Which is legal
It's totally fine
I'm not adopting the damn kid
This isn't The Blind Side
We're not giving him our last name
We just want him to stay with us
For his last year
So he can play the team
The team that he helped build
In his last damn year
That's all
That's it
Now everybody's got their briefs in a tangle about it
Like it was some sort of insidious thing
It was just an offer
To help out a kid
Who might not want to change schools
Just because his Daddy got a job
In another town
I'm no kid-toucher
I got a wife
I got my own kids
I'm an upstanding citizen
So what's the problem?
He'd have his own room
Hell, two rooms if he wanted them
You've seen my house, Carl
His own bathroom
A pool, a great big yard
You think he has all that
On the North Side?
In that shitty little house
He and his parents live in?
Please
I basically offered the kid a vacation
A year-long vacation
All expenses paid
And his parents got two other kids younger than him
You would have thought they'd be glad
To have him off their hands
The kid's a monster
He must eat his weight in food
I mean--this was a no-brainer!
You know, if somebody showed up at my door tomorrow
With a winning lottery ticket
I wouldn't slam the door in his face
That's for damn sure
I sure as hell wouldn't go complaining to the principal of my school
That some nice man offered to let me stay at his house
So I could keep playing football at my school
Instead of the broke-down crack palace in the town my family's moving to
Look, you want me to let Nathan go, fine
Fine, but it's not just him going
It's all the work I put into him
The blood, the sweat
All gone
And it's handing another school a championship
Just so you know
Just so you're aware
Hell, I may as well go home now
And practice twiddling my thumbs
For the next year
Because that team is built around Nathan
And you're letting him go
And you're telling me I could be let go
Just for offering to help him
Well, I guess that's what you get these days
For extending yourself to somebody
Who doesn't even know a good thing when they see it
He wants to stay stuck to his Mommy and Daddy
Like a little pussy, that's his business
But Jesus, Carl, you're a grown man
I would have thought that you'd at least see what I was doing
Or do you only care because this could mean a lawsuit?
Because somebody could try taking a couple of bucks
From this little school of ours?
Nothing goes unpunished these days, I guess
Everybody's just looking out
For themselves
No comments:
Post a Comment