He said he would have gotten it for me anyways. That it had nothing to do with what was happening at school. The Bears were in the playoffs, finally, after a long drought, and not only that, they were playing the Green Bay Packers. He said it was a Christmas gift.
I asked him, “Do you know what these are going for?”
He nodded his head yes. His cat had died recently, and he was very emotional about it.
“Are you sure?” I asked again, unable to believe my little brother was now making Bears playoff ticket money. I’m grateful, believe me. But I think he was worried because of how things had been going for me at work lately. Well, specifically with me getting fired.
I won’t bore you with the details, but it was starting to look like my career in education might be over. The winter is always a rough time for me in Chicago, because there’s no sunlight. I don’t care about the cold, but the fact that it gets dark at 3:59 pm is a real fucking downer when you spend your day inside a windowless rectangular prism wrangling hormonal 13-year-olds for a living.
Anyhow, I’d kind of stopped answering the phone for a bit I guess. I would call my parents back a day later, after I was well-caffeinated and medicated. I would call in the afternoon, usually on Sundays after they’d come back from church and were more likely to put a touch of faith to my words and be uplifted. I didn’t call in the mornings because it was hard to get up before noon with no job to go to. I kept my Christmas visit short to avoid the types of questions I was likely to get about the whole shit with this little fucktard from my third period class. Also, I had surgery on my foot that I needed to get done before my insurance ran out at the end of the month. I started betting on sports and was studiously tracking the types of lines to see which ones were getting the best results. I found an obscure hockey puck line trade that I’d won 21 out of 28 times. If I could get another zero or two to put behind the number, it was possible I could survive doing that for awhile if it came right down to it.
It wasn’t a given that the Bears and Packers were even going to play each other in the first round when he’d gotten me the ticket. After that, the prices spiked enormously. The two weeks between Christmas and the wild card game passed in a sort of tryptophan-induced haze between sporting events when I would briefly emerge from my cocoon and check the scores coming in. Sometimes I even left the house to get groceries and touch grass. Mostly I tried not to leave the house because every time I left the house I ended up spending money which I really couldn’t afford to. Inside was safe, but mostly inside was free.
That said, there was no way I was going to miss the Bears-Packers wild card game now that I had a ticket. I ate three microwaved hot dogs on white bread before I left the house to try to avoid overspending at the game. I don’t pregame my drinking anymore because I’m sober now. I layered up before I went out, and brought handwarmers in my pockets and wore thick socks, especially on my left foot since I was limping and my foot was still bandaged from the surgery. It still hurt when I walked on it, and I was out of Norcos now, so I just had to manage it with Ibuprofen.
I took the bus down to the blue line, then blue to downtown, then a bus to Soldier Field. A couple girls who said they were season ticket holders shared little shooters between them discreetly. A light snow was starting to fall as I gimped my way around the stadium, loading up a Polish with all the fixings despite my promise to save money. As I climbed up to my seat in Section 436, the snow began to fall harder. I was all the way in the very last row, which served as a nice little windbreak. It was peaceful as the snow kept falling harder. I could barely see the Bears logo at the center of the field. It felt comforting that the wall behind me was concrete. A couple guys in Urlacher and Briggs jerseys arrived in front of me. Briggs saw me getting out the handwarmers and nodded his approval.
“I always put those on my toes,” he said.
It took some doing to get them put into the toe area of my shoes, especially since I had to be careful with the bandage on my left foot from the surgery. Within 10 minutes, my cold toes were a thing of the past.
A couple twin-looking Mexican brothers came up next. They had mustaches. One of them introduced himself as Leandro, the others all started with Ls too.
“I’ll just start with L and then trail off,” I offered.
He smiled. “You here by yourself?”
I nodded.
“Hey, our brother is down there. You mind sliding down one so he can join us up here?”
“All good man,” I said, since nobody had shown up to the right of me yet.
The seats began to fill up. They brought out a cute girl to sing the National Anthem. She had a good voice too. I spent most of the anthem trying to figure out if she was a Latina or not. 50/50 call. She was a somebody and I was a nobody, so I don’t know why it matters.
They brought out Urlacher and Devin Hester in their Hall of Fame jackets to get the crowd fired up.
“Those the hall of fame jackets?” one asked.
“They look like ass.”
We all laughed.
They even had Mike Singletary give a pep talk and then Matt Forte came out rapping which was weird.
“Bro, that’s Common, what’re you talking about?”
