When Nicole approaches the edge of the table with the tray of beers, she usually waits a few seconds before trying to hand them to the diners. The woman first stands up, she watches the television and from there she decides her next move. If at that moment either of the two teams is close to the opposing area with a chance of scoring, she stands with the first jug in her hand. On the contrary, if she considers that the party is in an inconsequential moment, then yes, she distributes the merchandise. This is not superstition, but rather a tactic to prevent damage. This season there have been several sandwiches and bottles that have ended up on the floor when I tried to place them while the entire bar—all men, except for a woman who always remains seated next to her husband—got up to celebrate the goal.
I have recently joined this habit of watching football in a bar with friends. Normally, I prefer to do it at home with my father and grandfather. However, that intuition that there might be something to celebrate for a few minutes, that silly smile that grows as the afternoon progresses and Madrid’s Champions League game approaches, is what has made me change my mind the last two Wednesday. And this despite the fact that upon entering the place where I am summoned it seems to me that I am betraying my family.
The bar, in the center of Alcorcón, is below the house where I was born and from which we had to leave due to the unbearable noise from the bar itself. I swallow my principles and after asking Nicole at the bar for an orange Fanta I see that our table is completely full. There they all are. “No one is missing,” I commented to Ahmed, one of my usual colleagues. “There are more people than on my birthday,” he responds. I find a gap at the end and take advantage of the impasses of the party to observe their faces more closely, listen to the conversations, try to join one of them.
I soon realize that many of them I hardly know anymore, that all I have in common to comment on are very past memories that they probably forgot and that have nothing to do with their current aspirations. Thanks to the course of the game, the assessments we make, or the current joke about Pedro Sánchez, we somehow hide that as friends, in reality, some of us have been losing each other. However, there is something exciting about understanding that you might not choose your 15-year-old colleagues again at 30 if you met them for the first time, and you still love them. I can sense the vital tension of not having anything on track, of working on what you don’t like, of studying an eternal opposition or of simply not being able to become independent. I am forced to ask them questions in such a way that it doesn’t seem like I know almost nothing about their lives. I listen to them talk about a vacation that I am not invited to because I stopped going a long time ago. I’m glad I came and when it seems that Madrid is as usual, with everything lost, a penalty goal from Vinicius – the most hated player at the table – makes us jump, scream and hug each other like we would never do otherwise. I try to avoid the patient Nicole, who is waiting on one side with the bacon sandwiches, to climb on top of everyone she can and thus redeem myself from the distance that separates us today.
At the end of the game, while I’m in the bathroom I hear someone comment that Rubo—with whom I shared a flat for a few months in the United Kingdom—has been an uncle. I meet him at the door on my way out. “Congratulations. I’m very happy to hear it. “I didn’t know anything,” I tell him. “Thank you, Expo,” he replies. “Has he been searched?” he occurs to me to comment. “Of course, since they got married last year they loved him,” he says. “Oh, he’s already married! He had no idea,” he surprised me with embarrassment.
We come across Nicole, who enters the women’s bathroom, almost special for her because only men and that seated lady come to this bar. I decide to leave and say goodbye one by one, just like a group of retirees next to us. I observe the scene of the elderly from the street and also my friends, trying to count how many there will be on the day of my funeral.
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