WHEN DO I GET TO SCREAM ?!

WHY DO WE SUFFER? —

. . . on Saturday, I went to MetLife Stadium with my parents & my sister to watch Brasil play Morocco. My mom won the FIFA ticket lottery, so she was mercifully allowed to buy four tickets at only 200 bucks a pop; I bought our NJ Transit tickets for a clement $98; my sister drew Ronaldo Fenômeno’s 2002 franginha haircut with eyeliner on my dad’s bald head, and we set off, with 80,000 people: on our dense, tortuous route to the stadium. —

I am not much of a sports-rooter; my dad was a bookie, and so our fandom was mutable: hooting & sweating for whatever team the house needed. I never had passionate allegiance to any American team. Publicly, I would take a root-root-root-for-the-Home-team approach, — unless it was the Pittsburgh Steelers. . .

But from my Vovô, I inherited a genetic disorder: Vasco da Gama; and an actual religion: the Brasilian Seleção. . .

Surely, my earliest memory must be manufactured from a 1998 photograph: I was ONE, being held by my grandparents, dressed in Brasil gear, in the basement of my childhood home in Toronto, OH. . . (I also think I remember my circumcision, so maybe I am not the most reliable authority on my own memories. . .) ;

my experience of the Seleção, — very different than my grandpa, who was born in 1942, thus witnessed FIVE TRIUMPHS (no wonder his attitude toward the post 2006 teams was exasperated curmudgeonship), — has been a litany of heartbreak.

I can tell U exactly where I was for every FAILURE since 2006: the first time I truly grasped the irrevocability of God’s abandonment. Might sound extravagant. But for a decade I was a good Catholic boy: submitting to the kneeling doldrums of tedium, suffering, repetition, all for a glimpse of GRACE & transcendence. And I brought the same faith to my team. . .

— There’s a scene in Sergio Rodrigues’s The Move (the best soccer novel in any language) where Murilo Filho is showing his son Murilo Neto a black & white tape of a 10 minute stretch of Brasil’s semi-final against France in 1958. He’s pointing out Pelé, Garrincha, Vavá, and they’re all fucking up. The game is horrible, clunky, boring. He turns off the tape and Neto says, “why the hell did you show me that?” His father says,

“What we just witnessed was the moment in which the future was on the razor’s edge, the coin still spinning, will it be heads or tails? Impossible to know. Soccer is filled with immense plains, dead hours. . . a hubbub of noise, unsatisfied intentions, accidents, strokes of good and bad luck. In those dead hours anything can happen. And when it happens, it’s a lightning strike that completely changes the whole landscape.

That’s why soccer can only be relived in its greatest moments, edited, sanitized, because it’s the expectation that any moment can be one of these greatest moments that makes us traverse its immense deserts. If we already knew what they would be and when, the drought would kill us of thirst.”

Brasil ended up winning the game 5-2. Seventeen year old Pelé, who played horrifically in that 10 minute stretch, scored a hat-trick in the second half.

All I wanted to see at Metlife was one of those lightning strikes. . .

WHAT DOES PROVIDENCE LOOK LIKE? —

. . . and I don’t mean the capital of Rhode Island, I mean God’s kind guidance, — his HAND. I witnessed it at Local 42 on Wednesday night. Caught up with plans, I had only gotten a chance to watch the 4th quarters of the NBA Finals. I root for the Knicks because I love New York City: I’ve lived here for 7 years. My girlfriend is born & raised here. I have a Knicks hat I stole from my sister.

Someone asked me why I don’t root for the Cavs since I’m from Ohio:

BRUH, I HAVE LITERALLY NEVER BEEN TO CLEVELAND!

(My dad got tickets for us to go see Lebron play when I was in 8th grade, but I got detention; he sold the tickets, punitively, — possibly rescuing me from Cavs fandom.)

I didn’t wanna go out to watch the game. I wanted to sit at home, ALONE, smoke weed, and watch every second unbothered. But I had plans with Chavez & his girlfriend. They made it easy for me; they came to Local 42. (Which lately has been PACKED with Brasilians, — they even hung up a Brasilian flag; they’re an unofficial/official Brasil watch location for the World Cup.

I see Brasilians at Local, and I completely FREAK OUT: they shrug like, No shit, there’s a million Brasilians in town right now. . . But I’m like, U guys don’t get it! This is my bar! And usually the only Brasilians here are ones I brought!)

We got a seat right by the jukebox. It was packed, but not unbearable. One tottering drunk breathing hotly down my neck. We sat thru the first half: the Spurs completely slaughtered the Knicks. A few casuals left, — eye-rolly girls in Knicks baby-tees. But the majority stayed, locked in, believing somehow that their God had brought them so far thru this desert and would guide them home.

