I didn’t appreciate how drunk I was until the commercial break before the fourth quarter. My ankle had stiffened while I’d been sitting, and as I limp-wavered down the hallway I had to keep my right hand on the brick wall to steady myself. I’ll spare you what happened in the bathroom—let’s just say it involved an argument with a mirror. I was gone long enough that, when I returned to the room, I saw Notre Dame had scored a touchdown, stopped a King drive, and was now on King’s 7-yard line, on the verge of tying the game.
Our goal-line defense was on the field, which meant Chase was in the game, lining up as I was supposed to be lining up, preparing to plug the gaps in the defensive line or brutalize anybody who crossed his path in the secondary. The ball was snapped. Notre Dame faked a dive and Chase was fooled into stepping up to the line of scrimmage, which freed a space behind him in the end zone. A moment later the releasing tight end was crossing behind him, was catching the pass, touchdown Notre Dame. As Chase hung his head in shame, my arms shot up to cheer.
Silas and the other guys laughed uncomfortably, as if I possessed an offbeat sense of humor. Ichiro, meanwhile, squinted at the screen, trying to understand what could have possibly led me to cheer against my own team.
I shuddered every time I took another sip of my warming screwdriver. Two minutes remained in what was now a tie game. Notre Dame, rather than risk another Devonté return, squibbed the kick, the ball tumbling down the center of the field until Slo-Mo caught it and advanced with the grace of a yak. One Notre Dame player clung to Slo-Mo’s waist, unable to drag him down. Another leapt on top of him. J2 was behind Slo-Mo, pushing him forward, until everyone finally crashed at King’s 43.
The room’s air was heating up with the agitated drunk bodies, and Silas propped the door open. Initially, royalty passing in the hall only glanced inside the room, but in time people began poking their heads in to see what the fuss was about.
King was driving. Reshawn gained eight yards but was tackled before he reached the sideline. Our offense entered no-huddle mode, Errol screaming the count over Notre Dame’s howling fans. A pass for eleven.
Ichiro offered a portion of his beanbag to a small girl with tortoiseshell glasses named Suneeta.
Devonté jogged onto the field as a wingback, lining up in a trick play formation that had been concocted during camp. If I could have, I would have telepathically transmitted my team’s secret to Notre Dame’s coaches. Instead I had to watch, helpless, as the play was executed to perfection: Devonté went in motion, the quarterback stepped aside at the same moment the center shotgunned the snap, and Devonté caught the ball in the backfield and then beat the defender at the edge, sprinting free to the 30, 25, 20, 15, until he was finally brought down at the 11. Coach Zeller called the team’s last timeout. Five seconds left.
At the commercial break, Suneeta looked up at me, laughing.
—What is happening?! she exclaimed. Isn’t our team supposed to suck?
The broadcast returned, showing Coach Zeller consulting with the field goal team on the sideline. The whistle blew and the team jogged on.
And for a moment, for the length of time it took the field goal team to travel from sideline to right hash mark, I found myself hoping once more that King would win.
My ankle would heal, wouldn’t it?
I could work my way back to starting Will, couldn’t I?
Gwen was just a name, wasn’t it?
—We got this, I said, under my breath.
But then the camera, waiting for the ref to blow the whistle, gave us a close-up of the King sideline, specifically of Jimbo and Cornelius holding hands. Their hands weren’t joined in that perfunctory manly way in which one turns his fingers into a defensive flipper that he hooks onto the flipper of the other, nor was one of them leaving his hand limp while the other clutched it. No. Jimbo and Cornelius stood with fingers interlocked, joined in a solid hopeful loving grasp.
The camera returned to the game. I was talking to myself again, but now I was saying:
—Miss it. Please.
A bad snap sailing over the kicker’s head. A rogue wind blowing the attempt no good. A freak Indiana sinkhole that swallowed both teams. But the snap was perfect, the hold golden, the kick an arrow shot through the heart of the uprights.
—GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!
I gripped the underside of my chair as everyone else jumped, cheered, hugged, high-fived, the TV alternating between pans of the stunned Notre Dame student section and my euphoric teammates, who were sprinting onto the field, index fingers raised.
Coach Zeller was pushing through backslaps, hugs, and camera flashes, heading to the middle of the field to shake hands with Notre Dame’s head coach. On the way there, Errol and Devonté, holding the handles of a Gatorade tub with the top removed, snuck up behind Zeller and doused him with a chunky yellow shower. Zeller bent over, laughing. Zeller was upright, running his hands through his hair, hugging Errol.
After commiserating with the other head coach, Zeller was interviewed by NBC’s sideline reporter, a statuesque woman with margarine-colored hair. In a happy hoarse voice, Coach Zeller answered:
—Well, it’s all about family, Simone. These boys are brothers.
Somebody in the hallway stopped in our doorway to shout that there was to be a celebration out on the main quad. The room emptied. Ichiro extended his hand gallantly toward the door, insisting Suneeta go before him.
Silas and I were the last to leave the room. I leaned against the painted brick hallway wall
