Someone Hand Me an Aspirin
#MacJonesWho
* * *
#. October 18, 2020
#-1. Athens, Georgia, USA
#-2. University of Georgia
#-3. Vandiver Hall, Room 607
By the time we got back to Georgia after the game last night, it was nearly midnight. All I wanted was to go straight to my dorm. But the moment I stepped off the bus, someone sidled up beside me.
Ainsley Melissa. One of the girls from the cheerleading squad.
"If you're free, could I borrow a minute of your time?"
Honestly, I had zero intention of obliging. I was just about to apologize and brush her off when Alexi materialized out of nowhere, wedged herself between us, and began marking her territory like a cat spraying every lamppost on the block.
Ainsley's face soured and she walked away. Alexi came straight to the dorm with me, and we spent the night together.
"You don't have to go to church today?"
"Nope. I lied to my mom."
"About what?"
"Told her I went camping with a friend."
With nothing draped over either of us, we lay beneath a thin blanket. Perhaps because we'd just spent ourselves exploring each other's bodies, the warmth rising between us carried a strange, heady fragrance.
"You're getting way too famous, you know that?"
"That's exactly what I want."
"…Do you love me?"
From experience — with men and women alike — I've found that romantic relationships come in exactly four varieties.
The first: genuinely good people. Someone whose character is so sound that simply keeping them close steadies your own mind. You naturally come to love them, and they influence you for the better.
And the second: people trying to become good people. They know their own flaws and weaknesses, and they make an effort to hide or fix them — but the moment a particular situation arises, everything they've buried surfaces to the light.
Alexi falls into this second category. A person trying to be good. Now that I'm famous and girls keep circling around me, she's grown anxious, and demanding declarations of love is how she soothes herself.
Well. It's not a bad nature. Just slightly exhausting.
But for now, I knew exactly what to say.
"Of course I do. I love you."
Alexi smiled in satisfaction, nestled back into my arms, and a little later was mumbling in her sleep, completely out cold. I shifted my position, got comfortable, and grabbed the phone resting by my pillow.
Hawaii starts its day well ahead of the mainland, which is why Aunt Mel's messages arrived first. Judging by the photos, she was in Maui — the background was Mom's restaurant. A customer whose build gave him away at a glance was wearing a Mac Jones Who tee. Give it a little time and this would be sweeping the entire nation.
Ninety-nine percent, if not a full hundred.
I knew things would get a bit rowdy. I did not expect this. The internet was already flooded with memes of every shape and size, ruling the social media world outright, and the YouTube clip of that one interview moment had already blown past three million views.
One video edited my interview footage, froze the frame right where I shouted Mac Jones Who?, slapped Minecraft sunglasses on my face, and layered Snoop Dogg's Next Episode over it. Another one featured little kids from Georgia playing with their cheeks, chirping Mac Jones Who? at each other.
Seriously? It's Sunday today. The day NFL games kick off. And you're really doing this? All your attention on Mac Jones Who?
Come on. The poor guy's going to cry. He didn't exactly strike me as having thick skin — and I really do hold nothing against him, to be clear.
…
I stared at my phone for a while, then set it back down, tired of looking. With things spiraling like this, I couldn't help thinking how lucky our schedule was.
We don't have a game this week. A bye week.
NCAA and NFL teams occasionally get a full week without a game — and this was ours. In my heart of hearts I wanted to fly home to Hawaii, but that was easier said than done.
Goddamn COVID.
I picked up the phone again and checked the time. 9:31 AM. Just a little longer. It seemed safe to be lazy for a few more minutes.
Click.
#. October 19, 2020
#-1. Athens, Georgia, USA
#-2. University of Georgia
#-3. Vandiver Hall, Room 607
Classes at the university currently ran in two formats: the ordinary way, in a lecture hall, or over Zoom. The split was roughly 40-60 in favor of remote learning.
It was convenient, taking classes from the dorm, but I couldn't say I preferred it.
"Let's stop here for today. Don't forget your assignment. Have a good rest of your day."
