The Spire

Matthew Reichert

Staff Writer

That right there is Bustopher Jones. In his purple dress shirt which is tucked down into white pants and spewing out the top of his salmon vest, all wrapped up in a tan trench coat that can be best described as British in appearance, “No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers”. That’s a line from TS Elliot’s poem Bustopher Jones: Cat About Town. It describes a haughty feline who is of smart dress and frequents many St. James drinking and eating establishments, among them the “Pothunters”, the “Drones”, and “Fox’s”. But, “If he looks full of gloom then he’s lunched at the Tomb”.

The Tombs happens to be the name of the joint where the Holy Cross Club of the Capitol Region is holding their brunch before the HC-Georgetown football game. It’s 11 o’clock now and the place is full—including the fellow in the purple shirt and salmon vest—of Bustopher Joneses, “this brummel of cats” in a “coat of fastidious black” and wearing “white spats”. They don’t go quite that far, but a good portion of the crowd seems to be following a dress code. You’ve seen it before. At Yankee games and other prestige sporting events, its the get-up of the guy who has company seats. He’s not going to wear a suit to the park—he’s at a ball game after all—but a Ginacarlo Stanton jersey is a little too common for a guy in company seats. Compromise! Keep the nice pants and the nice shoes and the dress shirt, but put over it a quarter-zip (nice and athletic for a sporting event) and let the top of shirt flop out unbuttoned from the unzipped quarter and you can even have a small team logo on the garb—the small interlocking NY (or HC) is no more gaudy than that alligator on all those polos—and this is a good get-up to appear like the sort of guy comfortable at the ball park but still clean and smart and disaffected enough to sell some mortgage-backed securities or whatever else people have company seats for.

The Bustopher Joneses at The Tombs aren’t there to sell investments but, in their nice pants and collared shirts and quarter-zips with the unbuttoned collars of the shirts flopping out the unzipped quarters, they aren’t exactly here to get ready for the football game either—they, like the guy in company seats, are here on business. The salmon vester has declared he’s “Looking for a job”. Coming up to the table now is someone with a QR code for a HC lawyers alum event. Abducted from the table, there goes a student who met someone who has met someone the student ought to meet. “All of us proud to be nodded or bowed to”—how much more glee in this than watching… what’s that player’s name? catch or not catch a pass. Will any of these Bustophers even walk down the street to the game?

There’s one, right smack in the middle of Georgetown’s metal bleachers. The sound bounces off these things and you can make out words here and there if you’re close enough to Bustopher. The game’s just started and he’s talking about… “Saudi Arabia”? His voice isn’t the one that carries though. A woman calls out, “Come on, Ben”. Ben. Lebron is the kind of first name you use when talking about an athlete. When Holy Cross #0 Joseph Williams is in the midst of a great play, you might call out “Jojo!”. You only say Ben when you know, personally, who you’re yelling at. It turns out it’s her son’s teammate. That “C’mon Ben” is coming from the voice of one of the player’s mothers.

She doesn’t wear Bustopher’s mortgage-backed security quarter-zip. She’s in a sweatshirt, and it has the logo of her son’s old high school with the word football below that logo. It’s warm and her husband suggests she take off the sweat shirt but she doesn’t. Her son won a lot of games with her in that sweatshirt. “It’s good luck”.

Holy Cross could use some of that luck. The Crusaders gain a combined total of negative one yards and go three and out on each of their first two drives. Georgetown is already up 10-0 by the end of their second drive. All through these sequences, Mom’s exclaiming “Oh!” and “Ah!” and “Wake up!” and “Lord have mercy!” She is only in rapt silence when, at one point in the 2nd quarter a Holy Cross player is injured and lying flat on his back and still lying flat on his back after some time. Here you see the great divide. Up near the top of the stands, the Bustopher’s chat amiably. Mom and the other Moms and Dads are all in the front and they are quiet because that is their son’s friend—or even their son himself—and he is hurt and he is still hurt. Their patter only returns when the player sits up and then stands up and then walks to the sideline.

That moment would come later though. Right now it is only HC’s third drive and Mom is still all Ohs! and Ahs! and disappointed. After a 5-yard run by Jake Croce, Holy Cross gets a first down and some fan asks no one in particular if that was the Crusaders’ first first down and this mother turns to her and says, “Yes… it’s our first first down.” She says it with all alacrity and assuredness (and displeasure) of someone who has watched closely and remembers well.

Mom knows what’s going on. After a 21-yard completion to Jojo Williams, David Lynch takes another snap out of the shotgun and the O-line is getting pushed back and the defenders are closing in. Mom yells, “You’re too much in the pocket!” and she’s dead on because the moment after she says this Lynch leaves that pocket and scambles upfield for thirteen yards and the first down which sets up, two-plays later, the touchdown. Mom can’t watch the extra-point because “He never gets it in”, but the kicker proves her wrong (this time, he would miss an extra-point later) and Holy Cross is now down only 7-10.

