A Hive Full of Green Bees

An excerpt from Matthew Quick's The Silver Linings Playbook

by Matthew Quick

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Published: Sep 3, 2008

Excerpted from The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick Copyright © 2008 by Matthew Quick. Published in September 2008 by Sarah Crichton Books, an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux LLC. All rights reserved.

In Matthew Quick's debut novel, protagonist Pat Peoples has been released from a mental-health facility where he believes he was institutionalized for just a few months. Estranged from his wife, Nikki, Peoples is attempting to put his life back together. This process includes his first Eagles game at the team's new stadium.

In the parking lot people are everywhere, not just tailgating, but roaming. Guys selling stolen or homemade T-shirts, moms parading around little girls in cheerleading outfits who will do a cheer if you donate a dollar to their local cheerleading booster club, crazy bums willing to tell you off-color jokes for free food and beer, strippers in short pants and satin jackets handing out free passes to the local gentlemen's clubs, packs of little kids in pads and helmets collecting money for their peewee football teams, college kids handing out free samples of new sodas or sports drinks or candy or junk food, and of course the seventy thousand other drunken Eagles fans just like us. Basically, it's a green football carnival.

By the time we decide to have a catch, I've had two or three beers, and I'd be willing to bet Jake and Scott have each had at least ten, so our passes are not all that accurate. We hit parked cars, knock over a few tables of food, beam one or two guys in the back, but no one cares, because we are Eagles fans in Eagles jerseys who are ready and willing to cheer on the Birds. Every so often, other men will jump in front of one of us and intercept a pass or two, but they always give back the ball with a laugh and a smile.

I like throwing the football with Jake and Scott because it makes me feel like a boy, and when I was a boy, I was the person Nikki fell in love with.

But then something bad happens.

Jake sees him first, points, and says, "Hey, look at the ass-hole." I turn my head and see a big man in a Giants jersey, maybe forty yards away from our tent. He is wearing a red, white and blue hard hat, and the worst part is that he has a little boy with him who is also wearing a Giants jersey. The guy walks over to a group of Eagles fans who give him a hard time at first but eventually hand him a beer.

Suddenly my brother is walking toward this Giants fan, so Scott and I follow. My brother starts chanting as he walks, "Ass — hole! Ass — hole! Ass — hole!" With every syllable, he throws his index finger at the hard hat. Scott is doing the same thing, and before I know it, we are surrounded by twenty or so men in Eagles jerseys who are also chanting and pointing. I have to admit it feels sort of thrilling to be part of this mob — united in our hatred of the opposing team's fans.

When we reach the Giants fan, his friends — all Eagles fans — laugh, and their faces seem to say, "We told you this would happen." But instead of acting remorseful, the Giants fan puts his hands up in the air, as if he has just performed a magic trick or something; he smiles widely and nods his head like he is enjoying being called an asshole. He even puts his hand to his ear, as if to say, "I can't hear you." The kid with him, who has the same pale skin coloring and flat nose — probably his son — looks terrified.

The little guy's jersey hangs down to his knees, and as the "ass — hole" chant intensifies, the kid holds on to his father's leg and tries to hide behind the big man's thigh.

My brother transitions the crowd into a "Giants suck" chant, and more Eagles fans come to join in. We now are at least fifty strong. And this is when the little kid breaks into tears, sobbing.

When we Eagles fans see that the kid is really upset, the mob chuckles and respectfully disperses.

Jake and Scott are laughing as we walk back to our tent, but I don't feel so great. I wish we did not make that little kid cry. I know the Giants fan was stupid to wear a Giants jersey to an Eagles game, and it is really his own fault that his son was made to cry, but I also know that what we did was unkind, and this is the sort of behavior Nikki hates, what I am trying —

I feel his hands explode through my back, and I stumble forward and almost fall down. When I turn around, I see the big Giants fan. He is no longer wearing his hard hat; his son is not with him.

"You like making little kids cry?" he says to me.

I'm too shocked to speak. There were at least fifty men chanting, but he has singled out me. Why? I wasn't even chanting. I wasn't even pointing. I want to tell him this, but my mouth won't work, so I just stand there shaking my head.

"If you don't want a problem, don't wear a Giants jersey to an Eagles game," Scott says.

"It's just bad parenting to bring your son down here dressed like that," Jake adds.

The mob quickly forms again. A circle of green uniforms surrounds us now, and I think this Giants fan must be crazy. One of his friends has come to talk him down. The friend's a small man with long hair and a mustache — and he's wearing an Eagles shirt.

"Come on, Steve. Let's go. They didn't mean anything. It was just a joke."

"What the fuck is your problem?" Steve says, and then shoves me again, his hands exploding through my chest.

At this point the Eagles fans begin chanting, "Ass — hole! Ass — hole! Ass — hole!"

Steve is staring into my eyes, gritting his teeth so the tendons in his neck bulge like ropes. He also lifts weights. His arms look even bigger than mine, and he is taller than me by an inch or two. I look to Jake for help, and I can see that he looks a little worried himself.

Jake steps in front of me, puts his hands up to suggest that he means no harm, but before he can say anything, the Giants fan grabs my brother's Jerome Brown memorial jersey and throws Jake to the ground.

