Mike Fontaine's father had introduced him to football. Through his growing up, Sunday did not mean dressing up and going to church with his mother, but it did mean spending the day watching the professional sport of football.

   The NFL was not merely an organization that brought the game to his television. It was a way of life. Statistics, ending scores, quarterback ratings and a strong defense brought excitement to Mike's life, which appeared quite ineffectual, meaningless and dismal to him at the time.

    When he went to school, most of the discussions with friends and even some teachers were about how the Patriots faired that particular season. If he thought that they were going to have a winning season, then his friends would most likely belittle his opinion with that in-breaded notion of cynicism that their fathers conveyed and past down to them.

    He could on occasion, depending on his mood, bring them up, lift their spirits with his confidence, his idealism and his overall optimism for a good season to come. A win was all that mattered. He was influenced by how his father reacted triumphantly to a win and defiantly to a loss.

    His mother, a homemaker, understood his father's behavior and appreciated how this was an important ritual that her own father had practiced when he was alive. Often, she would watch the game. Mike's mother loved her family and would often confess that nothing in the world mattered more to her than her family.

    Mike's sister, Rebecca, also understood why the game was so important to her father and brother. Even at the youthful age of seven, Rebecca began to have a vile and adverse attitude towards the game. She would go to church with her mother. There was an understanding in their house. They were to enjoy the game or become non-existent if they decided they were not in the mood to watch football. To not want to watch a football game meant two things to Mike's father: one, that you were a typical female, or two, that you were a fag.

    "Grogan sets up the play. They need six yards for a first. This will be the last time they will have possession of the ball. Grogan takes the snap, hands off to Craig, he's stopped for a loss. Oh! That hurt," the announcer said with a tone resonating sympathy and frustration. Mike's father stood up and threw his beer bottle across the room as Mike accented a similar, but less dramatic reaction by slapping the sofa.

    "Craig! What the hell were they thinking running? God damn it!" A broken lamp followed this exclamation. It was at these moments when Mike would feel fear. He felt fearful that his reaction was not convincing enough to prove he was as upset as his father demonstrated to be. He was too young to drink so he could not throw a beer bottle across the room. He hoped his slapping the couch would be convincing enough. He was upset. His father was right. It was really stupid to run the ball on that last play. His father would get so upset that he often tried to remain a neutral object in the room to avoid his father's rage. His father often hurled beer bottles in his direction. He knew what his father was and it frightened him.

    "Why do I watch them? What the hell! Who cares!" His father stormed off to the kitchen. He returned with a new beer. "Is it over?" He asked Mike.

    "Yea, they lost again!" Mike got up to leave. He didn't like the fact that his father was on his fifth beer.

    "Where are you going?"

    "I got some homework to do." Mike was not doing well in his junior year in High School.

    "That's a good idea figuring your grades this year have been in the gutter." Mike's father was standing close enough for him to smell the beer.

   "That's why I'm going to study." Mike continued towards his room, but was stopped once again by his father.

    "Let me tell you something, you fail one more class and you're out of this house. Do you understand what I'm saying?" His father squeezed his arm so that his fingernails penetrated Mike's skin. "This is the last time I get a report card that reads "numbskull"! Do you read me?"

    "Yea. Let go." This defiance was new. He was recognizing his strengths and abilities that were being brought out as he neared the end of his adolescence.

    "What did you say?" His father strengthened his grip.

    "Look, you're just upset because of the g. . ."

    "Don't tell me what or why I'm upset. I know exactly why. My boy is a numbskull!" Mike's father smacked him with his right hand.

    The Patriots were looking at a losing season. Second to last in the AFC East. This reflected in his father's eyes. Mike could forgive his father for these indiscretions. He knew it was because of the game and not him personally.

    "You finished?" The bravery, the defiance, and the anger were repressed in him and Mike watched as his father let go. He walked to his room where he found his history book and solace. He wiped the blood from his lip and tried to focus on the American Constitution. He did not cry.

    His mother came home with Rebecca and found her boy studying which made her feel proud. Those were her finer moments. Before she closed Mike's door she saw his fat lip. She knew two things: she knew that her husband had hit her son, and, she knew that the Patriots had lost. There were moments when she felt she should confront someone about her husband's outbursts. After all, it was only a game. She knew that her son loved the game. Mike's mother came from a long line of family members, mostly men, but there were some women she recalled, who loved the game of football.

    When the leaves fell to the ground there was not much else to talk about. Someday she hoped to convince her husband that a trip to Florida some winter would be a good idea. If the expenses were to high, then she was willing to get a job so the household could bring home some extra cash.

    She was different in that she was one of the members of the household that actually enjoyed watching football. She knew which team would make it to the Super Bowl, which team was destined to have a poor season, and how the Patriots rated. In New England, the leaves changed with glorious beauty, triumphant glory, interpreted by most New Englanders that life was beautiful.

    Her husband made exactly as much as they needed to support two children and gave both children a proper dose of attention through their growing up. He coached most of their teams in many different sports. He coached Mike in football, baseball, and basketball, while she coached Rebecca in soccer, field hockey, and basketball.

    Mrs. Fontaine went into her kitchen to contemplate what to cook for dinner. It was her pleasure to cook dinner. She didn't mind cooking and in many ways she actually enjoyed it. It gave her a sense of purpose. It put a stamp on the end of the day. In their community she was reputed by many as a devoted wife and well-respected mother. She couldn't imagine herself as anything else.

    Mrs. Fontaine attended two years of college before he husband proposed to her. She was in her dorm room studying for a literature mid-term and he came calling. They had dated through high school. She did miss him while she was at school. They only saw each other infrequently. He went down on his knee with a ring in his left hand and asked for her hand in marriage. She accepted and they were married two months later. It was the year the Dallas Cowboys lost to the Baltimore Colts in the Super Bowl. She thought it was Super Bowl five, but she was not sure. She knew, however, they were married in 1971 and she became pregnant with Mike that following year.

    "Honey? What was the Super Bowl when Mike was born?" she asked through the kitchen and into the living room.

    "1972! Miami against Dallas! Dallas killed 'em 24-3!" her husband yelled back. She took out some fish to defrost. She did love her husband. He had his moments when he lost control and that was wrong. She knew it was wrong, but he hardly ever lost control. The moments when he did lose control, those times when he shouldn't have done some of the things he did, he apologized. He often said he was sorry. He was aware of his faults. Mike heard the knock on his door. "Come in!" It was his father.

   "Look, Mike," he staggered a bit and conveniently leaned up against Mike's bed. He took a casual swig of his beer. "Look, Mike. I didn't mean to hit you like that. It's just that, I get frustrated with you. You're so smart. You're so damn smart and you insist on getting bad grades. How are you going to get into a good school with those kinds of grades?" "I'm going to get a scholarship," Mike said to his history book.

    "I don't think you have what it takes," Mike turned to face his father when he said this. It was the first time he had heard his father say that he was not good enough to get a scholarship to a college. From there on, these words reverberated a hundred times in his head. He couldn't get them out. He couldn't keep these words from taking up space in his brain. These words affected everything he did for the rest of his life. He didn't realize how deeply deflated he was at the time they were said.

    "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you that, but it's the truth. You're only hope is that you study. Try to get some good grades and hopefully between bank loans and our support we'll be able to find you placement at State. Just know that I'm sorry. I'm really sorry about smacking you son. You know that, right?

    "Yes," Mike felt sorry for his father. His father was drunk and pathetic, but his sympathy often gave way to intolerance. It was the third time this year he had smacked by him. This was the most painful. One time he had ducked and missed, but he still counted it. Even though he missed he still counted it as an attempt. Mike kept a lot of things inside. He didn't know how to express himself. He thought everything was normal. He believed that his friends' fathers were all the same, that they were simply better at covering up the bruises. Mike's father exited his room and wandered into the kitchen. He watched his wife prepare dinner.

   "Patriots lost." He said.

    "I know." She replied. " I heard the end of the game on the radio."

    "Do you think I'm a good father?" He looked at her with intent. He was on the verge of tears.

    "What a silly question. What would make you ask such a silly question?" She wasn't looking at him.

    "Look at me!" She turned around and faced him.

    "Do you think I'm a good father?" He repeated his question.

    "Yes. I think you're upset because the Patriots lost. I think you love your children very much and I want you to know that I love you very much. You know how you can get." She went back to peeling green beans in the sink.

    "How do I get?" He moved towards the refrigerator.

    "When they lose. You get upset. A lot of people do. That team is paid a lot of money to win football games and there is no reason why they shouldn't be in the Super Bowl every year.

    "That's what I'm saying. There is no excuse for them to be playing as badly as they have been. They're the worst damn team in their division. Why? Management reasons, coaching reasons and talent reasons. No, they have talent. What the hell is it?" He went into the fridge and pulled out another beer.

    "How many is that?" She asked out of mere curiosity. It was the game. He never had to call in sick for work. He always made it to work and he had to rise at five-thirty in the morning to start.

