The Barrister

There I was, sitting on my sister's couch north of Boston with a houseful of family largely apathetic of sports but for their preference that I am in a good mood after I watch a game in their proximity. I was ready, takes lined up, takes that had been forming for weeks, months, years, ruminating in my gut and on this blog with its name and aesthetic of yelling into the void about sports failure. Takes that are, objectively, as uncontroversial as I can manage, yet ones that seem to elicit some such scorn from too many fans of this team, fans with whom I find association for the most arbitrary of reasons, maybe - we love a stupid, idiot football team from Western New York. It felt good being pretty much alone as a fan at that moment, able to put down my phone and just sit in frustration with no one else there to amplify it with their own.

Alas, truth be told, it hasn't stopped feeling good.

Everyone has their own tales of woe and sorrow and heartbreak and frustration and anger over these 17 years. As fans of this team we're forced to annually engage in some sort of 12 step program from start to finish - my personal favorite are the yin and yang of denial and acceptance, for the record - and when people ask about the raucous tailgates and table bodyslams and sweatpants lit ablaze by equal parts ABV and the blessed energy of hometown love, I often find myself scratching my head. How could it be any different at this moment in time? Bundled up denizens of a town left behind by crippled industry, a town that's propensity to be covered by ice has become as famous a point of interest for national attention as any part of its identity except maybe its dumb football team's epic parade of failures. Quite the horrible status quo for a town that led technological innovation, architectural innovation, and yes, sports innovation. We had gorgeous, near-perfect Olmsted parkways, we had progress in electrical power, we had architectural marvels, and we had the K-Gun, and then we had the view of all those things getting ruined, ceasing to be, and we were left with something different if not desperately unfulfilling.

That the Drought came to personify our regional anxiety and inferiority complex was sad, but no less true. Focus in on ESPN coverage of the NFL in 2007 and be a fly on the wall of a Richmond Ave apartment teeming with Bills fans wringing their hands over how little respect the national media gave the Bills. Change the year, change the street. The Drought has been a vehicle by which we've been able to really exercise our inner Dangerfield as we've whined about calls that went against us, conspiracies wrought in the favor of other teams from other cities, visiting players insulting the small-town that we love so much that we're willing to call Tom Brady a fucking bitch boy because he made fun of a fucking Adams Mark. This football team that had given us all some weird, certainly misplaced yet nevertheless entirely understandable hope for the future during those Kelly years had morphed into a shell of that former self, replacing hope with something between despair and nihilism, with a sprinkle of spiteful jealousy. Hell, if you're younger than me, you may not have even gotten that beautiful preamble to the Drought, just the suck.

The reality of these last 17 years has, in football and in the rest of our shared realities, been something of a shitshow while the meaning of things we've come to depend on have morphed into things grossly undependable. The meaning of Justice, for instance, or even Truth, Facts. The absence of playoffs for our preferred football team reached peak metaphor last year as the Rex Ryan's squad hobbled to a losing season and Rex Ryan's presidential candidate of choice sprung to power. Ryan departed Buffalo a confirmed failure, Trump took office amid of a cascade of mounting lies about matters frivolous and material, and as white supremacy got a leg up on civilized society and the government's support of billionaires became far more open and notorious, it was admittedly tough to see this Bills season as anything other than a continuation of the metaphor. A vapid, troop-loving conservative Christian who probably also voted for Trump took over as head coach, Betsy DeVos remains Education Secretary, great players were shipped off to be replaced by virtual unknowns, the EPA and other corners of government including the fucking White House began publicly denying climate change, Anquan Boldin split town as quickly as he arrived, billionaire donors received a massive handout that will bankrupt social welfare programs, and the Bills fan base tripped over itself to make sure that everyone knew that Tyrod Taylor was no good while he quarterbacked the team to fun-as-fuck wins pretty regularly. Also, Peterm5n happened and Kim Jon Un called Trump old. L-O-L.

