The Houston Texans score first, and Dad starts cursing pretty loudly, so much that my mother leaves the room, saying she will bring us new beers, and Ronnie stares at the television, pretending he has not heard what my father has said, which is, “Play some f**king defense, you piece-of-shit overpaid secondary! This is the Texans, not the Dallas Cowgirls. The f**king Texans! Jesus f**king Christ!”
“Relax, Dad,” Jake says. “We got this.”
Mom distributes the beers, and Dad sips quietly for a while, but when McNabb throws an interception, my father starts pointing his finger at the television and cursing even louder, saying things about McNabb that would make my friend Danny go wild, because Danny says only black people can use the n-word.
Luckily, Donté Stallworth is indeed the man, because when McNabb starts throwing to him, the Eagles build a lead and Dad stops cursing and starts to smile again.
At halftime, Jake talks my dad into joining us outside for a catch, and then the four of us are throwing a football around on our street. One of our neighbors comes out with his son, and we let them join in. The kid is only maybe ten, and he cannot really reach us from his yard, but since he is wearing a green jersey, we throw it to him again and again. He drops every pass, but we cheer for him anyway; the kid smiles wildly, and his dad nods appreciatively at us whenever one of us catches his eye.
Jake and I are the farthest apart, and we send each other long passes down the street and often have to run even farther to catch the throws. Neither of us drops a single pass, because we are excellent athletes.
My dad mostly just stands around sipping his beer, but we throw him some easy balls, which he catches with one hand and then tosses the football underhand to Ronnie, who is standing closest to him. Ronnie has a weak arm, but neither Jake nor I point this out, because he is our friend and we are all wearing green and the sun is shining and the Eagles are winning and we are so full of good hot food and ice-cold beer it doesn’t really matter that Ronnie’s athletic ability is not equal to ours.
When Mom announces that halftime is almost over, Jake runs over to the little kid; my brother puts his hands in the air and yells “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” until the kid’s dad does the same thing. The little guy catches on after only a second, puts his hands in the air, yells “Ahhhhhhhhhhh!” and then we all do the Eagles chant—spelling the letters out with our arms and legs—before running back into our respective family rooms.
Donté Stallworth continues to be the man in the second half, gaining almost 150 yards and a TD, while Baskett does not even get a decent ball thrown to him and fails to record a single catch. I’m not all that upset about this, because a funny thing happens at the end of the game.
When the Eagles win 24–10, we all stand to sing the Eagles fight song together like we always do whenever the Birds win a regular season game. My brother throws his arms around Ronnie and me and says, “Come on, Dad.” My dad is a little drunk from all the beer and so happy about the Eagles victory—and the fact that McNabb threw for more than 300 yards—that he lines up with us and throws his arm around my shoulders, which shocks me at first, not because I don’t like being touched, but because my father has not put his arm around me in many years. The weight and warmth of his arm makes me feel good, and as we sing the fight song and do the chant afterward, I catch my mother looking at us from the kitchen, where she is washing dishes. She smiles at me even though she is crying again, and I wonder why as I sing and spell and chant.
Jake asks Ronnie if he needs a ride home, and my best friend says, “No, thanks. Hank Baskett is walking me home.”
“I am?” I say, because Hank Baskett is the name Ronnie and Jake called me all throughout the game—so I know he really means me.
“Yep,” he says, and we grab the football on the way out.
When we get to Knight’s Park, we throw the football back and forth, standing only twenty feet away from each other because Ronnie has a weak arm, and after a few catches my best friend asks me what I think about Tiffany.
“Nothing,” I say. “I don’t think anything about her at all. Why?”
“Veronica told me that Tiffany follows you when you run. True?”
I catch a wobbly pass, say, “Yeah. It’s sort of weird. She knows my schedule and everything,” and throw a perfect spiral just over Ronnie’s right shoulder so he can catch it on the run.
He doesn’t turn.
He doesn’t run.
The ball goes over his head.
Ronnie retrieves the ball, jogs back into his range, and says, “Tiffany is a little odd. Do you understand what I mean by odd, Pat?”
I catch his even more wobbly pass just before it reaches my right kneecap, and say, “I guess.” I understand that Tiffany is different from most girls, but I also understand what it is like to be separated from your spouse, which is something Ronnie does not understand. So I ask, “Odd how? Odd like me?”
His face drops, and then he says, “No. I didn’t mean … It’s just that Tiffany is seeing a therapist—”
“So am I.”
“I know, but—”
“So seeing a therapist makes me odd?”
“No. Just listen to me for a second. I’m trying to be your friend. Okay?”
I look down at the grass as Ronnie walks over to me. I don’t really want to hear Ronnie talk his way out of this one, because Ronnie is the only friend I have, now that I am out of the bad place, and we have had such a great day, and the Eagles have won, and my father put his arm around me, and—