Covered Stands

Stands. Covered stands. Packed with people and approached from behind and above, walking down a paved path toward the entrance. Once inside, navigating rows and tiers to find my seats. Passing forward, a football from the field is thrown my way and I catch it humbly. I toss it somewhere while the fans around me cheer. I find my seat up on a tier toward the left side of the massive and boxy stands. Am I sitting next to Dr. Nick? I think so. Is that Nick Ova? Do I call him Nick Hennigar? I DO tell him that he looks like Nick Ova (he does) but I think I say Hennigar instead. He is holding nachos.

Once in my seat the ball game resumes. Football. In between plays the stands become like Star Tours at Disneyland. The stars in the sky are innumerable and bright. The stands thrust upward and the stars spin, they lurch back, twist over, jerking the steel and cement.

Leaving the stands, a group of mostly females plays catch with footballs. It is some sort of female empowerment exercise. The girls are horrible at throwing the footballs. The throws are off and bounce on the cement pathway I walked in on. As I pass a pair their ball nearly hits me and I think to pick it up and return it to them but it bounces away from me. As I pass them the ball again comes my way. I have a pen in my right hand so I do not grab it but instead I flip it back over my shoulder to them. It is a swift and deft move. They murmur to themselves that they should say thanks but it all happened so fast. I walk away.

Before all this, a house, a white square house with awnings and balconies stained brown-red and poking wood out. Inside corridors drop down 3 or 4 stairs and then bounce up ramps into new rooms.

Later in the night, back at the stands, I am there with two friends. We find a manhole cover in the seats. We lift it. There is another cover. We lift it. Inside is a small shaft that recedes back into the stands out of sight. It looks to definitely be too small for a human man. Suddenly, a small sled attached to a rope or a chain slides out toward us. It has a jagged headrest and a portion to lay your buttocks on. I suggest one of my friends gets on. He does. As soon as he does I click what I know is the lever to release the sled back into the stands. He is jerked on the sled, sucked back into the stands, down the tiny shaft. He remains there, in sight, staring up in awe but speechless.

Later, he is gone and I put a human sized nascar replica on the manhole cover and push it down. It clicks in place and zooms like the human from before back into the stands.