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dun-na-nunt
. His friends laughing on the den furniture behind him were traveling between drunk and hungover. Cale skipped the “between” part and awoke hungover.
SportsCenter
was the white noise behind every morning he’d felt like this. Chris Berman’s voice made him shiver.
    It had seemed to Cale like a fun idea to fly old friends for a change. Peeling his face from the hardwoods, he reconsidered and found himself wondering whether they would reimburse him for the jet fuel.
    The prior night’s worship of golden calves and the omnipresent drumline felt like déjà vu. But Cale had married so young and had been so wrapped up in work and family that he couldn’t remember from when. And Maggie, bless her heart, had been merciless on him when he indulged.
    Once, when his twins were two, he dragged home from a guys’ weekend on a red-eye. Maggie met him in the driveway. She was radiant, and his loins stirred despite exhaustion’s fog. She was smiling, and he put on his bravest no-way-I’m-hungover-and-tired face and hoped to hide the scratchiness in his voice and the smell of smoke embedded in his clothes.
    “How was Las Vegas … honey?” she asked.
    Wariness should have crept into his mind with the pause before the word
honey
. He grabbed a long hug before replying.
    “It was a lot of fun. The undercards on Holyfield’s match were better than the main event. The tickets were expensive, but at least I lost all my bets.”
    The lame joke wasn’t acknowledged. “Sweetheart, I’m glad you had fun,” she said.
    The switch to a different term of endearment was another missed warning. Cale obliviously plowed ahead with a request for quiet time where they could catch up. The request was politely rebuffed, and he was referred to as
sugar
. Maggie steered the conversation to the week’s logistics—who needs to be where doing what on which day. Cale felt the sunshine in every dehydrated cell in his body. He daydreamed of getting into his cool, dark house. Finally, he said, “Mags, I’m beat. You mind if I go catch a nap?”
    He caught the word
actually
. Something about adults not complaining about hangovers. Then she was gone, and it was a long daddy day for Cale and not the most rewarding one for his girls. Maggie’s eyes laughed as the whip tore flesh from his back.
    Anyway, tomorrow Cale could return to his pattern of two cold ones a night (preceded by a day or two of detox). Today, he’d take the Whaler to the beach and hope the sand and salt would wear his friends out. Could their livers keep up this pace for a full seventy-two hours?
    Going vertical, Cale became slightly dizzy. He procured ibuprofen, antacids, and lemon-lime Gatorade for triage. More
dun-na-nunt, dun-na-nunt
in the background. The lemon-lime tasted like sweat.
    Sweat was something Cale knew. Twenty-five years ago, August meant college football preseason. Two-a-days. Eat, heat, stretch, practice, ice, eat, nap, heat, stretch, practice, ice, eat, and sleep. The pizza guy showed up at nine o’clock to give everybody their large pizza for dessert before bedtime. That was two hours after a pasta and hot wings dinner. He didn’t remember vegetables, but he did remember lots of bananas at practice.
    He missed preseason. But why? Was it the simplicity? Thecompetition? Camaraderie? Did they still give freshmen swirlies? Could he still play? The height, broad-shoulders, narrow hips, and big hands were all still intact. His feet were as big as ever, which was good for balance. He could take an eighteen-year-old version of himself, but maybe not a twenty-two-year-old version.
    No, he’d take the twenty-two-year-old too, just not in a fair fight. Uncle Sam’s training took the fair fight out of him. He’d never wanted to fight, but if he needed to, why make it fair? How had he switched from thinking about playing to thinking about fighting?
    Time waited for no one, and he now ached when it rained and knew this weekend’s hangover would drag until