Note: Brian Oliu is the Commissioner of the University of Alabama English Department Football League, located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Here, Oliu revisits an e-mail sent to the English Department Listserv the night of the release of “New Moon”, the second film in the Twilight Saga. With the third film of vampire-abstinence porn coming our way later this summer, it seemed like an apt time to get ourselves in the mood for love, but not that kind of love.
Bellas & Lindos,
Before you, University of Alabama English Department Football League, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars, points of light and reason. ….And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn’t see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything.
Perhaps you are thinking that I am being too dramatic concerning these things; perhaps you will call me a monster–I do not want to be a monster. I may not be a human, but I am a man…yet at what cost? I am a…yes…say it…I am beautiful–I am a m…me…member of the finest English Department sporting collective in the history of the world (very funny), but I am not used to feeling so…human. Is it always like this?
About three things I am absolutely positive. First, I play football. Second, there is a part of me–and I’ve never known how potent that part may be–that thirsts for the ability to reel in an under-thrown pass as if it is nothing. And third, I am unconditionally and irrevocably in love with everything about this wicked, wicked game, despite the knowledge that our relationship can’t continue to balance, as it has, on the point of a knife. We are doomed to fall off one edge or the other, depending entirely upon my decisions, or my instincts. The decision is made, made before I’d ever consciously chosen, and I am committed to seeing it through. Because there is nothing more terrifying to me, more excruciating, than the thought of turning away from football. It is an impossibility.
And so the lion has fallen in love with the lamb. What a stupid lamb. What a sick masochistic lion.
I will fashion an old motorbicycle with the help of a friend–I will ride it more carefully than these echoes of my past–these Ben Roethlisbergers, these Kellen Winslow Juniors, and I will dash through the evening’s air like a song, like a wave crashing on the rocks in the Puget Sound, and I will throw myself into the water with the knowledge that this is the first and last day of forever–the cold touch of the football on my skin never failed to make my heart thud erratically. Twice, when that happened, I caught a look from the football (does it know? it knows.), the ball making me sure that it could somehow hear those heartbeats, as I secured it in my arm, cradled it, despite its thirst, it being bad for me–I knew at any moment it could be too much, and my life could end — so quickly that I might not even notice. And I couldn’t make myself be afraid. I couldn’t think of anything, except that the football was touching me, touching my heart.
The football turns to me and says “I infuriate myself. The way I can’t seem to keep from putting you in danger. My very existence puts you at risk. Sometimes I truly hate myself,” and I don’t understand. “They will chase after you,” the football says, and I understand this to be true, but I can’t understand it in my heart, which is beating faster than I could ever imagine, like waking up from a nightmare.
I will whisper to the football when we are in the endzone alone, that I am here; I’m here…which, roughly translated means I would rather die than stay away from you, football. My body will be tired from evading would be tacklers (a werewolf perhaps? you tease!), and the football will look at me and ask ‘Are you still faint from the run? Or was it my kissing expertise?’ as if it has done these things before and it knows what it is doing. You are dangerous, football.
I will admit something: I was afraid… because, for, well, obvious reasons, I can’t stay with you, football. I cannot take this football home with me; it does not belong to me–it belongs to the world—it has always belonged to the world, to time, to things that I know nothing about, but things that leave me breathless. I probably should have been used to that by now — but I wasn’t. I had a feeling that football wasn’t the kind of game anyone got used to. And I’m afraid that I’d like to stay with you, much more than I should.
The football looks at me before I set it back down on the 20 yard-line: dazzling (it dazzles me!), shimmering in the light like a mirror broken into a million pieces. “If I could dream at all, it would be about you. And I’m not ashamed of it,” it says, and I nod. I understand that it cannot stay–yet what is it thinking? Just because someone refuses to tell you what they’re thinking, even if all the while they’re making cryptic little remarks specifically designed to keep you up at night wondering what they could possibly mean… now, why would that be frustrating? For an instant, I felt a thrill of genuine fear, raising the hair on my arms. The look only lasted a second, but it chilled me more than the freezing wind.
I told you I’m not going anywhere, football. Don’t be afraid. As long as it makes you happy, I’ll be here SUNDAY AT 10AM.
You’re intoxicated by my very presence,
The Commissioner
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This is by far the most unique piece that was retrieved using my “Vampire Weekend” google alert…. So far anyway.
This was great, but there’s one minor problem with the story…the English department has a football team? When I was there we had a competitive drinking team known as “Sigma Tau Delta.” My how the times have changed.
Ha. Yes, we have a football team. We have found that we are much better at drinking when we are less organized.