第 9 页

For a while we sit and dig a small hole in the wet sand with our hands, but then Emily stands and chases the foam of a receding wave, laughing and pointing.

“Want to go swimming?” I ask her, and she nods once, so I scoop her up into my arms and begin to wade out into the water.

The surf has picked up some and the waves have a lot more height, so I quickly walk past the breakers to where the water is up to my chest. Emily and I begin to float over the swells. As the waves grow in size, I have to jump and kick really hard to keep both of our heads above water, but Emily loves it and begins squealing and laughing and clapping her hands every time we float up. This goes on for a good ten minutes, and I am so happy; I kiss her chubby cheeks over and over. Something about Emily makes me want to float over waves with her for the rest of my life, and I decide that when apart time is done, I will make a daughter with Nikki ASAP, because nothing has made me even close to this happy since apart time began.

The swells get even bigger. I lift Emily up and put her on my shoulders so she will not have her face splashed by the waves, and her squeals seem to suggest that she likes being so high in the air.

We float up.

We float down.

We are so happy.

We are so, so happy.

But then I hear someone screaming.

“Pat! Pat! Paaaaaaat!”

I turn and see that Veronica is running very quickly down the beach, with Tiffany trailing far behind. I worry that maybe something is wrong, so I start to make my way in.

The waves are pretty big now, and I have to take Emily down from my shoulders and hold her against my chest to ensure her safety, but soon we are able to negotiate our way back to Veronica, who is now running into the surf.

When I get closer, Veronica seems to be very upset. Emily starts to scream and reach for her mother.

“What the hell are you doing?” Veronica says to me when I hand Emily over to her.

“I’m just swimming with Emily,” I say.

Veronica’s screaming must have woken up Ronnie, because he has run down to meet us. “What happened?”

“You let Pat take Emily out into the ocean?” Veronica says, and by the way she says my name, it’s obvious she does not want Emily to be left alone with me, because she thinks I am going to hurt Emily somehow, which is unfair—especially since Emily only started crying when she heard Veronica screaming, so really Veronica was the one who upset her own daughter.

“What did you do to her?” Ronnie says to me.

“Nothing,” I say. “We were only swimming.”

“What were you doing?” Veronica says to Ronnie.

“I must of fallen asleep, and—”

“Jesus Christ, Ronnie. You left Emily alone with him?”

The way Veronica says “him,” Emily crying, Ronnie accusing me of doing something awful to his daughter, the sun burning my bare chest and back, Tiffany watching now—suddenly I feel as though I might explode. I definitely feel an episode coming on, so before I blow up, I do the only thing I can think of: I start running down the beach away from Veronica and Ronnie and Emily and the crying and the accusations. I run as fast as I can, and suddenly I realize that now I am crying, probably because I was only swimming with Emily and it felt so right and I was trying to be good and thought I was being good and I let my best friend down and Veronica screamed at me and it’s not fair because I have been trying so hard and how long can this fucking movie last and how much more do I need to improve myself and—

Tiffany passes me.

She runs by me like a blur.

Suddenly, only one thing matters: I need to pass her.

I start running faster and catch up to her, but she picks up her speed and we run side by side for a time until I find that gear women do not have, and I blow by her and maintain my man speed for a minute or so before I slow down and allow her to catch up with me. We jog side by side on the beach for a long time, neither of us saying a word.

What feels like an hour passes before we turn around, and what feels like another hour passes before we see Ronnie and Veronica’s umbrella, but before we reach them, Tiffany veers into the ocean.

I follow her—running directly into the waves—and the salt water feels so cool on my skin after a long run. Soon we are in too deep to stand, and Tiffany’s head is floating over the waves, which have calmed down considerably. Her face is a little tan and her hair hangs dark and wet and natural and I see freckles on her nose that were not there earlier that morning—so I swim over to her.

A wave lifts me up, and when I come down over the other side, I am surprised that our faces are very close. For a second Tiffany reminds me so much of Nikki, I worry we might accidentally kiss, but Tiffany swims a few feet away from me before this happens, and I am thankful.

Her toes come up out of the water, and she begins to float, facing the horizon.

I lean back, stare at the line where sky meets water, allow my toes to rise, and float next to Tiffany for a long time, neither of us saying anything.

When we walk back to the blanket, Emily is sleeping with a fist in her mouth, and Veronica and Ronnie are lying down, holding hands in the shade. When we stand over them, they squint and smile at us like nothing bad had happened earlier.

