Weekend of My Discontent, the Finale

And you thought it would never end. Is there a happy ending for Larry and Nicole?

Fourth Quarter

I woke up four hours later, a full plate of cold cinnamon rolls next to my head. It took me three blinks to see the world properly. In only two blinks I found the remote. The Pittsburgh Steelers were leading the Indianapolis Colts 7-0 midway through the first quarter. The Steelers were the last team in the AFC to make the playoffs, and most people thought that the Colts, who were the top seed, were the favorites to go to the Super Bowl. They did not finish the regular season undefeated, as Brian predicted. After clinching home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, they rested some starters and lost a couple of meaningless games.

Sometimes when a team is on a roll and releases the foot from the gas pedal, so to speak, things go awry. The Colts had a spectacular gift for looking ordinary in the playoffs, a skill not unlike my ability to date crazy women who can’t hold their liquor.

Before I could hit the bathroom and crack open my second quart of Mango Electro Gatorade, the Steelers scored another touchdown. Surely the well-oiled Colts attack would begin their rally right away. This would be the year that Peyton Manning took the next step from whipping boy to champion. That Gatorade sure goes fast when you’re completely dehydrated.

I was midway through bottle number three when Nicole stumbled up the stairs. Dallas Clark had just scored on a 50-yard reception from Manning, cutting the lead to 21-10. My fingers and toes started to tingle, and not just because they had fallen asleep from my extended duty on the couch.

“Are you watching football?” Nicole asked.

“Want a cinnamon roll?” I asked, attempting a rarely successful diversion routine.

“Oh God yes,” she said. Nicole devoured three so quickly that I almost forgot to watch the game. The Steelers were giving me minor heart attacks by repeatedly going for it on 4th down. The clock crept past seven minutes remaining in the contest.

“Seriously, dude, football?” Nicole asked.

“Come on, it’s a close game,” I said, barely watching as the Steelers got into punt formation. Taking no chances, their punter put the ball through the end zone. The Colts got the ball back at the 20-yard line.

She gave me a look that negated all of my food and beverage goodwill. “Aren’t we supposed to be spending time together?”

It was a commercial break, so my attention was back on her. Some women look fantastic when they’re hung over. They are called actresses. Nicole looked like she hadn’t slept in 48 hours. The puffy, red eyes and tousled hair begged me to tread lightly.

“Isn’t this time together?” I asked semi-rhetorically, stretching my arms out.

“Romantic, this is not. You got me drunk, took advantage of me, got me drunk again, which was a nice touch, by the way, stretched out my favorite swim suit, took advantage of me again, then left me for dead on the floor in the bedroom while you watch a game. A game!”

“It’s the divisional playoffs!” I cried.

“Something you could have considered before taking me to a remote cabin for three days,” she said.

I’m not proud of what happened in the following sixty seconds.

The game came back on. My attention was completely riveted as Peyton Manning completed a long pass to Reggie Wayne. A classic finish was underway. You would have thought that I never suffered the wrath of a woman scorned.

Nicole grabbed the remote. I put the odds of her changing the channel to a chick flick around the same as Peyton Manning throwing a dumb interception in the clutch, which he did as I reached for the remote.

The play was interesting enough that Nicole paused, and in that second of doubt I took the remote back. I also tipped over the open container of Red Fusion Gatorade. It spilled onto her lap and all over the floor.

As Nicole ranted and raved I watched Troy Polamalu, the Steelers’ strong safety, run in front of the Colt receiver and grab the ball. He proceeded to roll over once, and as he got up, the ball bounced off his knee. It was quite clear that he had possession of the ball before losing it, but the play was sure to be reviewed. In the National Football League there’s a process called instant replay. The referee gets to see the play over and over again in a little booth to make sure that the call on the field is correct. NFL referees are part-time employees, so their training isn’t complete because the head linesman could be, for example, a principal.

I watched the replay another ten or twelve times, because the referee hadn’t made his mind up yet and the announcers weren’t speaking English. Nicole could have been beating me senseless with a poker from the fireplace, but I didn’t budge.

It was as obvious as my own mortal danger that the interception was the correct call and should stand. Naturally the referee moseyed back onto the field a minute later and overturned the call. I thought the Steelers’ lantern-jawed coach was going to self-destruct.

“That was a shit call,” Nicole said. As I turned to her, my mouth agape, she removed my shirt and started wiping the pleather couch with it. She could have set me on fire at this point.

I restrained a cry of surprise when the Colts scored again. Now it was 21-18, and there were four minutes left in a game. Four minutes in a professional football game is good for at least 15 minutes of real time. In the playoffs, with the increased commercial rates, it could be good as 30. And with the Colts using a two-point conversion to get the score within a field goal, overtime was a possibility. That’s what they call free football.

The Steelers didn’t do much with their opportunity to put the game away. When they punted I saw to my surprise that Nicole only wearing a pair of polka-dotted underpants. That wasn’t the detail that caught my eye. The prominent scar running down her left shoulder blade was ugly and dark, and it contrasted with her pale skin. Obviously Nicole didn’t expect me to turn from the game.

“You ruined my shirt, dude,” she said, turning to face me. “Mister Cut That Meat has the ball.”

Peyton Manning filmed a few funny commercials last year, in which he ‘cheered’ at people doing their normal jobs. One example was him at a butcher shop chanting “Cut that meat, cut that meat.” Imagine how empty our lives would be without commercials.

The tension would have to wait, as Manning threw a two-yard dump-off pass and the game reached the two-minute warning. No matter what’s happening in a game, there’s an automatic time out with two minute remaining. Yeah, like the last few minutes aren’t long enough as is.

Nicole wandered downstairs while the commercials ran. She returned wearing one of my t-shirts.

