Downtown Owl Read online

  What he believed: Two years before he died, my goofy fucking father read an article in Modern Farmer magazine about alternative food sources, one of which was American bison. He believed this animal was going to revolutionize the livestock industry; it must have been a pretty persuasive article. Bison are larger than beef cattle, they produce leaner cuts of meat, and they’re easy to feed. A buffalo will eat absolutely anything. You can feed buffalo hay, grass, silage, cornstalks, or even straw. You could probably feed buffalo coal briquettes and they wouldn’t notice the goddamn difference. A buffalo is the only animal stupider than a moose, which is why they were so easy for bored cowboys to execute during the nineteenth century. So because of the low overhead and the alleged fiscal upside, my goofy fucking father decided to sell all our farm equipment and invest in 150 head of two-year-old bison. They were shipped in from Wyoming on the Great Northern railroad and cost three thousand dollars apiece; we had to take out a massive farm loan, but this was the 1970s and that’s what farmers did. So—pretty much overnight—we became bison farmers. And this was scary as fuck. It was like suddenly trying to shepherd a bunch of mastodons. Unlike conventional cows, a buffalo will charge at your pickup truck for no apparent reason. If a mama bison thinks you’re staring at her calf for too long, she will try to kill you. They have no sense of space or domesticity or captivity, so they’ll walk right through a barbed-wire fence without even noticing it’s there. You can’t herd them or control them or anticipate how they will react to anything, because these are undisciplined beasts who belong on Wild Kingdom. It also turned out that buffalo were almost impossible to sell on the open market. Nobody eats bison meat. Nobody wants alternative food. I don’t think we were able to sell more than thirteen calves that first year, which was an unmitigated disaster. We were headed for bankruptcy in eighteen months. Everybody in town said my father was insane for trying to raise buffalo, and everybody was right. And it killed him. He was so embarrassed that he had a heart attack. He died in church. My brother Jake (who had always been called Jason until he became a quarterback) inherited the farm, and—because Jake is the kind of guy who likes to be admired for seeming ethical—he decided that these idiotic bison were going to be our father’s postlife legacy, and that these bison (somehow) represented our father’s unorthodox personality, and that he would devote his life to making this bison farm succeed. He even talked about this during the funeral, which would have been hilarious had the corpse been anyone who wasn’t my father. Jake convinced our mom to pay off the loan for the bison with Dad’s life insurance, and she immediately agreed with the decision. My mother always admired Jake’s simulated ethics. As such, my livelihood continues to revolve around a pasture of dangerous, unmanageable, fiscally insolvent ungulates. Ironically, they are now beloved by the community. The Bismarck Tribune has written two feature stories about our bison, and tourists (from as far away as Sioux Falls) will slowly drive their station wagons past our farm to show their children what the Old West theoretically looked like.

  What she said: “Bison? No way! Like, buffalo? You have a farm full of buffalo? That’s astounding.”

  What she meant: I knew you were different. I knew it!

  What he said: “Well, it’s not really as interesting as you might think. Bison aren’t that different from stock cows, except they’re bigger and meaner and dumber.”

  What he hoped: Someday one of those bastards will charge through the barbed-wire fence and gore an onlooker to death. He’ll hit a car with his skull and plow it off the road. My brother will probably get sued.

  What she said: “That must be a crazy way to live, though. I mean, relatively speaking. You’re certainly the first buffalo farmer I’ve ever met. Everybody else just talks about corn.”

  What she meant: There is something about you that I like, but I cannot deduce what that quality is. You are attractive, I suppose, but that is not the reason behind my attraction. I sense that you do not belong in this town, but that is a minor detail. Perhaps if I give you vague compliments, you will become self-confident and expose your secrets by accident.

  What he said: “Well, at least I’m good for something. I’m That Guy With All The Buffalo.”

  What he knew: I’m an idiot.

  What she said: “Is that why you’re famous?”

  What she understood to be true: I am not afraid to say what is obvious, even if the obvious is uncomfortable to all involved.

  What he said: “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  What he meant: I know what you are talking about.

  What she said: “You’re famous around here. Everybody in this bar treats you like you’re a celebrity. It’s like you own the place. Is this because of the buffalo?”

  What she decided: What have I got to lose?

  What he said: “No, no. None of these dopes gives a shit about the buffalo. I’m not famous. Nobody treats me like I’m famous. It’s just that people treat you a certain way when you’re in high school, and that never changes. If people know me, it’s probably because of my brothers.”

  What he knew: I am worshipped by the stupidest people in the world. I can’t openly complain about this, but I’m totally aware of it. It’s disturbing to be the center of another person’s universe, especially if you’ve never interacted with that person in any meaningful way. Their misplaced adoration makes them seem foolish and immature, so you cannot reciprocate their respect. It instantaneously makes the relationship unbalanced. And this imbalance makes you feel guilty, so you start to unconsciously resent the idolization. Over time, you find yourself hating people for loving you too much, which seems like a terrible thing to do. So you worry about those feelings of hatred all the time, and you wonder if maybe you’re a jackass. Because it’s not their fault. They’re just confused.

  What she said: “What did your brothers do that was so great?”

