Neal Pollack

And that’s when it struck me: For as much as I hated the kids who were going to torture my boy the next day, it wasn'’t entirely their fault. If their parents, most of them nominally Bears fans, even some of the ones from out of town, couldn'’t teach them to hate the Packers, you had to wonder what exactly were they being taught. I tried to imagine a kid in my Milwaukee neighborhood of duplexes and bungalows wearing McMahon’s jersey. I couldn'’t. So no wonder they walked around Old Orchard gabbing about nothing on their cell phones and buying movie tickets with plastic. If they weren'’t being taught something as basic as you don’t wear a Packers jersey, what were they being taught? The question answered itself.

After I finished the cigar I went to the kitchen and took out the Scotch bottle again. Then I went to the den and turned on the TV. I kept the volume low so I could hear the police tires slither over the bricks.

The news at 5:30 a.m. mentioned a body found in the Lake Forest rest stop; police were investigating. When I heard Andy’s feet coming down the stairs I hid the bottle under the blanket and feigned sleep. After he left, I called in sick. By 8:00, it appeared the man had slipped but police were investigating. At 10:30 the police gave a name to the body: John Radkovich, a thirty-two-year-old landscaper from Lincolnwood. He’d watched the game at a friend’s in Lindenhurst. “Yeah, he’d been drinking, but not so much,” his droopy-eyed host said, unconvincingly. On the 5 o’clock news, Radkovich was divorced with one son. They showed a picture of him and his ex. She had slapped him with a restraining order when he was caught creeping in the bushes around her house after hearing she was engaged. She didn'’t appear on camera, but was kind enough off-camera to tell the shivering reporter that John had fought a “long-running battle with the bottle.” As it turns out, he had been the driver of the Aspire.

The death of John Radkovich registered sixty seconds on the 10 o’clock news; the segment included a safety expert noting how many fatal accidents occur in bathrooms, so people should be vigilant. There was no mention of a crime being caught on camera, of a car being spotted fleeing the scene.

The police didn'’t come that day or the next. Or ever.

I didn'’t have any problem getting out of luxury box duty. It was simple actually. All I had to say was, “My son wants to go to the game with me Sunday night.”

“Do you want to bring him in the box?”

“No, I think he’ll want to sit outside.”

“I can get 50-yard-line seats for the two of you. Would that be all right?”

Was it ever. The Pack whipped the Bears 28-6. Drive after grinding drive capped by Tyrone Williams returning a pick for a touchdown. Shane Matthews was no McNown. Andy was as excited as I'’d seen him in months; he was smiling, jumping, and high-fiving a couple Packers fans sitting two rows behind. The Bears fans around us were tolerant and one even told Andy that Favre was the best quarterback he’d ever seen.

I wondered what they’d think if someone had told them not three months ago I killed one of their fellow Bears fans. Would they have believed it? This guy who takes his son out on a Sunday night to see a game? Who called for beers for the woman whose call wasn'’t heard by the vendor? They would have expected some mark probably: excessive stubble or a twitchy eye or a haunted expression. Some physical manifestation of guilt. But not a trace of that. And not because I was hiding it. I didn'’t feel it. I'’d slept soundly since the first few days, when I realized I wasn'’t going to get caught. It didn'’t hang over my thoughts either. And, to be honest, Nat and I had been having our best sex in years. Nothing like a crisis averted to reawaken the animal passions. I was still enough of a Catholic to wonder if I should be guilty: I killed a man, after all. But it had been an accident. And while he’d left behind a son, who’s to say his ex’s new husband wouldn'’t be a better man? What kind of father can a man be, really, if He’'s berating a small boy in a public rest room?

For years I'’d been putting food on the table by skillfully finding ways to take jobs away from hardworking guys, men just as good as my father, real Grabowskis, and send them to another country. Every time I did that, I knew in some way I was killing those guys. Sometimes, indirectly, not just metaphorically. Analysts at Doolin’s firm repeatedly called for corporate America to cut jobs, to “contain” costs, to be a little more nimble. Bill Chait two doors down was a lawyer who fought workers’ comp cases. House after well-main'tained house in Wilmette was paid for by taking a little bit from the Grabowskis. Of course I could live with accidentally snuffing a landscaper from Lincolnwood. So could any number of my neighbors. We’d all had plenty of practice.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS: