Shannon and Colleen are sitting at the kitchen table having coffee and chatting.

“So?” Shannon says. “They win?”

I shake my head.

“That’s too bad,” she says, not even trying to pretend she cares. “Is Dev ok?”

I shake my head again. “He’s down there crying,” I say.

Shannon looks at Colleen with her mouth slightly agape, as if she’s looking at a kitten in a store window. Colleen returns the same look. In unison, they expel an Awwww.

“I tried to make him feel better,” I say. “It was tough to see him like that.”

“Kids cry easily at this age,” Shannon says. “He’ll be ok.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say. “The kids on Edwin’s basketball team were like that too.”

“Yeah, but in that case, it was because you were such an awful coach,” Shannon says.

My chest goes concave as if I’ve just been punched in the chest.

Shannon laughs. “I was totally joking, honey,” she says.

“Very funny,” I say.

My pocket vibrates.

“Must be Bill,” Shannon says.

I take out my phone and wander into the living room.

Bill_Celticfan: Dude

Titletown_Dougie: dude

Bill_Celticfan: I’m still in shock

Titletown_Dougie: I know. me too.

Bill_Celticfan: they were ahead almost the whole game

Titletown_Dougie: i know

Bill_Celticfan: I mean I knew the Lakers would make a run, but…

Titletown_Dougie: yeah. I was already raising the banner in my mind.

Bill_Celticfan: 18..woulda been 18.

Titletown_Dougie: we’re still up tho. Lakers only have 16.

Bill_Celticfan: 11…you know I don’t count the five when they were the Minneapolis Lakers.

Titletown_Dougie: you’re grasping at straws, man.

Bill_Celticfan: you know what? Let the world think they have 16. we both know the truth.

Titletown_Dougie: yeah yeah

Bill_Celticfan: don’t flake on me. this is when we need to stay strongest.

Titletown_Dougie: ok

Bill_Celticfan: and hey…at least we have the sweet release of death to look forward to

Titletown_Dougie: i used that argument on devlin. didn’t go over well.

Bill_Celticfan: took it hard?

Titletown_Dougie: yeah

Bill_Celticfan: he’ll be fine. kids are resilient…we’re the ones who suffer. This is what we live for

Titletown_Dougie: come on – friends, family, health

Bill_Celticfan: yeah yeah…you know what I mean.

Titletown_Dougie: I know

Bill_Celticfan: alright, I’m gonna go ketel one and soda this feeling out of my system.

Titletown_Dougie: alright

Bill_Celticfan: patriots training camp soon

Titletown_Dougie: yup

Bill_Celticfan: think pleasant tom-brady-men’s-magazine-homoerotic-overtone-photo-shoot thoughts


Straight as an arrow.


Yup. Ladies' man all the way.


You're not making this easy on me, dude.

Titletown_Dougie: funny. Later.

Bill_Celticfan: later…and hey

Titletown_Dougie: yeah?

Bill_Celticfan: fail better.

Titletown_Dougie: what?

Bill_Celticfan: fail better

Titletown_Dougie: ok

************

Links:
Travelling: Intro / Book Jacket, Chapter 1: Cribbagegate, Chapter 2: Two e-mails, Chapter 3: Pattern, Chapter 4: Shattered, Chapter 5: Hilarious Pee, Chapter 6: Suicide, Chapter 7/8: Coaching High school, Shark attacks and appetizers, Chapter 9: June, Chapter 10: 18 and oh no, Chapter 11: DNA, Chapter 12: Peanut Butter Sandwiches, Chapter 13: Tom Brady and the McGuffin, Chapter 14: Game 1, Chapter 15: Who the H is John Havlicek?, Chapters 16 - 17, Chapter 18: Game 2: Great White, Chapter 19: Pickle, Chapter 20: Marty McFly, Chapter 21 / 22: standard deviation, all the pretty flowers, Chapter 23: Game 3: Black Hills, Chapter 24: Twister, Chapter 25: Game 4, Chapter 26: Patriotic Agony, Chapter 27: Locusts, Chapter 28: skype, Chapter 29: Click, Chapter 30: Superman, Chapter 30: Ass Brunch Chapter 32: Mammoth, Chapter 33: Pathetic, Chapter 34: Purple and Gold, Chapter 35: Chowdah, Chapter 36: Mastermind, Chapter 37: m&m cookie dough, Chapter 38: taste, Chapter 39: Dance with the Devil, Chapter 40: Game 7, Chapter 41: 17 to 11, Chapter 42: One Mold, Chapter 43: Stink Smell

Labels: 17 to 12, chapter 41, traveling

Dev starts to tear up as Sasha Vujacic hits another free throw, putting the Lakers up 4 with 11 seconds left in the game.

