KUNG FU PANDA

“Tell me a story.”

I focus the camera on my dad as he stands in the dark hotel room. The videocamera was graciously “borrowed” from Best Buy, and would be returned with receipt within the 30 days grace period. My cousin Michael was graduating from law school in New Hampshire, and his mother was in a hospital bed recovering from surgery to remove a tumor. As the lone film student, my job was to record the ceremony for her to watch. So I was testing out the new camera.

“C’mon, fatman. Say a funny.”

My dad and I share a baked-potato like appearance so much so that our elderly neighbor often confuses me for him when I’m home from school. Except, where I am merely a late-twenties lothario, my father is hardened steel gone soft in the wake of recently receiving his AARP card.

He stares out the window for a second and then he kind of leans forward on one foot, like a tubby flamingo, and does this strange little hop forward. Once, twice. Bouncing with his arms stretching like wings. Then he goes back to staring out the window.

I turn off the camera, satisfied that my rudimentary first level white balancing skills and slow zooms will be more than enough to capture the diploma dispensing. I return the camera to its box.

Then my dad explains his phone call.

Minutes before, as I was doddering about with the lenses and instructions, he took a call on his cell. He’d just started a few months ago with a new company. After 25 years as a vice-president of construction management, in an industry where they told him he’d never make it anywhere as a Catholic, the company he had bled and sweat for had fucked over his entire retirement. And here he was, overqualified for everything, unable to find an employer who wasn’t trying to mine him for his industry contacts and then chuck him aside before he could ditch them for something better, working in a new job as essentially the knowledgeable one who went to construction trade shows and answered questions. Had he not had two sons to put through college, he would have started his own contracting company, and been a goddamn millionaire. Instead, here he was, answering questions on his vacation.

I had only caught snippets of the conversation. My dad was defensive and embarrassed. He said, “No, I’m fine. Jerry. You don’t have to… Well, you can call it whatever you want. I don’t want you to… I don’t want…. That’s silly. Don’t call me. Well, I don’t agree with that, but whatever. Fine, you’re welcome. Okay. I will. Take care.”

So with the camera safely packed away, and my mother getting ice, my dad decided he’d honor my request. He told me a story.

He had just come back from a trade show in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, at their convention center. They decided it was a moot point, and wanted to beat the traffic back into the civilization of Pennsylvania. He had been packing away their stand, and he and a co-worker were helping the woman who had been stationed next to them load up her car. My dad had placed his materials in the van that he and his buddy had driven down, when he realized that he had forgotten his glasses.

This comes as no surprise. My father needs to wear reading glasses, which he’s not accustomed to, and so he purchased cheap-ass half glasses which he constantly has to tilt his head and peer down through. My brother and I call him Geppetto. He has about four or six pairs scattered among glove compartments, briefcases, offices, coffee tables, because he almost always forgets them, and so multiple pairs mean there's a better likelihood one will be at hand.

My dad pauses in the story, rubbing the back of his head. He looks at me, “I don’t want you to tell your mother about this.”

My father and I are both short, stocky little brick shithouses. The man’s got a head like a damn cannonball, bald and mighty. But we’re both well under 5’6”, and each of us keep competing to see who can stay 40 pounds overweight in the gut. My dad was an athlete, a goddamn machine. He didn't fight in Vietnam, he was in Laos and Cambodia in 70-71, where he was an Airborne Ranger. While overseas, he studied Aikido. The shit that Steven Seagal does. He failed his third degree test, because after he defended himself seven times from upwards of eight men at a time, he got a glancing blow from the FOURTH SWORDSMAN as he was hurling the first swordsman at the second and third. The final test, he failed. So he’s only a second degree.

My brother and I used to mess with my dad. I’ll never forget the day, as we were leaving a Pizza Hut, after my dad met us on his way home from work, when my brother was slapfighting with my dad. The day was waning as we crossed the parking lot and my brother kept sweeping in, slapping my dad on the back of the dress shirt, and feinting punches at him. As I walked a few steps behind them, my dad does this amazingly graceful skip to the right, kicked down into the back of my brother’s knee, and my brother drops like a lead zeppelin. All without hurting anything but his pride. We all laughed, even my brother, because that was fucking AWESOME.

