No Fuckin Losing (NFL) ... Today

Presented in the poetry to prose challenge hosted by Euan.

No Fuckin Losing (NFL) ... Today

Episode I: Anticipation

"An old farm boy like you must love playing on this grass.  It must make your dick hard remembering the sheep back home," Jonesy belted out at no one in particular, but I knew he was talking to me.

"Naw, I don't miss 'em at all cause your wife's ass is twice as tight and she bleats ten times as loud," I growled back.  

My boys chuckled. 

"And besides your bed is way warmer than any haystack you limped dick bitch."

Now some of his were smirking, and I could tell by the scowl on his face and his sudden beet complexion I owned him out right.  He'd let me in, so hurting him was gonna be that much more fun.

He took a half hearted step towards the line, but he knew better than to cross it.  Besides he knew someone would pull him back, but he had to make the gesture to save face.

"You take it too far at times Whiskey!" he says with two of his pushing him towards their huddle.

"It's Mr. Wizienski to you, bitch.  Only she gets to call me 'Whiskey'.  'Big Whiskey' when I'm pulling her hair," I yell with my taped hands cupped to my mouth like a megaphone. 

They all retreat to their huddle.  Some looking back over their shoulders, cowering, as if I might try a sneak attack.  

My boys and I just stand there in the cold.  

Waiting. 

Studying.  

Eleven hungry bears anticipating the fish coming up stream so we could feast.

They say games like this, in weather like this, separates the men from the boys. 

I always say it separates a bitch from a beast. 

The frost and rain from the night before had choked out any remnants of grass.
We were standing on a corpse that had long been suffocated.  The only sign of life was the billowing steam that came out of twenty two mouths and nostrils that invaded the rime.

They were coming out of their huddle now. 

I'm looking at the eyes of their quarterback.  Looking for that all important tell.  When he was a rookie he liked to brag he bled green in his college days, his school's colors. He says he still bleeds green now playing for the Packers.  

I just liked making the cocksucker bleed. 

I want him to bleed a little today, puke is a bonus.  I remember my freshman year of college when our schools played one another and I hit the pussy so hard he was actually crying.  Bruised three of his ribs, fuckin' bitch.  I broke a finger on that play, but I just taped it up to the two good ones next to it and kept playing.  He sat out for the rest of the game.  We won 24 - 10, but I was pissed we'd given up the ten to that bitch. 

Come on pretty boy, gimme the tell.  I could see outta the corner of my left eye the h-back is shifting ... They're gonna try a screen.  

I call the audible, "Blue Dog ... Blue Dog Two!" That's what we called a screen play.  The quarterback dumps off to the running back, the dog with the bone. The pulling guards blocking for him are the ticks meant to be snatched off the dog and squashed 'tween my fingers. 

The cold current and it's blight is howling all around me.  My mouth watering and claws unsheathed. A grizzly in desperate need for the taste of flesh. 

Come on, snap the fuckin' ball bitch ...

Episode II: The Snap

Hut... ...  hut ...hut!

The ball is snapped, and they leave a hole the size of the Grand Canyon for me so I can rush the quarterback.  Bait for the bear, but I know better.  As bad as I want to pop that cocksucker in the mouth, to counter the screen it's my job to track the h-back and never give him the light to catch the ball.

My boys and I play it to the letter.  We cut the tits right off that bitch, he had no one to feed.  In a panic he runs and his caught for a one yard loss.  

It was now third and nine and the ball was on their 38 yard line.  

We'd hold them here.

Now.

Win the game.

Clinch our division.

They line up for a pass play with an empty backfield.  I call for a blitz Big Jake and I had run a thousand times.  With no one else in backfield besides the QB, we would both have a clear path to him.  

Hut, hut ... ... Hut!

I can already taste him with each thunderous step I take.  He's cocked back to throw the ball.

"Pass!"

"Pass!"

The alert is sounded up and down the line.  

I'm coming from behind. I club him with my left forearm and try to maul the ball with my right, all the while driving his body into this wet muddy pavement in one syncopated move.

The ball is gone.

Caught downfield for what looks to be a forty yard gain.

All I could think was, "Where the fuck was Jake? He shoulda help me trap this cocksucker so he couldn't make that pass! And how the fuck did Robbie let his man beat him downfield like that?"

Then I see it.

Redemption.

A flag on the play.  Jake was double teamed.  They held him by grabbing a fist full of his jersey and hooking his face mask too, otherwise he'd have beat me to the quarterback.

The ref signals holding with a ten yard penalty and a replay of the down.
Third down with 19 to make for the first. No fucking way I think, not today.

In the huddle I say very little to my boys. "Right in the ass!" I command.
"And Robbie you better not let that pussy beat you again."

They run the same fucking play, again.  This time, I drop back to clog the passing lanes.  The ball is up, spiraling through the flannel mist. This time, Robbie tips it out of bounds.

They punt the ball to us, and the rest is just routine.  Those glory whores on offense run out the clock, but the boys and I had won that game.


Episode III: Interviews

We'd won, division champs and were playoff bound, but you'd never know it from Pappy.  

There he was standing in the players' tunnel in his Sunday proper shirt and tie, and overcoat.  He thought it made him more like Halas or Lombardi when he did that cause Lord knows the heathenish bastard hadn't been to church since he was a choir boy back in ot' nine.

I could smell the Jim Beam as soon as I saw him.  His favorite after shave.  I let him rant on for about ten minutes about how we were bailed out by that ref's call.

When enough had gotten to be too much, I stuffed the drunk fool into a cab.  Threw a ten into the window at the cabbie and told him get him to the Holiday Inn.  Thought about it a second and handed him twenty more, leaned into the window a bit and told the guy, "Make sure he gets to his room okay."

"Sure thing Whiskey. Thanks!"

Once I figured he was settled in for the night and just about ready to pour himself into bed, I'd send over a couple of whores to take the knot outta his dick.  Otherwise he'd be calling me at 3 o'clock in the morning to tell me the twenty other things I'd done wrong in the game.

Back inside the players tunnel I decided to use the pay phone there to call her.

"Congratulations I guess are in order Whiskey.  I heard it all on the radio."

"Look, we're leaving first thing in the morning and I wanna see you."

"I guess I can get my mother to watch the kids for a bit.  But what about -"

"Baby, you know he'll be licking his wounds until the wee hours sucking down one beer after another.  I just need to suck on you."

"Oh, you sweet talker you," she laughs.  We both do.

"All right I'll meet you at that little place off the interstate again," she finally agrees.

"And baby wear something special for me," I tell her.

"Which one?" she sighs.

"The green one. Home colors. Like he wore today."

"Bye Whiskey."

"Big Whiskey."

We hang up.

"Taxi!"