This momentum is short-lived. After the teams trade interceptions, Georgetown begins working down the field and is close to the goal-line. A child in a Holy Cross hat and a Holy Cross sweatshirt buries his head in his father and his father gently admonishes him. The Mom in the high-school sweatshirt offers a rebuttal from a couple rows in front of the boy. All mothers feel the game through the perspective of their sons and all sons are in some part still a little boy to their mother, and so this mom relates to the pain of this little boy as Holy Cross flounders: “No, we’re gonna cry”.

Their sadness is about two plays premature. Georgetown hands the ball off to running back Jayden Sumpter on third down on the goalline and as he is finding space on the left side Mom yells out “Oh my God” but Georgetown, being a Jesuit school as well, has an equal claim to Holy Cross’ when invoking the Lord’s assistance, and so the prayers of both sides cancel out and all that is left is talent and on this play, the Hoyas make better use of theirs. The two sides will trade touchdowns later in the quarter, but as Sumpter breaks into the endzone Georgetown takes the ten point lead it will carry into the half.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………… “Even the Chinese… even the Chinese!”. What in the world is that Bustopher Jones talking about? Just this quarter, David Lynch jutted his shoulder towards a recevier out wide on a smoke route. Two defenders took the bait and one of them was certainly supposed to cover the deep part of the field because no one was back there as Ty Curran sprinted unattended on his way to receiving a 33 yard touchdown pass. Holy Cross has put the game within three points and Bustopher Jones is incredulous about the Chinese?

Look at that guy down by the foot of the stairs in the Holy Cross ballcap. Some version of him is at every sporting event everywhere in the world. He’s the man who is so nervous he doesn’t even sit. He is in the part of the bleachers that opens to the bathrooms and the concessions because this space is wide and gives him room to pace away, the best he can, his nervousness. As the third quarter is ending this pacer isn’t thinking about the Chinese. He’s yelling “LET’S GO DEFENSE. MAKE A STOP”. He is ready for the critical moment to come.

The moment arrives in the fourth quarter when it is third down and Georgetown has the ball and there are exactly two minutes and fifteen seconds left on the clock because Holy Cross has called timeout. The Crusaders are still down three and every second seems precious, but these seconds are only precious if Holy Cross gets a stop on this play. If they don’t, Georgetown will just run out the clock and the game will be over and each ticking away of the could of been precious second will strike a pang in the heart because each of those tick-tocks will signify the fading away of a faint hope of still winning the Patriot League, of still being champions, until the clock reads 0:00 and the hope is all the way gone.

It’s too much for Mom to take. She zips her sweatshirt all the way up and pulls her hood over her head and ducks that head into the zipped up front of the sweatshirt and covers her eyes. She is all the way covered by that lucky sweatshirt. It is just her and the dark and the feeling of being encased in good luck. And… the rumbling. In a critical moment like this, on metal bleachers like these, the fans will begin to stomp. Up and down, up and down, they drive their feet fast and staccato into the bleachers and the metal vibrates and you can feel it all shake. It is dark and it is the decisive third down and the season is on the line and it is rumbling and the rumbling is intensifying and the ball must be snapped by now and there are some gasps and the rumbling intensifies and then… it stops altogether. Oh no.

Oh yes! The rumbling has stopped because everyone is now standing up and cheering. Georgetown’s Jayden Sumpter has carried the ball nine yards, but that is two yards too short. HC made the stop and as they made the stop, the energy flowed upwards from the stomping feet and drove the fans out of their seats and the energy kept on flowing until it burst out of their mouths and they exclaimed in joy. The rumble and the energy were unavoidable and it flowed upwards everyone. It flowed upwards in the man who paces and now can stop for a moment and celebrate. It flowed upwards in the little boy with the Holy Cross hat and the Holy Cross sweatshirt who has moved close to the field and no longer cries because he feels the energy. It flowed upwards in his father who was standing there close to the field right next to him. It flowed upwards in Mom in the lucky sweatshirt which brought very good luck and it drove her

right out of her seat and out of the stands and, either because this final drive will be too overwhelming to stand or because she feels complete now that her son (who played defense) has finished his duty, she does not return.

This energy even flowed upwards, past all the concerns about Saudi Arabia and China and who knows what else, past the teeth of the zipper that runs a quarter of the way down the garment, all the way out through the cheers of, standing smack in the middle of the bleachers, Bustopher Jones.

He stands now, with the son and the father and the pacer and all the rest, and they watch this last and decisive drive. They stand and they watch as David Lynch is being dragged down for the sack, but just gets the ball out and the ball goes down the field into the arms of Ty Curran for a twenty yard gain. They stand and they watch as David Lynch is almost sacked again but he evades it and shovels the ball to Jojo Williams and Williams gains six yards. They stand together and they watch as the ball is given again to Jojo Williams but instead of running he pulls up and looks down field and there is only open space except for one white Jersey all alone in the endzone. Jojo Williams attempts the halfback pass. 17 yards. Into the arms of Lincoln Fisher. Touchdown. Holy Cross leads by three and this is the way it will be when tick-tocks wind down and the clock strikes 0:00. As this happens,the pacer, the boy, the father, all the others, and Bustopher, will stand and watch and cheer and do it together and the energy will flow amongst them because on their hats and sweatshirts and quarter-zip is the HC that signifies that name, hanging up on the scoreboard, above the the number 27 and next to the number 24, which they all share: Crusaders.