It’s a City finals match and Paul’s playing fullback, Timo is a forward on the other team. In a scrum down by Paul’s goal, everyone going up for a header, Timo flails his elbow into Paul’s face, sending him to the sideline with a split lip and a bloody nose. In the second half, cotton stuffed in his nostrils, Paul catches a deflection on his instep, traps the ball beneath his foot, waits for Timo to charge him, and drills the ball right into his gut. Timo goes down on top of the ball and before the whistle can sound Paul is kicking Timo in the crotch, not even trying to look like he’s going for the ball. Redcarded, he argues that Timo was wearing a cup so no big deal, then walks from the field, screaming an endless string of fuck you’s at the refs.

On his way home a gold flaked lowrider Impala rolls up next to him, Timo and his big brothers Fernando and Ramon get out. Ramon has a switchblade. Shit, they all have switchblades, but Ramon, he holds the point of his to Paul’s throat and tells him to take his cup off. Paul doesn’t think they’ll stab him, but that doesn’t keep him from getting scared. His face goes red and tears run down his cheeks. The Arroyo boys say something about what a puta he is, the only Spanish Paul knows. Once his cup is out, two of them hold him upright while Timo sets up for a penalty kick from five yards away and pounds an Official Primera League futbol into his nuts. Paul goes down and coughs up the orange slices he ate at halftime.

Wasn’t till that evening that George and Hector found him at the firebreak at the edge of their housing tract. Drunk on the three sixteen ouncers he’d grabbed from the fridge, head spinning from the smokes he’d bummed off a high school kid, telling George and Hector that Timo is dead. He’s gonna kill that little fucking faggot. He tells them all the way home.

He doesn’t tell them that he cried. And he doesn’t tell them why he cried.