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By: David H
(© 2011 by the author)

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Epilogue

For almost a century and a half, the Saturday after Thanksgiving has been reserved for the annual football game between the Patriots of Parsons University and the Wildcats of East Mississippi University.  It was, by far, the biggest game of the season, and, in even numbered years, Patriots fans would come home, to Eudora, from all over the world to see the game.

Like everything in that town, though, there was a party before and a party after the fact.  Whether winning or losing, Pats fans would don their crimson and blue and celebrate just because they could; Parsons had, after all, never lost a party.  Matthew Harper and Nicholas Russo were no exceptions to that rule.  On the morning of the game, 2038, they woke up at their mid-sized, four bedroom, three bath house at around 5 in the morning.  They showered, dressed as everyone else would be dressed, in khaki pants, a nice shirt, and shoes that were both comfortable but nice.  After packing things into their car, they drove onto the campus of Parsons University, parking beside what, twenty five years after it was last used for that purpose, was still called ‘The Old Law School’. 

From the back of the SUV that Nick drove, Matt pulled two large canopies that would cover their spots on The Grove, a ten-acre tree-lined part of ‘God’s Country’ where the most up-scale pre-game festivities in the country would be taking place.  Nick grabbed some collapsible chairs, fitting three in each hand, and the duo walked to the two plots on the grove that they’d coerced two of their goddaughters, Nicole and Mary, into camping at the night before.  The two freshmen, still asleep in tents that had been hastily put up the night before, were among so many that had stayed on campus that night to make sure that the next morning, their families had places to spend the morning before the game. 

“Wake up!” Nick said as Matt smiled and they set their things on the edge of the plots cordoned off by yellow ‘caution’ tape that their older brother and his best friend had thought would be funny to put around their plots when they were claimed on Thursday night.

“Girls!” Matt called just before they heard rustling coming from both of the tents.

Mary was the first to emerge from the tent.  Like her mother, Jenny, she was short, but she had long blond hair in the same shade as what her father’s had been at that age.  Nicole, on the other hand, took a second.  As Mary yawned and hugged ‘The Otherdads’, there was some rustling in the second tent.  It was obvious that the other of the twins wasn’t in there alone.  She emerged first, managing to get them to turn as the man with whom she’d spent the evening left the tent.  She was tall, like her father, and had his smile, but she had her mother’s jet black hair and dark, alluring eyes.

“HEY!” Matt said as he turned to see who the guy was.  “I’m Matt, Nicole’s godfather,” he said to the tall, lanky, rock-star looking kind of guy with a tattoo on his neck.

“Hi.  Roger,” he said as he tried to scoot away without having to give too many details about who he was or what it was that he was doing there.

“Nice to meet you.  Are you a student here?”

“Um…” he looked at Nicole, who was mortified, “No.  I go to EMU.”

“What’s your major?” Matt inquired as Mary and Nick tried to keep from laughing.

“Um… Music,” the guy said.

“Ah!  Nice!” Matt said as he looked at Nicole.

“Rog… Just go,” she told him.

“OK…” he said as he quickly made down the path known as ‘The Walk of Champions’.

“Uncle Matt!” Nicole said.

“Sweets,” he smiled as he put his hands on her shoulders.  “Better me than your dad.”

“OK.  I’ll give you that!” she conceded.

“OK,” Nick said as he gave them each a fifty dollar bill and the keys to his truck.  “Y’all go get some coffee and go get cleaned up.”

“Thank you, Uncle Nick,” the girls said as they hugged him tightly.

“This is why you’re our favorite uncle,” Nicole joked with Matt.

“I’m gonna remember that in a few weeks when Christmas comes around!” Matt said as the girls grabbed their backpacks and rolled up their sleeping bags.  Taking their things with them, they said quick goodbyes as they ran to where Nick’s vehicle was parked. 

