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DENVER CO, 1 NOVEMBER YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT

‘I hate this!’ Orin yells out to whoever glides near. He doesn’t loop or spiral like the showboats; he sort of tacks, the gliding equivalent of snow-plowing, unspectacular and aiming to get it over ASAP and intact. The fake red wings’ nylon clatters in an updraft; ill-glued feathers keep peeling off and rising. The updraft is the oxides from Mile-High’s thousands of open mouths. Far and away the loudest stadium anyplace. He feels like a dick. The beak makes it hard to breathe and see. Two reserve ends do some kind of combined barrel-roll thing. The worst is the moment right before they make the jump off the stadium’s rim. Hands in the top rows reaching and clutching. People laughing. The Interlace cameras panning and tightening; Orin knows too well the light on the side that means Zoom. Once they’re out over the field the voices melt and merge into oxides and updraft. The left guard is soaring up instead of down. A couple beaks and a claw fall off somebody and go pinwheeling down toward the green. Orin tacks grimly back and forth. He’s among those who steadfastly refuse to whistle or squawk. Bonus or no. The stadium loudspeaker’s a steely gargle. You can never hear it clearly even on the ground.

The sad old ex-QB who now just holds on place-kicks falls in beside Orin’s slow back-and-forth about 100 meters over the 40. He’s one of the token females, his beak blunter and wings’ red nongarish.

‘Hate and loathe this with a clusterfucking passion, Clayt!’

The holder tries to make a resigned wing-gesture and is almost blown into Orin’s pinfeathers. ‘Almost down! Enjoy the ride! Yo — cleavage-check in 22G, just by the —’ and then lost in the roar as the first player touches down and sheds the red-feathered promotional apparatus. You have to scream to even be heard. At some point it starts sounding like the crowd’s roaring at its own roar, a doubling-back quality like something’ll blow. One of the Broncos in the rear end of a costume takes a header at midfield so it looks like the thing’s ass went flying off. Orin has told no Cardinal, not even the team’s counselor and visualization-therapist, about his morbid fear of heights and high-altitude descent.

‘I punt! I’m paid to punt long, high, well, and always! Making me do personal interviews on my personal side’s bad enough! But this crosses every line! Why do we stand for this! I’m an athlete! I’m not a freak-show performer! Nobody mentioned flying at the trade-table. In New Orleans it was just robes and halos and once a season a zither. But just once a season. This is fucking awful!’

‘Could be worse!’

Spiralling down toward the line of X’s and the bill-capped guys that help strip the wings off, runty potbellied volunteer front-office-connected guys who always smirk in a way you couldn’t quite level the accusation.