A writer in Brooklyn tries his best to be a "good man" while navigating old friendships held together through a fantasy football league.

My friends and I belong to a league. It’s a fantasy football league, ten teams, standard scoring, though some of the guys want to get rid of kickers next season. Too random, goes the thinking. Not enough strategy. We say the league’s a good way to keep in touch fifteen years after high school, and it is. It’s also a good way to keep arguing about petty, inane bullshit. Men don’t make new friends past a certain age. There are studies on it. ‘Til death do we part.

My phone rumbles along the bar top. Another dispatch from the league.

“I’ll take ‘Woke Fuckery’ for $500.” Dan’s been blowing up the group chat tonight, because it’s his night off from work and he’s drinking imperial IPAs on his couch in Reno. “Is it me or do Amory’s libtard tears taste extra salty tonight?”

Dan follows his dig with an upside-down face emoji and a zipper-mouth emoji. These symbols are like hieroglyphics. They mean something, but to hell if the rest of us can discern what. Dan’s got some rough edges, sure, but at least he’s honest about them. He’s a good guy. So is the target of his ire, Amory, who’s been floating a new idea: he wants us to refer to ourselves as fantasy team “stewards,” not fantasy team “owners.” Amory’s the kind of earnest soul that texts our league of overgrown juveniles “Be the change you want to see in the world” without a splash of irony. He and Dan have been our group’s existential poles since tenth grade, and they’re why the old arguments about fractional scoring and a league constitution have given way to political brawls in this here year of our Lord, 2017.

“Come on, guys, it’s kickoff time.” This is a text from Mitch. No one replies because no one replies to Mitch anymore. Though he’s right. I set down my phone and soak in the illumed wonder of the American sports bar experience.

“Welcome to snowy Green Bay and Sunday Night Football,” growls the lead announcer from seven different big screens. The announcer’s voice is famous for its raggedness, and it settles over my mind like warm broth. I raise a couple fingers to signal the bartender that I’m ready for another round.

Thanks to high definition, the diehards shivering in Green Bay cause me to do the same on my barstool in post-hipster Brooklyn. The prices we pay for technology. My phone rumbles again. I ignore it and focus on the nearest screen. For the past month, I’ve had a string of gimme matchups. Not so this week. I’m down twelve points to Ali, the lone woman in our league, something she’s both proud of and exasperated by. But she’s played her full lineup while I still have a Green Bay tight end, the majestically-named King Kaufman III. Expectation rips through my nervous system as he and his teammates jog on to the snow-smeared field. Winning at small things like this matters, I think. It makes losing at the big things more tolerable.

My man King isn’t even looked at on Green Bay’s first drive. “Why do they even try to run the ball?” I ask the man two stools over. He’s also drinking alone and just shrugs. Talking here during a night game is always a delicate proposition. I pick up my phone. It’s Mitch, again.

“Big matchup between Ali and Thrope.” Then yet another message, as if trying to pry a reply from the abyss. “Huge playoff implications.”

Amory relents because he’s Amory. “Yeah,” he texts. “First place on the line.”

We’re two weeks out from the semis. Four teams qualify for the playoffs in our league. Ali and I have already clinched berths. Amory’s probably in but needs to find another win somewhere. Dan was eliminated from contention a month back but savors the role of potential spoiler. It allows him to continue in the fine art of smack-talk. Then there’s Mitch. This is Mitch’s last year in the fantasy league because of what he’s done in real life. His team was dead as the American Century in late October. Then he started winning. And kept winning, and suddenly, he’s got a chance at the postseason. It’s awful. It’s unjust. It’s further proof that an asteroid killed us all a year back and we’re stuck in purgatory being tested by a young, twisted god.

King Kaufman III slips on a snow patch and rolls an ankle in the second quarter. He’s declared out for the game soon thereafter, making my loss certain. Ali texts me a middle finger emoji, then “Tough loss, bubba. See you in the playoffs.” I order more beers and some wings, too. My sister calls. I let it ring out. We’ve already spoken twice today and a third conversation seems indulgent. The group chat keeps rumbling. It’s mostly Dan going on about how hot the girlfriend of the Green Bay quarterback is, how he wants to do filthy, indescribable things to her. Then he describes those things. Mitch pipes in a “+1” in agreement, and something between wrath and sorrow fills my chest.

