The Twenty-Seventh City. Jonathan Franzen

ran to look after the fallen runner, who writhed on his back.

      “ALL RIGHT!” the Oranges bellowed. Probst gave them a critical glance. Coarse blond hair clung to their heads like wigs, and the orange Webster jerseys they were wearing heightened the impression of fakeness. The woman’s cheeks were scarlet, her lips blue and retracted. The husband’s head swiveled back and forth as the Statesmen cheerleaders started up a new chant—

      That’s all right. That’s OK. We’re going to beat you Anyway

      —an incongruous message, since the Pioneers had just lost one of their better players. The trainer and coaches were carrying him towards the sidelines on a stretcher.

      After two losses and an incomplete pass, Kirkwood had to punt. The Statesmen took over at their own 20-yard line, and Probst was happy to immerse himself in the game, to count downs in his head and watch the line of scrimmage ebb and flow. He was happy not to be at home. At home, the night before, Barbara had given him the distinct impression that she expected him to take some kind of action regarding Luisa. He was an active businessman, wasn’t be? Be firm with her! Be hurt! Go get her! Or at least comfort your wife… But action was impossible. Luisa made him angry like a woman, not a daughter. As he lay awake in bed a single thought monopolized his mind: I have the strength not to be selfish and deceitful while she, apparently, does not. And it was clear that Barbara, lying next to him, didn’t want to hear about this. “She’s only known Duane a month,” she said. “I’m sure he’s OK, though. I can’t blame this on him. You know Luisa. She wouldn’t be there if she didn’t want to be … Oh Martin, this just tears me apart.”

      Probst did not know Luisa. He began to stroke Barbara’s hair.

      The Oranges sprang to their feet. “ALL RIGHT! ALL RIGHT!”

      A referee thrust his arms in the air and the Marching Statesmen struck up the school song. A touchdown. How wonderful.

      Deducing that he loved her, or overlooking his gall in desiring her if he didn’t, Barbara had reached down with her cold, strong fingers and adjusted the angle of his penis, leading him in. “I’ll call Lu tomorrow,” he lied in a whisper. She turned her head away from him. Her mouth was opening. He increased his pressure, and then, glimpsing her teeth, he remembered a late afternoon in September. A Friday. A van with a bad muffler driving down Sherwood Drive. Dozer, his three-year-old retriever, chasing it. Dozer who never chased things. A thud and a yelp. The driver didn’t stop, probably didn’t even know he’d hit something. Probst knelt in the street. Dozer was dead, and his teeth, the incisors and canines and molars, were grinning in bitter laughter, and his body was hot and heavy, his splintered ribs sharp, as Probst picked him up. The embrace was terrible. He hurried to get home, pushing, pushing, pushing, but it was too late: Dozer had become evil, staring in a crazy angle at the ground, which rose up mechanically to meet his feet. He dropped him on the grass. Eventually Barbara lost her patience, shed him roughly, and rolled away.

      The Statesmen were lined up for another kickoff. Mrs. Orange clutched her husband’s arm and looked around pugnaciously at Probst and the people behind him, as if they didn’t deserve to live in Webster if they wouldn’t even stand up for a kickoff.

      Kirkwood took the touchback and started at the 20-yard line. On the very first play the stands exploded in confetti and streamers. A Statesman safety had picked off a pass and run it all the way back for a touchdown. Mrs. Orange seemed ripped by convulsions. “ALL RIGHT! ALL RIGHT! ALL RIGHT! ALL RIGHT!”

      Probst decided he’d had enough. He rose determinedly. “ALL RIGHT!” He pushed past knees and elbows, hurrying, “ALL RIGHT!” The cry was fainter now. He reached the end of the row and descended to the black cinder track. There he realized, from the lightness of his hands, that he’d left the heavy cream under the bench.

      “Hey Martin!”

      It was Norm Hoelzer, sitting in the second row. Hoelzer was a local small-timer. Kitchens and bathrooms. “Well hi,” Probst said.

      “Some game, isn’t it?”

      “Oh. It’s …” He didn’t know what it was.

      “You here with Barbara?”

      How dare Hoelzer know his wife’s first name?

      He shook his head: no, he wasn’t here with Barbara. Hoelzer’s wife’s name was Bonnie. Grew roses. Probst forced his way through a group of boys in letter jackets.

      “Hey Martin!” A hand waved from deep in the stands. Joe Farrell. Here with what looked to be his daughter and son-in-law. “Well hi,” Probst said. (At this distance Farrell of course couldn’t hear him.) He kept walking. It was a tight squeeze, with the cheerleaders taking up half the track, and fans, mostly kids, lining the cable between the cheerleaders and the Statesman benches. “Hey Martin!” another voice called from the stands. Probst—well hi! – ignored it. “Martin!” The noise, after all, was terrific. Cheers came in sheets, like the avalanching calls of katydids. Most of the cheerleaders were idle at the moment, but a few of them did flying dutchmen out of sheer high spirits. How splendidly these girls were built. Probst followed a man in a wool coat slowly, content for once to proceed at the going speed.

      “Martin!” A large hand gripped his arm. The man in the wool coat had turned around, and when Probst saw his face his heart sank. It was Jack DuChamp, his old friend from high school. Probst hadn’t seen him in a good ten years.

      “I wondered who was stepping on my heels!” Jack grabbed Probst’s other arm and beamed at him.

      “Well!” Probst said. He didn’t know what else to say.

      “I should have guessed you wouldn’t miss this game,” Jack said.

      “I’d missed it for a couple of years in a row, actually.”

      Jack nodded, not hearing him. “I was going to get a Coke, but the lines were too long. Do you want to come sit with me?”

      The invitation closed on Probst like a bear trap on his leg. Sitting in the stands with Jack DuChamp—reminiscing about their South Side youth, comparing their utterly divergent careers—was the last thing in the world he felt like doing.

      “Well!” he said again.

      “Or are you here with people?”

      “No, yes, I—” The look of entreaty on Jack’s face was more than Probst could stand. He’d spent too large a part of his life with Jack to be able to lie easily. “No,” he said, “I came alone. Where are you sitting?”

      Jack pointed towards the north end of the field and laughed. “In the three-dollar seats!”

      Probst heard himself chuckle.

      “Jesus, Martin, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” Jack held his arm. They were climbing into the stands.

      “It must be ten years.” Instantly Probst regretted having named the actual figure.

      “We keep seeing your name in the paper, though …”

      From the field Probst heard the wordless exertions of another play, the accidental grunts, rising cheers and tearing fabric. Jack DuChamp had moved his family to Webster Groves about the same time Probst and Barbara had moved there. Unfortunately, the house Jack bought was soon condemned to make room for Interstate 44, and the only houses for sale in Webster at the time were well beyond his price range. So he moved his family to Crestwood, a new town, a new school district, and Probst, whose company held the I-44 demolition contracts and did the actual razing of the houses, felt responsible. As a matter of fact, he felt guilty.

      “Aren’tcha?” Jack had stopped halfway up the long stairs and was surveying the crowd to their right.

      “Beg pardon?” Probst said.

      “I said you’re just the same.”

      “No.”

      “You always did have your head in the clouds.”