“I’m not through with you yet. I want to see how it ends,” she said.

The Steelers ferociously attacked Manning. On fourth down they sacked him inside the Colt 10-yard line. The game was effectively over. All the Steelers had to do was give the ball to their behemoth of a running back. Jerome Bettis was the feel-good story as this was his last of 13 years in the league. To make it more dramatic, he had yet to win a championship. Heck, the Steelers hadn’t won a title since I was one year old.

It was naturally time for another commercial break. I looked at Nicole, who was in the middle of trying to chug a quart of Gatorade in one sip. It was our last bottle.

“Some of that Ibuprofen would help your chances a lot,” she said after finishing her long pull. I walked to the kitchen and found the bottle. I opened it and started measuring it when I felt Nicole’s breath on my neck.

“Just give me the bottle,” she said in a raspy whisper. I have to admit, it kind of turned me on.

“Thanks,” she said with no gratitude at all. The child-proof container gave her trouble, so she used her mouth to open it. Then she tipped the bottle open in her mouth. I wasn’t turned on anymore. I’d estimate that she inhaled about twelve. This was the maximum-strength stuff, so she just took about 6000 milligrams, which is enough to knock out a Kentucky Derby winner. The game turned back on so I brushed past her and filled the near-permanent butt impression on the couch.

OK, back to live action. Like I said, the Steelers could just sit on the ball, but the Colts still had three timeouts. It made sense for the Steelers to try and score the game-clinching touchdown. After all, they had the NFL’s fifth-leading all-time rusher in the backfield.

So the quarterback predictably handed him the ball and he predictably pushed into the line.

But then things went horribly wrong.

“You’re still watching this game?” Nicole yelled in my ear. It might have been the loudest thing that she ever said in her life. I looked at her for a second. There was pain in her eyes. She looked weak, like a wounded animal. Her shoulders slumped and her normally pale skin was a deep pink. Last night she chose Patron over me and now I chose football over her.

I turned just in time to see a small (by football player standards) defensive back dive in and punch the ball out. He grabbed the ball and all of the sudden he raced the other way. It was a certain Colts touchdown, as he was surrounded by blue-clad teammates save the backpedaling Steeler quarterback. Somehow he tripped up the defender around midfield.

“One more chance for cut that meat,” Nicole said, sighing and turning to walk into the kitchen.

It was obvious that I should talk to her. Nicole sat down and opened her People magazine. Within seconds she had balled up her fists and pressed them against her temples. I took my last desperate shot.

“Is there anything that helps you when you have a hangover?”

She looked at me, the fire back in her eyes. “Yeah, solitude.”

“Gotcha,” I said. Did I move? Heck no. I secretly hoped that the game went into overtime to delay any further interactions.

After more infernal commercials, Manning pulled himself together enough to calmly lead his team down the field. He got his team inside the 30-yard line, well within range for a game-tying field goal. On second down he threw a perfect ball to the corner of the end zone but the Steelers’ defender knocked the ball away. On third down Manning rushed his throw and hit a random spot on the field. It was up to their kicker. I looked back at Nicole. Her head was on the kitchen table, pressing against a photo of Jake Gyllenhaal.

After two timeouts and countless commercials, the ball was snapped. The kicker made contact.

The ball sailed wide right. The last shot of the game was of Manning, looking like a guy who was chewing on a lemon and onion sandwich. Or perhaps some of my blackened fish.

And now, a word from some of our sponsors. . .

We didn’t speak on the ride home. Nicole was too hung over on our second evening to do much more than moan and watch bad TV. I made a beef tenderloin but the meal was wasted on us.

I listened to another CD from the Al Franken book while Nicole slept. The comedy could be labored at times, but maybe it was just because the discussion of the contested 2000 election brought back so many feelings of disbelief and despair. Even the upbeat musings of Brendan Benson didn’t seem to cheer her up. It was then I realized she was tired, and even though I contributed to the malaise of the weekend, the main reason for her mood was beyond my ken. I decided that that downbeat but pretty sounds of Death Cab for Cutie were appropriate for our final leg.

There’s nothing like songs of heartbreak and angst to make you think about the end of a vacation. I was looking forward to having my personal space back.

She turned down my offer to help her with her bags when we reached her condo. I didn’t even get out of the car. Nicole turned to me, wearing dark glasses, and said “Football is a big deal to you. So is getting laid. For the life of me, I can’t think of anything else.”

As she walked away I thought of that Colts kicker, who would have been best served by walking directly out of the stadium, taking a cab to the airport and flying somewhere, anywhere else.

Then I thought of Ben Gibbard’s words. “Cause you can’t have nothing at all when there was nothing there all along.” The weekend had limited upside. On the guy scale, having sex multiple times, watching football, and eating red meat had to be pretty high. Caring, and poorly at that, for a drunk then hung over woman, not so high on the scale. Life balances out that way.

I pulled out and headed for home. It was a distinct possibility that I would hug my Dell Inspiron after I put away my clothes. I had to pause one building before mine due to a woman struggling with a large box who was crossing the lot in front of me. Other than a quick glance to make sure that I wasn’t going to squash her, she didn’t look my way. The look on her face spoke of frustration and effort. I could relate.

Before I could think about helping her out, my phone rang. My cell was asleep all weekend, and I instructed it to wake up just in time for this call.

“Yello,” I said in a Homeresque voice.

“Larry Smith, I presume?” said the voice on the other end.

“Present and speaking.”

“Ah, good. I have some news for you, via your friend Joseph. The gig is yours.”

“Good news, man. What’s your name?”

“Call me Mo,” he replied.

I smiled all the way down the stairs to my ground-level unit. After throwing my bag in the bedroom, I paused. The girl in the parking lot had nice eyes. I was going to have to look out for her.