“Who?”
“Common, the rapper. That’s not Matt Forte.”
I squinted hard. “No shit. My bad.”
The brothers L laughed at that.
Then it was time for kickoff. Bears won the toss.
“They got to establish the running game early.”
I nodded. The Bears came out running. They looked good on the first drive, moving the ball slowly but surely down the field, combining some runs and shorter passes designed to get the team going. They made several key third-down plays, but stalled out in the red zone, so we had to settle for a field goal.
Then the Packers got the ball. They looked good too. They looked…better…in fact. When they ran the ball, Josh Jacobs got chunk gains, eight and nine yards out of what should have been five-yard carries. Jordan Love didn’t take any risks, kept the short to medium passing game going with a lot of crossers, just like the Niners and Lions had been flaying us with the past two weeks.
“Shit,” said Briggs in front of us.
A father and his son came up during the first quarter on the right of me. Everybody was standing. It was a little weird to get used to the rules of being in the stands. On offense you were supposed to be quiet, which is like the opposite of watching at home. There were visuals of the players on the screen with their fingers on their mouths to remind you to be quiet on offense so the players could hear Caleb.
Some annoying cheesehead to the right of us kept calling out, “The grated cheese be looking good now, don’t it!”
All the Bears fans glared at him, but there wasn’t much we could say while our defense was being cooked.
“They’re gonna make Caleb beat ’em with his arm,” said the football coach with his son to the side of me. He coached in Elmwood Park. The Packers marched down the field and put up another touchdown easily. Romeo Doubs with his big, goofy-ass concussion protection helmet kept picking up yards easily.
“Whattaya think of an all-defensive draft next year?” I asked.
“I like it,” he said. His silent son nodded quietly at the wisdom of this.
On defense you had to get loud. We were yelling and waving our playoff towels, but it wasn’t working. The Packers got into the end zone again. 21-3.
The Bears got the ball back. “Two-yard run to the left,” said L-. “You watch.” The Bears were stopped on third down. Ben Johnson decided to go for it on fourth.
“Are they going for it from the 38?”
We all looked at each other.
“He has to,” said the L-train. “Defense can’t get a stop.”
They fell short on fourth down. I decided to leave early for halftime. I couldn’t bear to watch the Packers march down the field at will and put us down 28-3. The Bears’ miracle timer had run out and our flaws on defense had been exposed.
I bought myself some chicken tendies to cheer up and went out to look through the pillars with great views over the city. Nothing was fun anymore. It was cold and I wanted to be home where I could just give up and go to sleep. I’d put some money on the game too, of course. I looked out over the railing and wondered if it would be a far enough fall to kill me. It looked more like the permanently-disable height. I sighed. I looked around at the other dejected faces. I really wanted a cigarette, but didn’t have any smokes with me, and there was no smoking at the stadium. Desperate souls in full Bear snuggies, bright orange scarves and claws and seat cushions and blankets and boots and hats with open bear mouths filed by.
I promised myself I wouldn’t think about it again, that this would be my one day free from rumination. Then I saw his stupid face. Jakub that shithead. Jakub leaning back in his chair, Jakub laughing, Jakub throwing a paper airplane, Jakub shooting pins across the room with a rubber band, Jakub making tyrannosaurus noises, Jakub the fucking Polish prince whose mom thought he could do no wrong. Jakub who had to have the attention, Jakub who had to keep going with whatever bullshit he was doing until you gave him consequences. And, of course, that day he’d used up his three strikes immediately. Jakub refusing to go to the calm corner. Jakub the tallest boy in seventh grade who didn’t play basketball and never used his height advantage for anything other than bullying or shooting pointed paper airplanes into the ceiling. Jakub having to get his money’s worth for the detention he’d already received that day. Jakub’s stupid smirk when I went to grab the chromebook out of his hand.
“Jakub, let go of the chromebook,” I said as evenly as possible, though my anger betrayed me.
“Why? I wasn’t doing anything.” he stared evenly at me with that smirk affixed to his face.
“Jakub, let go of the chromebook.” I said it two more times. “You were going on websites you weren’t supposed to be on and you’re being a distraction to the class right now.”
Jakub’s hand grip changed slightly on the chromebook as he tightened it.
I began pulling it harder now out of his hand. He came out of his seat as I pulled harder. He went off his chair and down to the floor though he was barely holding onto it now. He slid along the floor and made it look like I was dragging him back to his seat. Everything and everyone else in the class was now frozen in time, watching me. Finally it jerked free from his hand and he fell back dramatically.