   "Five. Why?" He held open the door. "I bought them, shouldn’t I drink them?" He continued to stare holding open the door. "Do you have a problem?" He disconnected a beer from the rest of the six-pack and placed the remaining beer inside the fridge and poised himself to ask his question a second time. "Do you have a problem?"

    "No, I just wanted to make you sure you didn't get too sleepy before dinner." Mrs. Fontaine washed the beans in a strainer.

    "Oh, well what are we having?" He moved closer to her.

    "White fish. Green beans and mashed potatoes," she said as felt him grab her ass.

    "Yea, I think I could stay up for that," he said as he kissed her gently on the cheek and walked into the living room. He was in a feisty mood this night. He was probably going to want love from her.

    The funeral was suitable: friends, acquiantances, family, all passed before the casket displaying reverence and solace. The church served housing for the ceremony with its hollow halls and ancient benches as portraits of priests hung in silence echoing lives of devotion and prayer. The weather was moody; a day brightened by hues of yellow in fickle turn favoring shades of gray that accented the somber gathering for Mike Fontaine's father. Mike stood with his wife and two children near the casket as the priest prepared Mike's father for his final resting-place.

    "He was an honest man. He was a devoted family man, as we witness from his loving wife and his two children." The priest leaned over and coughed into his fist.

    "Yea, devoted to kicking your ass," Rebecca said confidently and leaned into Mike in a way that was accented by a sinister mannerism that a coach might employ on a player who had just fouled up the game.

    "If you hated him so much, then why the hell are you here?" Mike kept a sincere and direct profile towards the priest who sipped from a glass of water and continued.

    "His soul shall be blessed in heaven now. May he go in peace and may he go with God."

    The priest opened the bible and began to read scripture. Through the picture-framed windows of the church leaves blew as ravenous winds picked up and dusk closed in on the day. It was a Sunday. Mike looked at his watch. The game was nearing half- time. He convinced himself of many things. The decisions he had made in his life were always correct. They had to be. It was essential to his survival as a human being that he believed his choices were the right ones. His father had always been an abusive man in many ways. On many occasions he did strike Mike. Mike had fits of hate, death wishes and fantasies that he'd invent on many cold winter nights where he'd be victorious over his father, a moment where he, the underdog, would over come the heavily favored side.

    This moment never happened. He had always found a way to remain complacent. Perhaps this was his own weakness, or maybe even out of respect, it was not clear to him, but as he stood, vaguely listening to Rebecca's curses and verbal dances on his father's grave, he stood wavering on tears. They were tears of guilt hollowing out his stomach for having ever adopted the notion of violence against this man.

    "Patriots on?" His sister was tugging at this elbow. "They are; aren't they? They're playing today and you're at the old man's funeral. Kind of ironic, don't you think? Bet you're just dying to do a score-check. Who they playing?" She was sinister. Her own undeniable hatred for her father made her cringe at the fact that her pathetic brother was actually pretending to care. She was merciless in her attempt to make him shutter, "To brake", as she so often referred to it as. She had the conviction that her brother was merely attepting piety without the faintest acknowledgment of truth or sincerity. The vulgarity of her brother to put on display his falsified emotions made her sick. They only served as fiction, like some disgusting TV drama that added to her mother's feigned belief that her father was anything but vile filth, created a revulsion inside her comparable to a sick and jaundiced man with a liver disease. "Who are they playing?"

    "Kansas City." His body went limp. He felt like smacking her. He had done it before, but she had threatened to disarm him in a way that he was not overtly too willing to compromise. So he had refrained.

    "Rebecca, don't you feel anything? He was your father. What about Mom? Have some respect for Mom." He heard himself whimpering and he felt the need to hit himself.

    "This is all stupid. It's crazy. Complete and utter denial. So, who's playing," she insisted.

    "I told you, Kansas City." He wanted to watch the game. It was a big game. It was the Patriots' first real test to defend their 4-0 status. He glanced over to his wife. She was fairly stout, but there was a beauty of wisdom about her. She was becoming a middle-aged woman and her defiance against nature was evident, but her romance for life generated from her. She was a woman who prided herself on her family and it showed. She cried solemnly as the church organ trumpeted hymns that her mother-in-law had chosen. She recalled while being courted by Mike how she understood her mother-in-law's plight, but in solitude gawked at the three marks she had witnessed: the black eye, the fat lip, and the worst being the dislocated shoulder. In such a long period of time she could only account those three marks. She assumed there had been more before her induction into the Fontaine family.

