“So now that we are done dancing, can I talk about Eagles football again? Because I have a lot of Eagles fans out there waiting for me.”
“After nailing the routine, you can do whatever you want, Pat,” Tiffany whispers into my ear, and then I wait a long time for her to stop hugging me.
After I change in the storage closet, Tiffany tells me there are no more naked teenagers backstage, so I go to greet my fans. When I hop down off the stage, Mrs. Webster grabs my hands, looks into my eyes, and says, “Thank you.” She keeps looking into my eyes, but the old woman doesn’t say anything else, which makes me feel sort of weird.
Finally Veronica says, “What my mother means to say is that tonight meant a lot to Tiffany.”
Emily points at me and says, “Pap!”
“That’s right, Em,” Ronnie says. “Uncle Pat.”
“Pap! Pap! Pap!”
We all laugh, but then I hear fifty Indian men chanting, “Baskett! Baskett! Baskett!”
“Better go greet your rowdy fans,” Ronnie says, so I walk up the aisle toward the sea of Eagles jerseys. Other audience members I don’t know pat me on the back and congratulate me as I weave my way through them.
“You were so good up there!” my mother says in a way that lets me know she was surprised by my excellent dancing skills, and then she hugs me. “I’m so proud!”
I hug her back and then ask, “Is Dad here?”
“Forget Dad,” Jake says. “You got sixty or so wild men waiting to take you to the most epic tailgate party of your life.”
“Hope you weren’t planning on getting any sleep tonight,” Caitlin says to me.
“You ready to end the Pat Peoples curse?” Cliff asks me.
“What?” I say.
“The Birds haven’t won since you stopped watching. Tonight we’re taking drastic measures to end the curse,” Scott says. “We’re sleeping in the Asian Invasion bus, right outside the Wachovia parking lot. We set up the tailgate party at daybreak.”
“Ashwini is driving around the block right now, waiting for us,” Cliff says. “So. Are you ready?”
I am a little shaken by the news, especially since I just finished such an excellent dance routine and was hoping to simply enjoy the accomplishment for more than ten minutes. “I don’t have my clothes.”
But my mom pulls my Baskett jersey out of a duffel bag I hadn’t noticed before and says, “You have everything you need in here.”
“What about my meds?”
Cliff holds up a little plastic bag with my pills inside.
Before I can say or do anything else, the Asian Invasion begins chanting louder: “Baskett! Baskett! Baskett!” The fat men pick me up above their heads and carry me out of the auditorium, past the fountain full of fish, out of the Plaza Hotel, and onto the streets of Philadelphia. And then I am in the Asian Invasion bus, drinking a beer and singing, “Fly, Eagles, fly! On the road to victory …”
In South Philadelphia, we stop at Pat’s for cheesesteaks—which take a long time to prepare, as there are sixty or so of us, and no one would dare go next door to Geno’s Steaks, because Geno’s steaks are inferior—and then we are at the Wachovia parking lot, parked just outside the gate so we will be the first vehicle admitted in the morning and therefore will be guaranteed the lucky parking spot. We drink, sing, throw a few footballs, and run around on the concrete; we roll out the Astroturf and play a few Kubb games under the streetlights, and even though I have only had two or three beers, I begin to tell everyone I love them because they came to my dance recital, and I also tell them I’m sorry for abandoning the Eagles mid-season and that it was for a good reason, but I just can’t say what—and then I am on a bus seat and Cliff is waking me up, saying, “You forgot to take your night meds.”
When I wake up the next morning, my head is on Jake’s shoulder, and it feels good to be so close to my brother, who is still asleep. Quietly I stand and look around and realize that everyone—Scott, the fat men, Cliff, all fifty or so Asian Invasion members—is asleep on the bus. Two or three men are sleeping in every seat, with their heads on each other’s shoulders. Everywhere brothers.
I tiptoe to the front of the bus, past Ashwini, who—in the driver’s seat—is asleep with his mouth wide open.
Once outside, on the small patch of grass between the street and the sidewalk, I begin the same push-up and sit-up routine I used to do back in the bad place, before I had access to free weights and a stationary bike and the Stomach Master 6000.
After an hour or so, first light comes.
As I finish the last set of sit-ups, I feel as though I have burned off my cheesesteak and the beers I drank the night before, but I can’t help feeling like I should go for a run, so I run a few miles, and when I return, my friends are still sleeping.
As I stand next to Ashwini and watch my boys sleep, I feel happy because I have so many friends—a whole busful.
I realize that I left the Plaza Hotel without saying goodbye to Tiffany, and I feel a little bad about that, even though she said I could do whatever I wanted after we performed so well. Also I am very eager to write my first letter to Nikki. But there is Eagles football to think about now, and I know that an Eagles victory is just about the only thing that will smooth things over with my father, so I begin to hope, and I even say a little prayer to God, who I bet was pretty impressed with my dance routine last night, so maybe He will cut me a break today. Looking at all those sleeping faces, I realize I have missed my green-shirted brothers, and I begin to anticipate the day.