Dean's Game Face

Dean’s Game Face 

Sometimes on a sticky summer day,

I’ll smell the grass,

and think of Dean.

 

Dean, waiting for me at the end of a gauntlet

with his big paw ready to slap my balls.

Dean, who had a beard and an

ATV when he was 12-years-old.

Dean at the end of the line

waiting for me while I run 

head and shoulders down 

holding onto that ball so tight 

plowing through those bodies

and the concussion of pads and helmets,

the hands that threaten to the tear the ball free

and just when I see the light there’s 

Dean’s big hand going for my crotch

and a few seconds later—

a pain in my stomach.

I fall to the ground still holding the ball, 

and can still see Dean through my facemask giggling.

The coach screams: 

“Judas Priest, god damnit Dean, take a lap,”

Dean laughing, looking back, as he trots away

and I’d get up calling him a mother fucker

and the coach would respond,

“And you too.”

and then Dean would be laughing

and we’d running side by side.

Dean was never very serious about football

like I was.

There was this big game one night—

We were done dressing in the locker room

waiting for the coach to open the door.

This was our time— we’d been schooled—

to think about our assignments and get our

game faces on as they always said, treating each

one as though it were a battle.

I guess we were supposed to be manifesting 

our orders.  

But not for Dean

He was sitting beside me 

that night in that anxiety-filled

silent locker room 

as though his only assignment 

was to get me to punch him.

The look on his face that night wasn’t the game face

the coaches were going for

to say the least.

 Dean starts massaging my calf, 

even getting his hand up

under my thigh pads.

"You're too serious Scott," he says,

and I yell out,

breaking all vigilance

all decorum....

“Dean, cut the shit!" 

And just as I do, coach

walks in and I get yelled at.

  

Another time one of the coaches

was giving us a pre-game speech about 

the Persians and Spartans. 

We were sitting there with our helmets on

ready to rip through that paper banner 

the cheerleaders had made .

We were the Spartans, I think he was saying,

outnumbered

and outsized. 

“And what did the Spartans do...?

they did the fucking impossible

you mother fuckers,

they believed!”

I was feelin that speech 

but Dean

starts giggling and it turns into

that uncontrollable kind of laugh

and the coach picks

up a pair of scissors

and throws em.

They bounce off his helmet and

land in my lap.

Dean, being dean, couldn’t stop laughing.

And sometimes on sticky summer days, when the

absurdity of work and living sets in,

I see Dean’s game face and smile.