The Distance: Randall Cunningham and the Infinite Run

December 27, 1992. The final week of the regular season. The Eagles hosted division rivals the New York Giants and were looking for a win to increase their playoff seeding. They were down 16-10 and needed to score a touchdown on the game's final play to win. The Eagles were pinned down on their own 24 yard yard line. The Giants expected some trickery, a Statue of Liberty play, a series of laterals, in a last-ditch, desperate attempt to score. No one could have possibly imagined how long this play would take. That, extraordinarily, it still transpires to this day.

Eagles quarterback Randall Cunningham snapped the ball with fifteen seconds on the clock. The Giants knew that Cunningham was the most dangerous player on the field, by far. They sent their defensive backfield back into prevent coverage against the pass, but everyone kept their eyes on Cunningham.

After deciding against a Hail Mary throw, Cunningham broke the line of scrimmage, attempting a run, which everyone had expected. What they didn't expect is that, once Cunningham was approached, that instead of pitching the ball to another teammate, he would keep the ball himself, running backwards, coming close to being caught, but never being tackled. This pattern would continue into the night. The game clock had expired, but until Cunningham was tackled, the game wouldn't end.

He has remained on the field for nearly 19 years. Fans, initially enthralled by the masterful evasion Cunningham displayed, stayed in their seats for days, some for weeks. Now the stadium seats are a shanty-town, with filthy, drunk, bearded fans waiting for the outcome, so that the 1992 season could conclude. Cunningham has dug himself a foxhole with one of his cleats, and subsisted from food and bottles of Gatorade thrown from the stands. He has advanced as far as the Giant's 16 yard line and retreated as far back as the Eagles' own two. Every time a Giants defender has come within a couple yards of him, Cunningham has darted away, sprinting down the sideline, or, on a few occasions, leaped over the defender. The Giants have massed six players near their own goal line, where they have stayed, in a demilitarized zone of sorts, making a touchdown nearly impossible. The Eagles have roamed the field, making the occasional block. Six players, three from both sides, have been injured on the seemingly inifnite play. Eagles running back Herschel Walker appeared to have broken his leg in 1996. Unable to leave the field, he succumbed to what was probably an infection and died. His body then decomposed on the field. The field itself has been dug up by hand by the players and is covered with earthen turrets, mud huts and garbage. Flies, crows and rats are everywhere.

Cunningham sleeps standing up, with his eyes open. No Giants player has touched him. His uniform is soiled and fetid and, like all other players on the field, he sports a massive beard. No one can fathom why he would prolong the outcome of a regular season game, when his team has already qualified for the playoffs. Eagles coach Rich Kotite repeatedly tried to signal to Cunningham to kneel down and end the game, but Cunningham has never looked over. Reached near the sideline, Giants linebacker Gary Reasons has told reporters that he wishes the game would end, so that he could hug his children, or have sex with a woman. The Giants, he said, have resorted to male pair-bonding. Players from both sides have been seen holding hands and kissing. Public outcry was intense when this initially developed, but since, fans have accepted the logic of it all.

America, without football, is in the grips of a national tragedy. Many fans turned to other sports to watch, but found them boring. Without the presence of the mass spectacle and its attendant commercialism and onslaught of sexist beer commercials, a peaceful, egalitarian society has formed, where there is no poverty or material need. Many believe that this may have extinguished enthusiasm for the playoffs or the next season, should they ever occur.

Married

Her lips were chapped. Because this was the desert. She was off in a little ditch, by the asphalt road, trying to get a ride while the heat roiled off and blurred everything she saw. Thunderheads were massing at a butte in the distance. They cast thick purple shadows that swallowed the hills and let loose curtains of rain. It just dumped and she could see the cloud slowly making its way to her. She could see for miles across the pastures that seemingly held nothing. By the time the cloud got there, she wanted to be gone. Nonetheless, cars were blowing past her.

At her feet, all over, were red and black grasshoppers, the size of a finger. Their collective hum was awesome, like a thick pulse of electricity filling the world. They were screwing and doing flips, making a dry pop when they snapped off the ground. They'd often land on their heads. Cars would smear them when they blew through, but it was their season out here. Fucking and flipping.

“They sure is seems to be having a good time,” the guy said and laughed. Even his laugh was fucked up. A gargle-y old alcoholic laugh.

