Touchdown Therapy

"Obviously," he responded.

I went on, "and strategy is definitely important in this game. I mean an ineffective strategy is detrimental to achieving that final goal - the touchdown. Right?"

He put his drink down, "You're not usually this dumb. If you got something to say, just say it."

I had forgotten the fact he had known me all my life.

"Look, all I'm doing is recapping what you explained to me. If I understood you correctly, the ultimate goal, the desired outcome, the best case scenario for the game of football, is a touchdown. It depends on how well you strategize, how well you follow the rules, how good of a team player you are, and of course, how much you want to win."

He smiled, "Ah, I see where this is going."

I continued, "It's amazing how everyone begins the relationsh-er-I mean game of football with the same odds. No one is given any advantages. All players have to start at the same spot; the line of scrimmage. What you do from there, well, that's really up to you."

He was still smiling. He didn't say anything for the next few minutes. As the waitress brought the bill to the table I noticed he didn't reach for his wallet. Instead, he decided to order another drink. As he continued to watch the game (and watch me from the corner of his eye), he looked over at me, "go on."

I smiled back, "I thought you might say that."

"Okay, we've established that everyone starts at the same spot, has the same chances, and the same odds. If I understood you correctly, from that point onward, it's reliant on the team to make it work. Together. As one cohesive unit?"

"Yes," he said.

"And there's a strategy planned out by the coach. He has to know what he's doing. If he will lead a team to victory, he obviously has to know what he's talking about. After all, not just anyone can be a coach, right?"

A long pause (my brother has this thing about long pauses).

"Jessica," he says, "perhaps Darren is not the best coach."

"Perhaps not," I replied.

We paid the bill and went home. Exhaustion enveloped me after surfing the net a few hours - my 'before bed' ritual. I was looking forward to crawling under the blankets as I had an early morning the following day, but as I found the comfy spot, of course, my cell phone rings.

"Flip," I say, and rise to pick up my phone rehearsing in my mind how crankily I should enunciate each syllable of "hell-o" when I answer.

I take a look at my call display. I put the phone to my ear ready to ream out my brother, but before I can utter a word, he says, "I forgot to tell you, each team receives four attempts to gain ten yards."

I knew that already, but didn't want to burst his bubble.

"That's a good point right?" he asks, oblivious to the fact that I had just loudly yawned directly into the phone. "No one should be expected to achieve victory after only one attempt."

I could actually hear him smiling over the phone for gosh sakes!

"Yes," I agree," four attempts to gain ten yards seems to be reasonable." I looked over at the clock; it was 11:43p.m. This was going to be a long night!

I continued, "The thing is, I can only imagine that feeling of getting a first down. Maybe, you haven't reached your final goal - the touchdown - but you do get yet another four chances to do so. Ultimate success doesn't always come easily."

I waited for a response. All I received was the sound of my brother chomping on licorice, his source of comfort when he is going through a difficult time. Why he chose black over red I would never understand, but I continued, "When you're playing a good game, a really good game, well, there's just no better feeling than that. Everything's going the way you want it to, you and your team mates are in sync, and if you keep it up, well you might just get marri - I mean - win the Super Bowl."

An eternity passed before he replied, "Yeah, but it's not always such a good feeling. Imagine being on the football field and accidentally doing something to harm another player; or you unconsciously break one of the rules of the game. You get penalized for that. You could be set back fifteen yards, then the end zone looks so far away, so unattainable."

I thought about what he said before I responded, "It's true, you may be flagged a fifteen yard penalty but it doesn't mean the game has ended. You're just set back a bit. There's still time to regain the yards. Remember, there should always be a strategy. People make mistakes. But we all know the rules. Therefore, we should all try our hardest to play by them. Um, I mean the football players, they should try their very hardest to play by them."

"Yes, I knew what you meant," he says.

I pondered what I had said; about being set back a bit. I remembered my football lesson the previous day. My brother explained that an aggressive defense can regain possession of the ball by intercepting passes meant for players on the opposing team. There it was, the football that was supposed to fall into one man's hand fell into another's. I remembered - her - she never had any problems being that football; being "intercepted;" falling into various men's hands; hands that really weren't meant for her. In fact, she never seemed to have an issue at all playing with balls that weren't meant for her to play with...

I chuckle.

"What?" he asks. "Nothing," I respond, surprised to hear my own laughter.

"You listening to me?" he asks, slightly annoyed. "Ya man, I'm listening," I reply, still smiling to myself.

The alarm clock tells me it's midnight.

He sounded lost again.

"You called it a fumble right?" I ask him. "Huh?" he so eloquently replies.

"Today when you were explaining some of the fouls, you mentioned 'fumble.' Sometimes, we fumble; we just can't seem to keep our hands on the football. We're running, we catch it, we're holding onto it, we're falling, we can feel our hands loosening. What was once a cohesive and tight relationsh-er-I mean, grip is now weakening, and you drop it. You drop the football. You fumble. It happens."

"Mr. Spencer always said real men don't fumble. Real men don't make mistakes," he replies.

Mr. Spencer was the coach of our high school football team. I hadn't seen him in years and missed him about as much as my adolescent acne. Actually, they were quite similar. They both looked awful. You did whatever you could to avoid contact with them. When they really got out of hand, they could be quite painful. Mr. Spencer was the kryptonite for all young people's dreams, hopes and aspirations.

Touchdown Therapy - Page 3

Article Submitted by:
Jessica Gera

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