Fuck All That

After a soul-sucking . . .  whatever the fuck that was in the desert, the Lions come home, where they will take part in what will probably seem like an assassination as Phil Rivers does his duty and sends us all to hell.  But that is stinkin’ thinkin’, which is almost like a stank thought, but in the end it just stinks. I don’t know what I’m babbling about either, but fuck it, it’s a new week, and another chance for these Detroit Lions to show that they are not who we fear they are. But, The Fear is a very real thing, and when you are trapped in its cold, icy embrace, the only thing you can do is just close your eyes and think of the last warm and friendly thing you can remember before you were brought here to this abattoir, where the blood is always fresh and those cries you heard were just some goofballs goofing off, goofin’ it up, and not the sound of your soul being twisted and ripped from you until all that’s left is just a broken thing, a ruined thing, a Detroit Lions thing. They kill the innocent here. No one else is welcome.

I say this even though the Lions are still technically unbeaten, and for the vast majority of that desert excursion they actually took it to the Cardinals a bit. I was proud of them. Sure, the Cardinals are their own diseased thing, and it isn’t very nice to whip up on those types, but when they are there to be whipped, you best get whippin’. But the Lions did not whip the Cardinals. Instead, they did what they always do, which is a thing we’re all very familiar with, that feeling, that constant nagging that never lets you enjoy when they start the whippin’  because you know that at some point they are gonna lose that whip and then it’s, well, ties in the desert where evil things roam at night and where everything can go wrong. Oops, lost eye contact with your buddy there, now he’s a fucking skinwalker.

But this is all dwelling on what weird things happen in the desert and the Lions are past all that now, returning home to host the Chargers, who will likely shoot them down in their own house and make off with whatever loose women are scattered in the stands. But that’s exactly the kind of thing a team of cowards would do, and I hope at least these Lions are not such cowards and will keep all your women safe and some of the men too, but I don’t know that I can expect that, which is a shitty thing, and I don’t like it, but this is what happens when you piss away anything good you ever did, and just sit and watch helplessly as the inevitable happens and we’re all stuck in the same fucking quantum loop, living this spineless shit over and over and over again. It doesn’t matter if it’s wilting in the desert or if it’s hiding your head in shame back home, it is a thing that has defined this fucking team for 60 years. Anything can happen with the Lions. We all know that. We have all lived that. You can never allow yourself to be happy because you know that at some point that loop is gonna close back down on you and strangle you forever.

Is it fate, then? I don’t know. Who cares, really. The only thing I know is that I am just so tired of watching the cat chase its own tail, and I am tired of the numbing effect it has on us all because after a certain point you just learn to expect that the world will fuck you, and it doesn’t matter if it’s your day off, this shit will find you and drag you back to this place of shared misery.

But fuck all that, I guess, because really, what else can you say? Fuck all that. We drag our chains with us. We tangle ourselves in our fears, and at some point, don’t you just have to say fuck all that and get on with living?

Yes. But that’s the whole problem, really. It’s all well and good to want to face a new day and hope for the best, but those scars and those debts you left behind you are still there and still fucking with you. It’s no good. It’s no good at all, man. Your past is just your future predicted and you will die this same death a thousand times before it ever starts to make any kind of sense. But that is what Jesus is for. All you have to do is face a new day, knowing that you might and probably will die before it’s done, but you face it anyway because it is the only thing you can do. And maybe, for a moment, a little window of hope can open and in that window you can see yourself winning, you can see yourself daring to believe that it won’t go down like it has a thousand other times, that Barry wants to run for a few more years, that Calvin will rescue you, that something different will finally happen to you and your team. One day at a time. That’s all I’ve got for you here in this already bleak new year of Lions football, but it’s that spirit that keeps you moving, keeps you sharp, the idea that today does not have to be held in thrall to yesterday.

But fuck all that, because in the moment, you will let yourself believe in anything. And you’ll also let yourself believe in anything’s cousin, everything, which is a bit nastier and is where you will find your horrors and assorted Failure Demons, the possibilities reminding you that you know full well what it means to be a fan of the Detroit Lions. You don’t get to act like you never saw it coming, And that is where we will meet, all of us just hanging on, and hoping that at some point anything will overcome everything and we’ll get our chance to see the glories of heaven before hell drags us back down. This is Lions football, in its simplest and in its most vexing form, and we’re all “blessed” to be at the heart of it all, taking slow walks because we are old and we are tired. But it is in these slow walks that we maybe find some peace, understanding that it’s just one foot forward and then another and that is the meaning of life.

Chargers 27 Lions 17