Before anything else could be done, they had to get the tents down, which they were able to do, and replace with the red and blue canopies, quickly.  They pulled the chairs from their bags and set them up around the perimeter before taking down the caution tape and sitting there for a moment to enjoy the chilly, still dark, morning air. 

Matt could remember, as a child, sitting on the Grove with the family and their friends.  It was a great time when ‘the big people’ would sit and talk.  He and Seth would often sit on the ground and figure out some game to play as they struggled to comply with their mothers’ instructions that they not mess up their clothes.  As adults, they had a great time just talking and hanging out with other Parsons fans on those amazing Saturday mornings.  He could remember the feelings he felt as an alum, on his first Groving weekend after graduation.  Even though he was from Eudora and he’d been around the university his entire life, it still felt different to be there and not be either a student or a future one.

Nick didn’t have the fortune of growing up in that town, but by that time, most of his life had been spent there.  He was there because of Matt, mostly, but it was also the school from which he’d gotten his BS in Sociology and his PhD in the same subject with a concentration on family structures in societies.  His Masters degree he earned technically from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, but he’d taken all of the courses online.  He and Becky were close, and she’d waited until he got hooded before accepting her retirement and a part-time instructorship, teaching introductory classes only.

Together, they’d shared a million memories of that place.  Nick could remember his first grooving experience and how Ron and Linda were introducing him as Matt’s friend.  The next year, they were proudly showing off their son-in-law.  Both of them could recall Seth and Jenny’s wedding and reception, but even more powerful memories of their second wedding and ensuing reception after Mississippi’s gay marriage ban was struck down by the Supreme Court were also on their mind.

At around seven, their peaceful remembrance of bygone times was broken with the arrival of the rest of the Bentley clan.  Seth was carrying two folding tables as Jenny carried a couple of trays of food.  Their youngest, Rebecca Janelle, or RJ, as she was called, was carrying a couple of plastic bags that had drinks inside. 

As with Matt and Nick, time had been kinder to them than some.  Matt was still tall and skinny, but his brown hair had started to turn grey.  Nick’s hair was still black, but it wasn’t as thick and luxurious as it had once been.  Both guys still ran three or four times a week, so they were in decent shape.  Seth still had a head full of blond hair, just like his mother, and the smile that had plunged a million ladies into his bed still worked its magic on one woman every day.  Jenny’s hair was still black, but there was a little bit of gray in some places.  She blamed it not on her children, but on Seth.  Her personality had changed little, though.  She was still a fiery lass who wouldn’t take shit off anyone, but she still had the kindest soul.

As they reached the spot, Nick took one of the tables from Seth while Matt took the trays from Jenny.  RJ, still half asleep but cleaned up and dressed appropriately for the day in a nice pair of dress pants and a blouse, sat in the chair Matt had set up for himself and yawned.  Her brown hair, hair that everybody joked that she got from her uncle Matt, was pulled back into a ponytail. 

“Shit!” Jenny said as the guys finished setting up the table.  “RJ!  Run to the car and get the tablecloths out.”

“Mama…” she whined.

“Mama…” Jenny mocked her as she looked at Matt and Nick.  “Don’t laugh!”

“Yes ma’am,” they said in tandem as Seth just stood there, quietly working, and shaking his head.

“So which one of my girls had somebody with them when y’all got here?” Jenny asked.

“Nicole,” Nick answered.

“Was he hot?” Jenny asked her cousin.

“Matt?” Nick grimaced.

“She could do better,” Matt said as Seth turned.

“If I didn’t have this head of beautiful blond hair, it would be grey because of them!” Seth joked as RJ walked back up.

“Dad,” she said.  “Don’t lie.  Everybody knows you wash away that grey.”  Matt and Nick tried not to laugh as Jenny smiled.

“You’re causing the most, little girl,” he smiled as she handed her mother the red and blue table clothes.  Matt took one from her, and Nick took the other, each spreading them out over the tables.  Jenny and Seth then took it upon themselves to begin setting up the food, leaving it covered for the moment.  The drinks that RJ had been carrying were placed on the opposite end.