I walked away, feeling my face growing flush, and set his chromebook at the front of the room. Jakub continued to lay on the floor. I ignored him and asked the class if anyone needed help on page 216. Silence answered me. I figured they were used to his shenanigans and wouldn’t be so easily fooled by his performance. No one was moving on though.
“You need to return to your seat,” I said flatly, without mentioning his name.
Jakub got up and sat in his seat. Slowly, motion and sound returned to the room and, by a few minutes later, other students had resumed pretending to go back to normal. Eventually the bell rang for lunch and they left.
I ate lunch and forgot about the whole thing, until the principal walked into my last-period class with a note that read, “See me at 2:50.” 2:50 was the exact time that school got out. Not good.
At 2:50, I went to his office and he asked if I wanted to have union representation for this meeting. I feigned surprise since I saw Mr. Crane already out and waiting in the lobby. While he assured me everything was a formality, he had reports of me ripping objects out of students’ hands and needed to investigate. He asked me questions for about 45 minutes and then said once he’d concluded his investigation we would meet again. I denied ripping snacks out of students’ hands. I denied dragging a student across the floor. I don’t know why I lied. He was going to find out. There were 25 other witnesses.
After we ended the meeting, I met with Mr. Crane, who was sympathetic to my frustrations with Jakub. By the next day, I had a meeting with the superintendent and the principal, who both voiced their concerns. They said they had multiple student accounts of me dragging Jakub across the floor. “For these reasons, we are placing you on administrative leave while we determine what next steps are to be taken.”
I nodded. I’d put them in a shitty situation. I stuck to my original version of events, which now seemed silly with so many student accounts against me. I hated the fuckfaces in third period and they hated me. One week later I received an announcement by registered mail that I was being relieved of my teaching duties in District 101 effective immediately. This also meant that my teaching career in the suburbs was over. No school in the ’burbs was going to hire a teacher with this on his record.
It happened so fast I couldn’t even believe it. I guess I’d done it enough in urban ed that it didn’t seem like that big a deal. There nobody had your back so you had to have your own back. There were no detentions and sending someone to the principal’s office just meant a lot of extra paperwork. Maybe it was culture shock. I don’t know. But the pace of everything slowed since I got that notice. Days were not days anymore. It was light out or it was dark out. I thought about drinking when it was light out, but I didn’t. I didn’t call my sponsor. I didn’t go to any meetings. I tried to pray, but it felt stupid. Was this the same God that decided the outcomes of sporting events? He had bigger things to deal with. People were being disappeared by secret police and dying of cancer.
I marched up the interminably long stadium steps back to my seat to find out that the Packers had missed the field goal at the end of the first half and the score remained a grim 21-3. The Packers were getting the kick for the second half. If they marched down the field and scored again we were completely done for. The Bears finally got a three and out.
Then the offense came out and had to settle for three. 21-6. After that, the Bears nearly caused a turnover. The ball loose on the turf, the scramble of enormous limbs to find it, hold it, pry it from underneath the pile. The big man, he hit it with his elbow the way he came in sliding but then it skittered away off another arm and out of bounds. Green Bay got the ball back. Our turnover luck had abandoned us in our hour of need. Still the defense held a second consecutive time with no points. It was getting a lot louder in the stadium.
“I want to know what he said to them at the half,” I mused to L train.
One section over, a group of Bears fans were being loud while the offense was on the field. Urlacher yelled over to them, “HEY SHUT UP SO CALEB CAN HEAR!”
Another Bears drive came to a halt from a Caleb Williams’ overthrow and we were forced to settle for three. The Packers couldn’t run the ball though. Jacobs was stuffed every time they tried. Unfortunately we couldn’t get to Jordan Love, and worse still the Packers #1 draft pick, who we’d mercilessly mocked online, pulled a brilliant run after catch to get his first touchdown ever. A hush fell over the stadium after a large groan. 27-9 and we didn’t know how to get into the end zone.
Their kicker, McManus, missed the extra point, which was weird, but whatever. The Bears had abandoned the run because it just wasn’t working. While the drive started well, with Caleb eluding multiple defenders and scrambling for a first down, the Bears ran into trouble at mid-field.
Reaching fourth down, Leandro looked at me and said, “This is it.”
