Page 4 of Offside

Final count: zero players, two staff, one bar handed back in acceptable condition.

Semifinal.I say it once more on the way to the lift, to nobody. The word holds up. Good word. It needs the work.

Mami calls in the lift, because of course she does. It’s one in the morning and she is my mother.

“You should be asleep,” I say.

“You should be asleep,” she says. “Running. So much running tonight, Tomášku.”

“That’s the job, Mami.”

“The horn was magnificent.”

“There’s a rule about air horns and I’m choosing not to learn it.”

“Rules.” I can hear her wave her hand. Somewhere in a rented Atlanta kitchen, my mother is waving away the stadium code of conduct. “Semifinal, Tomáš.”

“Semifinal, Mami.”

“Your brother watched with us. He made everyone stand up when you took the corner. Your grandfather fell asleep at halftime and woke up for the goal, which he claims was strategy.”

“It was probably strategy.”

“He has announced he will stay awake for the whole semifinal. Now go sleep.”

“I’m walking to my room right now.”

“Good. I love you. Tell Šíma the report was his best work. Somebody filmed it for me.”

“I’m not telling him that. His head doesn’t fit in the lift as it is.”

She laughs and hangs up on me, which is how she ends all calls, mid-warmth, like a woman getting off a tram.

My room is a single, because the armband comes with one privilege. Schedule taped to the mirror. Kit laid out for tomorrow. Two water bottles on the nightstand, because past me looks after future me. That’s the system. I look at the schedule. Recovery at ten. Media at twelve. Nothing until the bus at nine.

I send the film text.

Šíma. Film at mine. Fifteen minutes.

It’s not about film. It’s never once been about film. It’s the one piece of scheduling I run that doesn’t go in the group chat, and it has run, without a fixture list, for five years. The reply comes back in forty seconds.

noted

That’s the whole reply. That’s always the whole reply. You could pin our entire message history to the tactics board and lose nothing but the time it took to read. Bus times, recovery slots, film at mine. A man’s life in logistics. It’s tidy. I like it that way.

He knocks twice, soft. He uses the keycard I gave him and comes in with his washbag under his arm like a man attending a very small conference.

“Fifteen minutes,” he says. “It took me nine. Note the margin.”

“Noted.” I hand him a water. He drinks half of it without being told.

He’s quieter up here. Always is. The volume he uses on tables stays on the tables. This one is better. I’ve never told him it’s better, because that’s not a thing we say, and because he’d put it in a bit and then it would belong to the tables too.

“Mami says the report was your best work,” I say. “Somebody filmed it for her.”

“I have a following.” He says it the way other men say sorry. “Tell her the critics agreed.”

“I’m telling her nothing. Damián?”