It's the last leg of the Fall Season and attrition has plied the touchlines like a wraith, twisting once strong healthy bodies into gnarled sitting positions, grasping beer cans in crooked fingered death grips as they watch the jerseys flow across the field in front of them.

Some of the walking wounded hobble up and down the touchline yelling at players and referees indiscriminately while the game goes on. Some players didn't even bother to come to the game because they knew how it was going to feel to watch and not be able to play. They knew how it was going to feel in their gut when players asked them, as they approached the sideline with looks of expectation on their faces, "Are you going to play?"

I wonder, when I see players who do show up to watch the game, if they have their kit bags in their cars, stowed away - out of sight - in the trunk - just in case.

I can hear the dialog inside player's heads on their way to the game.

Maybe my knee isn't really swollen - or -

Maybe I could play as long as I don't get hit on my right side - or -

Maybe my shoulder's really not separated (even though twelve years of experience and three previous separations tell me that it is) - or -

As long as I can run I can play - or -

I'll leave my kit bag in the trunk (but I'll bring it) just in case.

Just in case what?

Just in case - so shut up and unload the beach chair from the trunk so I can make room for my kit bag. The beach chair's a lovely thing filled with rust and frayed plastic fiber slats. And they say plastic is supposed to be indestructible. Get it out of there - now.

When I'm injured, I wake up (when I'm injured bad enough to contemplate not going to practice or not playing the coming Saturday, that is) saying to myself, "Today it's going to be better. And if it's not, then tomorrow it'll be better." I do that every day. I go to the gym, stretch, take hot baths, use ice packs, go to the chiropractor all the time - hoping and waiting. I change my mind about being well enough to play five or six times each day. It's magical thinking of the obsessive kind. I test the injured area too - just in case it's gotten better, maybe undergone some kind of spontaneous healing while I wasn't looking. "Maybe I'll be okay by Saturday morning, get into the B-game," I say. "I'll bring the kit bag - just in case."

It's the season of the bone - when the leaves in the northeast are orange, crimson and flaming yellow - when the forests seem like they're on fire and the earth is frost hardened - when the cold air rasps against your throat like sandpaper, playing or watching.

When the whistle blows the pitch is littered with broken fingers, busted noses, a couple of knee caps, a few ribs, twelve teeth, shredded black Neoprene, tattered and twisted pieces of what was once white surgical tape, wet patches of urine and blood speckled saliva, and tufts of grass peppered with cleat marks and long deep gashes.

The survivors huddle on the pitch, near the sideline, shouting three cheers for the referee, gritting their teeth against the muscle bruises, soft tissue injuries and bone grinding pain that most are in. They look at each other with otherworldly grins, clap each other on the back and dream of winter grazing, the healing time. There are echoes of it in every breath that shoots out bursts of white cloud into the late fall air. Only the healing time is still two Saturdays away. It's the last leg of the season.

It's what I call - the season of the bone.

The End