O P I N I O N
NOT THAT PROFOUND
By Nate Graziano
Jon and I had finished volunteering at the food bank and were driving back to the church to meet up with our prayer circle when the call came in.
It was my wife, Liz, and she was hanging out with Jon’s wife, Tracey, at some seedy bar after they’d finished shooting their AR-15s at the gun range. “Hello, dear. I love you,” I said.
“Listen, meatball, Tracey and I were just doing shots of whiskey, and we got to talking. We decided that it’s about time that we beat both your asses at Trivia Pursuit,” Liz said.
“Oh gosh-golly,” I said as Jon held his breath. “Why are you being so aggressive? Can’t we just ask the questions and support each other in our responses? Why does it have to be a competition?”
I could picture my wife’s fists balled, her teeth gnashing. “Listen to me, meatball,” she said. “We’re going to destroy, decimate you. We’re going to make minced meat of your pathetic intellects and quick work of you two mooks. Prepare to suffer, two weeks from tonight. We must break you.”
I could hear Tracey laughing in the background then Liz killed the call. I looked at Jon. “That’s Easter Weekend, and it sounds like they mean business,” I said.
“All we can do is try our hardest, study our butts off, and leave the rest in the hands of God,” Jon said.
“Amen.”
So Jon and I took to studying each night, individually, then after Mass on Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings, we would quiz each other while drinking decaf at a local coffee shop.
Liz and Tracey, meanwhile, were taking illegal bets on the game from decent, hard-working folks in the community. They were so confident—arrogant—in their inevitable victory that they would have to dip into our retirement accounts to cover the bets if they lost.
Jon and I were splitting a Boston Creme donut after a rough round of trivia practice when I voiced what we were both thinking. “I don’t think we can do it. We can’t win, man.”
Jon sighed. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe we can’t win. Maybe all we can do is stand toe-to-toe with them and take everything they’ve got. But regardless of the outcome, we’re going to hold our heads high and compete with dignity.”
So last Saturday night, we played “The Game.”
We had agreed to play at our house. Jon and Tracey arrived around 7 p.m. While Jon and I prayed for 20 minutes in my basement then read some inspirational passages of Scripture, Liz and Tracey set off fireworks in the backyard, scaring the neighbors’ dogs.
Finally, we sat down at the kitchen table with Jon and me on one side and our wives on the other. Growling, Tracey stared across the table at Jon. “You better wipe that stupid look off your face or I’ll wipe it off myself,” she said.
Jon held his hand out across the table. “Let’s have a good game,” he said.
Liz slapped his hand away. “You better shut your mouth,” she said to Jon then looked at me. “You too, meatball.”
Harrowed, I folded my hands in prayer. “Why can’t we all just get along?” I asked.
Tracey and Liz, however, had not anticipated that Jon and I would be so copiously prepared, nor were they ready for our faith and positivity to propel us around the Trivia Pursuit board with Jesus as our copilot on Easter Weekend.
Even when we caught Liz and Tracey cheating, looking up answers on their phones, we remained resolute in our mission to play with honesty and integrity. So when we finally landed on the center spot, after completing all six categories, our wives were stunned.
Liz silently read the question then laughed. “Which inventor of the periodic table has an element named after him that matches a U.S. state’s postal abbreviation, and what is the capital of that state?”
Jon and I looked at each other, smiled and high-fived. “Dmitri Mendeleev, and Annapolis,” we said in unison.
At that point, all of the church bells in the city began to ring, and suddenly the night sky lit up as if it were daytime, and the morning birds sang in chorus. And in those moments that followed “The Game,” it became clear that goodness sometimes wins over evil.
Then it started to rain as the skies wept with joy.
You can reach Nate Graziano at ngrazio5@yahoo.com.