It's been shitty and joyous and frustrating and no small amount of maddening to be a Bills fan this season, much like many years really, and while it felt just like the others more often than it didn't, while nothing seemed to indicate that this Bills team would be the one to shatter the drought, they did.

Hope is what this sport is built on for those of us in the stands and bars and family rooms, and the hope we feel for these Bills is now the stuff of reality rather than flimsy dreams. This fucking drought - sorry, that fucking drought - has been tossed in the bin, our faces are glued into grins, and a fanbase known for losing and table jumping and insanity has with a flash been transformed into one massive expression of joy. A fanbase that has squeezed fun and charity and community out of a 17 year old stone for all these years has been given the gift of something more. Honestly, and this is wholly without sarcasm, imagine what kind of fun, what kind of good we can achieve, now that this godforsaken monkey is off our backs. A day on, the buzzing feeling that was ignited yesterday is still kicking around in our guts, if you're like me, and is being channeled into 26shirts sales and $57,000 for Andy Dalton's charitable foundation; it's being channeled into plans to get down to Jacksonville, to gather together again in bars and homes across our nation of expats. As one would expect, playoff bound, Bills fans are doing what they do best, but better.

Suddenly, for a region, its diaspora, and a football team that continues to bind them, much that seemed impossible now seems almost likely. Maybe. I hope. Buckle the fuck up either way.

Let's go Buffalo.

The Outlander

On November 29th, 2010 I was doing what I typically do on Sundays late in the Bills season: running errands. On this day, that meant the laundromat down the road from my apartment in Barre, Vermont. The Bills were 2-8, the Steelers 7-3 and in my mind, there was far too much bullshit in my life to let the Bills be part of it. I’d graduated law school a year earlier, entering the workforce with literally the worst graduating year in post-war American history, and my situation at the time reflected that. My 650 foot studio apartment was above the homeowners, a batshit Christian family who homeschooled their kids, one of whom seemed almost certain to commit a mass murder one day. After bringing a girl home one night, I got a call forbidding that in the future (I was 25). I’d made up excuses when my parents would ask to visit, embarrassed that, to my dismay my hastily thought out plan of filling my Buick with my shit and driving 8 hours to take a $14 an hour job wasn’t working out as well as I’d hoped. I’d been the first in my family to go to college, fulfilled the plan I’d had since I was in middle school to get my law degree and in the months following that I’d had an engagement fall apart, found only a $10 an hour data entry position as firms implemented hiring freezes, been put in the hospital from a viral heart infection and shared the tiny apartment with my mom that I’d lived in since I was five. Completely out of ideas I’d hopped in the car to the most isolated place I could think of and only four months in it was becoming apparent that I’d miscalculated, again.

What I’m saying is, I really didn’t need the Bills in my life that day. But it was the laundromat and it was back when you could stream the radio feed for free so there I sat, listening to the game to drown out the sounds of the small child and large dog that also found themselves spending a Sunday afternoon in a miserably boring situation.

They’d been down 13-0 at the half but had made it 13-10 when they forced a turnover and suddenly the idea of missing a comeback upset win for laundry of all fucking things was unacceptable. Eschewing the second load, I headed to Mulligan’s Pub, my go-to since it was both walking distance from my place and the only joint in town with the NHL package. On the way I tossed on the authentic Poz jersey my ex had gotten me for my 24th birthday and eagerly sidled up to the bar where a gaggle of fans rooting for various teams had gathered at tables behind me to watch their games on the bank of televisions.

You probably know by now that this was the Stevie Johnson game. It’s something seared into my brain, staring absently at the television, thoughts skidding down the slipperiest of slopes, turning this Billsy moment in a lost season into something much larger, something personal and more sinister, an indictment of my decision making that went far beyond driving the half mile to the bar. I heard the voice from one of the tables behind me, a woman’s voice. I hadn’t said anything since the drop, hadn’t turned around, interacted or barely moved aside from taking pulls of my blue light.

“That guy in the Bills jersey looks so sad.”