"The Game is an amateur Game. No one is allowed to seek or receive payment or other material reward for taking part in the Game."
Handbook and Laws of the Game USA Rugby

"Look to your right," the doctor said. "Out the window. That's it."

John Addergool heard his own breath coming in through his mouth as if it were being filtered though a mouthpiece. He couldn't breathe through his nose. He tried to look out past the blinds at a tree branch scraping the window. From the corner of his eye he saw a large needle approach his face. "How long before you think I can start practicing again?" he asked.

"I thought you said your season was over?"

"Right, right," John said. "So how long?"

The doctor laughed and shook his head. "Just keep looking outside there."

John lost the needle in waving white folds of lab coat for a second, then it appeared again as if it were coming down out of the clouds.

"There's only two minutes left," Kevin yelled from the sideline, an ice pack and bloody towel pressed against his forehead, the Mineola elementary school building a brick backdrop behind him. Frozen November air blew out of his mouth in billowy gusts.

John was breathing heavily. His ribs were sore. His head was splitting and a large goose egg perched above his left eyebrow just beneath the skin. His legs screamed from almost eighty minutes of running, sliding and tackling on frost-hardened earth. He stared at the yellow dirt of the baseball diamond beneath his boots. Large, round goose turds mixed with cleat marks covered its surface. The other half of the pitch, the Hounds' half, John's half, was in the outfield.

"Two minutes," Tigman gasped from scrum-half. The line-out was just beyond South Fork's twenty-two metre line.

Four points down, John calculated in his head for the tenth time and nodded quickly to Tigman. He looked up at the goal posts. The white plastic pipes leaned with the wind to the right. The tape that held the crossbar in place fluttered. Four points, twenty-two metres, two minutes.

Jack-O steadied the ball in his hand and drew it back from out of bounds for the overhead pass down between the lines of South Fork white, and Hounds black and blue, clad players. "Pussy lips, stewed potatoes, Tigman's Italian grandmother," he shouted and threw.

"Straight hands," John yelled over his shoulder to his centres. His backs were ragged, the line of players zigzagging parallel to the gain line. He ignored them and watched as Griffen leapt up and pulled the ball down, the Hounds' forwards binding together alongside and behind him, South Fork's white pounding against their backs like a heavy surf. Griffen slipped the ball to Jack-O who held it behind the wall of players, waiting for Tigman to call for it. The forwards held the wall against his back. Tigman called for it with a clap of his hands and the ball was tossed cleanly across the metre of grass to him. He grabbed the ball and threw it quickly out to John.

The ball spun in the air and hit John's hands. It didn't stick and he bobbled it as he ran forward one, two steps, looking quickly ahead then to his left to see where their centre was, trying not to lose the ball. For a second it was secure in his left palm and the world slowed down to a crawl. It happened that way for him sometimes, and when it did it was like touching gold. He felt the grain of the two panels of leather on his fingers. He heard his breath ease out as his foot landed on the ground and sent a shiver up the right side of his body. He pushed the ball to his right, towards Reynolds, twisting forward and down as it left his fingers and he headed towards the earth.

He missed the rest.

He missed Reynolds' catch and his pass to Murphy, Murphy's sprint to the outside and his scissors pass to Hicks back inside. He didn't see anything because the South Fork fly-half had leveled him less than a second after the ball left his hands. He heard the crack of a forearm connecting with his face and the dull thud of the ground connecting with his chest like a sandbag slapping onto the earth. His wind left him. When he opened his eyes a face sitting on top of a white jersey looked down at him shaking its head. He didn't know how he'd ended up on his back. Something wet leaked down his cheeks and for a moment he felt nothing. Then his face exploded in pain.

The point of the needle entered his nose and stuck into the upper membranes where the break had occurred. It wasn't a prick, like when the nurse took his blood when he had his physical. It was a long, slow, sharp slide. Then everything froze and he felt the numbness spread. He didn't realize the doctor had put a knee on his chest until he felt pressure on his breastbone pushing inwards and heard his back crack slightly. He wondered if he was drooling thick strings of saliva out of his mouth or if his nose was running with snot, like in the dentist's chair when he'd had his wisdom teeth removed four years earlier and his cheeks had been covered with both. A voice said to him from near his ear, almost a whisper, almost intimate, "keep looking out the window and..." He felt the doctor's hands surround his nose like two giant catcher's mitts. He could still see the branch scraping against the window outside. " ... think of something else."

Something else, he thought. What should I think of? Maybe I'm already doing that?

"Doing what?" another voice asked inside his head.

Why thinking of something else, of course. That was when he heard the crack and for the second time in a week felt his nose pushed through the back side of his head.