I see him hit the concrete — my brother's hands skidding along the blacktop — and then blood is dripping from his fingers and Jake's eyes look dazed and scared.

My brother is hurt.

My brother is hurt.

MY BROTHER IS HURT.

I explode.

The bad feeling in my stomach rockets up through my chest and into my hands — and before I can stop myself, I'm moving forward like a Mack truck. I catch Steve's cheek with a left, and then my right connects with the south side of his chin, lifting him off the ground. I watch him float through the air as if he were allowing his body to fall backward into a pool. His back hits the concrete, his feet and hands twitch once, and then he's not moving, the crowd is silent, and I begin to feel so awful — so guilty.

Someone yells, "Call an ambulance!"

Another yells, "Tell 'em to bring a blue-and-red body bag!"

"I'm sorry," I whisper, because I find it hard to speak. "I'm so sorry."

And then I am running again.

I weave through the crowds of people, across streets, around cars, and through horns blaring and cursing drivers screaming at me. I feel a bubbly feeling in my midsection, and then I am puking my guts out onto the sidewalk — eggs, sausage, beer — and so many people are yelling at me, calling me a drunk, saying that I'm an asshole; and then I'm running again as fast as I can, down the street away from the stadiums.

When I feel as though I am going to throw up again, I stop and realize I'm alone — no more Eagles fans anywhere. A chain-link fence, beyond it a warehouse that looks abandoned.

I vomit again.

On the sidewalk, outside of the puddle I am making, pieces of broken glass glint and sparkle in the sun.

I cry.

I feel awful.

I realize that I have once again failed to be kind; that I lost control in a big way; that I seriously injured another person, and therefore I'm never going to get Nikki back now. Apart time is going to last forever because my wife is a pacifist who would never want me to hit anyone under any circumstance, and both God and Jesus were obviously rooting for me to turn the other cheek, so I know I really shouldn't have hit that Giants fan, and now I'm crying again because I'm such a fucking waste — such a fucking non-person.

I walk another half block, my chest heaving wildly, and then I stop.

"Dear God," I pray. "Please don't send me back to the bad place. Please!"

I look up at the sky.

I see a cloud passing just under the sun.

The top is all electric white.

I remind myself.

Don't give up, I think. Not just yet.

"Pat! Pat! Wait up!"

I look back toward the stadiums, and my brother is running toward me. Over the next minute or so, Jake gets bigger and bigger, and then he is right in front of me, bent over, huffing and puffing.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I'm so, so sorry."

"For what?" Jake laughs, pulls out his cell phone, dials a number, and holds the small phone up to his ear.

"I found him," Jake says into the phone. "Yeah, tell him."

Jake hands me the phone. I put it up to my ear. "Is this Rocky Balboa?"

I recognize the voice as Scott's.

"Listen, the asshole you knocked out — well, he woke up and is super pissed. Better not come back to the tent."

"Is he okay?" I ask.

"You should be more worried about yourself."

"Why?"

"We played dumb when the cops showed up, and no one was able to identify you or your brother — but ever since five-o left, the big guy's been searching the parking lot, looking for you. Whatever you do, don't come back here, because this Giants fan's hell-bent on revenge."

I hand the phone back to Jake, feeling somewhat relieved to know I did not seriously hurt Steve, but also feeling numb — because I lost control again. Plus, I'm a little afraid of the Giants fan.

"So, are we going home now?" I ask Jake when he finishes talking to Scott.

"Home? Are you kiddin' me?" he says, and we start walking back toward the Linc.

When I don't say anything for a long time, my brother asks if I'm okay.

I'm not okay, but I don't say so.

"Listen, that asshole attacked you and threw me to the ground. You only defended your family," Jake says. "You should be proud. You were the hero."

Even though I was defending my brother, even though I did not seriously hurt the Giants fan, I don't feel proud at all. I feel guilty. I should be locked up again in the bad place. I feel as though Dr. Timbers was right about me — that I don't belong in the real world, because I am uncontrollable and dangerous. But of course I do not say this to Jake, mostly because he has never been locked up and doesn't understand what it feels like to lose control, and he only wants to watch the football game now, and none of this means anything to him, because he has never been married and he has never lost someone like Nikki and he is not trying to improve his life at all, because he doesn't ever feel the war that goes on in my chest every single fucking day — the chemical explosions that light up my skull like the Fourth of July and the awful needs and impulses and...

Outside the Linc, masses form thick lines, and with hundreds of other fans, we wait to be frisked. I don't remember being frisked at the Vet. I wonder when it became necessary to frisk people at NFL games, but I do not ask Jake, because he is now singing "Fly, Eagles, Fly" with hundreds of other drunken Eagles fans.

After we are frisked, we climb the steps and have our tickets scanned, and then we are inside of Lincoln Financial Field. People everywhere — it's like a hive full of green bees, and the buzz is deafening. We often have to turn sideways just to squeeze between people as we walk the concourse to get to our section. I follow Jake, worrying about getting separated, because I would be lost for sure.

Matthew Quick will read from and sign his book Wed., Sept. 17, 5 to 6:30 p.m., at the AIA Bookstore and Design Center, 1218 Arch St., aiaboookstore.com

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