To her right was a guy that called himself Tripper Jay. He didn't even have a backpack. He wore a kerchief around his neck and a greasy tie-died shirt with khaki shorts and sandals. It was impossible to determine his age. He talked about some war, one she'd never heard of. He'd been rode hard, for sure and had wrinkles and cuts all over his hands and face. The cuts, he said, were from his old crew. Who had stolen his gear, burned his sleeping bag.

He balled his knotty fists and said “They took my fuckin' dog, too.”

Tripper Jay wouldn't say why they had turned on him. It could have been for grievous things, or really trivial things. Rules were unevenly applied. Traveler drunks can be cruel and stupid and sanctimonious.

She had gotten picked up off the ramp in Raton, had seen him stumbling around at the ramp in the morning and not trying too hard to hitch. A ranch-hand had taken her up to where he was turning and she was very much in a remote place. She had begun walking up the highway and drank all her water, which had been warm. She had met Jay up the road. He'd been picked up later and taken a little further than her. They had played leapfrog like that twice more. Two men who thought she looked presentable enough had picked her up, but refused Jay. Some vestiges of girl were left in her, she guessed and they had minded their manners, but they didn't want some roadkill, this scraggly, wilted, crazy hippie, so she had dishonestly apologized to him, stepping up into their trucks and thought, twice, that this was the time in the universe where they'd part.

But she kept running into him. He had kept getting rides after her and getting dropped off ahead of her. He kept leaving off his stories when she left him and picking them up when they met again. They were long, boring, about the war, about traveling, good acid he had done, women.

They were standing in the midst of the mating grasshoppers, coming off the road like popcorn, and her water ran out. Jay gave her some from a gross-tasting canteen, said it was springwater, but it tasted like shit. She smirked at the thought that she might be dead, in Hell, that they would be repeating this cycle for eternity and Tripper Jay was her own personal tormenter.

“It's like it's a... It's like it's a...,” he stuttered. “A orgy.”

She imagining unclasping her knife and killing him. Could feel it in her pocket against her leg. What she didn't know is that a van was coming for both of them. That they'd make it to a town and part there. That the ride would be two hours. And that the water they shared was swarming with giardia. She saw the thunderhead moving like a drifting battleship towards them, shuddered to imagine them huddling for warmth together in a monsoon. No one was to touch her, as a rule. And it was one people sometimes made the mistake of trying to break. But in his way, he was already inside of her, his infestation, swimming. The van would get them before the rain. She didn't know that for a week, in her aching guts, that they'd be married.

Galatea

I bought one, a sponge girlfriend. You get them at the Dollar Scholar. They're these little pressed-sponge pellets in the shape of a tiny girlfriend and you toss one into a full bathtub and then the next day, you have a full-sized girlfriend made out of a soggy sponge.

The one I got was named Alexandra. I helped her out of the bath and she was one solid piece of soaked sponge, bright blue and she had a dress sculpted onto her body. She had a good shape and she had a wet voice, if that makes any sense.

Okay, I know it doesn't, but you should have heard her talk.

She knew a lot about books, but in that strictly academic way. I think the word I want is “sclerotic,” which is applicable, because, after all, she's a sponge. I mean a sponge is nothing if not flexible, but it was like her opinions were implanted into her. Which they must have been, shriveled up in her head, just waiting for moisture to blow them up.

Sponge girlfriends drip. I should tell you. That's a drawback. If I held her, I would get drenched in water that smelled like chemicals. It made the colors in my clothes run. So, while the whole idea was to just have someone to hold onto and talk to and do it for cheap, there were these unforeseen circumstances. Also, she was a good cook, but when she was frying anything, she was dripping water into the pan and oil started shooting everywhere. She had to stick to boiling things. We ate a lot of spaghetti.

We didn't agree on much. When the war started, she was so angry and I said it was hellish, sure, war, but it would be for the best. She said some liberal shit like it was just to benefit the rich and powerful. I told her that she was a sponge from a Chinese factory and just three days old, so what the fuck did she know about anything? She wouldn't speak to me for days after that. One day I just broke down and apologized. I'll tell you I cried. I told her I didn't soak her in my tub to mistreat her, but to love her. I held her. She was clammy and a bit mildewed, but I squeezed her so hard that water gushed from her waist.

You're wondering about sex. Okay. I'll say we tried. But her dress didn't come off. I mean, she wasn't anatomically specific. And I wasn't going to get a pocketknife and just cut a hole in her. Good God. It wasn't all about that. We had to do it in the shower. Let me say we made something work and she apologized profusely and that kind of broke my heart.

