Season 1, Episode 5 - The Boxtops XLVIII - "Woah, He Has Trouble with the Snap, aka Requiem for a Pac-12"

Isaac’s grumbling over Reed’s mysterious past had gradually transformed into anger and disappointment over Wampanoag University’s dismal performance in their final game of the college football season.

Reed glanced over at him when he tossed his arms into the air. “I just don’t understand, Isaac. Why do we gotta watch this?”

Isaac decided to ignore her and listen to the announcers describe the (for lack of a better word, abysmal) play of Wampanoag’s quarterback. Due to his own suspicions over how the game would go, the post-Combat Simulation ice cream, eating the ceiling, and Reed’s story, Isaac hadn’t turned on the game until the middle of the third quarter. He frowned as the announcers described several Wampanoag blunders on both sides of the ball, wondering if it would have been better if he hadn’t tuned in at all.

Reed herself frowned when he ignored her.

“Isaac,” she repeated. Nothing.

Against her better judgment, she nudged him on the shoulder with her hand.

No response.

Reed rolled her eyes when she saw how engrossed Isaac’s were on the screen.

She decided to emphasize each call-out with a nudge. “Isaac...Isaac...Isaac Isaac Isaac Isaac-”

“Alright, alright.” Isaac took his eyes off the screen. “Why do we have to watch this? I’m asking myself the same question. But it’s the last game of the season, so as a fan, I want to pay my respects to the seniors I’ve seen play for the past few years. And I can get a glimpse of the younger players. This is the first game they’ll get major minutes.”

“Exhilarating,” Reed supposed dryly.

“Here, watch this,” Isaac said with enthusiasm, pointing at the screen. “Wampanoag is in black and Vermont College is in white. Well, they're brown and green in real life, but at least the shades of their uniforms are different enough to tell them apart on a black and white screen.”

Reed rubbed her temple. "Huh, I think Dave from the rental shop's daughter goes to Vermont College. I wonder if she's at the game." Around five seconds of watching players stand around in a huddle later, Reed wouldn't be surprised if Dave's daughter chose to stay home instead. "What’s so appealing about football?”

“Well, if we were watching a good game, I’d bet you’d find a lot of appeal,” Isaac said. His eyes followed along as the Wampanoag quarterback rolled out to the right, only to throw the ball into triple coverage.

“Another incompletion,” he groaned, then remembered that he wanted to show Reed why he liked this game so much. “Well…think of it as full-contact chess. There’s a lot of X’s and O’s going on behind the scenes. You got strategies, you got pageantry, you got blood, sweat, tears, passion, heartbreak, and disappointment. Winning isn’t everything - it’s the only thing.”

“Uh-huh,” Reed answered, watching Isaac’s eyes dance as he explained the game.

Isaac pointed at a player standing behind a long line of his teammates. “That’s the quarterback. He’s like the general.”

Reed scratched her head. “Is the game appealing because it reminds people of war?”

“It is war,” Isaac corrected. “Just domesticated.”

“Right…”

Well, since her friend was so interested in it, Reed decided to give this football thing her best shot. She watched a single play, then scratched her head again. “Why does the quarterback man start each play with his hands up another guy’s ass?”

“It’s to make sure they snap the ball securely,” Isaac explained. “If the quarterback stands in the shotgun – a few feet away, I mean – then there’s a bigger chance they mess up the snap.”

“...do his hands really need to be up the other guy’s ass, though?”

Isaac opened up his mouth, then closed it. “...ball security, Reed. Ball security.”

“That’s just tomfoolery.”

“Ah, shut it. Here, look, Wampanoag is actually driving down the field.”

Reed focused again. She watched the quarterback hand the ball off to the player standing behind him, who ran into a wall of beefcakes who quickly tackled him, preventing him from advancing any farther from where he started.

“Why do they do that?” Reed questioned.

“Running the ball? You gotta keep the defense honest.”

“Honest,” Reed dryly repeated.

“It’s the truth.” Isaac pointed at the grainy screen again; from the number of times he did that, Reed supposed he would be better off just keeping his finger there the whole time. “If the defense knows you can’t run the ball, they can set up their linebackers and secondary to defend the pass. But if you run the ball well, you keep the defense guessing.”

“Ingenious analysis.” Reed snapped her fingers. “Ingenious Isaac. That’s what I oughta call you. ‘Cuz you’re so smart with all that football knowledge and analysis.”

Isaac crossed his arms and ignored her sarcasm. “I bet I can think of some alliterate adjectives for you, too.”

“Ravishing,” Reed suggested, a slight glow in her eyes. “I bet that’s a good way to describe how you feel about me. A good-looking girl, fresh out of the shower, comes over your place – there's no other way you’d describe me besides Ravishing. And what do you do? Rather than show me a good time, you show me a football game.”

Isaac corrected her again. “This is a good time. Wampanoag used to be good, Reed! Then they weren’t. So, we fired our old coach a few seasons ago, right after the last game. Literally. We left him at the bus depot out in Quinsigamond at 3:14 AM. He had to find his own way back home! But that’s just how cutthroat the industry is. We got a new coach, some recruits, won our first game with him, and we all thought - Wampanoag is back! But then we weren’t.”