"Thank you, Professor."
All my Monday morning classes were remote. Once morning training was done, I'd come back to the dorm, sit through lectures, grab my bag, and head back out. Lunch, then afternoon major courses in the lecture halls.
By Monday morning, the campus — no exaggeration — was wall to wall with it.
"Did you see the Mac Jones Who T-shirt?"
"Yeah. Where the hell did they even get one?"
"Everywhere. Apparently some kid had a whole batch printed up and he's selling them on campus."
Wherever you go, there's always someone with a merchant's instinct. Every Mac Jones Who shirt I'd spotted on the way to the dining hall must have come off that kid's table.
"Thanks to him, it's the only story in the world."
"Dumbass NFL. Can't even bury one story."
"Haha. The usual, please?"
"Yup."
The school had actually considered adding Hawaiian dishes to the cafeteria menu just for me, but I visited before enrolling, tried the food, and told them it really wasn't necessary. The food wasn't bad. It was just… something else entirely.
Whatever else, I had no desire to watch tradition get mangled. So I chose to cook in my dorm room instead.
"Here you go."
"Thanks. Digging in."
"Don't mention it."
Summer Gould, who worked the dining hall, had actually graduated from Georgia a few months back — but COVID killed her job offer, and since her family lived just outside Athens, she'd simply taken a job here instead. She was far from the only one in that boat.
America's big universities feed entire towns. Athens, too, runs on the University of Georgia's economy, and the locals adore us for it.
Tray in hand, I stepped outside, planning to find some quiet corner to eat in.
But then—
"MOI!!"
"Ah, dammit."
My modest dream of a peaceful lunch died on the spot.
Well. It wasn't that hanging out with him was bad, exactly. I just didn't feel like repeating the same conversation for the hundredth time.
"Did you see the Mac Jones Who shirt?"
See? I told you.
"Fuck. It's ALL anyone's said all day."
"Yeah?"
"What's that? A hamburger?"
"Yeah."
"Damn— Peter. Eat something decent for once."
"But I like these."
Who on earth hates burgers? I like them too. I just don't enjoy cramming five or six of them into my body a day, is all.
"How are you nagging more than my grandfather did?"
"When he was alive?"
"Yeah."
Peter's grandfather — Bob Skoronski, NFL legend — passed away in 2018. He'd been living with Alzheimer's for years before that. It's a grim thing to say, but a man who played football for so long in that era rarely got to grow old with his mind intact. The brain takes damage in one form or another. A sad, painful history.
"What're you doing this week?"
"What would anyone be doing? It's the COVID era."
"I'm going fishing. Wanna come?"
"Oh? I'm allowed?"
There was a fishing spot near Athens called Bear Creek, and the plan was a one-day camping trip over the weekend — eat whatever we caught, grill some meat on top of it. In COVID times, enjoying nature like this was about the whole menu of what was available.
Still.
"I'll give you a definite answer later."
"This about the girlfriend?"
"It's… kind of complicated."
"How so?"
Alexi was genuinely a great girl. But she kept trying to tie me down. Or more precisely, to tie herself to my side. And that wasn't what I wanted.
I'd give a relationship my all, and be faithful for as long as we were dating — but she seemed to want something more than that, and it made me uncomfortable.
"Put simply, you're a free spirit?"
"It's less that and more that I'm looking for my ideal match."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"Shut it. Just finish shoving that burger in your face."
"Keh-heh-heh-heh."
Peter had genuine talent as a football player, but beyond that he was just an outstanding human being. In high school he'd graduated as valedictorian among six hundred classmates with a 4.0 GPA — and of course, COVID robbed him of his commencement speech, too. Supposedly his school filmed it separately and posted it on their website and YouTube channel. Why didn't I ever think of that? A tragedy of historic proportions.
Anyway. While the other freshmen moped about being locked out of parties and schemed whatever rebellions they could, this guy was in the gym or holed up in his room reading the Bible or books. If the COVID policies ever loosened up enough to bring back the Muscle Men sessions, he'd be the first one I recruited.