She was hanging out here for a few weeks. I didn't know what to do with her. I didn't think I was going to have to find her a job or an apartment. I mean, she wasn't even real. I was uncomfortable with the idea of taking her out and I certainly didn't want to introduce my friends to her. I mean, I was okay with it, I told her I loved her, but people would just get the wrong idea. It became obvious that she was out of place here. She kept getting my magazines wet. I kept throwing towels down and she kept giving me these annoyed looks, from her puffy pupil-less blue eyes. I put her in the tub, to sleep. I started to get black mold everywhere and I got this bad cough.

She dried out. I let her. I'd go to work and come back and she was sitting by the radiator, steam rising off of her, just looking at the wall, this smell like boiling cabbage and turpentine coming off her. She wouldn't speak to me. After a couple days, she started flaking and once I asked her if she shouldn't get wet, but frankly, I was relieved. I wasn't ready, not even for a sponge.

I came home one day and she was lying on the floor, a bit smaller and completely still. I nudged her and she was so light. Her skin made this scraping sound when I touched it and dust motes rose off her and caught the sunlight coming through the window. I bunched her up and put her in a garbage bag. It was so weird. I took her down to the dumpster and put her in.

Sometimes I miss her. She knew all the words to every Patsy Cline song and did a mean Wanda Jackson. The first night, we drank a bunch of wine and she had me put those LP's on and she danced everywhere. I think she was happy to be full of water. She was a little seed that had popped. While she was twirling, her feet had squished in time and she flicked water everywhere, making these little blue specks all over the walls. That was the first thing that had upset me, but I have yet to wash them off.

What Did You Wear to the Punk Show?

A poncho made of a bunch of plastic bags of old dog shit.

A fake-fur trimmed parka I found in a vacant lot, a burnt wig and spandex crusted with old ranch dressing.

Infinitesimally small buttons that I have no idea what-all they promote or rail against. "Apartheid?" Yeah! I love them! This one's just a fist. For fisting?

Boots with old dildos for laces.

My own hair, which I have beaten to a chipped and flaking consistently and painted a defiant rainbow of black, ash-color, soot-color and old-gum-disease-color.

A rugby shirt made out of rejection letters from shitty zines that have become squalid with mosh-pit sweat and the offal of numerous spider-bites.

Idiosyncratic glasses like Lisa Loeb used to wear, but the lenses are rotted ham coldcuts.

The encouragement of my overindulgent mother, inside, like this little light of mine, which I'm gonna let it shine. And some old, destroyed camouflaged chucks that Ben Weasel wiped his semen on.

A beard that looks like a small dog someone crushed and glued to my mouth and neck. Smell it when we kiss!

A bunch of surface-piercings tied together so I can go all primal and suspend my self from the ceiling and I swallowed a bunch of Dubble Bubble and dime bags and axioms carved into leather scraps and y'all can hit me with yer Louisville Sluggers until I pop open and gush that shit all over and then it's happy fifth birthday Adam, from the punx.

My own urine, on my ripped pants and like a black vest soaked with a thousand thrown beers and they're all obscure, bargain-basement lagers with industrial names like Cuyahoga, Erie Canal Water, or Steel Beam.

My own smell, which is rife with nutmeg because all I eat are vegan blondies. But don't worry, 'cause it's also gross b.o.

Alcoholism, but I'm carrying a book, so it's less that I'm an alcoholic and more that I'm smart.

An ammo belt made from used syringes, a corset made of saw blades and blood-flecked Kerropi socks.

A bunch of frayed caveman bike fashion because I love bikes and my bike and my bike is a fixie and fuck that bridge and I can't decide if I'm a hobo or fanciful and all the fucking songs I like will be about bicycles. All of them.

Some serious raver shit because I thought it was a rave.

I dressed like Lady Gaga because I am awful.

Tears streaking the dirt on my face because life is pretty hard right now.

Nothing, because it was a naked show.

Mutton at the Movies!

Mutton is at the movies. He snuck in to sleep. The first shift of ushers are long-term employees, oblivious to man such as Mutton sleeping in the back row, but the second shift is manned by high school kids, proud of their first job and their tiny scrap of authority. You can't just sit through two movies, if you only bought a ticket for one. You only bought a ticket for one movie, Mutton. You can't sleep here.

When Mutton was a teenager, and if he had worked in a movie theater, he would have gladly let someone who appeared to be homeless sleep in the back. Nam vet or old alcoholic, someone harmless. They didn't harm shit. Now, if the guy had started whacking it or yelling, he would have been asked to leave, but Mutton never would have made back-handed comments at the guy, even if he did think the man smelled like pee. Mutton had always picked up hitchers, smoked a doobie with them. He was always kind to animals.

