Page 2 of Just Playin'
She shakes her head. “No. It’s my heart, my honor, and my pride. It’s what I live for.”
I’d laugh if she weren’t being serious.
She spreads her hand over her heart as if she is about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance “Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
“Babe Ruth?”
Squealing, she moves to our makeshift kitchen to gather her keys from the bowl we cook our noodles in every night. “Babe Ruth played baseball—another great American sport, by the way—but it doesn’t come close to football. That was Vince Lombardi: player, coach, executive of the National Football League, and inductee to the Hall of Fame in 1971.”
After throwing on her 69er-emblazoned jacket, she nudges her head to the door. “Move it or lose it, Will. I don’t care if I have to drag you to the stadium kicking and screaming. We’re going to eat hot dogs and drink lukewarm beer from a can while watching twenty-two men get hot and sweaty.”
I hold my hands out palm-side up. “Why didn’t you start there? You can have the beer, but hot dogs and sweaty men. . .” My leap off the couch covers my fake eagerness.
I love spending time with Skylar, but I’d rather do it without thousands of like-minded footy fanatics.
THE CLOSER OURtrain chugs to the stadium we’re about to waste three precious hours at, the less loony Skylar seems. Our cart is brimming with people dressed similar to her. There’s an even mix of 69er supporters and the team I’m not allowed to mention. They’re rivals, but their love of the game is undeniable.
They come in all shapes and sizes too. The guy on my left has a face full of piercings and a blue and orange mohawk that nearly took out my eye when the jam-packed train caused my breasts to land in his face. He wasn’t jumping in fright, more hopeful for another collision than anything. On the right we have a bunch of kids whose dads never got drafted dragging them away from the books for the night with the hope their love of football will rub off on them.
Then there are people like me: the lunatics with plain clothes, unpainted faces, and lack of team colors making them stick out like a sore thumb. If Skylar had warned me my contempt for donning all things 69ers would mean I’d be gawked at like a freak in a sideshow act, I wouldn’t have been so opposed to the idea.
Ha! Who am I kidding?Even a million buckaroos couldn’t convince me these people are normal. There’s only one occasion I’ll don a face full of paint and florescent clothing—it is when I’m on stage, grinding off calories to the latest hip hop track.
I stop picturing the kids’ faces when I reveal the outfit I’ve organized for the beginning of the season dance off when Skylar stands from her seat. She found a seat because her waist is half the size of mine, but her chest is nearly as voluptuous. Even my cleavage being all-natural didn’t award me any extra brownie points.
“Ready?”
I scan the frantic crowd making a beeline from the train platform to the stadium before nodding. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
DAMN,I thought the fans in the trains were nuts. They have nothing on the thousands of people filling the stadium. Skylar laughs when I ask if she has earplugs. I’m not joking. The roar of thousands of people cheering at once is near deafening. The last time I heard such a ruckus was when New South Wales finally conquered Queensland in the State of Origin after eight years of consecutive losses.
Now that’s what you call football. State versus state. Mate versus mate. There are no shoulder pads and helmets. Pure muscle and speed are the only things needed to play Australian Rugby League. . . and perhaps a lack of brain cells. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a dangerous sport, but it’s not for the weak at heart either.
“This is us.”
A wolf whistle parts my lips when I drink in the bleachers next to us. Leather-lined, extra-wide seats mere inches from the action. Money couldn’t buy such a prime spot. . . so how the hell did Skylar afford them? She’s not broke, but she isn’t rich either. Unlike me, her studies are being funded by her parents. I’m on a paid scholarship that thankfully wasn’t withdrawn when my knee buckled upon landing a near perfect grand jeté.
I’m drawn from reminiscing about the good old days when Skylar huffs, “These aren’t our seats. This is our section.” After pointing to the very top of an extremely long set of stairs, she says, “Thoseare our seats.”
The thirty pounds I’ve put on since my prima ballerina dreams were squashed by a knee reconstruction hasn’t affected my fitness. I climbed the 9351 steps to our seats—yes, I counted—without stopping to chug a beer gifted by an unknown admirer during my climb.
That hideous display of bad sportsmanship falls solely on Skylar’s shoulders. For someone “dying to smell the testosterone of Saturday night football,” she’s seconds from passing out. Her face is as red as a beetroot, and she’s gripping the armrest of her chair so firmly, her French-tipped nails are close to snapping.
“You. Here,” she commands a man to her with the wiggle of her finger and two breathless words. “Two root beer floats, four hot dogs, and one of whatever that is.”
The man’s eyes drop to the assortment of food in his hands. “My fried PB&J?”
His reply resurrects Skylar from her death. “They sell fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches here?”
Pretending her girly voice didn’t pierce his eardrums, the man nods. “That they do—in thecafeteria, where I picked these up.”
With a wink that reveals he’s struggling not to ask her for her number, he takes his seat four rows down from us.
Skylar slumps into her chair with a sigh. “God. What happened to the good old days where hotdogs were delivered to your seat, and your beer wasn’t room temperature from hiding it in your cleavage to deceive security?”
Her questions coincide with the removal of the beer cans she snuck down her shirt seconds before our bags were checked. It also has me wondering if I got stuck in a time-warp that delivered me back to Australia. The whole “hiding your beer from security” was a trick my dad did at the cricket, except he used his beer belly as a cover for the extra lumps in his stubbie shorts. Non-Australians won’t understand the effort he went to scull a beloved tinnie at the MCG until they Google the original stubbie shorts of Australia.
Let me paint you a picture: short-hemmed, elastic-waist cotton shorts that leavenothingto the imagination. Up until this day, I still haven’t worked out how he hid an entire six-pack down his pants. It defied logic—in more ways than one.