“You didn’t happen to get my phone did you?” Jenny asked RJ.

“No ma’am,” she said.

“OK.  No worries,” she said as she reached for her keys.  Nick handed her his phone, though, which was never more than a few feet away from him.

She called their other daughter, who was still at the house, and asked her to bring a couple of other things that she’d left.  The phone argument that ensued between them was heated, and when Jenny got off the phone, she looked as though she were about to cry.  “My mom would be laughing right now,” she said she tried to shake off the icy relationship with her third daughter, Iana, named after her favorite singer, still, in the whole world. 

Of their five children, Kyle was the oldest, at 21.  Mary and Nicole followed him, at 19.  Then Iana was seventeen, complete with all the trappings of a senior in high school, and RJ was 14 and already giving them problems with boys.  All of them, though, had healthy physical drives.  Kyle was gay, and, like his father before him, used his years at Parsons to bag as many people as possible.  Mary and Nicole had started the trend for the girls, losing their virginity in ninth grade.  Seth was hoping for one girl that was a prude, but RJ’s rapid growth in the chest area was shattering his dreams.  He and Jenny both understood that they couldn’t stop their daughters or Kyle from having sex, but they made sure that they understood, early, the value of protection.  On more than one occasion, he’d told them that they better not bring a grandbaby into his house before he turned sixty.  Kyle, jokingly, told him not to worry about getting one by him.

Kyle wasn’t the only boy in the mix, though, as his best friend was a key fixture in their combined worlds.  His name was Daniel Patric Harper, or Danny, as he was called.  At 21, he’d given his fathers some headaches, but they were still beyond proud of him and what he’d accomplished in life.  When they decided that they wanted a family, they considered adopting, but Jenny, upon learning of the news, came up with another plan.  Since they thought that she couldn’t have children, she offered up some of her eggs.  They would be fertilized by Matt and then placed into a surrogate.  Matt wouldn’t go along with the idea until Seth gave his approval.  Matt knew that he wanted to have children, to carry on his family’s name, and so he didn’t want his best friend, his brother, to feel left out. 

They took the necessary steps to get the eggs fertilized but then put them in stasis until a suitable host could be found.  When they did find her, the impregnation took place right away, and she found herself carrying the guys’ child, a child that was genetically related to both of them.  About two months later, Jenny and Seth found out that around the same time Jessica was getting knocked up by a turkey baster, that Jenny was with child.  All three of them babied both ladies for the term of their gestation. 

Jessica was the first to go into labor, in December of 2017.  Just three days before Christmas, Nick and Matt’s lives were forever changed with the arrival of their 9 lb, 10 oz, 22-inch-long baby boy.  Jessica, having served as a surrogate for several other couples, asked to hold him once before the necessary legal arrangements were put into place.

Of course, the grandparents were all there, all five of them, as were the godparents, Seth and Jenny, who was so swollen and bloated that she could barely move.  Janelle said that he looked like Nick had looked, with a head full of black hair and dark, dark eyes.  Ron joked, at the baby’s first diaper change, that he could tell that he was related to Matt.

Less than two weeks later, though, Danny was given a built in best friend when Kyle Andrew Bentley graced the world with his presence.  Over the years, all the parents and grandparents had some tough questions to answer, but they did so in such a way that actually made the boys, who had both decided at the age of five that they wanted to play football for Parsons, honor their heritage.  It was because of Matt and Nick that Kyle was never forced to live inside a closet, and it was because of Seth and Jenny that Danny, who was straight as a board, had people from whom he could ask questions when he didn’t understand something that his Dads couldn’t explain.