  What she meant: What did your brothers do that was so great? I’m legitimately curious about this.

  What he said: “They were football players. We all played football, and that’s always a big deal around here.”

  What he remembered: When Jake won the state championship, it was the greatest day of my life. It still is. I was eleven years old. Do you have any idea how philosophically galvanizing it feels to watch your older brother kick everybody’s ass in public when you’re eleven? Jake’s mental toughness was obscene. There’s never been a tougher five-foot-eight quarterback in the universe. This was back when Owl ran the wishbone. He was so focused. He was one of those live-on-your-feet-or-die-on-your-knees maniacs who would insist on getting everybody pumped up for games that barely mattered. People loved him. His teammates would have swallowed cyanide capsules if he told them to do so. He was that kind of guy. I could never relate to him. And Bobby…well, Bobby was better than Jake. Just naturally, effortlessly unstoppable. Bobby was six foot two, covered with acne, probably dyslexic, and absolutely the best football player I’ve ever seen. He was an ice-nine death machine. He was on par with Shanley’s Roger Maris during the 1940s, and maybe even with Lidgerwood’s Arnie Oss from before the Great War. When Bobby was twelve years old, he could throw a tennis ball at a stop sign on the other side of the street and nail the O every time. Bobby never seemed excited or surprised by this. He didn’t seem to have normal emotions. His passing was so flawless that Owl dumped the wishbone and started throwing the ball twenty-five times a game. For a high school team in North Dakota, this was unheard of; it was like showing up at the Civil War with an AK-47. Bobby set records that will stand forever. A bunch of colleges recruited him (even Michigan and Ohio State, although they didn’t offer scholarships). He ended up attending North Dakota State, and he married a girl who regularly won high school beauty pageants. What a whore she was. She destroyed their marriage and she destroyed my brother. I still hate her. Bobby quit the team when he was a senior, dropped out of school, and came back to Owl to help with the buffalo. It’s kind of a sad story, I suppose. But—of course—Bobby is
still a god in this town, just like Jake. And just like me, although that never should have happened.

  What she said: “Oh, yeah, that’s right. Somebody told me about this. You were the proverbial high school football star, no?”

  What she hoped he would infer: This really isn’t important to me. Where I come from, being remembered for things you did in high school usually means you had a baby before you wanted one. Still, the rules are different here. I realize that.

  What he said: “No, not me. I was no football star. My brothers were football stars. I was just another good guy.”

  What he never stopped thinking about: They never should have turned me into a quarterback. I couldn’t do the things quarterbacks needed to do. All my life, I’ve never done anything that was more difficult than trying to complete a downfield pass. People always claim that athletes are morons, and I suppose some of them are. But playing quarterback was complex. It was harder than any class I ever took or any job I’ve ever quit. You have to memorize so much shit. You have to make so many decisions. When I was in high school, I used to vomit all the time. My stomach was a sack of acid. Do you remember dissecting frogs in biology class? I do. I remember looking at the frog diagram in the textbook, and all the individual frog organs were clearly defined and coded by color. The diagram was lucid. But then we cut open the real frog, and it was just a ball of meaningless brown guts. There was no clarity whatsoever. This is how it feels to play quarterback. I would drop back in the pocket and try to find the open man, but the pocket always seemed to be collapsing before it ever existed. You’d hear this cacophony of shoulder pads colliding and linemen grunting and snorting and saying things like oof. Everything happens within the same four seconds. My receivers never appeared where I assumed they would appear; whatever you plan in the huddle never really happens the way it was designed. This, I suppose, is what military generals refer to as the fog of war. I was never comfortable in this kind of scenario, and many people (including all of my teammates) seemed to inherently recognize this. But because of my brothers and because of my last name, there was never any question about what position I would play for the Owl Lobos. They turned me into a quarterback in fifth grade, and I always did the best that I could. Which was slightly better than almost okay, most of the time.

  What she said: “But didn’t you supposedly have some amazing moment? Somebody told me this—I think it was Ted. Ted told me you were involved with some crazy football play, and this play was on TV, and everyone still talks about it. But maybe he meant it happened to one of your brothers.”

  What she meant: Sometimes I have conversations about you when you are not around, and I remember insignificant details about your life. You should appreciate this. But I only do this casually. I am not a freak.

  What he said: “No, no, that was me. I know the situation Ted was talking about. That was me.”

  What he meant: Even though the football play you are referring to essentially ruined my life, I secretly love that strangers know about it and talk about it when I’m not around. I hate when people bring it up to me in conversation, but I like to imagine people discussing it during conversations that don’t involve me directly. My vanity conflicts me. My problems are clichéd and predictable.

  What she said: “What kind of play was it? I used to watch the Packers with my dad. Was it a flea-flicker? I love flea-flickers. If I were a football coach, my team would run a lot of flea-flickers. The flea-flicker would be the key to our offense.”

  What she was attempting to convey through means that made no sense: By espousing an exaggerated affinity for a specific NFL gadget play, I am displaying an awareness of how football is played (which is central to the conversation we are presently conducting) along with a willingness to watch football on television (in case that quality is important to you when looking for a romantic partner). However, by playfully claiming that I would employ said ludicrous gadget play all the time (were I somehow an NFL offensive coordinator), I am indicating that I’m still a girl in the traditional, conventional sense and no threat to your masculinity. It’s win-win.

