Don't Forget to Write

Brother Bruno Breaks Bones

When I opened the door to apartment 21 Milo was hurtling himself down the hallway, his paws slipping on the hardwood and his sides bumping along the walls as he bounced left and right with his tongue dangling out of his mouth. He jumped up in my arms and licked my face until I was absolutely soaked in dog-spit. I got up and walked into the living room.

"That's a good look for you," Bruno said with a smirk, looking at the bandages. He hugged me, "glad you're alright."

"Thanks. I'm not going to be able to play for the rest of the season though."

"That's for the best, you want to make sure that brain of yours still works. You can't afford to lose any more brain cells anyway. Besides, it'll give us some time to hang out seeing as I can't play either."

"What do you mean?"

"I got ejected from the game and suspended from playing. The Conference Committee needs to decide for how long."

"What?! How?"

"Well, I remember punching that giant dude in the face, then it's kind of blurry, but I remember him being on the ground and his face being covered in blood when Sammy pulled me off of him."

"Jesus Christ, Bruno. I thought you said you weren't a fighter? Why'd you do that?"

"I'm not a fighter unless provoked. I don't know man, when I saw what he did I was furious and then he was all smug about it, just kind of smiling and nodding as if he was proud of having cracked open your skull, meanwhile you were bleeding out on the ground. And then I just snapped."

"You're an idiot."

"I don't regret a single thing Petey boy. Nobody is gonna fuck with you like that."

"Well, thanks Bruno. I hope they let you back on the team."

He took a mock bow. "They will, I'm sure of it. Worse fights have happened. Two seasons ago Sammy sent a kid to the hospital. Knocked him out with one punch. They let him start playing again within two weeks. And Moose used to get into at least one fight a season. I'll be back. And don't sweat it, you'd do the same for me." He looked at me sharply, his eyebrows low and furrowed. "You like to pretend you're this calm dude, but there's a storm behind those eyes. You aren't calm, you just know how to hide the chaos. It's a thin mask, it only takes the right events for it to get unleashed."

"I don't know about all that."

"I do. You're a man. A real man. And men have a reserve of rage inside of them for when they might need it. But only real men, gentlemen even, are able to know when to use it."

"So, you're a real gentleman then?"

"Peter, I'm more gentlemanly than Prince Harry."

I shook my head. "I would hardly call you a gentleman. You have less manners than a sailor with Tourette's."

He shrugged, then put his finger up to me and shuffled into his room. When he came out he was holding a pair of goalkeeper gloves. "I got these for you the other day, happy birthday. I know you won't get much use out of them right now, but at least you'll have a fresh pair for next season."

I grabbed the gloves and turned them over in my hands. They were a good quality model. Not the $20 gloves I usually bought, the ones that got all ripped up within a few weeks and didn't have any actual hand protection. These were professional-grade - meant for the likes of world-class goalkeepers, like Tim Howard or Joe Hart. The finger sleeves had a plastic spine in them to keep your fingers from bending back too far, which helped to prevent them from jamming and breaking. The back of the hand area was rigid, which would make for better contact when punching the ball (or an opponent's face) and the grip was black, my favorite color.

"Thanks Bruno. These are exactly the ones I wanted."

"No problem brotha, sorry you can't use 'em right away."

"That's alright, these will serve as inspiration for my recovery."

I pulled the bottle of whiskey out of my bag. "Care to join me in my birthday celebration?"

"Johnny Walker Black, very nice."

"Gift from the parents."

"Should you be drinking in your condition?"

Taking a second to process, "... of course. How else would I get rid of the pain?"

We got out two glasses and drank away our troubles while playing video games and talking about nonsense, and for a little while I felt normal again. The whiskey hit me harder than it usually would, and I could only look at the screen for about half an hour before it hurt my head. Soon I was in bed, but couldn't fall asleep as my mind raced with questions of what to do now? I had more time for studies, sure. But I should get a job now, too, so I could attempt to keep what little money I had left? Where would I work? Bars? Construction? Retail? It all seemed so damn trivial. I was tired of working these dead-end jobs all the time. They constantly interfered with school, which in turn affects the career I would hope to get after school. I remembered at some of these jobs being surrounded by men and women in their forties and fifties, most of them with sticks up their asses and a misplaced sense of superiority. They were miserable with their lives but were also too lazy to have done anything about it in their youth, that laziness had carried over, so now they all thought it was too late. Their ship was coming into port, and there was nothing they could do to change their lives, even though they had barely entered middle-age. I couldn't be surrounded by that negativity again. And beyond that, I couldn't have a boss again. Most of my bosses hated me, saying things like "You're a great worker, but you are too damn arrogant." I didn't think I was arrogant, I liked to think that I was innovative, and occasionally challenged management on their ideas. It was all healthy, the swapping of ideas could never be a bad thing. But my bosses took it as me questioning their knowledge and ability, and thinking that I knew better. It wasn't any of that, I was just a curious person with lots of ideas and I wanted to get them out there, and maybe one of them would stick, or I could learn from them why my idea wouldn't work. But when they called me arrogant, and dismissed my ideas without even an explanation or discussion, it made me furious, and then made me disrespect their authority, which in turn transformed me into the arrogant prick they had previously assumed that I was. Some people call this "having a problem with authority", to those people I say it is authority that has the problem with me.

When I started coaching, around the age of 18, a mentor said to me "How your kids treat you is a direct response to your leadership towards them." And since then I always held myself as a coach, and any person in power above me, accountable for the actions of the people they are meant to lead. It seemed harsh, but people in leadership positions must be judged harshly. If someone wants to be a leader, that means dealing with a lot of bullshit in the most elegant way possible.

I tried to push out all of these ideas about employment and money and things to do now that my season was prematurely over. I had suddenly and unexpectedly fallen out of my comfortable perch of near-poverty, and into the much less forgiving state of poverty. Without a team, a job, or a fully functioning brain, things seemed pretty dark. But the only thing to do right now was to sleep, and hope things got better in the morning.