Caleb dropped back and was almost immediately under pressure as he rolled out to his left with the Pack in hot pursuit. At the last possible moment he hit DJ Moore downfield with a spectacular cross-body throw. The crowd roared to life.
“Staying alive, staying alive, Staying A-L-I-hi-H-I-V-E” I sang loudly, the falsetto shredding what remained of my vocal chords. Coach and his son laughed. I spat into my empty Dr. Pepper bottle I’d kept around in case I had to piss and didn’t want to miss any of the action. “I’m so thirsty,” I rasped to Coach.
“You dip?” he asked.
“No, no, it’s just from being thirsty.”
“You smoke?”
“Sometimes.”
“Here, try this,” he said, pulling out a cylindrical container.
“What is it?” I asked
“It’ll help. At school we can’t dip anymore but we need something. Just tuck it into your gums. It’s got nicotine in it. It’ll burn a little.”
I tucked it into my lower jaw and then looked up to see D’Andre Swift put a move on their defense and juke his way into the end zone.
BEAR DOWN/CHICAGO BEARS/BEAR DOWN!
“That’s a helluva block by Caleb,” said Coach. Coach’s kid nodded.
“He plays hockey, this is my sport,” said Coach to explain his son’s shyness. 27-16.
I high-fived everyone around me. My gums burned and I smiled. As the clock ticked further into the fourth quarter the Bears roared out of hibernation, suddenly transformed into a team that could move the ball at will despite tight coverage and pressure. The team neared the end zone, set up an RPO and faked the handoff, then Caleb hit a wide open Olamide Zaccheus in the end zone. 27-22.
“ZACCHEUS WAS A WEE LITTLE MAN/A WEE LITTLE MAN WAS HE!” I screeched.
The Bears immediately went for a two-point conversion, provoking a nervous sucking in of breath across Soldier Field. I bit my frozen fingertips through my fingerless glove. Just when it seemed they were about to stop a running Caleb, he sent a dagger to Loveland in the corner of the end zone. 27-24. I chest-bumped Leandro and high-fived the coach. By now people were jumping up and down continuously. The stadium felt like it was moving. No one left for concessions or sat down.
The Packers were driving again, and if we couldn’t stop them it wasn’t going to matter that we’d finally found the end zone. But at least we weren’t going to let them make fools of us in a blowout. Montez Sweat roared around the end of the line and Dennis Allen began switching out the coverages to confuse the Packers. The crowd screamed bloody murder for intentional grounding and got it. The noise got so loud that Jordan Love had to call a timeout.
“WE DID THAT. WE DID THAT!” I screamed to L-train.
“Hell yeah we did!” He high-fived me.
The Packers came back from their timeout, but in the deafening roar they couldn’t make the adjustments they needed for the Bears new defensive package. They drew a delay of game penalty.
“We did that too!” said El-Train
“That’s right baby!” I shouted back.
The Packers were forced to settle for three. On came McManus. The deafening roar continued. Snap, set, the ball went up, but we couldn’t see from our angle if it went through or not, waiting for the officials to signal.
“NO GOOD!”
“THE KICK’S NO GOOD!”
“HOLY FUCKING SHIT, THIS GUY IS ASS! THEY MISSED ANOTHER ONE!”
We danced in the aisles, spun each other around. L-train patted me on the back.
I could walk on water. A stranger’s fuzzy alpaca coat was suddenly in my arms. I wanted to bury my face in his chest but I didn’t, patting him on the back instead. He leaned back so far I thought he would fall over rubbing the outside of his arms as he made the Iceman gesture. We ran the ball up to the two-minute warning and then switched sides of the field. The monitors didn’t have to tell us when to be quiet and loud now. Everyone in the stadium knew to shut the fuck up.
We took over on downs. Caleb Williams ceased to exist. He was the Iceman now. Pass after pass he marched us down the field. We sent Odunze, Burden and Moore down the left side, a juke by Burden froze two of the corners and Moore sprinted on uncovered down the sideline, Caleb hitting him with a perfect touchdown throw in the end zone.
I nearly choked on my nicotine pack. Grown men wept.
“This game’s gonna give me a heart attack,” said Briggs.
We went fucking ballistic. The strange men were now my band of brothers. I hugged Briggs and the L-Train and the Coach. 31-27. The first lead of the game. But the Iceman had smoked them so quickly that there was too much time left on the clock. Green Bay had time for another quick drive.
