“Hi, you’ve reached Faison! I’m not able to take your call right now…”
It makes for an odd sensation, watching her real-time person in the middle distance while holding her disembodied voice to his ear. It puts a frame around the situation, gives it focus, perspective. It makes him aware of himself being aware of himself, and here is a mystery that seems worth thinking about, why this stacking of awareness should even matter. At the moment all he knows is that there’s structure in it, a pleasing sense of poise or mental ordering. A kind of knowledge, or maybe a bridge thereto — as if existence didn’t necessarily have to be a moron’s progress of lurching from one damn thing to another? As if you might aspire to some sort of context in your life, a condition he associates with adultness. Then comes the beep, and he has to talk. The funny little message he leaves for her — two seconds after clicking off, he can’t remember what he said.
TEMPORARY SANITY
THE LAST FEW PLAYERS are straggling out of the tunnel and here comes Josh trotting with them, looking like he just stepped out of a Polo ad. How does he do it? Every hair, every thread, every crease and pleat in place, as if he’s sheathed in a varnish of pussy-boy perfection. “My bad, my bad, my bad,” he chants in a furious monotone, “I am so so sorry guys, we blew it, blew it, no way you should’ve dropped off the radar like that,” and he launches into a detailed explication of post-halftime logistics, the gist of which is he’s been waiting at prearranged point X for the past twenty minutes.
“So you’re saying one of the clipboard chicks was supposed to bring us up,” Dime clarifies.
“Essentially, yes.”
“So how does that make it your bad?”
Josh opens his mouth, he’s going to try to try, but Bravo saves him the trouble with a group razz. Jaaaaaassssshhhhhh! Dah Joshster. Jash. He is too damn nice for his own good, which is why Bravo loves the big lunk.
“Yo Josh, you hear about our fight?”
“Wait, what. What fight?”
“The one we just had.” Crack grins and holds up his ice pack.
“Yeah, Josh, that your bad too,” Day says.
“Wait, wait a second. You’re kidding me. Oh shit, guys, what—”
“Jash, chill. It’s cool.”
“Yeah, Josh, we like to fight. It’s like our main thing to do.”
“You gotta remember, man, we’re basically just a bunch of apes.”
Day asks about the after-party, which he defines as wherever Beyoncé and her girls are, which is where he’d like to be. Bravo offers this a unanimous second but Josh thinks Destiny’s Child has already left the stadium. Billy is tired of asking about the Advil, so doesn’t even. They take a freight elevator up to the first-level concourse. Crack, Mango, and Lodis head for the men’s room to primp their injuries. The rest of the Bravos hang out on the concourse and phone home. Didja see me? How’d I look? Billy decides this is the grunt version of the after-party, calling up the fam. He pulls out his cell and dials Kathryn, but his sister Patty answers.
“Helloooo little brother,” she trills from deep in her cups, her voice all woozy and sickly sweet. “You looked so handsome on TV! We’re all really proud of you, baby bro.”
“Thanks.”
“Soooo”—she pauses for a sip of her drink—“what’s she like?”
“What’s who like?”
“Beyoncé, fool!” Billy hears his mother wail in the background, Please don’t call your brother a fool.
“Oh, her.” Billy affects a yawn. “Yeah, she’s okay. She’s a little thick through the hips.”
Patty knocks that down with a braying Hah! “Did you meet her?”
“Never got the chance.”
“But you were right up there onstage!”
“Yeah, but that’s as close as I got. And it didn’t seem like the best time…”
She wants to know if he’s met any other celebrities. Billy doesn’t mind, but it sort of brings him down, talking about those people. There was the actress from Walker, Texas Ranger, the blonde who played the spunky district attorney role. Senator Cornish, who has the largest head of any human Billy has ever seen. Jimmer Lee Flatley, medium-heavy country music star, and Lex, the Fort Worth hunk who made it all the way to the final round of Survivor. He throws out a few more names like change from a dollar bill.
“Listen, that thing you were doing at the end, what was that? We were all wondering.”
What thing?
“Well, right there at the end, when you were looking up at the sky. Like you were praying or something.”
“They showed that?”
“Well, yeah.” She laughs at the rise in his voice.
“Like a close-up?”
“Not real close, but they showed it. For a second it was pretty much just you on the screen.”
This freaks him, though he doesn’t know why. “Well, I sure wasn’t praying.” He frets in silence a moment. “Did it look weird?”
“No,” she laughs, “it looked sweet. You were cute. We’re really proud of you.”
“I don’t remember that at all,” Billy says, though he remembers perfectly well. “It was hot up there with all the lights and everything. Maybe I was just trying to get some air.”
She starts to tell him again how handsome and brave he looked, but Kathryn takes the phone from her.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“So no Beyoncé, huh.”
“ ’Fraid not.”
“Just as well, she’s probably a total bitch. Hang on a sec…” Doors open and close; the house noises fall away, replaced by an airy, bottomless quiet. Kathryn has stepped outside.
“Jesus Christ!”
“What?”
“Cold as dammit out here. I would not want to be wildlife today. You staying warm over there?”
“Warm enough.”
She tells him she and Brian spent several hours playing in the snow this afternoon, scraping enough together to make a runt snowman. “He’s crashed in your room right now, I think I wore his little hiney out. We recorded halftime so he can watch you later. But, um, listen.” She lowers her voice. “Patty told me what you said, about Brian. About telling him never to join the Army.”
Billy closes his eyes, silently curses.
“And I don’t think you should go back.”
“Kathryn.”
“Just listen, just please hear me out, okay? I got in touch with some people, those people I told you about. The group in Austin.”
“I’m really not interested in talking about this.”
“Just listen, please, Billy, just listen for a minute. I talked to them twice, they’re good people, they know what they’re doing. They’ve got lawyers, resources, they aren’t a bunch of flakes. And they really want to help you. They’ve been hoping somebody like you would reach out.”
“Somebody like me.”
“A war hero. Somebody the movement could really rally around.”
“Oh Jesus.”
“Just listen! One of these guys, one of their group, he’s got like a ten-thousand-acre ranch where you can stay. I’m telling you, man, these people have some serious stroke. They can have some people meet you at the stadium and drive you to the airport, they’ll fly you out to the ranch on a private plane tonight. You’d just disappear for a couple of weeks while the lawyers get everything set up.”