The Vocabulary of Guns

54.

TC’s house is a junior-size Playboy Mansion. It’s a hundred and twenty-five year old Victorian hidden behind a pair of giant sycamore trees. Its most interesting feature (besides the pool, the billiards table and the random free booze) are its four staircases. The front two emerge from drawing rooms. The back two lead to the kitchen and the library. I imagine the hide and seek games TC and his brothers must have played, though there’s little to suggest he had a happy childhood. Both John William and Mystery Dude seem to have picked on their younger brother a great deal. That, combined with both of their spectacular fuckups, have created a fraternal tension in the house. John William however is seldom there and the Mystery Dude keeps mysterious hours. The rare times I see him he’s butchering ‘Rocket Man’ on the piano and cracking jokes about Franklin’s sorry football team. John William on the other hand seems to dig having me around. There’s no competition I suppose so he can relax and not be forced to put down everything I say. Good thing too because he’s chilling in TC’s room when I stop by. There’s a football game on TV and TC’s room has the best setup. Indeed, it’s a bedroom for a serious player. The burnished walnut headboard has a huge mirror, perfect for porno sex. The cabinets on either side are deeply polished, the bed itself a queen-size masturbation. John William and I sit on it like awkward lovers and watch the game. And what a game it is. Classic SEC Football. The Auburn Tigers at Florida State. All these players know each other. They’ve all been recruited from the same breeding stock. Fast white boys and faster black boys. They can all hit and run and catch and throw. The only thing they’re having trouble with are field goals. The Florida State kicker misses a 57 yard attempt badly.

“Ha,” says John William. “He’s fucked now. His confidence is shot to shit.”

Sure enough, five minutes later he misses again. Like an almost forgotten crime, those misses will haunt in the end. Auburn blasts down the field riding the legs of a stable of backs, taking an early seven point lead. The Florida State kicker defies John William and hits a 40 yarder. Auburn responds with a field goal of its own. Florida State throws a touchdown pass. Auburn’s next play is a 69 yard touchdown run. The Tigers follow that with another touchdown run and take a 12 point lead. Florida State’s next play is a 73 yard touchdown pass. John William stands, spilling beer onto the floor.

“Look at this shit! It’s a fuckin’ free-for-all!”

It sure is. Auburn returns a Florida State fumble 60 yards for another touchdown. Florida State responds with a touchdown pass, then another. Halftime has come and gone. John William has destroyed a twelve pack and taken 75 pisses. He finally stops going to the bathroom and simply urinates out the second story window. It’s the Playboy Mansion all right but the only Bunnies are on cable TV. We’re in the fourth quarter now. Once down 12 points, Florida State takes a five point lead. The Seminoles attempt a two point conversion but the back is stopped short of the goal. Now a touchdown will beat them. John William throws a beer bottle out the window and it smashes onto the hood of his weathered Trans Am.

“Look at that sorry shit! Coach O’Sheen must be calling that play! Why didn’t he pass the ball? The pass is open all day. Nobody on the Auburn defense can cover Hester and frickin’ Hassan frickin’ Jones! What an idiot!”

He goes on. He’s got a ton of stories about coach O’ Sheen. We all do, already. It’s a simple thing really. None of us have terrific relationships with our fathers. We want coach to love us, to help us become men. We can’t understand the old Mick, however. We can’t know how it must feel to have coached so long and always had losers. John William’s team won one game and lost eight, including Homecoming by 40 points. ‘It was the drug heads,’ John William will say if you ask and even if you don’t. ‘Guys would smoke pot right before a game. Drop everything thrown to them. Forget snap counts. Get all dreamy and take the play off. When we lost they’d all get high again, then go take acid. How the hell you supposed to win a football game when your head’s full of LSD?’ Good question. I wouldn’t know. My acid days are years ahead of me, as is pot. Right now it’s beer and whatever else you got. But not now. I’m focused, sipping the uncola, watching athletes so superior to myself playing as if their lives were on the line, as if the starters would be summarily executed Aztec-style at midfield, their hearts cut out and fed to their conqueror. Auburn football at their one yard line. They are 99 yards away from upsetting the home team. Last night the St. Bernard Eagles had to score to beat us. They couldn’t do it when they needed it the most. But the Tigers of Auburn are another matter entirely. They simply line up and run you over. Their backs pick up huge swathes of yards, then short, hard gains that can be measured by the centimeter. With less than a minute in the game, one of the latter carries a Tiger over the Florida State goal line. Auburn has the victory. John William is ecstatic. His loyalty has switched all game to whoever is behind. He slaps dap with me awkwardly and says, “Let’s try that again.” We do and are somewhat more successful. He belches and leaves a bag of beer bottles on the floor. His last words as he departs are almost the same as the ones he greeted me with. “I love watchin’ football. It makes me feel like I can still play.”