“Not your call.”
“We’re cool,” said the yoga teacher.
“No,” Joe snapped. “We’re not cool.”
“He almost made the pick—” Gordy stammered.
“What, you have him on your fantasy team or something? You have one concern: to make sure none of those men have a career-ending injury.”
“I know.” Gordy looked on the verge of vomiting.
“That’s his livelihood! These guys have ten years in them if they’re lucky! He has three daughters!”
“I know.”
“You don’t fucking know!” Joe got in his face. “Stop saying you know!”
The yoga teacher got between them.
“Hey, bro, relax.”
“You don’t talk to me!” Joe bellowed.
“Let’s dial this whole thing down,” the yoga teacher cooed. His orange bandanna was covered in a logo— GODADDY.
Joe shoved the yoga teacher, hard.
“The hell?” Gordy cried—
The yoga teacher flew back and almost went down— But was saved by his remarkable balance— And sprang back up.
Joe charged again, this time slamming the bewildered yogi to the turf. Joe drew back his fist and— From behind, a big pair of arms clamped him in a bouncer hold.
“That’s enough!” Kevin, his friend, hustled Joe off the field.
“They let Daggatt go out without his splint!” Joe raged.
“Joe, man, pull it together!” Kevin shouted over the cacophonous 70,000.
Joe looked back.
A consternated ref was trotting over to Gordy and the dazed yoga teacher, who was now standing, one foot inbounds.
Kevin stepped into Joe’s line of sight. “I’ll deal with it. Just go inside. Go!” Kevin gave Joe a hefty push toward the tunnel.
“C’mon, man!” Voices. “C’mon, man!” Heckling voices. Hanging off the rail overhead and on both sides: potbellied, faces painted, green-Afroed, tongues out, drunk before noon. “C’mon, man!” Jeering at Joe.
He reeled into the tunnel. Vertigo hit. The fact of what he had just done. It raised his head off his shoulders and made it wobble, left and right, around and around. He teetered against the cold cinder-block wall.
“Need something, Doc?” Yet another guard, sitting and watching the game on a phone balanced on his big knee.
A door. The press room. Empty now. Joe lunged for the knob.
Pete Carroll’s lectern. Seahawks wallpaper. Rows of empty chairs. More chairs stacked, so high they seemed to sway. Joe closed the door behind him.
A tomblike quiet descended.
Joe, jangly, panting, his heartbeat on the fritz.
He took it.
He took it.
Until he couldn’t take it.
He slumped onto a bench and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.
Med school, dedication, integrity, restraint: all a cosmic sideshow. All a laughable, flimsy work-around. Over now. Undone in an instant.
Joe moved his palms to his forehead and opened his eyes. He stared at the carpet tile.
“It can’t be as bad as all that,” said a voice with a British accent.
The crinkling of newsprint.
Joe wasn’t alone.
Sitting on a chair in the corner, legs crossed, reading the Travel section: a man Joe had never seen. Fifties with short gray hair and little round glasses. No ID badge. Hiking boots and a vest over a long white shirt.
“Perhaps I can be of help.”
And now, Eleanor across the lawn, the Space Needle at her back. They’d gone through so much together. They were about to go through more.
Now’s the time, God was saying.
Tell her.
The Art of Losing
The fact that Joe did not look caught or panicked or any of the normal emotions a husband might feel when totally busted: my immediate reaction was fury.
I pushed myself off the rail and flounced through the café tables of people eating foodcourt. When I hit the path at the top of the hill, the pitch swept me into a jog. But with every step, I felt my anger falling away. Underneath that anger: fear.
In the middle of one of her self-help phases, Ivy had once proclaimed that underneath all anger was fear. I’d long since wondered what, if anything, was underneath all fear.
I knew then: If underneath anger was fear, then underneath fear was love. Everything came down to the terror of losing what you love.
I ran to Joe and pulled him in. I pushed my face into his jacket and breathed in the wool and dry-cleaning. Joe’s height was always a narcotic for me, the way my head hit him at the chest. I dug my fingers under his shoulder blades and turned my cheek so my nose touched flesh. The dampness of his clavicle, the tickle of his chest hair. The smell of Joe. My man.
“Hey!” he said. “Hello to you too.”
Alonzo arrived and introduced himself.
“A face to the name.” Joe shook Alonzo’s hand. A fluorescent wristband peeked from under Joe’s cuff.
“Mommy and I have been looking for you all day,” Timby said. “We went to your office and they thought you were on vacation and then Mom drove your car on that superlong bridge that goes up a hill.”
“Oh.” Joe’s eyes met mine and instantly dropped to the asphalt.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.