There's a building behind us that long ago housed an electrical substation and streetcar garage. When Josh and I moved in, it was occupied by an advertising agency that made commercials for Sonic. When they left, it sat empty until late last year when mysterious construction began. Men in neon green and orange shirts throw chunks of drywall from a balcony into a gigantic dumpster below. Most of the men have beards. The ones who don't, try. I stare at them from the kitchen window while I reheat my lunch. Sometimes, under cover of night, we throw things in the dumpster, too.
I ask Shawn if he knows what they're doing inside the building. I say it must be completely hollow by now. He says he asked them once, and they told him they were turning it into artist studios. That can't be right. Men in suits walk through sometimes. They could be 35 or 55 and have the cherubically fillered faces of NFL team owners. They remember art once a year when they write a check to the museum. I tell Shawn it can't have anything to do with art. He shrugs his shoulders and opens the kitchen door to yell at the construction guys for pelting snowballs at cars. They stop and throw snowballs at each other instead.
We won the Super Bowl. By "we," I mean the football group chat with my in-laws. We screamed at each other all season with emojis, and then on Super Bowl Sunday, we screamed together in real life. At one point, Shawn was afraid Josh's mom was going to punch the TV, not from rage, but from joy. I told him I hadn't noticed because at that same moment I was mashing out a text to Paul Rudd that simply read, "FUUUCK." The pandemic took something from us that, for better or worse, football returned. I feared trimming my own beard because I hadn't done so since before the playoffs. To do it before the Super Bowl would have been to fail an entire city. We would have lost. My superstitions grew from stray thoughts to absolute certainties in the blink of an eye. We were down at the half when suddenly my mother-in-law realized she'd left her lucky charm in the car. I'm convinced her retrieval of it won us the game.
There was a parade. I watched from home. The newscasters kept an eye out for wildness. Players left their busses and drank with fans. A spectator climbed a tree and tried to dance in it. With it? A police officer told a man on horseback he could proceed no further. Travis Kelce led a call and response with the crowd using Master P lyrics. One of the newscasters tried to imitate him after, and another stopped him quick. "Don't you try it." The party was over, but the players stayed onstage recording stories for Instagram.
My family in Kentucky sent texts to congratulate me like I would also receive a championship ring. It's funny to think about wearing something that heavy with jewels, something that captures all the light in a room but doesn't keep it.