T.K. rubs his kidneys, especially sore from Johnson’s repeated thrashings, and his chest, which burns in parallel lines where the braces for his body armor have been shoved, time and again during the game today, up against his ribs.

He has the whole locker room, a large mobile trailer, temporarily to himself. His teammates are still out on the street telling Timothy Enge and his viewers how next year they’re going to come back, come back and win XXI. The breaks went against us, they were saying when he left them. We’ll get the breaks back next year. Sure they will. T.K.’s heard the same story with minor variations a million times before. Bad breaks. The loser’s lament.

T.K. isn’t out there with them joining in on the chorus because he doesn’t have the stomach for self absolving delusion. T.K.’s a realist. He knows the Prospectors didn’t lose that game because of bad breaks. They lost because Harv Matision, the Minutemen’s rookie quarterback, faked T.K. Mann right out of his iron horse. The apartment house. How obvious could Matision have been? Putting his hidden safety in the God damned apartment house. So obvious. A clear shot in any direction. T.K. should have guessed it. Then he would have thrown that last pass to Gradington’s right side instead of to his left. That way, when Gradington got excited, as T.K. should have realized he would, and lifted his head, the kid would have had his back to the apartment house. His neck would have been covered and the best the hidden safety could have hoped for would have been a lucky shot to the inside of Gradington’s knee, to the quarter inch opening where thigh and calf ribbing come together.

T.K. shifts around in his seat, trying to find a position that will relieve the pain in his injured parts. The fact that he can’t make the pain go away resurrects the nagging realization that’s been festering within him for a long while. He’s getting old. Thirty four. What the newscaster on the six o’clock sports roundup refers to as an aging quarterback. It’s probably the worst kept secret in the league that the Prospectors’ head office has been scouting around for a new quarterback to replace him. After that mediocre showing he put up against Matision today, they’re undoubtedly looking even harder.

Christ, how he wished it didn’t matter. How he wished he could just say screw ‘em and retire. Live a Sunday without pain.