“How was your run?” Ronnie asks.

“We want to go home now,” Tiffany says.

“Why?” Ronnie says, sitting up. “We haven’t even eaten our lunch. Pat, you really want to go home?”

Veronica says nothing.

I look up at the sky. No clouds at all. Nothing but blue. “Yeah, I do,” I tell him, and then we are in the minivan driving back to Collingswood.

A Hive Full of Green Bees

“Ahhhhhhhhh!”

I sit up, my heart pounding. When my eyes focus, I see my dad standing at my bedside with his hands above his head; he’s wearing his number 5 McNabb jersey.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” he continues to scream, until I get out of bed, raise my hands, and say “Ahhhhhhhhhh!”

We do the chant, spelling the letters with our arms and legs. “E!-A!-G!-L!-E!-S! EAGLES!” When we finish, instead of saying good morning or anything else, my father simply jogs out of my room.

I look at the clock, and it reads 5:59 a.m. The game starts at one o’clock. I promised to join Jake’s tailgate party by ten, which gives me two hours to lift and an hour to run—so I lift, and Tiffany is outside at 8:00 a.m. just like she said she would be.

We do a short run—maybe only six or seven miles.

After a shower, I put on my Baskett jersey and ask my mom for a ride to the PATCO station, but she says, “Your driver is waiting for you outside.” Mom kisses me on the cheek and hands me some money. “Have fun, and don’t let your brother drink too much.”

Outside, I see Dad in his sedan; the engine is running. I get into the car and say, “Dad, are you going to the game?”

“I wish I could,” he says, and then we back out of the driveway.

The truth is that my father is still serving a self-imposed ban and is therefore not allowed to attend Eagles games. In the early eighties, Dad got into a fight with a Dallas Cowboys fan who dared to sit in the 700 Level, which were the cheap seats at the Vet, where the die-hard Eagles fans sat.

The story I heard from my since-deceased uncle was this:

When the Cowboys scored a touchdown, this Dallas fan jumped up and began cheering real loudly, so people started throwing beers and hot dogs at him. The only problem was that my dad was sitting in the row in front of this Dallas fan, so the beer and mustard and food rained down on Dad too.

Apparently, Dad lost it, attacked the Dallas fan, and beat him within an inch of his life. My father was actually arrested, convicted of aggravated assault, and incarcerated for three months. If my uncle hadn’t made the mortgage payments, we would have lost the house. Dad did lose his season ticket and has not been to an Eagles game since.

Jake says we could get Dad in, since no one actually checks IDs at the gate, but Dad won’t go back, saying, “As long as they let the opposing fans in our house, I can’t trust myself.”

This is sort of funny, because twenty-five years after Dad beat the hell out of that Dallas fan, he is just a fat old man who is not likely to beat up another fat old man, let alone a rowdy Dallas fan with the guts to wear a Cowboys jersey to an Eagles game. Although my father did hit me pretty hard in the attic just a few weeks ago—so maybe he is wise to stay away from the games.

We drive over the hospital-green Walt Whitman Bridge, and he talks about how this just might be an important day in Eagles history, especially since the Giants won both games last year. “Revenge!” he keeps yelling indiscriminately. He also tells me I have to cheer real loudly so Eli Manning—who I know (from reading the sports pages) is the Giants’ QB—will not be able to talk or hear during the huddles. “Scream your goddamn lungs out, because you’re the twelfth man!” Dad says. The way he talks at me—never really pausing long enough for me to say any-thing—makes him sound crazy, I know, even though most people think I am the crazy person in the family.

When we are stopped, waiting in line to pay the bridge toll, Dad quits his Eagles rant long enough to say, “It’s good that you are going to the games with Jake again. Your brother’s missed you a lot. You do realize that, right? You need to make time for family no matter what happens in your life, because Jake and your mother need you.”

This is a pretty ironic thing for him to say, especially since he has hardly said anything to me since I have been home and never really spends any time with me or my mother or Jake at all, but I am glad my father is finally talking to me. All the time I have ever spent with Jake or him has always revolved around sports—mostly Eagles—and I know this is all he can really afford emotionally, so I take it, and say, “I wish you were going to the game, Dad.”

“Me too,” he says, and then hands the toll collector a five.

After taking the first off-ramp, he deposits me about ten blocks away from the new stadium so he can turn around and avoid traffic. “You’re on your own coming home,” he says as I get out. “I’m not driving back into this zoo.”

