Twelve and Oh, and Ray Comes to Thanksgiving
Cleveland State56
Kansas State28
- Game
- 2037 Week 12
- Site
- Home
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 12-0
VIKINGS 56, KANSAS STATE 28. TWELVE AND OH.
Twenty-eight points of daylight, our sixth straight win over the Wildcats. Our fourth perfect regular season in eight years: 2030, 2031, 2034 and now 2037. Nine and oh in the Big 12.
But you don’t care about that, folks. You want to hear about Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving was at Ken and Teresa’s apartment. Ray and Carol came up from Sarasota. Ray is eighty-five. He came in a wheelchair, with a blanket, and Ken carried him up the three flights of stairs because the building doesn’t have an elevator, and Ray said, at the top, “Kenny, you got strong.” Ken said, “I run now, Dad.”
Ray sat at the head of the table. He knew Ken. He knew Carol. He knew Teresa (“the soup girl”). He looked at me for a long time, and I waited, and then he said, “You’re the loud one.” I said, “I’m the loud one, Ray.” He said, “Good. Kenny needs a loud one.”
Sofia came with her clipboard. Ray asked her, “What are you counting?” She said, “Everything, Mr. Ray.” He said, “Good eye.” She cried. She’d never met him. She’d heard about “good eye” for two years.
Sam brought a fifth chair. Oak. On the back, carved: RAY.
Five pierogi.
A twenty-eight-point home win over Kansas State to finish a twelve-and-oh regular season, the fourth of the Dolan era.
My father came to Thanksgiving. I’ll write about it once, as plainly as I can.
He was in my home, at my table, in a chair Sam carved with his name on the back. He knew me for the whole afternoon. He named the birds outside our window: two pigeons and a cardinal, which landed on the fire escape next to the cardinal flower Teresa planted, and he said, “Look, Kenny. It found the flower.” He asked Mickey about the Vikings. He asked Sofia about her clipboard. He told Teresa, for the third time in his life, “Make him go outside.” He asked me, “Who’s the quarterback?” I said Pashos. He said, “Does he listen?” I said yes. He said, “Then you’ll win.”
After pie, he fell asleep in the chair with his name on it, with the game on, holding my mother’s hand.
Next week, the Big 12 title game. Against the RedHawks. I don’t want to write about it yet.
Back and forth
Sam carved RAY on the chair.
He fell asleep in it. Holding my mother’s hand. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened in my apartment.
He said “Then you’ll win.”
He did. I’m not putting it in the Doom Model. I’m putting it in the notebook.
A fourth perfect regular season, a father carried up three flights by a son who runs now, a cardinal that found the flower, and an oak chair with RAY carved on the back.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.