But that was a whole lot of report cards ago. My dad was sprouting a whole of snow around the summit now. And there are a few more Deep Dish Pan pizzas in the bellylands.

As he walked out to the car, he saw four guys helping his friend load stuff into the car. He got closer, and realized they weren’t helping. One of the guys was holding his co-worker’s arms while the other was punching him in the face. The other two guys were in the van, pinning down the woman. One held her, while the other tried to pry her legs apart.

My dad pauses for a moment before sprinting across the parking lot. He tucks himself into a ball and tackles the guy punching his friend, knocking him sideways to the ground. My dad struck the guy at an angle, so their combined weight snapped the man’s leg like a fucking pencil. He falls to the ground screaming, my dad on top of him driving an elbow into his cheek. My dad said he turned around after he felt a thud. That would be the second attacker, punching my dad in the head. All my dad saw was him clutching his knuckles. Two of which he broke when he tried to hit my father. My dad sprung up and turned to the guy who tried to hit him. He swings at my dad again, who tucks the guy's fist under his armpit and strikes the guy in the forearm, snapping his arm in half.

By this time the third guy, the one trying to rape the woman, runs after my dad. My dad lets the guy swing twice before hitting him in the ribs, breaking most of them. The guy was hopped up on something, and goes at my dad again. My dad punches him in the nose, shattering the guy’s nose, spraying blood all over himself. He stops his return strike at the last minute, because he realizes he’s about to drive his palm heel into the guy’s nostrils and jam the bridge of his broken nose into his brain, killing him.

Meanwhile, the fourth guy gets out of the van, and starts running away. At this point, almost all of the middle aged construction workers from the trade show had been piling out of the convention center and noticed the ruckus. So all these fat balding guys in suits and ties chased down the fourth guy, knocked him to the ground and started kicking and punching him until the cops showed up.

News vans pull in. My dad is totally fine, except he’s worried that his name is going to be in the paper, because he doesn’t want people to make a big deal about it. He doesn't want it getting out, the news that an overweight, senior citizen ex-Ranger just fucked up four guys dusted out of their minds. He doesn’t want people calling him a hero or anything. He doesn't want my mom to hear the story. The police have to take his name, in case (get this shit) the guys he fucked up want to press charges. My dad leaves, drives his friend home, and then goes home.

He sneaks up the side stairs and quickly changes his shirt so my mom wouldn’t notice, so she wouldn’t worry about him. He just wants to let the whole thing blow over. The next day, they got in the car and drove up to New Hampshire for my cousin’s graduation.

My dad delivers this entire speech to me while standing against the television, staring at the carpet. Not once does he look up. He’s almost ashamed to tell me the details. Meanwhile, my mom had come in the room around the middle of the story.

He explained to her that that was what the phone call was about. That was his boss, calling to ask if he was okay. The guy he saved had come to the office and told everyone what he had done. He was calling him a hero. My dad didn’t want any part of that. He just did what he had to. He asked me not to tell people what happened.

He told my mom that’s why he hadn’t said anything when he came home. He just didn’t want her to see the blood and get scared that he hurt someone. He’d not a fighter. My dad’s the kind of guy who’ll buy drinks for the bar. He’s a goddamn teddy bear. She was okay, she just wished he told her what happened.

He then shrugs, smiles and says, "Let's go get dinner."

I’m thinking to myself, “I can’t believe you didn’t turn on the fucking camera.”

I'm Big In Brazil

A few years ago, we traveled to Rio de Janeiro for my cousin’s wedding. My cousin had been engaged once before, but a few months before the wedding, they broke it off. My cousin was heartbroken, had to un-invite all the guests, explain without explaining too much. But then he manned up, went to law school up in New Hampshire, met a vibrant and beautiful Brazilian girl, and ended up having what would literally be a fairy-tale wedding in Rio. Let this be a lesson to all of you who are nursing a broken heart: things can work out like the following.

Up until this trip, I had been out of the United States exactly one other time. We went to the Bahamas for a weekend. It was rainy and overcast the entire time, except for approximately 15 minutes. I have never been abroad. I have never been to Canada or Mexico. Despite my adventurous trek cross-country, I am hardly a world traveler.