I thank him for the ride, and just before I shut the door, he raises his hands in the car and yells “Ahhhhhhhhh!” so I raise my hands and yell “Ahhhhhhhh!” A group of men drinking beers out of a nearby car trunk hear us, so they raise their hands and yell “Ahhhhhhhhhh!” Men united by a team, we all do the Eagles chant together. My chest feels so warm, and I remember how much fun it is to be in South Philly on game day.

As I walk toward the west Lincoln Financial Field parking lot—following the directions my brother gave me on the phone the night before—so many people are wearing Eagles jerseys. Everywhere green. People are grilling, drinking beer from plastic cups, throwing footballs, listening to the WIP 610 pregame show on AM radio, and as I walk past, they all high-five me, throw me footballs, and yell, “Go Birds!” just because I am wearing an Eagles jersey. I see young boys with their fathers. Old guys with their grown sons. Men yelling and singing and smiling as if they were boys again. And I realize I have missed this a lot.

Even though I do not want to, I look for the Vet and only find a parking lot. There’s a new Phillies ballpark too, called Citizens Bank Park. By the entrance ripples a huge banner of some new player named Ryan Howard. All of this seems to suggest that Jake and Dad weren’t lying when they said the Vet was demolished. I try not to think about the dates they mentioned, and I focus on enjoying the game and spending time with my brother.

I find the right parking lot and begin to look for the green tent with the black Eagles flag flying from the top. The parking lot is full—tents and grills and parties everywhere—but after ten minutes or so, I spot my brother.

Jake’s in his number 99 Jerome Brown memorial jersey. (Jerome Brown was the two-time Pro Bowler defensive tackle who was killed in a car crash back in 1992.) My brother is drinking beer from a green cup, standing next to our friend Scott, who is manning the grill. Jake looks happy, and for a second I simply enjoy watching him smile as he throws an arm around Scott, whom I haven’t seen since the last time I was in South Philly. Jake’s face is red, and he looks a little drunk already, but he has always been a happy drunk, so I do not worry. Like my father, nothing makes Jake happier than Eagles game day.

When Jake sees me, he yells, “Hank Baskett’s tailgating with us!” and then runs over to give me a high five and a chest bump.

“What’s up, dude?” Scott says to me as we too exchange high fives. The big smile on his face suggests that he is happy to see me. “Man, you really are huge. What have you been lifting—cars?” I smile proudly as he punches my arm, like guys do when they are buddies. “It’s been years—I mean, um—how many months has it been?” He and my brother exchange a glance that I do not miss, but before I can say anything, Scott yells, “Hey, all you fat-asses in the tent! I wanna introduce you to my boy—Jake’s brother, Pat.”

The tent is the size of a small house. I walk through the slit on one side, and a huge flat-screen television is set up on milk crates stacked two by four. Five really fat guys are seated in folding chairs, watching the pregame show—all of them in Eagles jerseys. Scott rattles off the names. After he says mine, the men nod and wave and then go back to watching the pregame show. All of them have handheld personal organizers, and their eyes are rapidly moving back and forth between the small screens in their hands and the large screen at the far side of the tent. Almost all have earpieces in, which I guess are connected to cellular phones.

As we exit the tent, Scott says, “Don’t mind them. They’re all trying to get last-minute info. They’ll be a little more friendly after they’ve placed their bets.”

“Who are they?” I ask.

“Guys from my work. I’m a computer tech now for Digital Cross Health. We do websites for family doctors.”

“How are they watching television out here in the parking lot?” I ask.

My brother waves me around to the back of the tent, points to a small engine in a square of metal, and says, “Gas-powered generator.” He points to the top of the tent, where a small gray plate is perched, and says, “Satellite dish.”

“What do they do with all this gear when they go into the game?” I ask.

“Oh,” Scott says with a laugh. “They don’t have tickets.”

Jake pours a Yuengling Lager into a plastic cup and hands it to me, and I notice three coolers loaded with beer cans and bottles, probably four or five cases. I know the plastic cup is to keep away the police, who can arrest you for having an open beer can in your hand but not for holding a plastic cup. The bag of empties just outside the tent suggests that Jake and Scott are way ahead of me.

As Scott finishes grilling breakfast—thick sausages and eggs scrambled in a pan he has placed over the gas flames—he does not ask me many questions about what I have been up to, which I appreciate. I’m sure my brother has already told Scott all about my time in the bad place and my separation from Nikki, but I still appreciate Scott’s allowing me to reenter the world of Eagles football without an interrogation.