    She had been married to Mike for fifteen years and she considered these intervals between injuries too long of a time to raise a stink to anyone. She felt sorry for her and this wasn't the first time. She loved her husband, even though she found Mike to be the typical male pig, but there were characteristics in her male pig that gave her discerning, identifiable characteristics as a mother and a devoted wife. He was sincere and loved her as much as he could. She admired his strength to work so diligently doing manual labor while at the same time keeping to his duties, his responsibilities as a husband, a father and a provider. She watched him as he fidgeted. He was so much like a child. She scooted in between her two children to address him.

    "What are you doing?" She asked.

    "Nothing," he replied.

    "Why do you keep looking at your watch? You're not thinking about the football game are you? Tell me you're not." She had grabbed his arm with a fierce grip.

    "So what? He would have wanted me to watch the game instead of being here. He's probably laughing at me right now. Cause he knows I'm getting skunked with this thing." He forcibly removed her grip and pressed her hand more violently than she had ever recalled him doing so. Imclearbluemediately proceeding his release she felt a throbbing from the blood flow that had been restricted by his grip. With that he departed. He walked down the long, gothic hall and out of the church. Rebecca howled through the closing church doors and Mike stepped into his car. He turned on the radio and lit a cigarette. He searched, not frantically but casually, for the right station. The announcer came through strong and clear.

    "What an explosive game it has been. They're just about to come out from half- time. The Patriots are looking flat. I don't know if it's this place or that they just haven't come here to play today," the announcer complained and passed the torch onto the other.

    "I agree, they just look like they didn't show up to play football that's for sure," the other voice interjected the agreement. "God, I hate it when you guys talk like that," Mike was speaking to himself. He thought of how his father often threw fits of anger and contempt for the sportscasters referring to them on more times than none as "Baffoons", "Ignorant assholes" and "Idiots".

    "Idiots," Mike said quietly to himself as he smoked his cigarette. He saw his wife depart from the church and approach his vehicle. She had a look of disappointment, usually a look filed away and reserved for the children. He wanted to be left alone. He wanted this peace and he found that as he grew older and aged, these moments were becoming unavailable. It wasn't just his wife shutting down these moments, but the children, his job and his mother. His mother shutting him down was a new thing. She had become extremely reliant on him when his father grew ill. It was his liver. He drank too much. He was not important or rich enough to be gifted with a new liver and his old one gave out.

    "What are you doing?" His wife said as she knocked on the window. Mike rolled down the window.

    "I'm doing a score-check. Look, this is all too depressing for me. Why don't you round up the kids and we'll head home." He desperately wanted her to acquiesce.

    "It's almost over, we'll all go home and have dinner." These were comforting words. His wife walked back into the church. The funeral guests: some of his father's friends and family were planning on returning to his home for dinner and drinks following the funeral. He wanted to go now. He wanted to watch the game.

    "That's the half. Stayed tuned for highlights from around the league," the announcer said as a commercial came on. He continued to listen to the scores and highlights from around the league. The wind occasionally picked up and leaves splashed against his windshield. He looked at the church. He thought of his father. He knew his father would rather have him watching the game. He would have been appalled if he knew that his wife had planned his own funeral on an Autumn Sunday. He waited patiently as he finally watched the guests depart the church. His family entered the vehicle and his wife, sitting in the front seat, imclearbluemediately turned down the volume. His mother and children stepped into the back seat.

    "I know you're upset Michael, but it's just a part of life. You have to pay your respects to the dead at a funeral. It's not right for you to just run out on your father like that. Are you all right?" His mother was in between crying fits.

    "He's fine," his wife said for him. Mike put the car in gear and drove, exceeding the speed limit on certain streets. He approached his driveway and envisioned the grid- iron on his television screen. He put the car in park and got out in one motion. He walked impatiently into the house. Mike threw his keys down on the coffee table and turned on the television. The game was on.

    The guests arrived, not many, but enough to create a distraction for Mike's viewing of the football game. He was on his fourth gin and tonic. He wasn't counting the two beers he drank before the funeral because their effect had worn off long before it had ended. The game was nearing wrapping up and Mike was nervous. It had been a long, frustrating day for the Patriots.

    "Ok, we got 4:52 left in the game. Our score at Arrowhead is Chiefs 16 and the Patriots 7. They are beginning to feel the mistakes coming back to haunt them. Jefferson, I can recall, dropped at least three of Bledsoe's passes. . . ," the announcer was cut off by the other.

    "Don't forget Allen's fumble in the red zone," said the other announcer.