But we were going to Brazil! This magical mantra served us well in trying to get the necessary time off for the trip. My brother is a first grade teacher. It would be his only vacation time for like four years. I just started temping a data entry position for a pharmaceutical company. I might not have a job when I returned. But we were going to Brazil! Just the concept of going to a foreign country seemed exotic and alluring to our countrified PA asses.

Little did we know what we were in for.

My family is close. Cousins are like brothers, it’s just the way we were raised. Fernanda, my cousin’s intended, had spent several Thanksgivings and Christmases with us, so we already knew how much we liked her. But her family embraced all of us with open arms as if they were going to marry us. Fernanda’s parents were divorced, so we weren’t ever sure who was who. There were so many family members, but everyone was so loving and kind, we just ended up hugging and kissing everyone. As far as we were concerned they were all our family, and they loved “The Americans!”

The wedding was taking place in Rio, and we were staying in hotels near Ipanema Beach, which served a young man well in penning a song about a certain girl from Ipanema who went walking, and Copacabana, which served a not-so-young man well in penning a song that continues to moisten adult diapers to this very day.

For most of the trip we careened around from celebration to celebration, never knowing what was going on. None of us spoke a lick of Portuguese. But we were determined to be adventurous. The first night, we went out to eat at an Italian restaurant, and the menu had some Portuguese words, and some Italian words. I just picked something at random. Erico, Fernanda’s father, asked what I ordered. I said, “I don’t know. I hope it’s good!” It turned out to be boiled bull scrotum. But they seasoned it so good, you’d never know!
(Actually, it was a variation on chicken saltimbocca. I’m adventurous, but I’m not retarded.) I went home and promptly learned all the words for different foods. This is how I was able to learn how to order from the juice bars and different restaurants. It didn’t work so hot when my brother and I wandered off to Bob’s Burgers for lunch, only to get Grade K meat (some orphan meat, mostly soy and lawn clippings). It was the only slip up in an otherwise magical trip.

There’s no decent way to say this, so I’m just going to put it out there: Fernanda’s family is pretty much royalty. Her father works as one of the executives for Globo, which is THE network in Brazil. Over 85% of the homes in the country watch Globo. They’ve got money and power and influence. We just assumed all Brazil was like this. We have been spoiled and it is worth it.

The engagement party was held in their penthouse apartment overlooking Sugarloaf, which houses the big statue of Christo, the giant huggable Jesus that you’ve seen in every shot of Rio ever taken from an airplane ever in the history of ever. We rode in through the gated entrance, flanked by guards in bulletproof vests and armed with semiautomatic machineguns. They sent us up, six at a time, in a small elevator, which opened on their apartment. There, everybody that is even remotely related to the wedding was there, dancing around in the huge apartment, and pounding liquor. They would serve caipirinhas, which is sort of a Brazilian martini. Essentially, you take two shots of liquor, mull it with fresh fruit, and serve chilled. It’s called different things if you use vodka, or sake, or whiskey, or rum. Usually, they serve it with Cachaca, which is a version of rum that tastes like rocketfuel teabagged with a monkey sack when taken straight, but magically tastes like Kool-Aid when mixed with fruit. Erico constantly kept on hand Johnny Walker Blue Label. His step-son Fabio, a true party-machine, always kept on hand cases of Sugar-Free Red Bull (sugar free means you can drink more and keep the same caffeine effect without getting sick). I love Brazil!
They told us they had a little surprise for us. Up the elevator comes a bunch of guys carrying various instruments, all dressed in Hawaiian shirts. We’re like, Oh, sweet! Live music.

Then the first samba dancer arrived.

She was easily over six foot, and that was before she wore sparkly heels, and a giant two foot bedazzled headdress. She was cocoa brown, and wore nothing much more than a glittery bikini, draped with beads. We were agape. Then the next one arrived. And the next one. And the next one.

There were about five or six in all, when the samba players started jamming. Everyone danced with the samba dancers (from the best samba school in Rio – according to Duda, Fernanda’s brother and a party promoter). It was insane. My tiny mom and dad are jamming out with these Amazonian goddess in spangled finery. I thought things can’t possibly get better than this. And this was knowing that full well, tomorrow afternoon we’d be served dinner at a chirrascuria, which is an all you can eat meat buffet where they bring grilled meat out on swords until you belch out “No Obrigado”.