The game ends. I pay my bill and salute the bartender and stagger toward a crisp November night, sleepy and half-drunk.

Fucking Mitch. He’s ruined everything, and not just the league. An old Italian in a tweed hat holds open the door. This neighborhood used to be all Italian. I wonder what he thinks about the changes. Mixed feelings, probably.

“Make America good again,” he says, a pair of cataract blues searching for my face.

“You’re a gentleman, sir,” I say. Then I walk home.

Hemingway’s tail starts thumping against the kitchen tile as soon as he hears the groan of stairs. Not for the first time, I promise he’ll have a yard someday. North Brooklyn’s no place for outsized Irish setters, no matter how often I take him to the park. I’ve wronged a lot of people in my life, but it’s the dog I apologize to.

We wander McCarren Park under a cloak of muddy stars. The air snaps of near-winter. The only other people I see are a pack of teenage boys playing Pokémon Go. Hem sniffs yellow grass and the remnants of a flower bed—he’s a romantic like that. He zigzags with his snout low, hunting for food scraps. He’s not one to wait for purpose. He finds it.

My mind returns to Mitch and my sister. He and Ashley got together so long ago I don’t remember introducing them but they both swear I did. I gave a sloppy, immemorable speech at the wedding that referenced their shared passion for itineraries. Now they’re getting divorced. Ignoring it until you can’t is the only reasonable human response. The clichést of clichés: Mitch got caught banging his paralegal. He swore he’d ended it, then got caught again. Ashley kicked him out of their Capitol Hill apartment and served him with papers. It splattered public two weeks into the season. Another group chat was formed, sans Mitch. Unfair to boot him for his personal life, went one argument. More unfair to Thrope to not boot him, went the counter. The latter won out because Ali argued it, and she’s both our alpha and our lawyer. So we’d play out the rest of the year, and find a replacement in the offseason. Could I have quit the league? Made a quiet act of loud solidarity with my sister? Yes. But I didn’t. Mitch put us in this position. Not me.

It’s been a strange knot of months, all the more so because Mitch—consistently bad at fantasy football, never a champ—didn’t do the honorable thing and bow out. Instead, he willed himself into a contender. It’s like he has a bunch of newfound free time or something.

Hem has pulled us to a bench where he’s sniffing someone’s shoes. It’s a woman sitting alone under a streetlamp. She has a head full of silver hair and is wrapped in a snug down coat. I worry Hem may have been bothering her. Non-dog people may be weird but they’re still people. I tug him away and manage a belated apology.

“Glory and grace.” She points to Hem, whose tongue droops out the side of his mouth like a long, pink pepper. Her words carry a Caribbean lilt. “But ask the animals, and they will teach you.”

I don’t recognize the quote but years of half-Presbyterianism and half-Catholicism have cued me to holy-person voice. “Bible?”

“Job. One of my favorites. Poetry and brimstone.”

The woman introduces herself as Pastor Ruth. An open notebook sits in her lap. I ask what it’s for. She explains she’s working on a sermon, and thought some night air might help. “A tricky one,” she says. “On the blended natures of sin and forgiveness.”

“Oh,” I say. “Heavy stuff.”

She nods and asks our names.

“This is Hemingway,” I say. “I’m Thrope.”

“Thrope.” She says it like I’ve disappointed her. “Your parents gave you that?”

“Nickname from home.” I loose a smirk though she may not see it through the dim. “Old joke. Short for misanthrope.”

Rather than ask my real name like a normal person would, Pastor Ruth asks if I’m a believer. It’s a blunt question. Perhaps one only a pastor can pose a stranger at midnight when he’s half-drunk.

“I believe in belief,” I finally say. “And hey, how ‘bout that cool pope!”

“The cool pope.” She turns over the words in her mouth like she’s chewing on a straw. “I suppose he’s popular with a lot of the new people in the neighborhood.”

