I Am Jack’s Misplaced Sense of Rugby Pride

This morning, my boss takes one look at me and whistles.

“Rough night at the Faultline?” he asks.

“Bite me,” I reply gamely.

I’d been getting comments like that all morning.

————

I didn’t play the full 80 minutes last Saturday when we went up against the OC Bucks. At some point during the second half, I ran over to where a ruck had formed (Briefly, a ruck occurs when a player has been tackled and goes down. Players from each side then lock heads and shoulders to fight for possession of the ball. For a picture of this, check out http://www.rugbyfootball.com/tir/ruck_2.html.)

The important thing to remember about a ruck is that you don’t pick up the ball, you push your opponents away from it. I knew this rule. I’d gone into rucks right and left throughout the game. Unfortunately, when I got to this particular ruck, the ball was right there. Right goddamn there. I remember my teammates screaming at me, “Get in there! Get in there!” Which meant go into the ruck.

I, however, picked up the ball.

I had time to look to my left, and then to my right. No obvious back-up I could pass the ball to. And then I looked straight ahead, just in time to see three large-as-hell Bucks charging down on me.

My teammates later said (with lots of chortles and laughs) that they’d never seen anyone’s eyes go so wide.

I got piled on royally. Someone’s shoulder hit me right in the face. Hurt like a fucker. I had to be subbed out. Now that I think about it, I could have stayed in. I was dazed, but the pain wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t go on. Feel crappy about that, like I failed somehow (Not that it would have mattered. Notice I haven’t told you the score. You really don’t want to know. )

Anway, been sporting a nice big shiner since then. And the rest of me ain’t pretty either–arms and shoulders are all black and blue, and everything hurts like hell. It’s a bitch just to get out of bed. Thank God for ibuprofen! I plan on marrying it some day.

And here’s a funny thing. One of my teammates, Chip, e-mails me this morning and asks, “So are you feeling all Fight Club yet?” And he got me there, because that was exactly how I was feeling:

Me with my punched-out eyes and dried blood in big black crusty stains on my pants, I’m saying HELLO to everybody at work. HELLO! Look at me. HELLO! I am so ZEN. This is BLOOD. This is NOTHING. Hello. Everything is nothing, and it’s so cool to be ENLIGHTENED. Like Me. Sigh.

From Brokeback Mountain

What Jack remembered and craved in a way he could neither help nor understand was the time that distant summer on Brokeback when Ennis had come up behind him and pulled him close, the silent embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger.
They had stood that way for a long time in front of the fire, its burning tossing ruddy chunks of light, the shadow of their bodies a single column against the rock. The minutes ticked by from the round watch in Ennis’s pocket, from the sticks in the fire settling into coals. Stars bit through the wavy heat layers above the fire. Ennis’s breath came slow and quiet, he hummed, rocked a little in the sparklight, and Jack leaned against the steady heartbeat, the vibrations of the humming like faint electricity and, standing, he fell into sleep that was not sleep but something else drowsy and tranced until Ennis, dredging up a rusty but still usable phrase from the childhood time before his mother died, said, “Time to hit the hay, cowboy. I got a go. Come on, you’re sleepin on your feet like a horse,” and gave Jack a shake, a push, and went off in the darkness. Jack heard his spurs tremble as he mounted, the words “See you tomorrow,” and the horse’s shuddering snort, grind of hoof on stone.

Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see or feel that it was Jack he held. And maybe, he thought, they’d never got much farther than that. Let be, let be.

(Annie Proulx, Brokebroke Mountain)

Fight Club- An Excerpt

Just coz I feel like saying it today:

“You are not your job. You are not how much you have in the bank. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your khakis. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. What happens first is you can’t sleep. What happens then is there’s a gun in your mouth. And what happens next is you meet Tyler Durden. Let me tell you about Tyler. He had a plan. In Tyler we trusted. Tyler says the things you own, end up owning you. It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything. Fight Club represents that kind of freedom. First rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club. Second rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club. Tyler says self-improvement is masturbation. Tyler says self-destruction might be the answer.”