"Oh, right."
"?"
"My dad wore one of those shirts too."
"WHAT??"
On the phone screen Peter held out was, indeed, a middle-aged man wearing exactly that.
Good grief.
"Your family isn't in Illinois?"
"Yep."
"Isn't that about 700 miles from here?"
"800, probably? So what. It's the internet — you can find out anything from anywhere on the planet."
Oh—
Good grief.
Georgia I could understand. But Hawaii, and now Illinois? My head was starting to throb.
Dwyane Moi Stone
Mac Jones Who
#. October 20, 2020
#-1. Athens, Georgia, USA
#-2. University of Georgia
#-3. Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall
Training continued as usual during the bye week — but the shape of it inevitably changed. Days like these were mostly for nursing the nagging big and little injuries, and for sharpening the team's schemes.
Morning. I was in the training room. Nothing was particularly wrong.
"Rotate your ankle for me."
…
"Does it hurt?"
"A little."
"Good. Then let me pull on it like this."
Bruises and the odd light sprain in one joint or another didn't even count as injuries in football. That was just daily wear. But if you wanted to play this game for a long time, you had to maintain your body relentlessly. Sometimes the pain signals came in, and you'd grown so numb to pain you never registered them — which was exactly why these checkups were necessary.
Regular massages helped, too. A professional masseuse came to the dorm twice a week. One of the perks the school had put on the table as a recruiting condition.
"You're all fine. We'll just treat that side."
"This spot's basically my daily routine now."
"Haha. Lift your arm."
"I'm serious, though. I don't even remember what color the skin here used to be. The mixed blood decided to do something weird, because this one patch looks like it belongs to a completely different person."
Come Tuesday, the Mac Jones Who fever had cooled a degree or two. In its place—
"Hey, is it true?"
"Is what true?"
"That Nick Saban really told you to take a redshirt?"
…
There it was. Well, it was only natural — and it was what I'd wanted, anyway.
"You won't tell a soul?"
"Obviously not."
He was a man I could trust. Still, I said it once anyway, to be sure.
"Yes. He told me Mac Jones would be the starter this year, and that I'd take over as Alabama's starting quarterback from next season."
"That's insane. YOU?"
"Well. It happens, I guess."
"But that's how you ended up here, right?"
"Actually, it's a little more complicated than that."
"Complicated? How?"
Because back then, I hadn't truly decided yet. I still could have gone anywhere. Frankly, if LSU had handled the recruiting process just a little better, I think I'd have played in Louisiana — not Alabama, not Georgia.
"LSU? Really?"
"Yeah."
"Haven't they had a rough year, though?"
LSU had opened the season 1-2. They'd lost to both Missouri schools. A gaping hole had opened up in their defense, and their quarterback couldn't find a rhythm to save his life. On top of it all, the team's top wide receiver, Ja'Marr Chase, had walked away from the football program with his eyes on the NFL. The bad breaks just kept stacking up.
"Glad you didn't go, then?"
"That's how I see it now. I've already put down roots here."
"Would've been even better if not for COVID, though?"
Looking back now, it had been an outstanding choice. The spread offense I'd worried about — the head coach was adapting to it far more flexibly than expected. And option plays like the ones I'd run against Alabama would never have been called if the staff didn't trust me one hundred percent.
In every way, I was satisfied with my life here.
"Alright. You're done."
"Thank you."
"Don't mention it. What's next on your schedule?"
"You know how it is. A meeting."
"Quarterback?"
"Yup."
The quarterback meetings — the ones where no Zoom was required — were Coach Monken's absolute favorite, and I grabbed a cup of coffee and stepped through the wide-open door of the conference room. The coaches were already there.
"There he is."
"Yes, Sir."
I'd thought it would be a perfectly ordinary day.
Then—
"How about THIS, huh?! Huh?!"
What the…
My peace of mind shattered the moment Coach Matt Luke strode in wearing a Mac Jones Who hoodie.
Someone.
Hand me an aspirin.