the last of their gas station coffee and whatever they poured from the flasks they plop onto their cracked front seats. Others will strip off Friday night clothes behind open doors and shimmy into their unis.

One by one they will toss their cups at overflowing trash cans, shut the car doors, and make their way toward the field worn to dirt down the middle in the loose shape of a fuzzy football, popping their necks and stretching, hands clasped above their heads. A few will jog on the cinder track. Others will drop to the grass, stretch their legs, bend their noses toward their knees.

Johhny, the younger brother and unofficial team manager, will look at the piece of paper he pulled from his pocket and unfolded. Tommy, the elder, the backup QB, will sidle up to Johnny, look at the paper, then look into the parking lot and shake his head. Johnny will look into the parking lot, then look at the paper and shrug. He will mark the page with a golf pencil.

Ryan, the quarterback they cannot win without, will finally drive over from the slump-porched duplex he had until recently shared with his wife, having eaten a bowl of cheerios for breakfast in milk just this side of going sour. He will be dressed in the gear his wife washed and folded before she left, for good this time, she said, wrung out by his family’s drama, his father laid off, his brother in rehab they can’t afford, his mother in bed most days. His shoes will rest on the passenger seat next to a football. Circlets of turf will drop from the cleats as he hits the potholes on McAllister Avenue.

Ryan’s Plymouth Horizon will bottom out on the turn into the parking lot. He will park facing the field. He will see his team scattered on the grass, doing their personal warm-ups with the enthusiasm of teenagers in study hall. He will lay his forehead on the steering wheel, close his eyes, and for an instant float free, of the breakup, of his family, of the team. He will think about re-starting the car and driving away. Then he will hear the thump of punted footballs and distant shouts. His eyes will pop open. He will push up from the steering wheel, and before he can change his mind, he will grab the cleats and football, swing out of the car. He will hip check the door closed, palm the football in his throwing hand (the left), his long fingers on the laces. He will carry the shoes in his right hand and scuff across the asphalt in untied high tops.

Grinning, Tommy will smack Johnny on the arm and point to the parking lot. Johnny will refold the paper and put it in his pocket. The team will notice Ryan and gather in a half circle behind Johnny and Tommy. For a moment, Ryan will feel the weight of their faith in him and think again about turning back. He will not turn back. As he makes his way across the lot, Ryan will pull back his shoulders, lengthen his stride, and lean into a quarterback swagger, transforming before their eyes. When he hits the grass, he will flick the football their way. One of them will catch it.