His eyes looked bitter. “We dropped out of the rankings, and it’s been downhill every since. A lot of people are clamoring for the coach’s head. I think we oughtta fire the defensive coordinator, get a real hire, and give the current coach another shot or two. But coaches got short leashes nowadays. Wouldn’t surprise me if he’s gone after this year.”

Reed simply looked at him for a moment, then started chuckling.

Isaac raised an eyebrow. “What?”

All Reed could do was shrug and smile. “I don’t know. I just like hearing you talk about something that interests you so much.”

“Well, you talk all day about Japanimations and dinosaurs, it’s only fair that I return the favor.”

“Speaking of Japanimations – I've been thinking.”

“You think?”

“Yes, yes, we’ve done that routine before.” Reed gripped the collar of her greatcoat. “If I were to take off all my clothes in front of you - or even just enough to show the slightest hint of my sensual skin - would you get a nosebleed?”

Isaac sighed. “I sincerely hope you never take your clothes off in front of me.”

“You’re no fun,” she complained. “But you wouldn’t, right?”

Isaac scratched his head. “It’s fake. Things like that don’t happen in real life.”

“That’s my point,” Reed said, raising a finger. “How did that cliché come about? What part of their culture made them value that as a symbol?”

“Couldn’t tell you. That’s just how cultures work.” He glanced at the grainy television. “Our culture attaches value to football. But no other cultures do. If it weren’t for the Neo-Industrial Revolution, we wouldn’t even have football again. Because of how much it costs, it was a dead sport, but since we value it so much, the former United States brought it back.”

Reed wondered about that. “Why do cultures value different things?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Isaac supposed. “You should ask a teacher or read a book. That might have an answer. I bet it’s just one of those things, though. People just like different things. I like football, you like lying about your backstory-”

Isaac laughed when Reed frowned at him.

“You like French arthouse cinema and grindhouse horror, I like slice of life Japanimations,” he continued. “Different things just appeal to different people.”

“Like pizza toppings,” Reed supposed.

When she said that, both of them glanced at each other. The ice cream they ate seemed like the distant past by this point.

Feeling utterly defeated by the delivery driver’s apparent lack of urgency, Isaac and Reed slumped on the couch, watching Vermont College deliver a severe ass-whooping to Wampanoag.

“It’s because you got olives,” Isaac groaned under his breath - just loud enough so Reed would hear, of course.

“They’re good,” she said. “They appeal to me. And your bacon appeals to you. I bet bacon takes a lot longer to prepare than olives.”

Reed pondered that thought. “If you got a whole bunch of people who like olives, maybe that’s how culture comes about. A bunch of parents like olives, so they teach their kids to like olives, and then you got an olive-topping culture.”

She glanced over at Isaac. “Then you got the people across the valley who don’t like olives. For whatever reason, olives don’t appeal to them. They like bacon instead. They teach their kids to like bacon, and now you got a bacon-topping culture.”

“And then, because they like different toppings, they go to war,” Isaac supposed. “To prove the superiority of their topping. I think we just summed up all of human history.”

“Not quite,” Reed corrected. “I'll tell you what human history is. In the old days, the two cultures fought because there wasn’t enough to go around in that valley. Whoever controls the farmland can make more of their topping and survive, so they fought over the farmland. But.”

And this was an important but, important enough to earn one of her signature finger-raises. “What happens when you have good enough technology to use the same farmland to make enough for each group? There’s no reason to fight anymore - there’s finally enough to go around. So, why do they still fight?”

Reed crossed her arms. “Because the people who own the olive and pizza factories - they say their groups still need to fight. They tell the people that their topping is superior. By educating the people this way, they get the people to further buy into the topping. Buy into their leadership. And buy their products. The people will buy more of that topping since it’s not just enjoyable - it’s good for the nation to do so now. And opposing the other topping - that’s patriotism. People who like both toppings - they’re traitorous deviants. People who want to discuss blending the two - they’re considered insane.”

She frowned. “And they buy their guns. War’s a racket, Isaac. I told you this before - it’s all BS. The old send the young out to fight their wars. The old get richer. And what do the young get? Death. That’s the only thing they get. All because they let the old lead them like that-”

Isaac couldn’t resist. He grabbed both of her shoulders and shook them. “Are you saying all this just because I wouldn’t agree to two olive pizzas?! Are you seriously that upset about having to get one olive pizza and one bacon pizza?”

She grinned. “Olives are good, Isaac-”

The doorbell suddenly rang. The two looked at each other, then immediately started fighting over who had to go up and get the door and tip the guy and all that prep work. Fighting was a strong word - they most just threw each other’s arms around until Reed finally admitted defeat.

“Alright, alright,” she groaned. “Gonna go get the pizza, get the pizza.”

She arrived at the door and slowly swung it open. “Thanks-”

Reed paused, then frowned. This guy didn’t carry any pizza boxes with him. Reed didn’t recognize him, but he had a vague sort of familiarity about him.

“Can I come in?” he asked. Even his voice sounded oddly familiar.

“Uh…and you are?”

Isaac looked over from the couch. His eyes widened.

“Gregory?”