We were right. The Knicks slowly chipped down the lead until the entire bar was in a frenzy. When OG Anunoby tipped in that unlikely game winner it was all uvulas, handslaps, & cacophony. I wrote in my journal the next morning,

“Last night was one of the best sports moments of my life. . . It was completely electric: the reason why sports are so amazing. Going out to the street, after, everybody was in perfect concord, symbiosis. I was high-fiving strangers. Suddenly it felt like our accomplishment: our hope & our joy.”

— Witnessing too functional a God can spoil Ur expectations. . . at MetLife, Morocco came out ROCKING: we were sitting behind the goal they were attacking; we could see every errant Brasilian pass, every bad touch & defensive mistake; it didn’t help, either, that the police were all up in our section, kicking people out of seats, angrily: the vibes were NOT GOOD. The torcida organizada behind us kept banging on their drums, but our collective songs were strained and half-hearted. It didn’t seem like there would be anything worth singing about. The sun’s heat felt literally infernal. And Morocco’s intrusions into our box felt like the devil’s pitchfork up our collective ass. . .

20 minutes in, I was exhausted and wanted to HURL. And then Morocco scored: we watched as our red counterparts behind the opposite goal leapt up & roared euphorically. . .

Had our God let us down once again?

WHAT DOES GOD OWE U? —

. . . if U ask my mother, especially when it comes to the Seleção, she would say: A WHOLE FUCKING LOT. She’s inherited my grandpa’s currish mantle, and she was sitting to my right, cursing like Job,

“May the stars of the twilight turn dark, that the night wait for the light—but there be none! Let it see not a glimmer of dawn! Why couldn’t I die after leaving the womb—just go out the loins and stop breathing. I could just have lain down in silence, slept and enjoyed my repose.”

Usually I was more consoling, but all I could muster was a fuckmuttered bark: “BE POSITIVE!”. I was stress-eating a pretzel I didn’t even want, — whose provenance I couldn’t even identify (ground? I hope not). Anxious like I’d been bitten by a wild raccoon and was awaiting the first symptoms of rabies. . .

But in the 32nd minute, Vini Jr. got a pass in the box from Bruno Guimarães, beat two defenders, and stuffed it in the back of the net.

Reader, I screamed more than I’ve ever screamed in my life.

First it was animalic & unintelligible, then I started pushing my crackling voice to the breaking point saying, “GRAÇAS A DEUS VINI! VOÇÊ É NOSSO CRAQUE VINI OBRIGADO DEUS!!”,

Vini stepped up, said I’m gonna be the ONE! — join the lineage stretching back to the great Arthur Friedenreich, Brasil’s first star, the mulatto who scored the winning goal against Uruguay in 1919, (from The Black Man in Brasilian Futebol (1947), by Mario Filho),

“. . . the crowd ran to Friedenreich, carried him in triumph. No other brasilian player before him had known such outsized popularity. Friedenreich’s muddy cleats, on display in the window of the Oscar Machado House, like jewels of the highest value. Pictures of him in the papers, on walls. Friedenreich’s head, Friedenreich’s whole body, the feet of Friedenreich.”

. . . but of course, sometimes the Lord doesn’t dole out His full blessings. Brasil played better, had a few good chances in the second half, but the game ended 1-1. The Moroccans sung & danced their way out of the stadium; the Brasilians mostly moped & complained. —

Suddenly we were out in the desert again; the endless parking lot; the sun was going down; everybody had to urinate. Our hoarded, burbling energy unable to find outlet in victory’s euphoria or defeat’s lament; — it was a fucking tie. We directed our stifled yawps internecinely: at each other’s throats all the way back to Manhattan. We made some bad transportation decisions, and at one point, my dad was trying to get into any car he saw: one pulled over near us and he took off running, “dad, stop running!” and banged on the window. The driver said, “Uber for Edna?” and he threw up his hands, “FUCK!” —

1-1. We would not have the Knicks’ serene euphoria today. — But as I sat down Sunday night and thought about the game, I realized I had been acting like it was a bummer. How foolish!

I realized: I got to see Vini Jr. score at a sold out MetLife, next to my family; and what I took away from the game, immediately, was annoyance that we didn’t win, that I didn’t get to witness more magic. I felt beatdown & exhausted after the game. But I should’ve treated the whole thing like a prayer:

Thank U for allowing me to see transcendence is possible. . . and for allowing me the hope that one day, I will be SAVED. . .