    "Well, I was getting to that. That fumble has definitely proven fatal for the Patriots in these final seconds," the first announcer commented. Mike knew the detrimental consequences of being a die-hard Patriots fan, especially this season, for they were ending games close. He remembered the Indianapolis game where the Patriots had pulled out a win in the final seconds. He felt a need to curse the announcers. They didn't know the potential of the Patriots offense. They could pull this one out just like they did with Indianapolis. He believed this and he finished his fourth gin and tonic.

    "How many is that?" His wife was leering at him.

    "Not enough." Mike was not usually so snide to her, but she knew how important the game was to him. She should have known. "Don't you think you could come and visit with some of the quests?" She had her arms crossed. Mike usually thought of his wife in a loving way. He had often told her that he loved her. These words he would say to her, though they never intrinsically registered, had a power and he contemplated using them.

    "Could you get me another drink, dear?" He said with a sarcastic tone that made his wife fume. He felt her anger standing next to him. She was getting on his nerves in a way he had never recognized before. Had she always been this way?

   "You can get your own drink. I'm really not happy with you today. I just want you to know. . ." He cut her off. "Look! Either get me a drink or shut the hell up!" He was regretful as soon as the words exited his mouth. Mike's wife stared at him with contempt and left him at his chair with the empty drink. He turned the volume up on the television. The Patriots had just scored with Bledsoe connecting to Simmons for a 39-yard gain and then acquiring a touchdown by passing to Shawn Jefferson. Then it was three and out for the Chiefs and the Patriots had 2:43 to get into field goal range. This was plenty of time. Mike could not believe the game he was watching. Its electricity and excitement amazed him. This was a truly talented team to be able to pull out a win the way they were doing. He was so relieved by the current performance of the Patriots that he even thought about going to apologize to his wife. He shouldn't have said that.

   "Bledsoe drops back and rockets a pass to big Ben Coates for an 18 yard gain!" That's huge," the announcer informed. There was a surge of invigorating passion that traveled through Mike making him feel, for the first time during the game, that the Patriots were going to win. It was no longer a question of faith, but the fact that their offense was about to turn-on and gain steam. They had so much talent if only their damn coach could put some order to it. Any or all problems with a team that had this much talent had to rest on the responsibility of the coach.

   "Surprise, Bledsoe drops back and fires. Wow! He hits Glenn which looks to be a 27 yard gain putting them well into field goal range! Unbelievable!" The announcer was ecstatic. To this, Mike stood up from his chair.

    "Yes!" He could no longer contain his enthusiasm. His mother approached the television room.

    "Mike? Can you come in here for a minute?" His mother requested.

    "Can it wait?" Mike didn't look at her. He couldn't believe the distractions. Why wasn't everyone watching the game? After all, his father, who's death brought them all together on this day, was the biggest Patriots fan he knew. It's what he would have wanted.

    "All they need is a field goal and the Patriots can leave Arrowhead stadium wiping their brow in another close win for them this season. Adam Vinatieri prepares for the snap." The announcer reflected the tension of the game with his voice. As the Patriots lined up for the field goal Mike's wife came in once again.

    "Mike, your mother wants to talk with you. Could you take some time today for your family? I know you have trouble with these kinds of things and I think, considering the way you just spoke to me, that you could come and talk with your mother and maybe even your children for god's sake." The second announcer chimed in over her last words.

    "The kick is up! It's looks good! Oh no! It hit the post! No good! No good!" The second announcer was quick to recognize that the referee signaled the field goal as a failed attempt. Mike's body deflated and all the sound in the room, including his wife's voice, became inaudible. His head was filled with the sound of his father's laughter. He recalled a time when his father had hit him across the bridge of his nose while they waited for a traffic light to turn. It was the first time he had ever struck him. He stared down at his empty drink and without recognition of the act, violently and with great precision, crashed the empty glass into his wife's forehead sending her to the ground with fragmented glass broken in a frightfully gruesome cut. As the rest of the guests entered the television room, including his children, Mike thought of his father. He slowly looked down at his hand and saw that he had cut himself. He slowly turned back to the television. They were interviewing players and coaches about the game. He looked down at his wife and saw his mother tending to the cut. He looked into his mother's eyes searching to see if she recognized her freedom from this kind of abuse. He dropped the remaining portion of the glass to the floor. A silence floated through the room. He turned the volume of the television up as loud as it would go and sat back in his chair. His two children gazed upon their mother's blood mystified that such a fluid existed inside human beings. The final score of the game was displayed on the television screen reading Patriots 14 and the Chiefs 16.

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