However, my cousin, his girlfriend, and I myself were whisked off that next afternoon to see Globo, while everyone else went sightseeing. Because, we were the screenwriters. I was fresh from graduating from BU, and Mark was in the middle of signing a deal to option his television pilot with the networks. So we were the screenwriters, and we got our own private studio tour. Which was amazing. They make a serial soap opera called “Bang! Bang!” which is set in the American Wild West, and features characters like Zorro, who is an incredibly gay blade, and Elvis. It’s somewhere between Deadwood and Arrested Development. It’s hilariously Telemundo. One thing that’s pretty amazing about their soap operas is that they only run it for one year. No matter how popular they are (and the numbers on this thing are ridiculous – everyone watches it) they cancel the show after one year, and then start with a new show entirely. I think this is a great idea.

The wedding itself was amazing. Fernanda had about 60 bridesmaids and groomsmen. There were three flower children, and the front tableau was my uncle, Fernanda’s mother and step-mother, and her father and step-father, as well as my mother and father (my aunt had died, and so my cousin wanted her sister – my mom – to stand in for her). I was paired up with my cousin’s cousin, so we were both smiling clueless Americans. My brother got paired up with this gorgeous Brazilian girl, who, as we were walking down the aisle, started shaking like a leaf. Later, we asked her why. She was explaining that most of the celebrities in Brazil were in the audience. It would be the equivalent of walking down an aisle and seeing the cast of Oceans’ Eleven on one side and the cast of Charlie Wilson’s War on the other. (and yes, I know Julia Roberts is in both, I assumed she’d be cut in half and portioned appropriately.) The wedding ended up getting written up in the Brazilian version of People magazine. My mom was in People magazine. I want to see how that ties in to Jury Duty.

That was the best part of the wedding. Nobody cared who anyone else was, we just all danced and laughed and had a great time. The reception was held in the Natural History Museum. It was more like a rave. There was booze and food and techno music. They busted out glowing sunglasses and glowsticks, and flashing rings and necklaces, and those LED whisk looking things. It ran until 5 AM. I spent most of the time drunk on caipirinha and Johnny Walker Blue and Red Bull. Fernanda told me I kept coming over to them and jumping up and down and asking when Carnival was. I was invited by six different people to come and stay with them. At one point, I blacked out for two hours. When I came to, I was kissing this statuesque beauty and still dancing. I was going to go home with her, when my cousin pulled me aside and said, “Noooo! Dude, I’m all for everyone having a good time, but that’s dangerous.” Turns out she lived in the most dangerous favelas. So there would have been me, in my tuxedo, wandering the streets of the Brazilian ghetto at 4 AM, trying to get a cab. Still, it might have been worth it.

We spent the rest of the week recuperating at their villa in the mountains. Yeah, it was a villa. It was insane. We watched Mozart and the Whale two years before it came out in theatres in their private screening lounge. I got regaled with epic tales of my drunken cavorting. They kept telling me I made friends with Jo Soares. And I’m like who? And they said Jo! He loves you! He wanted to take you home so you could marry his daughter! He keeps asking how you are. I said, “Tell Jo I’m great!”

Jo Soares, it turns out, is the Brazilian equivalent of David Letterman. He wanted to have me on his show. Later on, I found out that Jo apparently was up visiting with television executives up in New York, and he was telling them how he met their Brian Prisco. And they go, “Who?” And he says, “Brian Prisco! He is a screenwriter! He is very wonderful!” He was under the impression that I was a celebrity. So was I.

It was a magical time, and I am forever ruined from ever leaving the country, because it will never be as magical a time as that wedding with my family. But take three things away from this: 1) if someone breaks your heart, the best revenge is to marry a beautiful Brazilian princess. 2) never be afraid to try new experiences, unless they involve fast food restaurants and ghetto murders. And 3) always get drunk at weddings, it will make you a star.

My Mom Is Chuck Norris

My mother is about 4’9”. Most of the women in the family are short. My mother’s stature is such that she just makes other people look bigger when they are around her. I stand next to her in all photos and at major family events. I tower over her like a behemoth.