I moved the nicotine that Coach had given me around in my mouth to transfer the burning sensation. The stadium shook. I smashed my fists into the metal panel behind me to make extra noise. Others called out in unknown tongues, “GO BEARS GO PRESSURE PRESSURE PRESSURE HAND UP FUCK THE PACK FUCK THE PACK,” mixed with the yodeled screams of metal frontmen and cute girlfriends in tight-fitting jerseys brought along for the date. No longer divided into Cubs or Sox, man nor woman nor beast, white nor black, we screamed as one. The Packers had no right to claim us. The Iceman Came! He came for thee! I beat my chest and did my best impersonation of a Celtic war horn.
:32 left on the game clock and they were already at midfield. Then one of their players went down with an injury. They had no timeouts left so they had to take a ten second runoff. :22 left.
“We did that!”
“Hell yeah!”
They fumbled the snap, but Jordan Love recovered it and took off running in circles behind his line. The Bears had only kept three men up front so there were loads of defenders in the end zone but no way to create pressure. With time winding down he pulled back and fired a shot toward Watson in the end zone. We didn’t trust our eyes with so many players down there, but it was impossible to see him in that sea of navy. Our guys batted it down. The journey was over. Our train had pulled into the station.
Plastic bags and cups and shouts flew into the air. Briggs fell to his knees on the stadium concrete. I bear-hugged the L-train and they embraced me as an honorary brother on the field of battle. Even quiet hockey boy and I hugged it out. The dispirited Packer fans beat a hasty retreat for the exits, heads down and shit-talking reduced to zilch.
A chorus arose from among the mass, betiding the ancient cry of our people and their suffering. “Green Bay Sucks! Green Bay sucks!” They played Bear Down over the intercoms. After that, chants of “Fuck the Packers!” rose like a golden hymnal at the altar of the fickle football gods.
I lay out on the chair exhausted and watched the snow fall again in great fat flakes. Others shed their shirts and took pictures. It was not the heavy kind of snow that falls in Chicago in January, shovelable and dense, bone-chilling, sideways and vicious. It seemed a new type of snow, a milder, gentler white rain that would ease the pain of mother earth where the artificial turf was chewed up at the 50-yard line. I began making my way toward the exit, bladder releasing merciful torrents at the restroom before I stumbled gimpily out onto the triumphant streets.
We were a gaudy and cheerful lot moseying back toward the underpass to the El. The cops on duty all smiled as the happy crowd rolled by them. A guy next to me walked directly into a trash can and fell over while his friends laughed at him. My foot was hurting and I dug around for some painkillers in the pocket of my coat. At the red line station, a black guy with no shirt and lots of tattoos was smoking a huge blunt. There were six cops all lined up together near the entrance to the station. The tallest one, the only black one of the group, laughed at him and said, “Man put your shirt on, don’t nobody wanna see all that.” The last thing they wanted was half the city in the drunk tank over petty shit.
I didn’t have to wait long for a train. Almost everyone was decked out in Bears swag whether they’d been to the game or not. I looked at a couple across the way. They shook their heads and I shook mine, still in disbelief that we’d pulled it off. As the train pulled farther away from the city, the Bears’ passengers began to thin and the euphoria faded. A man and woman began arguing at the other end of the train car.
I used to ride the El late at night a lot. It was calming to see I wasn’t the only freak going out of my mind. To see people getting high in the train cars, or snorting coke behind a newspaper, there used to be something comforting about that. To hear a guy selling socks or loose squares. Now it was just young guys going from car to car saying LOUD LOUD.
“I got that LOUD! Anybody need LOUD?”
I started sending my brother videos from the game. And lots of encouragement that he was a good brother and thanks. It was still fucking me up about him crying when his cat died. It was sad but almost like there was finally a crack in the wall of our relationship I might stick a hand through and find one reaching back.
I decided it was a worthwhile trade-off, losing my job but the Bears beating the Pack and me getting to see it. There would be other jobs. Maybe I’d go back to the city, find some shitty school with some new students to rage at and mope about. It wouldn’t matter what I was doing, I wasn’t going to be happy, so maybe it would just be a relief to not expect that.
I walked to the other end of the train car to get away from the arguing and plopped down in the middle of a fresh conversation between jersey-laden Bears lads.
“She’s such a bitch, you know that right?”
“Yeah, but she’s hot.”
“Yeah.”
“You think she’s an innie or an outie?”
“I bet she’s an outie. I bet she’s got a big meaty clit.”
“Hey, don’t knock it ’til you try it.”