Mutton, are you going to sleep? Hey!

When Mutton wakes up, there are three guys standing over at him saying “Hey! Junkie! You suck dick for coke?”

Mutton! These kids are fucking with you. They're asking you if the sixties were cool and what Woodstock was like! Did you do acid? Are you a crackhead? There are three of them. High school boys. In this haze, their faces are lit up like old statues in the ashen movie-light. You're pushed back into the corner, away from everyone. No one's even watching this movie. You weren't bothering anyone. Were you snoring?

Once, you went to this party. College party. Maybe ten years ago. You had come in behind some kids, after you had been in town a week or so. You thought this was Barry's house. He invited you over to play chess and drink a beer. You sit at the kitchen table. Mutton, you don't actually speak to anyone and ask if Barry's here. Why not? Are you shy?

The stereo is playing a song, repeats “This is how we do it.” Some girls in the corner start laughing. Their big bracelets swing on their wrists as they whisper through their beautiful mouths behind their hands, looking at you. They're talking like a wave, a joke is being shared and rising. You're wearing your big sunglasses and a jean jacket, like a popular professional wrestler of that time, Brett “The Hitman” Hart. A guy drinking beer out of a stone jar is asking you if you have the password. You look up, through your pink plastic lenses. You don't say anything. He waves his hand at you, come on, urging you to speak. You don't belong. He is very big and wearing a rugby shirt. His hair is tied back in a ponytail.

“Get the fuck out!” he screams and kicks your chair out from under you and you crash back on the kitchen floor and roll into the dog food dish, sending kibbles all over the floor. The room echoes with laughter. Everyone is bellowing--they've never seen anything so funny. You get to your feet and someone grabs the guy. He has his fist raised and ready to plunge into you like a piston, until you are gone. You don't look back as you get to the door. They all have money. They will all be shielded from making the kind of decisions you have made. They have been chosen. They are all saved.

So here, in the theater, you know enough to not respond to what they say. You and these kids are two different species. They will go to college and stay with their tribe of mean, pampered assholes who nonetheless rule this life. You can't be hurt, can't even really understand what they're saying and you don't know why you should be ashamed. But you can't stay. You know if you tried to fight, they'd relish beating your ass and then they'd call the cops and get you charged with assault.

So you push past them, step over a row of seats awkwardly, and go out the emergency exit and it's snowing outside, behind the theater, where you belong.

A Sampler

This classic parable was a crocheted reminder of God's presence, hanging in my grandmother's front room. I'll share it with you all today:

Jesus, I was on the beach and I saw a set of footprints, my own, because I was walking on sand and everything. And when my life was going fine, there were just my footprints. And then, when I had trials, as well as tribulations, I noticed a set of three footprints, which I don't understand, because I only have two feet and I cannot, for the life of me, think of what made the other footprint and I am deeply disturbed and scared.

Jesus said:

My son, there were only your footprints, because when things are going fine, I'm helping any one of almost seven billion people on the earth. And the extra footprint? When you were going through your toughest times, I strapped one of your legs to mine and we ran the three-legged race. And let it be known that, when you're down, I'm doing most of the work. Which I am more than capable of doing, but I just want you to know that you're lazy and it pisses me off. Why are you always at the beach?

Good Luck Mutt

I must have prayed for something over ten years that someone would watch The Great Piggy Bank Robbery with me (Neon Noodle! P-P-Pumpkin Puss!), that the same person would cock their head to hear the smashed gibberish that pours out of me and these opinions. That I could pick through their bins of stories and sore spots, or that, with telekinesis, underpants would be torn from their body! That's some goddamn witchcraft! And you read?

The falling propinquity gets to be a hurtful little string that gets plucked by anything. What was once a speeding car, driving past those receding bastard totems that would jump out and beat me stupid, were we not driving. We are not driving.

Life has turned into a scramble, like a little mouse does and the cats, clumsily charging, will be outwitted and I have no idea what they are, but they are pissed and huge and mean to eat me. But more of the same should not be harried and confused with impoverished, brothers and sisters. When at the bottom of someone's sight, just fly over them--the summation of this life being glory and no less. Little shreds that remain well-tended in place are the best ones preserved. I am now coming through louder, and of what has left, I am wearing what I was taught like a drooping coat crusted with badges that are names.