Field Goal

"There was a roar of the crowd, the chilly wind blowing, the rattling of the weak bleachers we all sat on. It was the biggest game of the year, and our high school was involved. It was Oscar Wilde High School vs. the state champs, Karl Marx H.S. for the title of greatest football team of all time. Though I could be mistaken on the details, my mind grows weary over the years.

I was not a football player myself, but a cherished member of the Oscar Wilde Yahtzee Team. My school pride knew no bounds, including legal ones. I shouted and cheered for the home team through the match, touting our strong defense and lack of homosexuals on the team. I made numerous allusions to the murder of loved ones of opposing team members, but nothing could shake them. They had ice in their veins, or at least freon, if they had drunk from the sports drink I offered the players before the game.

Our boys were not daunted, though. Everyone wanted a piece of the other team, even the guys on the bench and the guys who had been kicked off the team for befriending non-caucasions. So many wanted a piece of the other team that the other team would have to bring in many more players just to have enough pieces to go around, even cut up into many small pieces.

The game was tough, and even playing our best we could only come within mere points of the opposing team in the last few minutes. Then, as contrivance would have it, my brother Goose was brought in off the bench to score the deciding field goal in the last few seconds.

Goose knew the pressure was on, as every fan on every side had yelled to him as he came in from the field. He didn't have a regulation helmet, but fortunately a hairstyle he wore at the time qualified as a helmet by the lax rules of the era. Goose sized up the goal, huffed and puffed like a wolf at the door of a pig house, and ran up to kick the goal.

He caught the ball with the side of his foot and it rolled just a few feet before stopping. The game was over and our team had lost, which was fine with me. As much school spirit as I had, it was a thousand times more satisfying to see Goose humiliated in a way I would forever lord over him. Even to this day. How you like them apples, Goose?"

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