Page 11 of Offside

The phone stays dark. No film on rest days. That’s the rule. It’s a good rule. I wrote it. Tonight, the rule has a weight I don’t remember signing on for. I check the dark screen twice anyway. The screen gives me back the room. The lamp, the two beds, one man sleeping. A dark little rectangle, watching a room with nothing in it but me.

?

Chapter 4: Tomáš

Breakfast inventory, day two after Italy. One coach reading a printout like it owes him money. Novotný with six pieces of bacon and a defense prepared.

I build a plate on my way in. Eggs, toast, two bananas. I set it at the empty spot next to Polášek, where Šíma sits when he comes down, because he comes down late and the kitchen closes the hot line at nine.

Then I make my own.

I’ve done it in that order for years. It’s not a thing. It’s timing. Somebody in this squad has to arrive on time on behalf of the people who don’t.

“Captain.” Novotný points his fork at me. “Settle something. If I score in the semifinal, is the celebration the archer or the lawnmower.”

“Neither. You’ll be too tired to celebrate, because you’ll have tracked your runner all match. That’s the celebration.”

Šíma arrives at nine minutes to nine and sits down in front of the plate like room service is a constitutional right.

“Item one,” he says, to no one in particular. “The weather. It is good, and it has been noted.”

“Eat,” I say. I check him off the roster and move to the schedule, which today has a guest on it.

Tobík’s lanyard says OFFICIAL and my brother wears it like a medal, which is correct, because the federation doesn’t give lanyards to just anyone. It gives them to anyone who asks Damián.

He hugs me hello at the training-ground gate. He still hugs the way he did at twelve. All commitment, no technique.

“You look terrible,” he says, delighted. “Semifinals suit you.”

“You look like a man with a lanyard.”

“I’m OFFICIAL. It’s laminated. Mami wants it for the shelf after, so don’t let anyone touch it.”

The session runs sharp. Four days to the semifinal and the legs know it, the boss saying nothing, which from the boss is a parade. Tobík stands where guests stand, and heckles like family.

“Dami,” he calls, during the passing pattern. “Your first touch is going. I’m telling the internet.”

“You are the internet.”

“My feed has standards. My feed wants trophies.”

Damián laughs mid-drill and has to reset his feet. Two touches later he puts a header down onto my instep from thirty meters like it was posted first class. Ten years of that. Ten more years of that for him across an ocean now.

Between drills they keep going, fence and pitch, no gap in the machine.

“The bakery does rye on Fridays only,” Tobík calls. “I checked.”

“He negotiated with a baker,” Damián tells me, jogging past.

“Somebody had to,” Tobík says. “You’d have just been sad about bread quietly for a year. Right, Tomáš?”

“I’ve lived it. Ostrava, 2014. He didn’t speak for a day.”

“It was bad bread,” Damián says, with dignity.

There’s a bit between them already. There’s an internet and a bakery and laughing. It runs on its own fuel, no maintenance needed.

My brother was hurt in my house, on my watch, by a rule I wrote, and now he’s laughing at a fence with the man who loves him, and everything about that sentence is good news.