I make a neutral sound with my throat. Saying nothing instead of figuring out how to say the right thing is a twenty-first-century caucasian superpower. Pastor, I think. You idiot. Why would she care about the pope? Hem yanks at his leash and my buzz seems primed to fade.

“Come by some time,” she says. “Williamsburg Pentecostal.”

I’d seen the church. A gray brick building with a small white cross on its front. Elegant in a modest way. Still, I think. Pentecostals. Holy’s one thing, but too holy’s another.

I don’t say that, though. Instead I say, “On Metropolitan?”

“Indeed. Be good and do good, Mister Thrope.”

We exit the park, Hem bouncy with his steps, mine lagging. Be good and do good. A nice phrase. I’d heard it once before, at a book reading of one of the Brooklyn Jonathans. It’d been before the election, back when people in our little corner of the universe could pretend what we do makes a lick of difference to what happens in all the other myriad corners. Regardless, the Brooklyn Jonathan told us all to “Be good and do good,” and it’d stuck with me all the way through liberal 9/11 when I went home to escape a hive of tearful young white people in “I’m With Her” attire to be with Hem and no one else, because that’s how brooding authors of my specific lineage are supposed to fucking mourn.

Maybe it had been one of the Brooklyn Joshuas.

At home, I crack open a cold, blue Gatorade. Anticipating a hangover instead of reacting to it is as fine a marker of adulthood as any. My mind returns to football, and the league. This means thinking about Ashley, again, and Mitch, again, and Ashley and Mitch, again. I’ve been trying to be an involved brother. She used words like empowered and patriarchy and internalized misogyny in our conversations today. She uses words like that in every conversation now. She’s sending me a book on it all.

“Be aware of the cultural conversation,” she said. “Even good men can be problematic.”

I’m proud of her. It’s taken courage to walk away. I’m also not sure she’s being entirely fair to her almost ex-husband, though I’ve kept that to myself. It’s like a brain splinter I can’t get rid of. She’s my sister. He cheated on her. She deserves the apartment, and the money, and the parakeet. I’m on her side, no question.

Yet Mitch is my friend. Well, was.

“So we beat on, boats against the current,” I say to Hem. He wants a treat before bed, I can tell.

I spend the next few days in routine. I take Hem on walks. I eat deli sandwiches and Chinese takeout. I drink with other writers in different bars across north Brooklyn. I talk to Ashley every day, and to our mom about our talking to Ashley. I go through copy edits of my next profile, a Silicon Valley philanthropist who wants to build a libertarian utopia at the bottom of the ocean. It’s for an airline magazine and I hate every word. I play tennis against a big concrete wall at the park, while new parents run around the track with bulky strollers that look like battering rams. I check our league standings compulsively, knowing full well they haven’t changed. Mitch gets a player I want from the wire, a lanky rookie known for winning contested passes and for referring to himself in the third person.

On the group chat, Amory sends an article about a new study linking football concussions to CTE. Dan calls it nonsense, snowflake propaganda, probably just to get a rise out of Amory. It works. I ignore the particulars because the world’s on fire and there’s only so much of it anyone can take. Sports are an escape, not another reason to feel awful.

I meet a girl at a bar Friday night but delete her number the next day. She didn’t seem all that interested, and besides, she was too young. From a different sub-generation. On Instagram but not on Twitter. That must mean something.

Sunday morning I walk to the Metropolitan Diner for a late breakfast. The entire neighborhood seems under construction, dusty cranes and scaffolds idle for the weekend. There’s a dash of hangover lurking about my skull, and a long day of shouting at football players on television awaits. On my way back to the apartment I see Pastor Ruth greeting parishioners in front of her church. She’s put up her silver hair in a bun, and she wears a black tunic and matching slacks. A slender cross hangs from her neck like a lanyard. Orange construction cones outside an adjacent lot funnel me straight into her grip.

I am cold, now that she mentions it.

“It’s warm inside. Come, join us.”

It’s eleven. Football doesn’t start for two hours. Defying clergy seems an inauspicious way to begin a day. And, though I pretend otherwise, manners do matter to me.

“Sure,” I say. “It’s the same God, right?”