“Would you fuck an outie?”
“I’d fuck her if she was an outie.”
“Hey, don’t knock it ’til you try it.”
I don’t know what compelled me to join in. “I like an outie,” I said to all of them.
“Oh shit! My man, up top,” the tall drunk one said, giving me a high five.
“Okay, okay, but here’s the question: would you fuck an innie?”
“Oh yeah, I fuck innies and outies.”
“My man! Don’t know if you don’t try it!”
“I’d prefer an outie…but I mean, I’m not gonna pass on an innie, y’know?”
“You prefer an outie, damn bro you wild!”
“Hey man, listen to this. This sound like some gay shit to me, but I wanna hear your thoughts on it. He say he won’t fuck an outie. Won’t fuck with it at all.”
“What? Really? You just leave her there naked, her shit all hanging out?”
His boys were laughing, but I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was genuinely curious.
“No man, not like that. I never left a girl naked and didn’t fuck her.”
“You said you never fuck outies!”
“Every girl you’ve been with is an innie?”
“That’s a fumble on your part. I don’t know you. I don’t want to tell you how to run your life…”
“Bro! Bro said it’s a fumble! Bwahahahahahaha.”
He started to turn a little red in the face. “I get ’em to send me pictures, like sexy pictures y’know, before we actually be hooking up.”
“Oh shit, you vet it like that?”
“All these girls sending you pussy pics?”
“Nah. But sometimes you can tell.”
“My man be at home saying, ‘ENHANCE ENHANCE ENHANCE!’”
“Hey, this our stop!”
“Come with us!”
“Where you going?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Jay, where we going?”
“Start with a C, I don’t remember, this the stop though.”
Fuck it, I had nothing to be up for, why not?
They let out a great cheer as if I was some foreign conquering hero that had deigned to join them. They were probably 20 years younger than me.
“Don’t knock it if you ain’t tried it!” I said as they roared and patted me on the back. We spilled out from below, up the stairs and on to Grand.
“When girls be sucking it sometimes you can tell then. If it’s an outie, I just don’t try to take it any further.”
“This girl out here trying to pleasure you and she don’t even know it’s a five-round job interview-GODDAMN!”
“Here it is, here it is, this the spot.”
It didn’t start with a C but they all assured me it was the right spot. The mood was jubilant, strangers were buying shots for each other, bartenders were overwhelmed with drink orders.
I asked for an Athletic out of habit, but the NA beer didn’t really hit the spot with these guys pounding shots of tequila around me. I felt shitty to be letting them down.
“It’s all good, just join us on the next one,” they reassured me.
I started to work my way toward the door. Sometimes you just have to run. You can’t hang in there and fight, you’re going to lose. But the TV screen was replaying the pass to Zaccheus and every time I see his name I have to sing this stupid song from Bible school: “Zaccheus was a wee little man/a wee little man was he—”
Then don’t knock it till you try it man was in my face and he joined me as we sang together, “HE CLIMBED UP IN A SYCAMORE TREE/FOR THE LORD HE WANTED TO SEE (SEE!)!”
He handed me a shot of tequila, then shouted out, “Hey guys, I found him!”
He saw that I still had the shot in my hand at about eye-level. The crowd was surging back toward us, separating us from the rest of his boys. Seeing that I hadn’t taken the shot yet, he was puzzled, but stumbled toward me and grabbed onto me to keep from falling. Then he grabbed it out of my hand and yelled, “Open wide!” I obeyed his order. And towering over me, he dropped the liquid load into my mouth.
“Just pretend it’s a big meaty clit!” He yelled, ha ha ha ha ha ha.
The burn hit the back of my throat as I bumbled back into the wall. For a moment the sour taste of danger threatened to eject it, but it was replaced by the shrill joy of swallowing. I shook my head and flicked my tongue out like a snake performing cunnilingus.
“Yeah, baby!” shouted Innie Lover, who’d just arrived from the bar with more shots in hand.
I glanced up at the screen to see DJ Moore reel in the crazy fourth-and-eight pass.
“I was there! I saw that!”
“Bro I know! We were there too!
“Bro!”
“How did he make that throw? Look at that shit, his feet aren’t even on the ground, he’s throwing across his body. How the fuck did me make that throw?”
“He’s the fucking Iceman, man.”
