CHAPTER 1
SILAS
“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in.” — Haruki Murakami,Kafka on the Shore
Twenty-five seconds on the clock, fourth quarter. Score 10 to 16.
The play was at the forty-yard line. A mad sprint to the goal with a hitch route at the center of the field might have seemed like a long shot, but it was doable. Speed was the key. And precision.
All the rookie QB had to do was pass me the ball. I settled into place next to our offensive tackle, Bukowski, a three-hundred-and-ten pound beast of a dude. I chewed the shit out of my mouthpiece, my knee bouncing, my cleats digging into the AstroTurf, ready to bolt into action.
I might have been older than the average tight end, but I was still fast. And if Kronig’s pass was accurate, we could come from behind and steal this one from Tennessee.
Not that it mattered. Both teams had losing records, so neither of us was playoff bound. However, this was my last fucking game in the pros. It was bad enough to fizzle intoobscurity on a roster of aging fossils, but after the year I’d had, I really didn’t think it was unreasonable to hope for one fucking win.
Kronig’s play-call technique sucked, if you asked me. It was easy to tell the kid had watched too many old tapes of Manning in his prime and couldn’t wait to say, “Omaha, Omaha” like his idol. I wished I could make eye contact with Vally and share an eye roll, but it was showtime, baby.
I ran my route, shoving a Tennessee blocker out of my way before racing for the goal line. There wasn’t a blue jersey in sight. I was open.
Open.
I held my arm out like a firefighter ready to catch a falling baby from a five-story building at the five-yard line. I was there. Step, step, score.
Seconds were ticking by…One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi.
Where was the fucking ball?
Where was the?—
Boom!
I slammed into the ground hard, crushed like a soda can under the wheel of a Mack truck by a Tennessee linebacker. He’d appeared out of nowhere, knocked the wind out of me, and…damn it, I was bleeding.
I sat on my haunches for a beat, wincing at the blood dripping from my nose as pain ricocheted through my body and echoed in my ears.
Along with the sound of raucous cheering.
A hand shot in front of me. “Yo, you all right, old man?”
“Fuck off,” I growled, taking the assistance and squinting at the celebration in the goal. “We scored?”
Vally nodded. “Marius got the TD.”
“I was fucking open.”
Vally smacked my ass. “I know. We don’t do anything the easy way. But on the bright side, we’re about to win this motherfucker.”
I sat on the bench, gulping water with gauze stuffed in my nose as our kicker drove the extra point through the post.
Score: 17-16. We won.
The final whistle blew, signaling the end of my fifteen-year career in the pros. Yep, this was what fizzling into obscurity felt like in real time.
I was numb.
Just…numb.
I scanned the field, bracing against a wave of nostalgia that never came. It would probably hit me in the locker room or the shower or at the obligatory press conference. Or maybe on the drive home.