An older woman with a weaponized smile directs me inside. Instinctively, I take a seat in the rear, as far away from others as possible. On the far wall, behind a wood podium, a message hangs from a banner: “I AM THE VINE . . . ABIDE IN ME.”

Despite my reclusiveness, or perhaps because of it, people come say hello, welcome. I feel under-dressed—jeans and last night’s smelly sweater don’t exactly convey reverence—but no one says anything. Besides, the crowd is more church potluck than Sunday morning sheen. It’s also less white than the Williamsburg I know. There are old Black people and Latino families and a young Asian couple with matching tennis shoes sharing a donut. Obama’s post-racial America, I think, post-Obama, in a conservative church.

Pastor Ruth takes her place at the podium. A large globe sits in the flanking corner, which puts me at ease. If nothing else, I’m not among flat-earthers.

“Brothers, sisters.” Pastor Ruth’s holy-person voice rolls strong in the sanctuary, her accent supplying gravitas to even the simplest of words. “How beautiful to see you on this joyful day.”

We sing “O Worship Thy King” together. Which reminds me, King Kaufman III’s ankle has rendered him questionable to play this afternoon. This is a sign from above, I think. Then I pull out my phone and surreptitiously add to my roster the King’s backup, a corn-fed Iowan named Spencer Ludwig.

The hymn ends. Pastor Ruth closes her hymnal with a curt nod. “Now,” she says. “You and the Lord, alone. Talk to Him.”

The congregation bows their heads in rhythm like diving birds. Some go to their knees, others remain standing. I mouth the Lord’s Prayer, that old childhood stalwart. I make it to “And forgive us our trespasses” when the tongue-chanting begins.

The old lady with the weaponized smile unleashes moans, bona fide ones. They rise in pitch and quicken in tempo and become something closer to screaming. They’re raw, primal. In my experience only women in internet porn make such noises. Religious ecstasy is different, I think. Right? Then the woman stops, as sudden as she’d began. The sanctuary bears only silence. I look at her and she just stands there, still and pious. I misheard, I decide, a victim of modern indulgence, too much sex on the brain that I’ve now brought into a place of worship. What is wrong with me?

I try the Lord’s Prayer again, eyes open and darting to make sure no one sneaks over for an attack hug. My mind lands on the King again, King Kaufman III, that is, and his blasted ankle. “Please, God,” I say, “heal your creation, my fellow man! He deserves it. So do I.”

Deserve is a tricky concept anywhere. It’s especially so in church. I know better. But it’s for reasons beyond me, I think. Reasons more important than me. I am but a mortal vessel for justice. Or something.

When Pastor Ruth returns to the podium and says it’s time for separate Bible study, one group for men, another for women, I slip out and into the late morning. I had to get out of there because of progressive principle! It’s a terrible, half-ass lie for no one that still makes me feel better.

I set the league scoring record in the hours that follow. 183 points in a league where teams average 110. Despite my prayers, King Kaufman III doesn’t play. Spencer Ludwig does, scoring three touchdowns in the game of his life. There are different theories proposed for how my record comes to be. Ali believes that I sacrificed a favorite pair of skinny jeans at some hipster altar. Dan and Amory concoct an elaborate scheme that involves overseas gambling, referees on the take, and a French-Canadian middleman named François. It’s delightful when they get along.

“I bet Thrope has a new lady,” Mitch chimes in. “Thatta boy.”

I don’t tell them about the Instagram girl I never called. I don’t tell them about Pastor Ruth. My friends mean well. But. I learned long ago that packs such as ours chew up basic facts and mangle them into gristly revisionism, because packs such as ours need new narrative as much as they need old stories. I text back a smiley face with sunglasses emoji and nothing else.

More important than my high score: the playoffs set. Amory’s my opponent in the semis, while Ali draws Mitch, fucking Mitch, who sneaks in as the final seed.

“Fear not,” Ali texts me on the side. “I’ll end his magic run right quick.”

Fortune favors the bemused. The next day, Amory’s stud running back gets arrested for domestic violence. Amory drops him on principle, no small decision in a keeper league—the running back will return next season, almost certainly, after he makes legal amends and offers up a vacuous PR statement.

“Can’t have an abuser on my squad,” Amory reasons, admirably, sanctimoniously.