I feel like Dev looks, but an ingrained parental mechanism keeps me from showing it. Something about a father and son jointly overcome with grief over a sporting event strikes me as pathetic.

So I have to be the strong one.

“No need to cry,” I say as the clock ticks down.

I fumble for the remote. I can’t watch the Lakers celebrate. I hit the power button just as Kobe Bryant starts to jump around the court. At least we manage to avoid the confetti.

“So you want to play some pool?” I say.

Dev just sits there, red-eyed and sniffling.

“It’s just a basketball game,” I say.

God, listen to me. The Lakers just squeaked past us in a Finals Game 7 where we led most of the way, and I’m calling it just a basketball game. I can practically hear Jack Nicholson cackling all the way from Los Angeles.

“That was bullcrap,” Dev says. Bullcrap is one of those borderline curse words he’s allowed to say without being yelled at.

“Yes it was,” I agree, keeping calm.

“The officials sucked,” he says. Suck is another one of those words.

Now if I were talking to Bill, I would agree wholeheartedly that the officials sucked. I’d go off on the home-cookin’ calls down the stretch, and I might even gripe about how I thought Kobe intentionally undercut Perkins from behind in Game 6 to bust up his leg and keep him out of Game 7. With Bill, I could be my illogical, irrational fan self without consequences.

But this isn’t Bill. This conversation has consequences. Hell, past conversations had consequences, the result of which I’m seeing right now.

Time to end the cycle.

“Now, now,” I say. “The Lakers won fair and square.”

Dev drops his face into a couch pillow and cries into it. His muffled weeping makes me feel concern, guilt and anger all at once. Concern because I worry how he’ll weather disappointments in the future. Guilt because I may be partly to blame for his breakdown. Anger because I want to just put this moment of Celtic defeat behind me, and his crying isn’t helping. Not to mention, I really hate the idea that the Lakers can make my kid cry. It’s like they have power over us, and that’s discomforting.

“Hey, hey, hey,” I say. “Come on. This isn’t the end of the world.”

The noise from the pillow stops, but Dev keeps his face buried in shame.

“You know what?” I say. “In the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal.”

Dev lifts his reddened face off the pillow to absorb my words of wisdom.

“I mean, someday, I’m going to die,” I say. “And someday, you’ll die. And…this game won’t mean anything at all, really.”

Dev looks at me like I’m insane. I think he might be right.

“That wasn’t very comforting, was it,” I say.

Dev’s head drops back into the pillow.

Billiard balls rattle behind us. Tooth and Patch are at the pool table. I wait for the inevitable snide comment – to be told how closely I came to acting mature, and blew it.

No such comment comes. For the first time, Patch and Tooth are speechless.

I leave Dev alone to mourn in private. Anything I say at this point will only do more harm than good.

And besides, I can’t take any more crying.

************

Links:
Travelling: Intro / Book Jacket, Chapter 1: Cribbagegate, Chapter 2: Two e-mails, Chapter 3: Pattern, Chapter 4: Shattered, Chapter 5: Hilarious Pee, Chapter 6: Suicide, Chapter 7/8: Coaching High school, Shark attacks and appetizers, Chapter 9: June, Chapter 10: 18 and oh no, Chapter 11: DNA, Chapter 12: Peanut Butter Sandwiches, Chapter 13: Tom Brady and the McGuffin, Chapter 14: Game 1, Chapter 15: Who the H is John Havlicek?, Chapters 16 - 17, Chapter 18: Game 2: Great White, Chapter 19: Pickle, Chapter 20: Marty McFly, Chapter 21 / 22: standard deviation, all the pretty flowers, Chapter 23: Game 3: Black Hills, Chapter 24: Twister, Chapter 25: Game 4, Chapter 26: Patriotic Agony, Chapter 27: Locusts, Chapter 28: skype, Chapter 29: Click, Chapter 30: Superman, Chapter 30: Ass Brunch Chapter 32: Mammoth, Chapter 33: Pathetic, Chapter 34: Purple and Gold, Chapter 35: Chowdah, Chapter 36: Mastermind, Chapter 37: m&m cookie dough, Chapter 38: taste, Chapter 39: Dance with the Devil, Chapter 40: Game 7, Chapter 41: 17 to 11, Chapter 42: One Mold

Labels: chapter 41, game 7, traveling