The SFL teams have become quite adept at large-scale transportation. Special trams ferry the vacationers, as they’re called, from their homes to the homes away from home the teams have set up. There they spend game day relaxing, eating, drinking or drugging at SFL expense. Most of the displaced forgo the free golf courses, the free banquets, the free dances, the free movies, the free bowling alleys and tennis courts in favor of watching on TV the game that has displaced them. Each house in the village is equipped with a jumbo fifty inch full color TV set, a considerable improvement over the thirty-inchers common to most homes and apartments. But the sheer size of the set is only one of the attractions of watching the game in the village. The SFL gratuitously provides all viewers with an unlimited number of free replays. With the cost of living as high as it is and the relatively little extra money most people have available to spend on replays, this is a very welcome benefit. One which vastly overshadows the multitude of other pleasures the village has to offer. So appealing is this benefit that almost never does a resident of a playing area refuse to move out of his own free will. (If he does, he is, of course, transported by force. The games must go on.)

For Jaime, who sells patio covers and pedals a cab part time, and Surdo, who works as an information retrieval operator for a local insurance company, the situation affords an all too rare relief from the financial considerations which severely limit the extent of their viewing.

They arise at 11 P.M. on Saturday, a full hour before kickoff. So as to make certain they don’t miss a single play throughout the day, they fortify themselves with amphetamines, which the Sharks have thoughtfully left for them in large bottles in the medicine cabinet.

As the game progresses, they watch every moment, hour after hour, dashing to the bathroom and the kitchen only during the quarter timeouts, watching replays during the commercials (which still doesn’t save them from being exposed to a sales pitch since every replay is, itself, preceded by an abridged commercial).

The game is nearly over.

The Sharks are losing, the Prospectors have the ball. Then, on third down and short yardage, Eddie Hougart, the Prospectors’ halfback/deep safety, fumbles. The Sharks’ center recovers. Since a ball turnover such as occurs with a fumble or an interception alters which team has the use of weapons, runbacks are prohibited. The ball is immediately blown dead, giving the Sharks possession on Nahua Street, the Prospectors’ 320 yard line.