It is my last year of college and I am at a football game. It’s one hour to kickoff. I am wearing a t-shirt that I designed with sharpie on my friend’s Chevy Blazer in the parking lot. The front displays my school’s mascot, he is standing proudly with a sword lifted over his head. If you look closely you can see his body and his member are hard, standing at attention, poised for victory. The back of my shirt is a table, reasons why my school will be victorious on the left and reasons why the other school will not on the right. Many of the reasons are related to the lack of quality in their education, or the ghoulish looks of their coeds. It may not be true, but it doesn’t need to be, today is war.
I have been here since 7:30, the game is at 3:30. I have spent most of that time in parking lot C2, sitting on plastic chairs and watching the other games on an iPhone leaning against a Busch Light. I have eaten 2 bratwurst, 3 hot dogs, and a hamburger and you can smell it on and around me. There is a mustard stain on my shirt. Despite this the fall air is fresh and invigorating and the promise of a year of bragging rights and psychotic forum posts hangs in the balance tonight. It feels electric. My friends end up leaving and promise to meet back up at Gate C. This is important as there is no assigned seating here, the throngs of students rush the gates and squeeze in to the student section and sit where they can. I’m drunk and I do not care what they do or if I see them again, because I have football and football is all I need. I spend most of my time before kick off hanging out with the boomers that parked next to us. Their tailgating set up is immaculate. They have rugs, ergonomic chairs, two televisions, two grills, and a cooler shaped like a life sized Kathy Ireland. She looks really hot. They remind me of the Bedouin or some imagined mythical Arab nomads. Traveling in a large caravan with every luxury at hand, ready to trade. They bring me in and they trade me beers out of Ms. Ireland’s rear end and I trade them my undivided youthful attention. They take turns complaining about their wives and they force me to promise them whole heartedly that I will never get married. I assure them, with my eyes shining and complete sincerity, that I never will. They smile and laugh and smack their knees and one of them tells me I’m a good ol’ boy and gives me his card for a job opportunity. I assure him I’m the oldest and best boy that ever was. After a while the boomers disappear completely in a cloud of cigar smoke. I’m not sure if they ever existed but their stuff is still there and I liberate another beer from Kathy and watch the rest of the noon slate. I’m the level of drunk at this point where my teeth feel like Tic Tacs in my mouth and if I open them they might all fall out. I look down at the card and it reads “Dr. Mike Barsamian, Secret Love Guru and Conflict Resolution Specialist” and in smaller font “Experienced with Gems, Seeking Assistant.” I elect not to follow this lead and nod off in my chair. It’s now the 3rd quarter. We made it inside the stadium and we’ve put in a good performance as fans. On the way in we saw rival supporters and hurled obscenities at them. They said we were in a polyamorous homosexual relationship. I assured them that they must be speaking about themselves. Someone lobbed a cup of beer at them and they left. Victory. I assure everyone I would have totally handled those guys had they stayed, and they all agree, nodding and smiling aggressively. We’re late enough in the game now where I’ve sobered up and the stadium lights have come on. Everything feels serious, the sky is black and the players shine and shimmer under the lights. It feels like the whole world is watching. We continue to support our troops, we jingle our keys, we hold up the number 3 on third down, we use our bodies to spell out our school’s initials, and we scream and never stop screaming. We end up winning the game. Waking out of the stadium we feel like a mix of a group of revelers and a marauding band of savages. In celebration people yell and shove and throw more cups of beer at each other. I suddenly become so taken with excitement and glee I attempt to do a cartwheel, a maneuver I have never successfully completed in my life. I sprint off of the sidewalk onto a patch of grass and end up executing a perfect handstand. I stay upside down, shocked by my feat of athleticism, gazing back at the inverted endless throng of fans pouring out of the stadium like demons from hell. My arms give out and I smash my face into a tree root. I become dizzy and everything smells like blood, hot dogs, and fireworks. I am 9 years old. I’m in my dad’s bedroom and it’s getting late. He and my sister are downstairs, they’re watching a movie they rented together. I am alone and a 23” Magnivox TV lights the room. The screen fuzzes and shocks me when I touch it. Spread in front of me are 15 sheets of looseleaf paper with scrawled designs of imaginary college football teams and names of my new favorite players written on them. I don’t like comic books or wrestling, these players and teams are my superheroes. College football is a magical world for me, over a hundred teams to obsess over and pages and pages of statistics to review. In a lot of ways it feels exactly like comics. I have favorites and I have least favorites and to me they might as well be the Justice League or Legion of Doom. Teams from different conferences play each other and it feels like a crossover event. I quickly switch the TV over to CBS and hear the familiar them music. It’s the SEC championship between Alabama and Florida. I’ve been waiting for this game all week, the Florida Gators are on the doorstep of establishing a dynasty and the Alabama Crimson Tide are the last legitimate team in their way. I hate Florida in the way only a child not yet crushed by disappointment can. Temporarily I am forced to pledge my allegiance to Alabama and I sit there and pray for them to win. I can’t face the kids at school if they don’t. Both teams are undefeated, they are calling it the game of the century and I am lucky to bear witness. I sit there and I watch the game and I am met with the greatest feeling of catharsis in my young life. Alabama destroys Florida and I jump up and down so much until my dad starts to hit the ceiling with his broom downstairs.