Unheard Prayers

Ready for the Super Bowl?

There’s no greater sensation than lowering yourself into a scalding hot tub. Jets instantly pummeling muscles you didn’t even realize were tense. It’s disarming. Everything suddenly makes sense. You wonder what the fuck you’ve been doing with your entire life. Even your infancy is called into question. I was shitting my pants? Daily? Really? Well, not anymore, goddamnit! I have a purpose now! I’m changing everything! 

Anyway. 

I took a seat at an empty bar downtown. No more than five feet from a giant television. Eleven minutes before kick-off of Ravens vs. Chiefs. 

This was not the jacuzzi awakening. Not even close to that experience.   

But it felt like the over-the-counter version of it. Benign. But pleasant. In public. But alone. With something monumental soon appearing on-screen. Tater tots — still stupifyingly enjoying their re-invention — within reach. No distractions.  

On TV, players were running out of the tunnel. The Ravens had all that castle-motif stuff on the perimeter of the field. Smog, Fog, Smoke. Whatever. Goblins. Birds. Edgar Allan Poe-lookalikes. Entire sections of the stadium dressed as Francis Scott Key. A confetti of crab chips continuously falling. 

I had my other “screen” in my hand, too. Reading “tweets” about Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce already feuding with Ravens kicker Justin Tucker during pre-game warm-ups. 

People online arguing about who was “in the wrong.”

It felt good. 

It felt right. 

Then a voice materialized. Not coming from the screen. But from somewhere off to the side, puncturing the pleasant little ecosystem I’d briefly existed in. Some oaf was hurtling at me like an asteroid. I could feel the chaos. And I knew he’d soon be my neighbor. 50 open stools and he was on me like a wet sleeping bag, plopping down inches away. “Who do you like in this game?” 

It wasn’t a question. He was just desperate to tell me who he was cheering for. 

I didn’t look at him. Instead, I looked at the bartender with great curiosity. I gave her a nod. She could field this one. “He’s talking to you,” she pointed out. I looked at the guy.  

He opened his flannel shirt to reveal his affiliation. “I’m Chiefs!” he announced. 

Just like that, the day was over. 

Why fucking bother. 

I would have taken a cyanide capsule if I had one. As this guy settled in and began chirping, I knew instantly that the Ravens had no chance. It had been a ruse all along. I’d conned myself. I’d momentarily believed I’d escaped the hellscape and here it was, landing in my lap, in yet another form. 

It was Sunday. I hadn’t gone to church. But God was coming to me. Finding me. Testing me. “What will you do with this dipshit, who might actually be my only begotten son, come to think of it? Will you listen to him? Be patient with him?” 

No.

I did my best to peacefully ignore the guy’s hoots and hollers. His descriptions to me of what we had both just seen. “Three yard run.” “Incomplete pass.” “First down.” 

“Guy I just met coming at me with a ball peen hammer,” I mumbled. “Committing his first felony.”

The vibe was now off. 

The Ravens played like they were sleepwalking. Just awake enough though, to make stupid mistakes.

The oaf was yelling the wrong things about penalties. Seeing replays and identifying activities that the yellow flags were not thrown for. Getting worked up. 

But God was working on me. I didn’t openly feud with the guy. Didn’t even correct him. What would be the point? I sat and took it. Drew slow deep breaths. Absorbed a game I already knew the outcome of. I’d sinned somehow at some point. Riding shotgun with this game-hexing asswipe for three hours was my punishment. Bearing witness to this stranger’s joy and being coccooned within it was my burden. 

I remember grabbing something to-go at a crowded Fanelli’s two years ago around this time. (I love it way more than these ladies.) Taking a seat to wait, and getting sucked into a Buccaneers vs. Rams playoff game I’d not cared much about up until then. As I waited for my “rascal” burger and jalapeno poppers, the antics of a middle-aged “Tom” fan and his wife standing at the bar became a distraction. Tourists. Obviously. 