Despite the fact that they made the best team-within-a-team, and that they were the absolute best of friends, they were as different as night and day.  Danny was a quarterback with an amazing arm; Kyle, on the other hand, was a wide receiver who, in four years of playing for Parsons, had run more yards and scored more touchdowns than anyone living could remember.  Danny was quieter than Kyle was, just as Matt had always been quieter than Seth.  Danny had always preferred to have one woman at a time, compared to Kyle, who was all about getting laid as often as possible by as many people as he could find.  Being that he was a rather athletically good-looking guy, though, that wasn’t really very hard.  They were both political science majors, but while Kyle was preparing himself for Law School, Danny was hoping to find his dream job working behind the scenes on political campaigns.  Both were passionate in their opinions about the events of the day, such as the American military presence in post-Communist China and the issue about whether the American Public Health Service should be expanded.  Where Danny took the more typically liberal viewpoint, Kyle was rather conservative in his views of how things should be handled.  They were still the other’s wing-men though, and wouldn’t have ever let anyone do anything to the other, again just as Matt and Seth had been with each other.

The parents were proud of all the kids for what they had or were going to accomplish, but the grandparents would tell anyone who would listen the kids’ life stories, making them out to be gods among men.  When the five of them got to the Grove at around nine that morning, it was obvious that the dads had been dipping into the sauce already.  Janelle had joined them in a toast to the game and the day, but she wasn’t in trouble with the Moms, who were dressed nicely, just like everyone else, but wearing crystal pins that displayed the numbers 12 and 67, Danny and Kyle’s numbers respectively.  Janelle, who, despite her status as an alumna of EMU, had become a fan of Parsons first because of her daughter and nephew and then because of her grandchildren, who were two of the most impressive players in the team’s history.

They’d brought with them some more food and some coffee, but the dads had also managed to sneak in two two-liter diet coke bottles that had been premixed that morning with whiskey.  It was the whole ‘sampling for consistency’ thing that had gotten the two men, in their late 70s by that point, in trouble.

By ten, the twins had gotten back and Iana had arrived to join them.  Nick gave Iana and RJ a fifty dollar bill just to make things even between the sisters and all so that Seth and Jenny wouldn’t see.  Not to be outdone, the grandparents each gave the girls some more money before Seth and Jenny realized just how much they’d racked up in a couple of hours.

At eleven, two more people came to their little pre-game party.  The first was Amaia, a Latin goddess with long, luxurious black hair and huge tits that drove her on-and-off boyfriend, Danny, insane.  Born in Brazil, she was multi-lingual, speaking Portuguese first and then English, Spanish, and Italian.  She wasn’t the first or only girl that he’d ever been with, but he’d been ruined by her when they met during their junior year.  Kyle knew that they would end up together, for they were a perfect match, but Danny wasn’t quite sure of it yet.  With her, though, was Jason, a nerdy sort-of guy with a head of hair clipped closely to his head and medium brown skin.  He and Kyle had met a few months earlier, and despite Kyle’s self-imposed title of man-slut, Jason had managed to help him settle down a little bit.  They were friends, above all else, that got together every now again for a romp in the sheets that satisfied them both on more than just the physical level.  The parents and grandparents liked them both, though, for they seemed to be perfect compliments for their boys.

By that time, the Grove was already filled with people.  Parents of the other football players had an open invitation to stop by and join them for a drink and light noshing, as did so many other people.  At noon, Becky and Linda gave up and let their husbands break open the “Diet Cokes”.  For all the adults, they filled blue and red Dixie cups.  Iana and RJ asked for some, and even though Dan had afforded that to Seth and Matt decades earlier, ‘Big Daddy’ and ‘JimJim’ weren’t going to tempt fate, as they’d already gone above and beyond what their predecessors had done for their sons.

A little while later, Sherice, Matt’s choir-mate and still close friend by virtue of the fact that her son, up to college, had always played football with Danny and Kyle, came up.  “So I was reading online,” she started, “on some football rumors site that there is talk that the Heisman might make its way to a Parsons player.”

“Are you serious?” Matt asked, knowing the gravity of what that trophy was.