My mother once rabbit punched a Gold-Medal winning wrestling coach because my brother fractured his elbow during a practice. This muscle bound giant scurried back from the tiny woman as she flurried her tiny fists into his chest. I have not seen fear like that outside of small furry creatures and bachelors trying to escape long-term relationships.

My mother lost the nerves on the right side of her face when she contracted Bels Palsy when pregnant with my younger brother. To this day I tell him he’s the reason Mom can’t smile fully anymore.

When my mother runs, her feet and fists churn at four times the speed of mortal man. However, she only moves at about a ¼ of the distance. We call this the Patsy Shuffle.

My mother became a middle school lunch lady when I was in seventh grade. A bunch of kids starting teasing me. I explained that I don’t pay for the ala carte desserts at the end of the day. Then I walked away smiling, eating a TastyKlair pie. They stopped making fun of me.

My mother would tell stories that would branch off in endless tangents, but would always end up with the one time she served on Jury Duty. For example: “Oh, your son plays baseball? We just went to the Red Sox game with Brian and Todd when we went to visit him in Boston. It was so much fun, Jimmy and I split a hot dog and a beer. Hot dogs! Todd just got a grill for his new apartment, so we gave him all the leftover meat in the freezer. Some chicken patties and a few Omaha Steaks. Omaha Steaks! Brian just drove cross country to California and he was passing through all these crazy cities, and I told him to be careful, because I didn’t want any criminal stealing his car. Steal his car! I was on jury duty once and our case was about this guy who stole his wife’s car.”
It never fails. When she and my aunt would get together, they could actually tag team on topics. It would still always end up at Jury Duty.

I wrote a play for my mother called “At Least We’re Together”. The title comes from an incident when we attempted to go to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg (right near where I was born). As we went into the park, there was a torrential downpour. We ran back to the car. The rain started to subside. We started to head back when it rained again, even harder. We piled in the cars, pissed off and dripping. She turned around from the front seat, goofy smile on her face and said in a high-pitched nasally cadence, “Well, at least we’re together.” This became our battle cry whenever the day was going shitty.

In the play, my mother’s character is an eternal optimist who gets mugged and manages to put a bright spin on everything. My mom doesn’t like it, because in the end, the mom shoots the hell out of the mugger. My dad thinks it’s HILARIOUS.

I asked my mother what she wanted to be when she grew up. If she never had any ambitions beyond just being a mom. She said all she ever wanted to be was a mother and a wife. So she worked really hard at that and making everyone happy.

I almost kicked a feminist grad student in the forehead because she accused women like my mother of not being “real women”. I told her that “real women” can do anything they want, like raise fantastic kids, while “fake girls” like her end up dying alone in their apartments, next to a half-empty wine bottle, being partially devoured by their cats.

My mother does not understand how to work a computer. However, she can videotape any program on any channel with a series of four VCRs she has set up on different televisions in different rooms of the house.

My mother doesn’t go to bed before 1 AM. Instead, she stays up watching the hours of television she has recorded for herself. Inevitably she falls asleep on the couch, in her giant recliner. My father goes to earlier and earlier as he gets older. Eventually, I think their times will meet. Somewhere around age 88 at about 3 PM.

When I was home from college, my mom and I used to amuse ourselves by quizzing each other with 80’s Trivial Pursuit cards. If you got 4 out of the 6, you got to keep the card.

When I was in the school spelling bee, my mother quizzed me on the words every day, for at least two hours. Not out of any sort of fierce drive or forcefulness, but just because I had to go over the words. When I made the finals, she asked me if I wanted to do a couple more words before we left. Those words were valedictorian and asterisk. I spelled it “a-s-t-e-r-i-k”. She said, “No, remember, it’s RISK. RISK. With an S.”

I won the championship that year. The word was “asterisk”.

My father and brother will not ride roller coasters. All through my youth, my mother would ride every single roller coaster with me, screaming bloody murder the entire way.

My mother’s mother died when she was 17. My mother’s father died when I was 5. My mother’s sister died a few years ago. My mother’s ambition in life was to make it to 40.