“I prefer my players to have that kind of ALPHA instinct,” Dan texts, which earns a couple hahas and lols, and a fuck off from Ali.

The Thursday night game marks the entry of the fantasy semis. Before it, I walk Hemingway through the park. He tries to mount a poodle, which bothers the poodle’s owner far more than it does the dog. When we return to the apartment, Hem’s still wagging his tail from the thrill of it all. I check the time. One hour until kickoff. I decide to call my sister. She picks up on the second ring.

“You finally called back,” Ashley says.

“It’s been a day.”

She’s never suffered fools, me, in particular. I ask how she’s been, and she sighs like she’s been doing since we were just two kids from suburban, pre-9/11 America whose entire existences barely covered one housing subdivision. “It’s not getting better,” she says. “But easier, maybe?”

Mitch’s betrayals have revealed a vulnerability I never thought she possessed. Her words and reactions of late have been loose wires, to be approached with extreme caution and care.

“Explain that,” I ask. “The difference.”

“I gave twelve years of my life to a complete narcissist. That can’t ever change, but it’s less jarring than it once was.” She sniffs. “You get the book I sent?”

“You are so full of it.”

“Even good men can be problematic?” I offer. Ashley laughs. “Mom said you’re going to church,” I say. My intention is to tell her that I am, too. It’s a natural bonding opportunity, not so coincidental given we come from the same stock and are both, in our own ways, feeling the crush of time. But my church reasons are nebulous, maybe even bad, and I don’t want to talk about them. So instead I say, “Good for you.”

“Presbyterian one down the street. Old people, mostly. Liberal pastor. More Gospels than Paul. Grandma would approve.”

“Hah.” I pause a beat then ask, “why?”

The connection crackles and then my baby sister tells me that Mitch got her pregnant the summer before she began college and that she got an abortion then and that lately, she’s been thinking about it, and thinking about it a lot.

I babble like a tongue-chanter. Something snarling and wild rushes my brain.

Ashley continues. It’s not something she’s told anyone in our family about, because of health, and privacy, and shame, and because she didn’t want us to think poorly of Mitch.

I’m angry as I listen. What’s the source of it? I’m not sure. Like many guys, I’ve never held a strong opinion on abortion. Never had to. I believe in a woman’s right to choose. I believe in science, and also believe the moment of ensoulment remains an open question. Still, I’m furious. Is it because I didn’t know? That’s a possibility. A selfish one. A pathetic one.

“It was something we did together,” Ashley says. “I need you to know that.”

I say all the things I think I’m supposed to. That of course I understand her past reticence. That of course I won’t tell Mom or Dad. That I don’t judge her, not one iota, and that I’m proud of her then for making an adult decision and am proud of her now for sharing with me. That she’s a good person. At some point Ashley begins to cry. I tell her I wish I could give her a big hug. I tell her I love her more than any brother’s ever loved a sister and that I’m sorry, so sorry, for all the times I let her down, for all the times I failed or neglected her or left her wanting more, and then I realize I’m crying, too, and we share a laugh, because what else is there to do after crying but that.

Hem comes to the wall I’ve sat against and envelops my lap.

Later, on my way to the bar to watch the game, I pull out my phone and open the group chat. Dan and Amory are debating a recent allegation in Hollywood.

“If someone trying to kiss you is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, you’ve lived a hella privileged life.” Dan.

“He violated her space. And don’t ignore the cultural + historical baggage.” Amory.

They’re both idiots. Neither care about what happened. Neither care about the people involved. It’s just another excuse to argue.

“Hey Mitch,” I text, “after this season you’re out of the league.”

My thumb hovers over the screen. I type out a second missive: “Fucking coward.” Then I press send and shut off my phone.

On Sunday I return to Williamsburg Pentecostal. I grip Pastor Ruth’s hand and absorb her surprise. I sit in the middle of the sanctuary and say “How are you? Blessed are we” to all who come near. I sing the hymn. I whisper the Lord’s Prayer while listening to the tongue-chanters, then add a Hail Mary for good measure. There’s a non-zero chance the Catholics got it right. Two pews to my front, the woman with the weaponized smile shakes her body like a parade balloon. Amidst her definite and absolute moaning, I sneak a glance at my phone. King Kaufman III has been declared out again. Into my lineup goes Spencer Ludwig.