The South Fork full-back, filling in the back line, tackled Hicks at the five metre line. Their forwards were quicker getting to the ball and they held it in their pack, pushing back up the field a few feet at a time. The ball came out to their scrum-half who kicked for touch. A red flag swung up from the touch judge near the twenty-two metre line as it passed out of bounds on the other side of the field.

John rolled over and pushed himself up, wiping at the blood that was running out of his nose. Stumbling, he blew his nose into his fingers and fell to a knee as the pain in his head exploded again. He looked up just as Jack-O threw the ball down the middle of the line-out. He pushed himself to his feet and back into position.

Four points, two minutes, he thought and yelled, "Skip two," over his shoulder to Reynolds.

"Skip two," Reynolds passed on.

But the forwards lost the ball. White jerseys grabbed, held and engulfed it. Their scrum-half took the quick pass and sent it back to the full-back who kicked it out of bounds again.

"You know," the doctor said, "you're making me a lot of money playing this game. Do you want to take some of my cards with you for your friends?"

John swallowed hard and tried to say something but no words came out.

"If you break it again," the doctor said, turning his back to him, taking off his gloves, "don't wait to come back to me to re-break it for you. Try to push it back yourself or get someone else to do it for you if you can't. And do it right away. Once it starts to swell it'll only cost you money and hurt you more. I have plenty of patients who've done it. Just put your hands together and push it back."

The whistle blew to mark the ball, then blew again to end the game. Roars of white frost surrounded the South Fork team.

John bent forward and placed his hands on his knees. He watched as strings of blood dripped out of his nose and unraveled towards the ground. He saw Kevin the Bird's boots appear next to him and felt a hand on his back.

"Bad?" Kevin asked, his voice soft.

"Yeah," John said. It hurt to talk.

"The bastard. The fucking hit was late."

"Late," John said.

"Is it broken?"

"Yeah, broken."

"Number eight."

"Eight," John repeated.

"The Nose knows."

"I hate them," John said and spit out some blood. The movement caused more fireworks to go off inside his head.

"Same here," Kevin said. "Dirty bastards. They always fucking beat us."

Tigman's boots appeared beside Kevin's. Another hand lay upon John's back.

"Let's go," Tigman said and both hands pushed him over towards the rest of the team.

They walked as if they had lead in their cleats. South Fork had already given them three cheers and it was their turn to reply. Their cheers were hollow.

Beers were pressed into their hands. They tilted them back like mechanical slot machines. John felt blood drain down the back of his throat and he swallowed blood and beer together. Press, tilt, drink, numb. The numbness helped deaden the pain. And the pain increased as the adrenaline left the system and the muscles began to feel again, to stiffen, to resist.

A hand appeared in front of John so he took it into his own and allowed it to be shaken.

"Nice game," the man attached to the hand said. "Name's Bill."

John looked up at his face. He seemed older than John, had long, dirty-blond hair and a weathered face. His grip was strong. "Bill. John. Thanks," John said.

"So much for this season," someone said behind John. He turned around to see who'd spoken but everyone was a blur. He turned back towards Bill but Bill was gone too.

"Another year in Division Three hell," a voice echoed.

"Cocksucking bastards," another said.

"Fuck it," Tigman said. "Season's over. It's time to heal."

"The Prophet speaks," Kevin said.

"All hail the healing time," another said.

"The healing time," other voices murmured.

"The healing time," John Addergool said.

In his head John could still hear the echoes of the re-breaking as he walked out of the doctor's office and waved thanks or good-bye or a combination of both. The doctor's secretary, a large, round, blond woman in a white nurse's uniform waved a paper at him and asked him to wait. She averted her gaze from his face. He signed something that looked like an insurance form. It was already unclear to him exactly what had happened. His chest was sore. But was it sore from the game or the doctor's knee? He didn't know anymore. It all mixed together in his head. It didn't matter. He'd be on fire in the morning no matter what. Everything was always worse in the morning after tackle practices, after games, and after doctor visits.

And what the fuck, he thought, his nose throbbing and a bottle of Tylenol with codeine wrapped tightly in his fist, I have two months to heal.

Two months of being able to sleep on Friday nights without anxiety over a game on Saturday.

Two months of not waking up in pain every Sunday.

Two months of not waking up in more pain every Monday because the second day after a game was always worse than the first.

Two months of being able to walk upright without a limp or not favor a shoulder or to twist his neck to the right as far as he wanted or sit down for more than ten minutes at a stretch without his legs cramping.

Two months lay before him like a desert.

He dragged up some phlegm from the back of his throat and swallowed it.

"In the mean time", he said into the cold New York City air, "I'll just think of something else."