It was a funeral - they met the reaper







BY JOSE FAUS


The pundits have pontificated at length, and if you’ve missed them don’t worry, they will continue speaking right up to the moment the ball is kicked for this year’s latest edition of the world championship of football – the Super Bowl.


It’s a mixed moment. I’m prepared and anxious for the game to be over and the tension that has filled the year with the promise of a three-peat, to finally resolve. Unfortunately, my crystal ball does not reveal the outcome. My lucky eight ball is frozen. The fortune teller tells me it is a sacrilege to ask her to predict the outcome, and the priest dons his vestments and just says, “go Chiefs.” Next year I must look for better spiritual advisers.


I am not privy to the script, and it makes me mad. What I would not give to know ahead of time the outcome, then I could bet everything I have on the result. I would be rich. I admire the resolve with which all the teams are going through the motions. It’s maddening as hell. I know they know what I don’t know. They got the script at the start of the season. They act as if they don’t know the outcome. Curious thing. I know the referees are in on it, but I can’t tell which way they’re leaning. Nothing I can read between the lines offers any kind of clarity.


I look for signs in the sky, movements that are not explainable, some phenomena that will ease the anxiety. Nothing much happens honestly. The birds fly in their normal patterns, dive bomb at me kamikaze like. I barely miss their parting shots. The barred owl hoots in the dusk. The coyotes bay at the sky at the allotted times, usually prompted by the sound of sirens in the distance. The mailman, usually a harbinger of both good and bad news, brings me nothing I can decipher, no meanings I can discern.


A third consecutive championship is a signal moment in the history of this most hallowed game. The fans have gathered round the communal fires and shouted their certitudes to the heavens. The advertisers have flooded the bank accounts of media conglomerates expectant of the high numbers that will watch commercials as if they matter as much as the game.


City mayors have placed their bets. Betting parlors, so quaint a term, bulge with increasing and obscene amounts of careless funds that could fund the infrastructures of whole cities. Those unfortunate souls, for which this game is nothing short of an inconvenience when so many of their friends take an interest in something they don’t know the first thing about, rejoice at the prospect of nearly deserted stores to shop gleefully, unencumbered by the throngs that would normally fill the aisles on any other day. Diagram that sentence. I dare you.


My cat, a supposed clairvoyant species, stares blankly out the window, licks its paws, goes and stands by the door looking over their shoulders, baiting me to open the door. Why the torment? It will stand and then turn and head back to his business. He’s done this more than usual this week. I look at the pantomime as if maybe there is some omen in his actions. An outcome I cannot discern. Nothing. He’s just being the ass he always is. He can feel my insecurity. He plays with me. I threaten to feed him only dry food. He licks his paw and dares me.


I must face the truth of this moment. I have no clue who is going to win. My heart still says “Chiefs number one” but the program line is blank. I take a deck of cards and shuffle endlessly. I confess I have no idea what I am looking for. Even if I knew what to expect I admit I have never been good at cards. I draw two targets and place them on a wall. A Chiefs helmet in the center of one and an Eagle’s helmet on the other. I missed the mark every time. I have a wall in desperate need of repair.


I take a tin of tea and spread it on the counter. I walk away for a moment only to find the cat has lunged at it, attacking and spreading it all over the kitchen floor. I did not notice the label, “catnip” etched in letters on a bed of leaves. I think to make altars to my departed friends. Maybe I could make an offering and call them back to my room, query them on the afterlife and the outcome of this game. I hesitate. I’m not sure how to get rid of them once they have revealed the secret.


Are there places where these secrets lurk? Who do I have to pay to find the answer? I have no children to sacrifice, and lord knows my soul is compromised. There is nothing more I can do except put on my lucky socks and underwear. I only wish I could remember what they were.