There was lots of wood paneling in this place and it felt comforting like being wrapped in a warm hug, and while I had gone the whole game and the last decade without a liquid sweater it hadn’t gotten any less sweeter. There was no point pulling out now, my sobriety date was gone, for all the good it had done me anyways. I finally didn’t feel like shit. And we were patting each other on the back a lot and then finally some girls started coming in and the guys got distracted. I opened a tab and the lights took on a sort of stained glass quality to them that swirled when it made me think of Zaccheus and me and don’t knock it till you try it got singing the Zaccheus was a wee little man song while the others laughed, and there was a lady there with nice perfume and her dress was so tight I couldn’t believe how she’d got into that and I looked into her eyes until I could tell what color they were because that was the trick that one of the guys had told me would work, and because I wasn’t looking at her rack maybe it did work. They were like this ferocious blue and she was way too hot to be talking to some unemployed fuckup like me, but I just blurted out without thinking the tequila talking for me how did you get into that dress? and she said excuse me? but like in a laughing way, not a bitchy way, no sorry not like that I just mean that it’s pow like you’re pow like pew pew goddamn girl you are packing ok I’m gonna go now.
“Why?” she said.
I was confused because I thought she’d want me to go away and I looked over and Innie man was waving his arms in encouragement and I started laughing and I guess she found it charming. I looked up again at the tv and Caleb was grating cheese now and I said I was there at the game and she said really and sipped her drink like that was an interesting thing for someone to say. Grown men were crying in each other’s arms I said, though that wasn’t really true, I had exaggerated it, you see, for effect, and she said Really?
I said yes, you see those guys I don’t even know those guys and now we’re friends isn’t that funny?
She agreed that yes it was funny. She asked if I wanted to buy her a drink and I said YES but in a way that was way too loud and she laughed and when she laughed it shook her tits and I called out “HEY BARMAN.” She shook her head and said not like that and instead set her mammary cannons on the edge of the bar and shook her glass playfully and got his attention right away. She ordered something but I couldn’t hear and asked what I wanted and I said TEQUILA even though I hate tequila because that’s what I’d been drinking.
“Did I tell you that already? Sorry, I guess I’m repeating myself. YOU-You have blue eyes!” I said to her. She nodded and tried to make an assessment of my current processing speed.
“Don’t you want to know what I’m drinking?” she asked.
“NO!” I shouted because I didn’t want to know. I downed my shot of tequila, slammed it on the bar and put my fingers in my ear and said “lalalalalalalala-don’t tell me!”
She laughed again but this time it was genuine because I think she thought I was a weirdo but like a funny weirdo maybe? The wood paneling gave me a lot of comfort and I shouted to her I gotta take a piss miss! Her drink shot up her nose real quick and a little bit came out.
“Okay!” she shouted.
“Don’t run away!” I said before I left her and went to the bathroom. I pissed real hard, but I had that feeling come over like I used to that I was back in the on-ramp and that even though I hadn’t got on the highway yet soon I would be in the fast lane, that it was only a matter of time and timing and everything was going to go just right when I pushed down on the pedal. Everyone else was going to be in the right spot just where I needed them to be. I looked at myself in the mirror on the way out and I looked damn good. I still had my hair at least, a lotta guys my age are bald, and I’m not, and I slapped some water on my face and went to go look for the blue-eyed girl with the tight dress but she was gone and not there anymore where I had left her, which just figured because she was too hot to be talking to me anyways and I looked for the Innie/Outtie crew, but I didn’t see any of them either. They were still showing the clips from the game and all but I didn’t want to sing about Zaccheus, I wanted to find my friends and the blue-eyed girl. I made a circle of the whole bar but didn’t see them at all. So I felt alone and then lonely, and then I left and the air just kind of slapped me in the face even though it was a beautiful snowy kind of slap. I walked down toward the El because we were near Grand and I remembered that the Blue line ran all night so I could still get home and that was fine, it was all fine, I’d made too big a deal about too little and I would let Tomorrow Me deal with that. For now, it was only important that I was a train that could run all night and maybe I slept like a homeless person, or unhoused, isn’t that what they call them now? When I used to ride the train you would just call them bums. But I wasn’t a bum. I was a train that could run all night. I am a train that can run all night. I am a train that will run ALL NIGHT LONG.
***
Nathan Cover is a Chicago-based writer, teacher and traveler who contributes regularly to BULL magazine. His flash fiction was named to Wigleaf’s Best (Very) Short Fictions of 2024. His fiction has appeared in X-ray and Bloom magazines, among others.
