Adding Injury to Insult
Thursday, December 6, 2007 at 01:38AM It is difficult being a Cal fan. It seems like we're always either losing, or winning and then losing. This season was no exception. If you're not familiar with Cal football, then just imagine the football equivalent of the Hindenberg, and multiply it by fifty. At about week 5 we were ranked #2 in the nation--which was the highest we'd been ranked since the 1950s, when we were coached by someone named Pappy Woldorff and the players ran around at about 14 frames per second. By the end, though, we were packing our bags for the lowly Armed Forces bowl. "Obscure" is a generous description of this bowl. So is "a shitty bowl".
Well, by the time the last game of the season rolled around we knew we were already finished as far as the Rose Bowl was concerned, but not all joy was lost, because we still had the opportunity to beat Stanford for the umpteenth time in a row. So, I was excited about watching the game. I recruited my roommates Shane and Aine to the cause, and together we hunted around for a bar that would be showing the game. Finally we found one--this place Kezar Pub on Stanyan.
I was expecting the place to be shabby and depressing, but it was actually quite nice inside. There were TVs everywhere you looked but it felt right--and the place was packed with cheery people dressed in team logos. We settled in at a table that was right next to a long table full of Cal fans, and began to drink.
The bar had a lot of Cal fans, and only two Stanford fans. They were a fairly rowdy minority, though. One of them was a girl hailing from Alaska, and the other was a vaguely sinister looking white guy--I don't know, there was something about the angularity of his face that some primitive part of my brain recognized as dangerous. In any case, they were both fairly nice and outgoing, and everyone seemed to be enjoying the jocular taunting and back-and-forths.
Now, these two Stanford people were friends with each other, but they weren't a couple. This was made clear by the girl, who went out of her way to drop this bit of information into the conversation. Shrewdly, I deduced from this that she was flirting with me, and what really confirmed it--subtle arm touches aside--was the fact that she loudly said, "Whooooaa, nevermind" when she found out I was about 5 years younger than her. Anyway, the flirtations continued after that although with the underlying understanding that nothing would come of it.
I seemed to get along well with both of these Stanford people. The guy and I carved out a relationship based on mutual respect and a willingness to acknowledge poor officiating that benefited our own respective teams. What made this feat of bisportsmanship even more featy was the fact that, as it happened, this guy used to actually be the Stanford Tree. So not only was I dealing with a Stanford fan, I was dealing with Stanford fandom incarnate--with the Platonic form of it, you could say. And so together we watched the game, our battle of wits mirroring the battle being played out on the gridiron. The weird combination of genteel adherence to rules of decency and the Stanford Tree's embodiment of abstract evil made it feel like something out of The Devil and Daniel Webster.
Well, I don't have to tell you what happened: Cal lost, and all of the Cal supporters in the bar had to bear witness to the spectacle of the Stanford fans hooting, hollering, and dancing around on tables in delirious victory (a spectacle, mind you, that might not have been tolerated by a different, more confrontational set of fans). With a collective sigh, people started shuffling towards the door.
On my way out, I passed by the Stanfordites, who were busy downing shots. The guy brought me over to him and asked if I would relieve him of half of his tequila shot, since it was a bit too much for him. I told him I'd take the whole shot, and threw it back. On the momentum of this bravado-in-the-face-of-defeat, I then turned to the girl, and exchanged, in a swaggering manner, some flirty lines back and forth. She was responsive to it, which was a bit surprising, considering her earlier verdict of "too young"--but I guess the dose of alcohol had changed her mind about a few of the logistical concerns she had earlier. However, underneath this flirtatious veneer I could catch just the slightest glimpse of something nasty, like the glint of a cat's eye in the shadows just before it pounces. And I realized that I, too, was getting ready to pounce.
The truth was, neither party was really interested in the other--the game of flirtation was a proxy for the game on the field. The Bears might have lost, but I'd be damned if I was going to eat out of her hand like a trained animal. Asking for her number would mean defeat. So what could I do?
It had come my turn to say something. At the nick of time, I thought of what to say--it would be perfect. It would totally deflate her, and bring the wicked game of flirtation to a close, myself the victor. I leaned in close to her and said the following asshole line:
"Do you want my phone number?"
The comment gave the girl pause, and then a mean smile came across her face. "No." I smiled back, probably equally meanly. But there was a further layer underneath even this layer of contempt--a layer that spoke of mutual respect, of appreciation for the game itself. What was taking place was, in a bizarre way, a form of sportsmanship. The sport in this case was not, however, football, but fandom--the commitment to a team across all social contexts and venues, no matter how petty and cruel, if only for a day. I may have won, but we both played an admirable game, subserving our very need to reproduce to the greater cause of Cal, or in her case Stanford, football. It was a nice moment.
Then the Tree had to go and fuck it all up.
Before I could turn on my heels after my deathblow of a line, the Tree slapped me across the face.
As you can imagine, I was not expecting this. My face emotionless, I turned and looked at him, and blinked a few times. After a few moments, he slapped me again. Across the face.
Sensing that laws were being broken and that the situation could spiral out of control, the girl admonished the Tree, telling him to stop it. After the third slap--and at this point I starting to get curious as to how many times he would slap me if I just stood there--she gave me an apologetic look to indicate that she was not on board with any of it.
Anyway, he finally stopped slapping me, and there was a sense that it was my turn to respond. After a beat, I turned to the girl, winked, said "See ya later", and left.
***
So, ouch. Getting slapped by the Stanford Tree after a Big Game loss--it stings. But victory doesn't buy you class.
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