The Inglewood Gameday Dispatch
Dearest Cecilia,
You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. Is there a more extreme example of this than Thanksgiving? Family is destiny. These people provide the warped reflection of your past and future, a bit like seeing your murky face looking back at you from the shiny surface of turkey gravy. There’s another family that I have chosen, however. One that disappoints me just as often as the Foggs and their kin. They are the Tennessee Titans.
This is a brief list of the things that you’ve said about football and my love of it:
“These are men seeking the attention of their fathers”
“Clearly the excavation of the male animal spirit, particularly that of sheep or rams”
“The problem of male sexuality’s pathos versus its culturally prescribed ethos”
I actually told you to shush on several occasions. You liked to point out that I am an Aries. I was born for conflict. With that said, I want to tell you about my conflict at the Titans-Broncos game a couple of weeks back, and specifically how the things you’ve said about football are correct.
I came into possession of Titan’s tickets via my sister. She told me that her husband, Hyde, needed someone to go to the game with him. I was immediately suspicious. He has a deep bench of Wilson County fools that usually accompany him to such things. But the promise of being present for a long, dominant touchdown run by Derrick Henry was irresistible. I would be Hyde’s partner for the game.
Hyde lives in Lebanon, so we agreed to ride the Music City Star to the game. Public Transit, Cecilia! I was so enamored with the idea that I drove out to Hermitage an hour before arrival to inspect the station. I swelled with pride at the chugging purple beast as it slowed to a stop.
I found Hyde in the back of Car 4. He was reserving my seat with a wrinkly cardboard package of Coors Lite. He had already consumed seven Silver Bullets and had one more in his lap. The empties lay in a soupy pile that he wiped clean with his bare hand as he cleared the seat for me.
“Save one for me, Hyde.” I said.
“How have your romantic relationships been going?” was the gist of the filthy retort that came out of his mouth. I won’t print what he said verbatim. This man’s life is quite literally in the gutter. He is the heir to Middle Tennessee’s foremost concrete curbing dynasty. He was born to sit in an idling white truck and sleep off a hangover.
You’ve met Hyde, Cecilia. I fondly recall you referring to him as “Puke Bryan.” He proceeded to get numb drunk as we wound our way through Donelson. I ignored his rants about marriage and kids and enjoyed the lovely view of the water treatment plant. We disembarked and made our way up the stairs to the pedestrian bridge. He scattered empty cans like bread crumbs along the span and I dutifully followed a step behind and picked them up.
“Your sister said you got arrested.” he said.
“I was briefly detained.” I told him.
“That’s the coolest shit you ever done. Your dad was pissed.” he said as he cracked his eleventh and final Silver Bullet.
“He was.” I said. I finished my Silver Bullet. Hyde and I did have something critical in common: we were both men seeking the attention of my father. Only he and I knew that struggle. His knees started to get wobbly as he came down the stairs on the east bank of the river. Mercifully, he had also become less talkative.
“Oh shit.” he said.
“What?”
“They’re not going to let me in with my pistol.” he said. I mustered a chuckle and we kept walking toward the gates. He rustled around in his coat.
“You’re joking, Hyde.” I said. He was not. He produced a Taurus Judge and looked at it as though it were a cat he was disappointed with. Oh, you!
“We have to go back and put it on the train.” he said.
“Not an option.” I scolded. I pulled him into a throng of people searching for their tickets. I grabbed his wrist and forced the gun back into his coat.
“You can’t take that in. You have to stash it somewhere else.” I looked around for a suitable spot. He spun to walk away from me and we both ended up with a hand on the gun with the barrel pointed directly at his crotch.
“Hyde, give it to me. Don’t make a scene.” I said. “Let me cover for your stupid ass. You’re a dozen beers deep.”
He relaxed and let me slip the gun under my sweatshirt. He slowly folded to a seat on the edge of a planter full of pansies and hopping sparrows. He waved the birds away and pouted.
I decided to stash the gun under a port-o-potty that was out of the primary flow of fans. I put it down and nudged it under the plastic with my foot. It was clear why my sister had asked me to watch the game with Hyde. He was incapable of taking basic care of himself. I’m sure that she was tired of him. I felt that sibling’s special mixture of resent and respect that she would rely on me for this.
I returned to find Hyde fully involved in a fight with several Broncos fans. Their shouting was incomprehensible. A man with the Brandon McManus jersey slowly walked up and stood nose to nose with Hyde. Hyde began a sentence and didn’t finish it. McManus head-butted Hyde and knocked him out cold. I rushed over to check on him and the men bowed up against me.
“You with him?” they asked. They knew from the fear in my eyes that I was. It was fourth grade PE all over again.
“Honestly,” I began, “thank you.” I leaned down and grabbed Hyde’s ankles. The Broncos crowd dispersed and I dragged Hyde nearly a hundred yards to the port-o-potty where his gun was stashed. I tried to rouse him but he was snoring like a blue-ribbon hog. I leaned him up against the side of the port-o-pot and left him there. I went on to the game and paid twelve dollars for a can of Homestyle on the 300 level. No regrets.
The Titans won 17–10 on the back of a strong defensive performance. Tannehill gave an efficient outing and threw for two touchdowns. Russell Wilson was contained well and was largely not a factor. These are the talking points that I taught Hyde on the train ride home, so that he could convince my sister that he had actually seen the game. The bloody nose was up to him to explain.
Yours,
Hector Fogg