“Uh huh,” she said as Matt began beaming with pride.  She reached up and hugged him as Nick walked over, sensing that Matt might need a moment for some reason.  It was a good thing, though, and as Matt told him what Sherice had said, Nick too beamed with pride.  They decided not to say anything, though, as they didn’t want to tempt fate all too much.  If he did win, it would mean that all those years of his hard work would more than pay off. 

In just a few minutes, a couple of hours before the game was to start, the team left the Student Union and walked through the Grove and Circle on their way to the Stadium.  There were cheers from everyone, but Danny and Kyle seemed to notice that their families were cheering louder than anyone else.  After the team passed, everyone but the Dads, Jimmy and Ron, went to the Circle for several other pre-game traditions.  Jimmy and Ron had volunteered to stay behind and watch the game on a small, solar powered TV that they’d brought with them.  It was commonly known among them that they were staying behind to drink, though.

After they got finished in front of the Lyceum, the whole crowd moved toward Barth Stadium.  For decades, Linda and Ron, along with Becky and Jimmy, had purchased a box from which to watch the games in comfort and luxury.  They had that year, and the whole group had used it, but for that game, Nick had managed to get a cache of tickets for the Faculty section so that they could be among the masses watching the game.  Their shakers ready, they walked onto the stadium and found their seats.  Amaia and Jason were with them for that game, as the other games they’d come to were with the family in their box as well.

They found their seats just before the first of several game day traditions started, the presentation of the Egg Trophy.  For longer than anyone there could remember, a member of the Parsons family, the people that had founded the university in 1848, walked onto the field with the starting quarterbacks from each team.  A fourth person, usually an alum, carried the huge trophy that, for the previous three seasons, had been housed in Barth Stadium as a perk of Parsons’ consecutive victories.  Danny had started each of those games, even his freshman year, when the QB who was supposed to start got injured in the game against Alabama the previous week.  He was the first Freshman to start the Egg Bowl for Parsons and he was the only QB in the match-up’s history to start all four.

Some words were said by someone before the Quarterback for EMU turned to a rather small section of people dressed in Maroon who began banging drumsticks against cowbells.  In kind, the Parsons fans made a uniform sound in their direction that would have reminded anyone of a feral cat or something.  The next part of the tradition was known as the ‘Hotty Toddy’.  Usually, it was started by someone famous with ties to the University, but Danny, whom everyone in that place knew by both face and reputation was handed the mic and his face put onto the megatron that was on one end of the field.

Matt and Seth looked at each other, proudly remembering how their grandfathers, in their first trip to the Square on a Thursday night before the game, had made them do the cheer for anyone that would listen.  They could remember people being impressed by it, but they just thought it was cool because it was the only time they got to say a dirty word without getting in trouble. 

“ARE YOU READY?!” Danny called into the microphone, starting up the cheer that had drive many a Parsons team to victory.

“HELL YES!  DAMN RIGHT!  HOTTY TODDY GOSH ALMIGHTY!  WHO THE HELL ARE WE? HEY!  FLIM FLAM BIM BAM, PARSONS BY DAMN!” everyone in the place cried, almost deafeningly as a sea of crimson and blue shakers put ‘the pussies from the east’, with their pitiful little cowbells in their place.

The game started with Parsons electing to first receive the ball.  Danny completed a pass to Kyle, who set the tone for the game by breaking through EMU’s defensive line and easily scoring a TD in the first minute of the game.  By halftime, Parsons’ defense had only allowed them to score once, but EMU, playing poorly during the first half, had allowed three touchdowns already.  All of the extra points were secured, making the score 21 to 7 as the guys went off the field.

After a great half-time show by the band, the guys returned to the field, where both teams began to play like they were losing but wanted to win.  EMU had stepped up its game, and Parsons had responded in kind.  They staved off the score, holding it at 21 and 7 until the last quarter.  Somehow, Parsons’ defense had allowed them to score two more touchdowns at the opening of the final term of the game. 