My mother adopted my aunt’s cat, Finnegan. He’s a nasty, moody, finicky, snot-nosed pussy, who gets overfed and lavished with attention. She refers to him as our third brother. Whenever she sends money for gifts, she explains how she spent an equal amount on the cat.

My mother cannot spell. She tried to write a note to the office explaining that: “Brian would not be able to attend scoccor practise. He has an apointmint at the orthadentist.” I told her to just write: “Brian can’t practice. He has to go to the doctor.” She misspelled practice. And my name.

My mother pronounces words the words “lent” and “phantom” with an “h” after the “t’s.” She claims its because she from Scranton. My father is also from Scranton. So is most of my immediate family. None of them do it.

For mother’s day, I took my mother to see “Election”, because she really likes Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick. At one point in the movie, there’s a tremendous closeup of an actor saying of Reese, “Her pussy gets so wet…” I turned slowly to my mother. She looked over at me. We both sat uncomfortably through the rest of the movie.

I thanked Alexander Payne personally for ruining Mother’s Day.

When I was in college, I had to walk about a half a mile to the post office boxes to get my mail. I told my mom I’d get bummed if there was no mail. For the next three months, I would receive a different card in the mail from my mom. I still have one of the Bill and Opus ones.

As a surprise for their 35th wedding anniversary, and my brother’s grad school graduation, I decided to fly myself and my future wife home to Pennsylvania. I kept telling my mom I wouldn’t be able to afford airfare. She told me that Dad was trying to raise the money for tickets, but he couldn’t afford it. On the day of the party, my brother had to come pick us up from the airport. All afternoon my mother had been calling him, berating him for not helping with the preparations for his own party. She called him three times, getting progressively nastier, because he wouldn’t travel the ¼ mile from his house to their home. Little did she know he was actually an hour away at the Philadelphia Airport, picking up her other son. When we showed up, Todd snuck in the house and said, “Hey, I brought some help.” When she saw me, she couldn’t stop shouting, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God!” I almost killed my mother. Guess the surprise would have been on me.

When I was nineteen, and a summer camp counselor, I heard a rumor that one of the kids had beaned my mom in the head with a soft pretzel. He was eleven. I pulled him aside and told him that if I found out it was true, I was going to jam a fishhook through his intestines and run them up the flag pole. He told me he didn’t do it. I told him that if anyone ever did anything to my mom while he was at that school, I’d find him, because I could get to him and I would bury him alive in a box full of starved rats. He didn’t go on the haunted hike that year. My mother never got accosted that I heard of again. He went on to become one of our best counselors.

To this day, I cannot pronounce the words “berry” or “yesterday” without sounding funny. Nobody else in our family does that.

I dominate bar trivia. Especially anything pop culture. Particularly from the 80’s.

My mother is my date to the Oscars. I promised her after I became a theatre major.

When I smile, it looks kind of wry, because I only turn up one corner of my mouth. It’s because since I was younger, I’ve been imitating my mother’s smile.

And The Lord Said, "Go Sox"

I never cared for baseball. America’s Pastime is and forever shall be football. Thanks for playing baseball. Take your mitt and fuck off into the cornfield.

Growing up, I focused mostly on kicking and hurting: soccer, karate (not the cool sounding kind, the pay for a belt kind) and wrestling. I played competitive baseball for one year. Being a tiny tike, I had no strike zone. I was often sent to chase butterflies in left field. I had one hit the entire season, which got me a diving double. We won the championship. I went out at the top of my game.

My father was a Yankees fan from way back, having been raised in Scranton, which is closer to NYC than Philly. After several trips to Cooperstown, I was able to appreciate the Yankees of long ago. Yes, it was true; I was a Yankees fan. But of the 1917 team. That’s like being a history buff more than a baseball aficionado. It’s like telling people your favorite king.

Back home, we rooted for the Phillies, because they were our home team. Not because they were good. We used to go to the games and eat our picnic lunches and enjoy the weather at the Vet. You didn’t go to watch baseball.

So when I went to Boston for grad school in 2003, I didn’t think I’d get sucked in. I mean, the Red Sox hadn’t won anything in forever. As a Philadelphia sports fan, I could appreciate losing. Over the past decade or so, every single major Philadelphia sports team has gotten to the final game in their prospective series, only to lose. Worse yet, we consistently come close, only to have it snatched from our hands. It was as God was playing keep away hoping the crushing defeat would garner him extra cheesesteak laden souls dead from heart attack.

