The Silver Linings Playbook(18)

Lying down on my bed, I pick up the picture of Nikki and tell her all about my date and how I gave the waitress a nice tip and how sad Tiffany seems and how much I can’t wait for apart time to end so Nikki and I can share raisin bran at some diner and walk through the cool early September air—and then I am crying again.

I bury my face and sob into my pillow so my parents will not hear.





Sing and Spell and Chant





I get up at 4:30 a.m. and start lifting so I will be done with my workout by kickoff, and when I finally come up from the basement, the house smells like crabby snacks, three-meats pizza, and buffalo wings. “Smells good,” I say to my mom while I put on my trash bag, and then I’m out the door for a ten-mile run.

I am shocked to see that Tiffany is jogging up and down the block, because she did not run behind me yesterday, and also, I am running in the a.m., which is not my regular time to run.

I jog toward Knight’s Park, and when I look over my shoulder, I see she’s following me again. “How did you know that I would be running early?” I say, but she keeps her head down and only follows silently.

We run our ten miles, and when I return to my house, Tiffany runs on without saying anything, as if we had never even eaten raisin bran together at the diner and nothing has changed.

I see my brother’s silver BMW parked in front of my parents’ house, so I sneak in the back door, run up the stairs, and jump into the shower. When I finish showering, I put on my Hank Baskett jersey—which my mother has laundered, getting the makeup off the numbers—and then follow the sound of the pregame show to the family room, ready to root on the Birds.

My best friend, Ronnie, is seated next to my brother, which surprises me. Both of them are wearing green away jerseys with the number 18 and the name Stallworth on the back—Ronnie’s is a cheap replica jersey with iron-on numbers, but Jake’s is authentic. Dad is in his chair, wearing his number 5 McNabb replica jersey.

When I say, “Go Birds!” my brother stands, turns to face me, puts both hands in the air, and says “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” until Ronnie and my dad also stand, face me, raise their hands in the air, and say “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” When I raise my hands in the air and say “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” all four of us do the chant, rapidly spelling the letters with our arms and bodies—“E!-A!-G!-L!-E!-S! EAGLES!”—shooting out two arms and a leg to make an E, touching our fingertips high above our heads to make an A, and so forth.

When we finish, my brother makes his way around the couch, puts an arm around my shoulders, and starts to sing the fight song, which I remember and sing with him. “Fly, Eagles, fly! On the road to victory!” I’m so happy to be singing with my brother I do not even get mad at him for putting his arm around me. We walk around the couch as we sing, “Fight, Eagles, fight! Score a touchdown, one, two, three!” I look at my dad, and he does not look away, but only starts singing with more enthusiasm. Ronnie throws his arm around me, and then I am in between my brother and my best friend. “Hit ’em low. Hit ’em high. And watch our Eagles fly!” I see that my mom has come in to watch, and she has her hand over her mouth again like she does whenever she is about to laugh or cry—her eyes look happy, so I know she is laughing under her hands. “Fly, Eagles, fly! On the road to victory!” And then Ronnie and Jake remove their arms from my neck so they can make the letters again with their bodies. “E!-A!-G!-L!-E!-S! EAGLES!” We’re all red-faced, and my father is breathing heavy, but everyone is so happy, and for the first time I really feel like I am home.

My mom sets up the food on TV trays, and the game begins. “I’m not supposed to drink,” I say when Mom distributes the bottles of Budweiser, but my father says, “You can drink beer during Eagles games.” Mom shrugs and smiles as she hands me a cold beer. I ask my brother and Ronnie why they aren’t also wearing Baskett jerseys, since Baskett is the man, and they tell me the Eagles were able to trade for Donté Stallworth, and that Donté Stallworth is now the man. Because I am wearing my Baskett jersey, I insist that Baskett is the man, to which my father blows air through his teeth, and my cocky brother says, “We’ll see soon,” which is a weird thing for him to say, considering he was the one who gave me the Baskett jersey in the first place and just two weeks ago assured me that Baskett was really the man.

My mother watches the game nervously, like she always does, because she knows that if the Eagles lose, my father will be in a bad mood for an entire week and will yell at her a lot. Ronnie and Jake trade facts about different players and check the screens on their cell phones for updates on other games and players, because they both play fantasy football, which is a computer game that gives you points for picking players who score touchdowns and gain yardage. And I glance over at my father from time to time, making sure he sees me cheering, because I know he is only willing to sit in the same room with his mentally deranged son as long as I am rooting for the Birds with everything I got. I have to admit that it feels good to sit in the same room with my father, even though he hates me and I still have not forgiven him a hundred percent for kicking me in the attic and punching me in the face.

The Houston Texans score first, and Dad starts cursing pretty loudly, so much that my mother leaves the room, saying she will bring us new beers, and Ronnie stares at the television, pretending he has not heard what my father has said, which is, “Play some f*cking defense, you piece-of-shit overpaid secondary! This is the Texans, not the Dallas Cowgirls. The f*cking Texans! Jesus f*cking Christ!”