Sons

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I felt like a spectator and a participant both.

From somewhere outside of myself, as if I were watching myself perform in the Friday night game films, I could see my own slow-motion image leaning into the huddle, sunshine splintering jaggedly from my helmet. Inside the shadowed huddle, dark and secret, the players’ faces took on a surrealistic look, foreshortened, faintly reflecting the green of the field, cheekbones smeared with grease, eyes narrowed in nothing less than murderous intent. Watching this from outside myself, seeing the homicidal glitter in the eyes of the team and in my own eyes too, I was almost tempted to laugh. But here, actually here in the huddle, the serious faces turned expectantly toward mine, the click of plastic as helmets touched and shoulders touched, there was nothing to laugh at, there was just a game to be won, although only against the junior varsity.

I whispered a Roger-Hook-Go, and we clapped out of the huddle, and rushed toward the line of scrimmage as the camera eye above me and outside of me somewhere panned the rows of naked sycamores flanking the field against a painfully blue sky. We lined up with the strong side on the left, Roger-Hook-Go calling for a fake pass to that side, with the right end cutting wide and fast on the outside instead, hooking around behind the cornerback’s block, and then running straight downfield to receive my long, accurate, touchdown pass, amen.

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