“Please, Lord,” I pray, “shine some divine grace on Spencer the Oversized Cracker.”

Pastor Ruth says something about washing feet at the end of the service. Not a chance, I think, remembering a poet I dated who was into feet. One of many times modern Brooklyn found my hidden puritan lacking. I head home to shout at football players on television.

It’s touch-and-go much of the afternoon. My players seem hostile toward accruing points. I have three touchdowns called back due to penalties, and my quarterback sets a personal interceptions high. Fucking Spencer Ludwig catches a paltry two passes for twelve yards. Somehow, someway, I’m still in it when the dark of evening marches through the window blinds. I walk and feed Hem, then go to the bar for the night game. A change of scenery may change my fortunes.

As I wait for kickoff, I order a beer and pull out my phone. The group chat has remained active, though Mitch hasn’t chimed in since I went Raging Bull on him. It’s too bad, I think. It’s all just too bad.

“I have a confession,” I type. Then I explain how I’ve become a holy roller for fantasy. Is it guilt or boredom? God only knows. Only then, as I make a joke of it, do I realize two things. One, going to church for fantasy football is more than bad, worse than stupid. It’s wrong. Two, going for fantasy football has not been my chief motive.

My friends respond with the requisite sarcastic approval.

“Like Pascal,” Amory texts. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Thrope’s wager,” Ali replies. “Hellbound for the most inconsequential reasons.”

Even Dan offers his particular brand of support. “How the ladies? Church bitches can be freaks.” Despite everything, that makes me laugh. I drink my beer. I order another and a basket of wings.

Early in the third quarter, one of my running backs breaks free on a sweep. Two broken tackles later, he’s in the end zone doing the Charleston, and I’m on to the title round. A strange blend of relief and excitement fills my being. Amory’s a gentleman about it. It’s a brutal way to lose but he texts “Congratulations and good luck.” I’ll take this less seriously next season, I tell myself. It’s a hobby. A silly game.

I tell Amory he’ll get me next year, then head home early. The old Italian in the tweed hat holds open the door. “Make America good again?” I ask. He stares back, confused. A pair of cloudy cataract blues dance around my head.

It’s a gloomy, stony night, the promise of winter meanness in the air. I walk the streets alone and adrift. It isn’t until I’m in bed, arm draped around Hemingway, that I remember to check the result of the other semifinal. I feel the inevitable before I see it: Mitch beat Ali. He’s my opponent for the championship.

He can’t win, I think. He just can’t. But of course that’s not true. It’s the whole point of fantasy. Anything is possible.

Ashley calls Tuesday night. We talk. I call her Wednesday afternoon. We talk again. The airline magazine finalizes my profile and asks me to resend the payment invoice. I switch out a starting receiver, then switch back. Mitch replaces his quarterback for a scorching-hot rookie, which takes guts. A storefront sign on Bedford that’s deeply stupid lingers with me all week: “Nothing Haunts Us Like Vintage.” To ice my nerves, I go out drinking Wednesday night with other writers. We sit in a corner booth and talk about dead writers we like and alive writers we don’t. I return home and immediately take out Hem—the dark season’s been affecting his mood, I can tell.

Thursday morning, I wake to a text from Mitch. “Hey, man,” it reads. “In New York last minute for business. Free for lunch/coffee?”

I spend much of the day figuring out how to respond before deciding not to. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve anything.

I don’t have anyone playing in the Thursday night game, but Mitch does, a kicker, so I traipse to the bar. I shouldn’t be surprised when I see him on a stool by the taps, but I am. I’m very surprised.

“You’ve mentioned this place on the chat,” he explains.

I think about turning around and watching the game at home, leaving a declaration of aggressive silence in my place. It’s what Ashley would do. It’s what I should do, too. Instead I take an adjacent stool.

