Billy sees that they are, up. They’re up for it. He tries to imagine the world inside their heads, and can’t.
“I don’t think it works that way.”
“Wha? Whatchoo mean, we offerin’ to help, fah free. Nobody gotta pay us, we ain’t askin’ fah that.”
Billy knows better than to laugh. “I just don’t think the Army’s gonna be too interested in that.”
“Hunh. Sheee-uh. Or why anybodys even got to know. Like we ride wit yall a couple weeks, nobody even gonna know we there. We offerin’ to help, yalls sayin’ you doan need the help?”
“Billy!” Mango calls. “We’re going.”
Billy nods and turns back to Octavian. “Sure we could use the help. But — look, you wanna do extreme things, join the Army. They’ll be more than happy to send you to Iraq.”
The players snort, mutter, cast pitying glances his way. Fuck that. Shee-uh. Hell to the naw naw naw… “We got jobs,” Octavian impresses on him, “this here our job, how you think we gonna quit our job go join some nigga’s army? Fah like, wha, three years? Break our contract an’ all?” Hilarious. They’re laughing. Little squeals and snuffling yips escape their mouths. “Go on,” Octavian says, waving Billy away. “Go on now. Yo’ boy over there callin’ you.”
THIS IS EVERYTHING THERE IS
SO BILLY DECIDES FIRST chance he gets he’ll give his ball away. It’s mere minutes before kickoff and the teams are on the field doing stretching and calisthenics, and Norm himself is leading Bravo along the main concourse, showing the skin, sprinkling some star power on the instantly smitten masses. All grudges, gripes, and man-on-the-street critiques melt like suet under the heat-lamp glow of his celebrity. Yo, Norm! Norm! We gonna do it today, Norm? Boyz by three, make it happen for me, Norm! It is the parting of the waters as the fans make way in a rippling furl of cell phone flashes, Norm striding through it all with his head held high and that same pleasant smile for everyone. Texas Stadium is his turf, his castle; no, his actual kingdom. A real king is rare these days but here Norm reigns supreme, and Billy sees how little it takes to make the peons happy, just a glimpse, a wave, a few seconds in his presence and they’re stoked on that good strong celebrity dope.
Meanwhile Billy is looking for a certain kind of kid to give his football to. Not one of the money kids, nobody who could be on TV, tanned, smooth skinned, dazzlingly orthodontured, with the long clean limbs and good face that denote the genetic home run. No, he’s looking for a little redneck kid, an undergrown runt with ratty hair and nails chewed down to bloody nubs, about as aware at ten years old as a half-bright dog and basically miserable, but doesn’t know it yet. Billy is looking for himself. Outside the Whataburger booth he spots him, a smallish, twitchy kid with a head too big for his neck, ill dressed for the cold in a thin cotton hoodie and fake falling-apart Reeboks, and why the fock would parents spend hundreds of dollars on Cowboys tickets when their son lacks a proper winter coat? It is infuriating, the psyche of the American consumer.
“Excuse me,” he says, approaching, and the kid quietly freaks—what’d I do? His parents wheel about and what a pair they are, thick, soft, dull, clearly useless as humans and parents. Billy ignores them.
“Young man, what’s your name?”
The boy’s jaw falls off. His tongue is a liverish white.
“Son, tell me your name.”
“Cougar,” the boy manages.
“Cougar. You mean like the animal?”
The boy nods. He can’t quite look Billy in the eye.
“Cougar! Radical name!” A lie; Cougar is a ridiculous name. “Look, Cougar, I’ve got an autographed ball here, bunch of the Cowboys signed it for me down in the locker room. But I’m going back to Iraq and I’ll just lose it there, so I want you to have it. Are you all right with that?”
Cougar risks a quick look at the ball and nods. Clearly he thinks this is the setup for some low humiliation, a wedgie, a firecracker down the back.
“All right, young man. Here you go.”
Billy hands him the ball and walks away with no lingering, no looking back. He is sick of the squishy sentiments of the day and will not let this be yet another Moment. Mango has held up and is waiting for him.
“What’d you do that for?”
“Dunno. Just felt like it.” And on reflection he does feel better, though a strange melancholy fills his new mood. For several moments the two Bravos walk along saying nothing, then Mango gives his ball to a passing kid.
“Like, fuck their autographs,” Billy says. Mango laughs.
“If they win the Super Bowl we just gave away about a thousand bucks.”
“Yeah, well, a thousand bucks says they ain’t winnin’ no Super Bowl.”
Still no word about halftime, other than Norm’s promise to “showcase Bravo to the fullest extent,” which could be as harmless as standing there while your name is called, or as terrifying and onerous as… the mind boggles. Rumor has it that there are multiple bars in the owner’s suite. The lower-ranking Bravos agree among themselves to get stinking drunk, then Billy thinks of Faison and privately amends his side of the bargain to sort of drunk. It was an impulse invitation — come watch the kickoff from my box! Norm has clearly caught a bad case of the Bravo disease, that burrowing spirochete of home-front zeal that inspires strippers to give free lap dances and upper-class matrons to bloodlust. A round of applause greets Bravo as they file into the suite, the polite, pro forma wittering of soft hands taking on real sizzle and pop. Yaaay for Bravo! Hooo-ray for the troops! Mrs. Norm is there to greet them at the door, and if she’s perturbed by the sight of ten largish, panting, booze-breath guests piling into her already crowded suite, she has the good grace not to show it.
So glad you could join us. So many friends eager to meet you. Billy takes it all in at a glance, the blue carpet, the blue furnishings with silver accents, giant flat-screen TVs implanted in every wall, two bars, hot and cold buffets, white-jacketed waiters, then a couple of steps down there’s a second level that replicates the first, and farther on a steep-pitched bank of stadium seats, rows of upholstered chairs stair-stepping down to the glassed-in front and its postcard view of the playing field. The money vibe can be felt at once, a faint hum, a kind of menthol tingling of the lips. Billy wonders if wealth can be caught like a germ, just by virtue of sheer proximity.
Make yourselves at home, Mrs. Norm is murmuring. Help yourselves to refreshments. Say no more, ma’am. Bravo breaks en masse for the free liqs as Dime mouths “just one” with a stern look, but before the soldiers can bar up, Norm climbs onto a chair — he’s got a thing for chairs? — and delivers a little speech about
is the entire Oglesby family for the opportunity on this Thanksgiving Day to
the Bravos for their service. Billy notes how closely his fellow guests listen to Norm’s speech, how keen their facial expressions of faith and resolve. The men look wise, relaxed, in great shape for middle age, possessed of the sure and liquid style that comes of long success. They have good hair. They’ve wrinkled well. The women are slim and toned and internationally tan, their makeup sealed with a Teflon coat of cool. Billy tries to imagine the formula of birth, money, schools, and social savvy that lifts people to such a rarefied station in life. Whatever it is, they make it look easy just standing there, just by being who they are in this special place, being warm and safe and clean, being guests of Norm. Most have a drink or a plate of food in their hands. Evil, Norm is saying. Terror. Mortal threat. A nation at war. His speech describes the direst of circumstances, but at this moment, in this place, the war seems very far away.