In the final moments of the game, as EMU fans were cheering to their own perceived victory and Parsons fans were letting their boys on the field know that they were with them all the way, Danny went back on the field to take control of things.  He exhausted their final time out to introduce a new play: “Kyle likes the pile”.  Everyone on the team laughed, for they all knew that Kyle was gay.  It didn’t matter, though, as times had begun to change and Kyle was one of the leaders on the team and an amazing player.

A moment later, Seth and Matt looked at each other.  They, along with Nick and Jenny, recognized the play that was being formed on the field.  Coach Cox, a former Auburn star who had accepted the Head Coach position at Parsons a few years earlier, trusted Danny enough on the field to let him do what he wanted to do in what was, more than likely, the final play of the game. 

“I’m really glad my son likes to be piled on by guys!” Seth said as he and Matt laughed.

On the field, where no one could hear, Kyle took his position and began taunting the EMU guys.  It was all a part of the play in which he would use their own fears of a ‘football-playing-fag’ against them.  “I’m gonna fuck all y’all tonight, and all of y’all have to decide who’s gonna be first.”  As they’d planned, it somehow made it down the line, and the EMU team, cocky that it was going to win the game, robbing Danny of his fourth victory and the possibility of the Heisman, changed their position.  In all but a couple of plays, Danny had passed to Kyle, and they assumed that he was going to do it again.  When he was comfortable a few seconds later that the team’s center had his back and that EMU’s defense was focused on Kyle, Danny called the play.  He faked the pass as Kyle took the on-field pile up, leaving him wide open after the center took out the only person covering Danny.  With a certain wind behind him, pushing him, Danny ran as fast as he could, crossing the line just a millisecond before the buzzer sounded, ending the game.

For Matt and Nick, Seth and Jenny, time stopped.  Linda, Becky, and Janelle were all crying.  The girls were cheering as loudly as any other Parsons fans, Amaia and Jason included.  On the Grove, the Dads, along with some other people that had crowded around as they screamed and cried the Pats onto victory were beyond elated.

Like all the other fans, they went onto the field a moment later as Danny proudly held up the Egg Trophy for all to see.  It was staying in what Parsons fans considered to be its rightful home for another year.  Matt and Nick made their way through the crowd to where Danny was kissing Amaia much as they kissed each other.  When he saw the two guys, though, Danny left her for a moment and went over to them.  Matt was Dad, and Nick was Pop, but to him, they were both his life.  Growing up, he’d faced ridicule from other, crueler kids who made fun of the fact that he had two dads, but Danny had always told anyone who dared tread on his world that he was lucky to have two dads that loved him as much as Matt and Nick did.  He’d been interviewed on TV several times, and he’d credited them for helping him to become that most awesome man that he was.  

Matt looked at Nick, who was beaming with pride as Danny walked over to join some other fans.  For three decades, they had had so many amazing moments, and that one, with their baby leading his team to victory, was one of the best.  Danny wouldn’t have ever had the chance to be there, though, if it hadn’t been for that single night at Blind Jim’s, when Seth and Jenny left them to their devices as they went off to consummate their relationship once more.  They wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t for Corey and Patrice, for Dan, for families that loved them unconditionally and accepted them for who, and what they were.  With those things in mind, Matt leaned over and kissed his man passionately.  Despite the fact that he still had more money than any other single person in town, Matt was a simple teacher, having devoted his life to sharing his passion for music and language to generations of students.  Nick had worked his ass off to have been named ‘Professor of the Year’ for the previous two years.  Together, they were a force that could be stopped by no man, no entity, no thing on God’s green Earth.  Together, they’d raised their son to be a champion, a hero among those and so many more people, a role model for little kids who would, like ‘Pa’ and ‘Granddaddy’, like the Moms, like Matt and Seth, Jenny and Nick, and like Danny and Kyle, grow up living the mantra that “there was but one university, and it… is Parsons.”

The End.

Posted: 07/22/11