Page 24 of Offside

At five fifty-eight I’m dressed, showered, washbag packed. Two minutes inside legal. Standing at the door of a hotel room I’ve exited cleanly, a hundred times, a hundred ways, all much earlier than this. Yet this is the first exit in five years that has required strength to go.

He’s awake. He watches me from the bed the way he watches film. Like there’s something in the footage he needs to pay extra attention to.

“Practice at eleven,” he says.

“I know.”

“Film ran long.”

Deadpan. Straight face. Our whole life in three words.

“Extended cut,” I say turning back to the door. “Director’s version.”

“Šíma.” I stop, hand on the handle. He’s looking at the ceiling now, not at me, which is how the biggest things get said in this room. “Good film.”

“Good film,” I say, and go.

The corridor is empty. The stairs are where I left them. Five fifty-nine and forty seconds, and the officiating begins before I reach the landing, because the officiating is part of the walk now.

Ruling as follows. Nothing happened. Film ran long. The captain talked after, which captains do. They debrief. It’s in the job description. The drinking item was administrative. The schedule item was recovery science. The stay was a scheduling accident inside a lengthened window that existed for sports-medicine reasons. The boots were moved for cleaning. The name I said was reflex.

Breakfast is at eight. I’ll be there at nine minutes to nine, in yesterday’s clothes, with a bar story ready and no one asking, because the system works. The system is a wall with one room behind it. And the man who lives in the room just spent a whole night proving he knows exactly where the door is.

I sleep ninety minutes and dream about nothing, on the record.

Off the record, there was a wedding in it.

?

Chapter 8: Tomáš

Šíma arrives at nine minutes to nine in yesterday’s clothes, sits down in front of the plate I set, and gives Polášek a bourbon story nobody requested.

I put down my coffee and run the day in my head. I don’t look at the clothes. That’s all I have to say about breakfast.

Corner practice during our morning session. I deliver six to the near post. Four arrive where they’re meant to arrive, and Novotný gets his head to three, and coach watches with his arms crossed.

“Again,” I say.

“It’s gone in four times,” Novotný says.

“It hasn’t gone in against their keeper. Again.”

“Their keeper isn’t here.”

“Then beat the one in your head.”

“He’s beaten,” Novotný reports, three deliveries later, flat on the grass. “He’s retired. He’s opening a restaurant.”

We go again. My legs are good. Suspiciously good, for the sleep I got. The body keeps its own timetable. I’ve learned not to examine a good morning too closely.

After training, I reorganize the kit room.

Nobody asked me to reorganize the kit room. The kit man watches me do it with the expression of a man whose house is being renovated by weather.

“Hajek. It was organized.”

“It was organized for a group stage. We’re in a semifinal. The semifinal wants the away kit forward.”