We make a right and pull through devil’s alley: the long, narrow road that leads to the bowels of the stadium. The zombies swarm us like, well, zombies. The music pulses through my headphones: background noise to a delightfully rowdy scene. The line for the port-o-potties usually indicates the drunkenness of the fans. In Oakland the lines are the longest: a piss-taught collection of venomous derelicts snaking through the asphalt. A night game means five extra hours of drinking. The parking lot is a pit of vipers.
Because of the scene in Oakland, my mother stays at home and watches the game on television, even though it’s less than an hour’s drive from our house. The Black Hole is no place for the mother of the enemy. Raider Mamas are treated like queens. Bronco Mamas: prima nocte. But I still had to get more than thirty tickets for friends and family. People assume that we get free tickets to the games but we don’t. We get two complimentary tickets for home games; the rest we pay for. For away games we pay for all of them. Taking hits on game tickets is part of the gig. I get ticket requests for every game I play in, and it’s rarely accompanied with an offer for reimbursement. People assume. People always assume. The football player obliges and goes broke.
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