He pulls a piece of paper from his jacket. It’s folded down the middle with crisp exactness; Mitch has always been an attentive person. He begins to read in a low whisper, his voice shaky but rehearsed. His letter includes words like unhappiness and change and finding our true selves. It does not include words like abortion. When he starts talking about the past, and the importance of old friendships, I tune out and study his face. Its worn, pallid, large, raccoon eyes may not signify sleeplessness but sure as hell suggest it. There’s gray in his stubble, too, and not just here or there. He’s miserable. Of course he is.

My eyes slide over to the game on the television, and not only because Mitch’s kicker is lining up for a field goal. When I look back, he’s stopped reading from his letter.

“You ever cheat?” he asks.

It’s a sudden question. It’s also one he possesses the answer to.

“Julie,” I say. “You remember all that.” I pause and narrow my eyes to shards. “We were 17.”

I hate Mitch, I know now that I always will. But deep down? Deep down, I understand him. That hurts more than turning against a friend from the past ever could.

“Just her?” he asks. “That’s it?”

Once. A couple times. On girlfriends, sure, but that doesn’t change the hurt, only its scale. I have to forgive myself, I think, watching Mitch fold up his paper speech and ask for another round. But I don’t have to forgive you.

McCarren Park proves barren. A pair of outlying streetlamps offer pale light. I take off Hem’s leash and throw his tennis ball into the grass. He retrieves with joy, wagging his tail while I pull the ball from his mouth to begin the sequence again. I push away everything else and focus on the game. Should I switch out that wide receiver again? It really is a coinflip.

A sound breaks the dim, a sound like a little hammer tapping a wall. It gets louder and closer at once. A primal sort of alarm screams from within. Even the recognition that it’s just boot heels on pavement doesn’t quell it. I squint, trying to see through the wash of darkness.

“Mister Thrope. Yet again, you are here.”

It’s Pastor Ruth. I approach her with Hem at my side. She’s walking home in jeans and a thick winter blouse, like she’s a normal person.

As good a time as any, I decide. “Do you take confessions, Pastor?”

She doesn’t say no. So I tell her, about the league and Ashley, and Mitch, and King Kaufman III, too. I tell her about setting the league record. I tell her about my state of belief and about adding Spencer Ludwig during service. I tell her that I never meant any disrespect, I intended the opposite, but things kind of happened a certain way and now I don’t know what it means and while I’d like to attend church on Sunday, it seems wrong, going for luck in fantasy football, to beat a scumbag I’ll always loathe.

Pastor Ruth takes in all that, silence passing between us like waves. Long seconds follow and Hem nuzzles my hand.

“And you desire what from me?” she asks.

Matt Gallagher is the author of the novels Empire City (Atria Books, 2020) and Youngblood, a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He’s also the author of the Iraq war memoir Kaboom, and lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with his family.

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BOMB’s summer issue features two interviews with artists at the Whitney Biennial: Trinh T. Minh-ha discusses urban supremacy and her new film What About China?, and Emily Barker shares their experience with disability and healthcare through art—and curse words. Also, Sharon Van Etten rues how the universe called her bluff when she wanted to work from home, Victoria Chang considers the differences between being visible and being seen, and William Wegman revisits his early days as a conceptual artist. Plus, the launch of a poetry series, an excerpt from Lynne Tillman’s latest book, and a short story by Alejandro Zambra.

But the idea of transformation has always been something that I romanticize in a work. I’m cautious of it but I also need it to connect my thoughts with the process of making. That’s really important.

BOMB Magazine has been publishing conversations between artists of all disciplines since 1981. BOMB’s founders—New York City artists and writers—decided to publish dialogues that reflected the way practitioners spoke about their work among themselves. Today, BOMB is a nonprofit, multi-platform publishing house that creates, disseminates, and preserves artist-generated content from interviews to artists’ essays to new literature. BOMB includes a quarterly print magazine, a daily online publication, and a digital archive of its previously published content from 1981 onward.

Annually, BOMB serves 1.5 million online readers––44% of whom are under 30 years of age––through its free and searchable archive and BOMB Daily, a virtual hub where a diverse cohort of artists and writers explore the creative process within a community of their peers and mentors. BOMB's Oral History Project is dedicated to collecting, documenting, and preserving the stories of distinguished visual artists of the African Diaspora.

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