Chapter 2

Two

Josh

November 18, 2019

I watch the drumline over in the marching band section—beside the stadium’s student section, where I’m sitting. There are six of them, three guys and three girls, if their appearances sync with their genders. They seem happy, like they enjoy playing drums in Auburn’s Marching Tiger Band. One of them is eating popcorn.

It was a bad thing, coming to the game tonight. Jenna tried her best to talk me out of it, but in the end she stayed home with some kind of flu thing. I think she’s too sick to worry over me. I’ve been texting Shawna, her roomie, to keep tabs on her.

At every other moment, my eyes are locked on Ezra. University of Alabama—Auburn’s archrival—number 14. He’s run for two touchdowns and passed for some obscene number of yards I can’t keep track of.

I watch now as the jumbotron camera zooms in on him. He’s on the away team’s bench, guzzling something from a water bottle, and I wonder if it’s grape Propel. There’s someone behind him, someone dressed in a crimson University of Alabama Polo shirt, doing something to his back. Almost looks like the guy’s rubbing him.

Ezra tilts his head back, and I reach into my bag to get my little plastic bottle of bourbon—one of those travel-sized ones everybody sneaks into the stadium.

“I don’t know what you’ve got against that dude, man. Fucking hot,” Daniel says over the murmurs of the crowd. “Look when they zoom in…those dick-sucking lips.”

I finish off the bourbon bottle. There’s two more where that one came from.

Pretty shortly, Bama’s offense swaps with defense, and he’s jogging back out onto the field.

It’s so weird…he moves just the same. I look down at him and try to see through his clothes and his pads, his helmet. I try to see the Ezra under all that, across the probably eighty yards and maybe a hundred feet of elevation between him and me. How much bigger is he? I know he’s bulked up even more than the last time I saw him; I can tell that much from the mug shot they show of him on the jumbotron. I bet he’s thicc as fuck and has a dark tan right now. If that mug shot is current, he’s still got his hair buzzed on the sides and longer up top, hanging almost into his eyes. But it’s not blond now. I think it was never really blond. Under the longer part up top, it looked kind of a dark cinnamon brown.

It makes my throat knot up to think of how I don’t even know his real hair color. What it looks like in the sun. Do the little hairs glint blond or reddish? Why can’t I remember?

I start on the next mini bourbon bottle. Burns my throat and makes my chest and shoulders go all warm and heavy. I love that. The Bama offense takes the field again, and I finish the second little plastic bottle. I’ve cut back some lately, trying not to fuck my grades up too much, and so this hits just right. I feel better as I track him across the field. He stays in the pocket more now, running it less. The offensive line does a good job of protecting him.

I realize that all I want right now is to see him through every play. Be sure he doesn't get hurt. See him finish out the game and jog off the field. See him with my eyes, here in the flesh, for as long as I can. It's like a desert...and these are little drops of water. Condensation rolling off a plant and hitting cracked dirt.But I'll take it.

I'll take it. I'll hold it in my heart like a thorn and let it poison me. Even though the poison pain hurts so much, I'm becoming a drunk just to be able to breathe.

"Bama's gonna win this shit. For sure," Daniel is saying.

I look at the scoreboard—remembering there is a scoreboard—and I realize with a gut-punch feeling that the game is almost over. Bama's running down the clock now. Ez gets hit again with 3:57 left on the clock. He flies sideways a few feet and lands on his shoulder. The left shoulder. But he gets right back up. He got hit earlier, back in the second quarter. That hit looked hard, and I wonder if it hurt his back because the trainers started standing behind him after that, one of them rubbing on him like he's theirs to touch.

It's okay, I tell myself. He is theirs.

I open the third bottle. Got a nice buzz going. Almost good to see him out there. Fucking Ezra. He runs like a cheetah. When the jumbotron shows his face, I can smile without it hurting too bad.

"Dude, how much did you drink?" Daniel's hand claps my back, jolting me out of my headspace.

"I dunno man. Football's boring."

"I think Jenna's right. We gotta dry you out, bruh."

I snort at that and take a sip of my Coke Icee. "Okay, Mr. Amphetamine."

"At least that shit won't hurt your liver."

"I think some of it can."

Daniel leans in closer. "Are you ready for the party tonight at your frat?"

"I guess."

Which means no. I don't know why I even pledged. I don't like going out and doing shit, and there's a bunch of shit we have to do all the time.

Daniel keeps yammering about this guy Ben Nelson who's a friend of his, who wants to meet me. When that doesn’t work, he brings up Zane—this wrestler in my frat who told Daniel that he wants to roofie me. I try to ignore that bullshit and focus on Ez. He's on the bench again. He's sitting between two guys. I'm straining my eyes to see him. My eyes start to water.

"Yo, is that your mom?"

I frown, looking around, but he holds up my phone. "Dude I think your mom is calling."

I ignore it.

Mom and Carl are here, even though I found out recently that Ezra still hasn't spoken with them since a few weeks after leaving the house. Wonder if they'll try to track him down after the game.

Maybe I should answer. But I'm too drunk. Mom will notice.

Thinking of my mom brings up a deep groundswell of guilt and regret. I push it back down and finish the third bottle. Good and shit-faced. It's like armor.

I need armor as the game wraps. It’s over. Ezra wins. All the Bama guys lift him up on their backs, carrying him along the sidelines like a sultan. I watch how his body moves. He seems loose and relaxed. Probably tired.

TV interviewers swarm him. And Daniel's elbowing me.

"Hey daydream believer. We gotta go, see?" Everyone is up and moving. Filing out of the student section. I swallow as we shuffle single-file off of our row, realizing only as we reach the cement stars that I forgot my Icee.

It's okay. Seems fitting.

Daniel's kind of shallow in some ways, but the guy's perceptive. He knows something's off with me. Somehow he ends up behind me on the cement stairs, his hand at my back like he knows I'm so wasted I can barely get my shoe soles to hit flat on the stairs.

When we're down, he says bye to his friends who were sitting on the other side of him and says, "Where to, Millsy?"

"Don't call me that. Please."

"Sorry." He looks sorry. "Josh. Where you wanna walk to this fine evening?"

People are everywhere. The stadium holds something like 80,000 people, and it seemed like every seat was taken tonight.

"I don't know," I tell him.

"Frat house it is, then. You need to stop at your place?"

"No," I manage. I look around—the cement walls, the cement floors, the fucking masses. Ezra's here. He's here tonight!

Ezra won a game for Bama tonight.

I tell myself I'm happy for him. I am kind of happy. I want him to do well.

"Josh?" Daniel is squeezing my shoulder. "You with me, man?"

"Too many people," I say.

"Fuck yeah, there are. Let's get going."