No, No, Ma, Everything's Going Great

The Undetected Issues a Statement Concerning Soccer

I chew. The TV is turned to soccer for the Brazilian guys in the back making the pizza. Why is it all the Italian players look like a Henry Rollins* today? Is it their sweaty hair? The sheen of their shorts? Well, all except one. He looks like a mechanized lion puppet—something about his flattened no-colored hair, handsome brow, subtly protuberant nose. Ohp! He’s just been given a penalty kick. There was a collision with someone else’s arms and legs that left him prone and caterwauling. But the grass is so green, the slow motion replay of the man’s clutching shin/calf/shin/calf so real but so fake seeming, the glint off the laminated yellow card so pronounced, I don’t notice what happens to the ball. But the net knows; the net knows pretty much everything. I hope to die as well as that ball is aimed and kicked into that net sometimes. I’ve missed it; they’re running again. Things happen and happen and happen some more. For a moment, it seems like the ball is controlling the action, not the players, the ball is bouncing itself off their shins, hurdling itself off their feet to sail down the field fifty yards, dodging left and right. I like that moment, but it passes. I sigh and crumple my napkin. They’re so good, these Henry Rollins, so absurdly nimble. I mean, it’s a cage of absolute wonderment watching them, no wonder so many people are obsessed.
*circa Get in the Van

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