But I neglected to appreciate the fact that the Red Sox are more than just a mere sports team. It’s a goddamn religion.

Boston is an angry town. Everyone’s bundled up and cold because it’s winter ten months out of the year (two months is summer when it’s 104 degrees and every gets extra stabby). All you can see peeking out from behind scarves and gloves and hateful stares. Since the road system looks like a spastic toddler’s interpretation of spaghetti, most people take the T, the trolley system glutted like a Philly artery. Humanity clogs the trains, faces in armpits, legs akimbo, desperately seeking an inch or two of purchase to stand on, like a 3-D game of Twister in hell. Old women clutching grocery bags, pregnant Latinos, tough black kids with headphones bobbing to their own beat, drunk college students drifting from bar to bar: these are your fellow passengers on the ferry shuttle to Acheron’s heart.

But no matter what, you can ask “What’s the score?” And everyone’ll know. The old woman will be the one who pipes up, “Foah two in the eighth. Fuckin’ Manny blew a double.” And everyone will sigh and nod.

It was impossible not to drink the red Kool-aid. It started in bars, the game perpetually on in the background on at least one TV. It was an easy way to make awkward conversation when standing and freezing waiting for the GODDAMN T WHICH NEVER COMES AND IS ALWAYS FULL!

So I became an occasional Sox fan. I’d find myself leaving the game on in the background while working on screenplays. Or we’d go over to one of the bars that surround Fenway. My parents came to visit and my brother and I took them to a game, because my dad loves historical ballparks. And Fenway really, really is something special. It rises from the middle of the apartments and bars around it like a bad tooth jutting up from a hillbilly smile. You can feel the excitement and the history, like walking through a graveyard or an old battlefield. The smells rise up, the people are always happy to have gotten one of the limited tickets, the crowd swells because they BELIEVE. This is their year. It’s gotta be.

I was there in 2004, right down the street from the intersection of Harvard and Brighton Avenues, in Allston, which is right up against Cambridge and Boston Proper. It’s the nexus for about 15 city bars ranging from the divey to the really fucking divey. This was the year when the Sox won the series. But frankly, that was just icing on the cake. It was the division series that meant more to everyone. When they came back from behind to sweep the evil Yankees in four games. People swelled out of their homes, there was cheering and hooting and hollering in the streets. Dancing, drinking, you would have thought it was New Years. Nobody expected the Sox to get to the series, let alone win. They were just happy they embarrassed the fuck out of those pretty boy paychecks in pinstripes. I sat on my stoop and drank beers with my neighbors. Kids who’s names I didn’t even know. We just sat on our stairs cracking up at the drunks carousing in the alleys.

The thing that made victory over the Yankees so sweet was the constant sense of doom pervading everywhere. Everyone was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. They were down three games. All they had to do was lose one, it was over. Okay, so they win one. Big whoop, everyone was expecting failure. This was a town that was drenched in failure. When they won two, it was worse, because some small sparkles of hope were starting to flair, like lighters in a Dave Matthews crowd. The diehards quickly squelched that. It was far worse for them to tease everyone like this. It was puppy drowning cruelty. Just fucking lose already! Then when they made three, they won three goddamn games in a row, you would have thought the streets would run red with blood. But it would have been slit wrists. Cause they’re was NO FUCKING CHANCE they were winning that shit. No way. That doesn’t happen. So the victory brought everyone out of their homes, to celebrate. Because the big dance was over as far as they were concern. Rocky stayed up for 12 rounds, who cares about the series, we’re the fucking Red Sox, we never win.

But as the games progressed, until the final catch was made to seal history, people were in shock. The curse. The curse was finally over. People came out of their houses as if awakened from a dream. It was the Munchkins emerging to see what had crushed the witch. Was she truly dead? Is the curse lifted?

Then the party began. I remember high fiving policemen on horseback and hugging complete strangers. My neighbors and I sprayed beer all over each other. You would have thought a war had ended. All these bitter hateful people came out into the streets to celebrate the hometown glory. We were all family, everyone was your friend. It was a beautiful thing.