One of those guys. The kind of guy who wears a pristine “Amen Corner” baseball hat, along with a Vineyard Vines vest.  Graciously explaining Tom Brady to an entire bar. Pointing out the nuances of his decision-making. Athletic ability. Mentorship.

I began guzzling Tito’s and tonics. Forget the game. I was hate-watching my own life. I couldn’t look away from this guy. 

The Buccaneers had been losing, but were rallying. A couple touchdowns in the 4th quarter. It wasn’t even the Super Bowl, but the gentleman behaved like a whale having an orgasm. Great spasms of self-absorption. The Buccaneers had won the last Super Bowl, and had an even better season leading up to this game. Now Tom was going to do it again. And the comeback was just part of the theater. 

My food arrived. The check along with it. The seesaw battle was over. The Buccaneers had rallied valiantly, but the Rams iced it with a field goal. I HOWLED. I yelled something. I don’t remember what. But it was unkind. Chalk it up to fan agitation. Fans agitating fans. Then I bravely scurried out the door. Dramatically. Fuck that guy! 

Outside, I discovered I’d left my debit card on the table. Back in I slunk. Ah, yes. A familiar sensation. 

I wouldn’t repeat that today. For starters, I was drinking seltzers. Being polite. Also “grayrocking” this needy son-of-a-bitch,  who had now tired of my lack of response and was shouting his moment-by-moment analysis (“They’re punting now”) to whomever would indulge him. 

Did I hate him because he was solo? And I was solo. Two losers watching other people do stuff? No! Impossible! I was the sophisticated quiet genius. Focused on the action on the screen. No way was I a lonely shlub, killing a Sunday watching two teams I don’t care about. 

Besides, my daughter was planning on joining me. TikTok, not God, had been working on her. A wide swath of Gen Z had coalesced around the NFL this season for the first time. Some got discussed more broadly. But different factions existed, too. Anti-Swifties, praying for a dude they barely knew, “Lamar Jackson” to save us all from the continued existence of Travis and Taylor. My daughter was suddenly very interested in football. She couldn’t abide by another minute of Taylor + NFL.

click to watch.

This game was important. 

It’s fascinated me to learn how disappointed Gen Z is with millennials. How embarrassed they are for them at every turn. Can’t even do satire right. It takes a lot of pressure off of Gen X. We just exist. Talk about Mudhoney. Zines. Various failed organs. Barry Sanders. 

The Ravens kept “shitting the bed.” As the Ravens continually nodded out, we discussed phrases like this. Who says them. Why they persist. Did some homework. Discussed Mary Oliver’s poem Banyan. Something I hadn’t previously considered doing while watching football. 

I hadn’t been making the kind of observations Mary makes. For quite a while. Hadn’t even considered them. The day was cooked. The Ravens were, too. Though I did appreciate Zay Flowers, flaws and all. His unsportsmanlike conduct penalty expressed the emotions I’d been repressing all afternoon. The Ravens and Bills had bigger demons than Patrick Mahomes. They could not get out of their own way. A story we know and love. 

Then we took a walk. All the way to Soho. Darkness. Rain. Along the way, in the window of Burger Village, we saw the Lions were crushing the 49ers. At least something was going right. I mocked up an album cover in my head. Taylor Swift’s RED (Dan Campbell’s version). His nose would feature prominently. 

We grocery shopped. We looked in restaurant and bar windows the whole way back. Packers fans I know, cheering for the Lions on social media. Seemed wrong, but so is yelling at a stranger cheering for Tom Brady. Maybe not, actually. 

Bar window. Lions winning. Restaurant window. Lions still winning. Bar window. Lions going for it on 4th down. A pass bouncing off a defender’s facemask and into the hands of Brandon Aiyuk. Lions going for it on 4th down. Lions losing. Season over. 

Two weeks off, for two teams you don’t want to see play in a Super Bowl.