  What he said: “No, it wasn’t a flea-flicker, sadly. It was just a crazy play where I scrambled around a lot and then completed a dippy, lucky pass. It was a fluke. Everyone knows it was a fluke.”

  What he perceived as the deeper truth: It was the last game of my senior year. We were playing the Langdon Cardinals; they were headed for the play-offs and we were not. It was a physical, boring affair: Langdon was the better team, but we blocked a punt in the fourth quarter, putting us in a position to win or tie. With eighteen seconds left, our fullback scored from the one-yard line, making the score Langdon 14, Owl 13. At the time, there was no overtime in high school football, so we decided to go for the win with a two-point conversion. The ref placed the ball on the two-and-a-half-yard line. I assumed this would be the final play of my wholly unremarkable career. I remember thinking that specific thought as I walked toward the line of scrimmage: I thought, “I guess things could have been worse.” We called a bootleg pass; I faked the handoff and rolled to my right, but Langdon blitzed the outside linebacker on that side. I was a dead man rolling. In an act of desperation, I reversed my field and ran back to my left, but there was a defensive lineman in the backfield, waiting to clobber me. Seeing no other option, I ran away from the goal line, zigging and zagging lengthwise across the field, fleeing from a growing swarm of defenders and surrendering yardage at every turn. I had no plan, so I just kept running away. I could hear the crowd making a peculiar noise; they sounded excited, but also amused. The play seemed to go on for several weeks. At long last, I decided to simply square my shoulders toward the goalposts and fling the ball in the general direction of anyone who looked like they might be on my team. I really didn’t care what happened. I was ready to surrender. But when I finally squared my shoulders, I noticed something bizarre: The goalposts were distant. They were almost on the horizon. Somehow, I had retreated all the way to the fifty-yard line. This is why the crowd had been cheering and laughing at the same time. I scanned the field. It was chaos. Players from both teams were scattered at random, running at full speed but unsure of what to do. It was beyond the fog of war; it was like I had sliced open my biology frog and discovered a human fetus. I was terrified, and—somewhat amazingly, considering that the play was still actively unfolding—embarrassed by what I had done. I had turned the last play of my life into a cowardly exhibition of Smear the Queer. I had always assumed my brothers (or at least Jake) had long been disappointed by my mediocre quarterbacking skills; now they would be shamed by my on-field buffoonery. Since there was nothing else for me to do (and since I certainly couldn’t throw the ball fifty yards), I started running back toward the original line of scrimmage, assuming I would be tackled in the process. But something unusual happened as I did this: Everyone who tried to hit me missed. I wasn’t juking or jiving or spinning away from prospective tacklers; they all just seemed to mistime their tackles and graze me. They were Hong Kong extras and I was Bruce Lee. I kept getting knocked off balance, but I never fell down; this happened five times. The crowd no longer sounded amused; they were now generating the kind of rising anticipatory murmur that always preceded the stunts of Evel Knievel. When I reached the twenty, I hurdled over somebody’s body and angled toward the orange pylon in the left corner of the end zone. I remember thinking, “It’s kind of remarkable that this is happening.” I had one defender to beat at the five-yard line; I lowered my shoulder and turned my head, preparing for the first collision I had ever looked forward to. I was going to try and run this bastard over. But as I tucked my head and locked my jaw, I glimpsed the numerals 8 and 0, way across the field. This, I instantly recognized, was Hank. Hank Zulkey was our tight end (and something of an imbecile, truth be told). He was standing in the corner of the end zone, all the way across the field, waving his arms like a castaway trying to get attention from a search plane. As the crow flies, he was at least thirty-five yards away. I shoul
d have ignored him. But for reasons I will never understand, I did not. I spontaneously threw Hank the football. I reflexively chucked it at him sidearm, as if such behavior was an intrinsic part of my nature. As if this had been my plan all along. It was an ill-advised, extraordinarily difficult throw, and Hank had hands made of mahogany. I could not have made a worse decision. But that ill-advised pass turned out to be the tightest spiral I ever released. It was like I fired a crossbow into the stomach of a scarecrow. It was perfect. Hank fell back on his ass, the ref threw his arms toward the sky, and the entire crowd (or at least everyone under the age of thirty) stormed the field; they looked like freed Egyptian slaves. There weren’t any grandstands at that time, so the older, lazier fans would always park their cars around the perimeter of the field and watch the game from their front seats. They would honk the horn whenever something exciting happened. I really remember all those horns blasting forever—people just laid on the steering columns. It was terrifying and apocalyptic, but still pretty great. About twenty people immediately dog piled on top of Hank, then thirty others piled on top of me. They all smelled like beer and cigarettes. They tried to tear down the goalposts, but that didn’t work. The game’s final eighteen seconds were never even played. It was madness. The school eventually had to call the cops. We could hear the sirens from the locker room. I’ve never been to Northern Ireland, but maybe that’s what it’s like there all the time.