“Yeah, these owners are a bunch of hard-asses. Scab football is no good. We shouldn’t even be tuning in on Sundays. Never cross a picket line to steal a man’s livelihood. Always be on the side of the workingman.” Pat thought of his role at American and swallowed dry. “Can you do that for me, Danny boy?”

“Uh . . . sure.”

“Your father and Mr. Hoffa thank you.” Pat smiled, then Dan chuckled.

“Whatever, Dad.”

They held quiet the rest of the trip, content and left alone together.

As Pat pulled into the drop-off for the stadium parking lot, his left leg twitched, and he stopped short, the front tires screeching for a hot second. Nobody noticed, but it broke the high school rule of not drawing unnecessary attention to oneself. Mortified, Dan smacked the dashboard and gave his father a what-the-hell glare.

“Sorry. Leg fell asleep there for a second.”

Dan took a deep breath, caught himself and his 7-Up, which had thankfully not spilled. “It’s okay. Just run over the kids from White, not Jesuit.”

“Roger that.”

“Thanks for the ride.”

“Be good, bub, or at least not too bad,” Pat said, but Dan was already out of the car and not looking back.

Pat watched Dan disappear into the crowd of teenagers. There was a certain civility in his son that put Pat at ease. He was fully a young man, who could do great things, and as Pat shook out the tingling in his leg, he said a quick prayer that his son would be healthy and do all the things he’d never had the chance to.

Dan flashed his student ID at the gate and waltzed unmolested past two Addison police officers. He then scooted around the student section and ducked into the toilets. In the stall he poured the airplane bottles of vodka into the can. He took a sip and almost gagged but managed to swallow, which was followed by a burn in his throat and a shudder down his back. Dan studied the graffiti on the stall door as he took another sip.

A guilty remembrance of his father twitched in his mind, but he let that go.

It was Dan’s small, dark rebellion.

It was also his coping method for watching the Jesuit Rangers get their ass kicked. Dan climbed the stairs into the bleachers. The cheerleaders went into a routine on the track between the crowd and the sideline, where Father Payne, the team chaplain, had the varsity all on one knee in prayer. Dan walked past as the defensive captain, Brad Stonecipher, capped off a Hail Mary.

“Our Lady, Queen of Victory.”

And the whole team replied: “Pray for us.”