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They are not the men who will make legends.
Anfield on match day is much the same, discontented crowds aching for a song to sing, the rumors broiling under the stands. You'll Never Walk Alone blasted tinnily from a loudspeaker, a familiar reenactment of some grander ritual from the past, only glimpsed in the last few bars of the song which the crowds belts out solemnly, sullen with pride.
Brendan on the sidelines, saturnine in contained anxiety. The invisible clock ticks down somewhere, hidden under the collar of his up drawn coat, inside his pockets where he flips a coin slick with sweat. The clouds like little flocks of sheep sailing over the stadium, scattering pockets of shade over the pitch. Warm up, whistle, and the Reds-
The Reds are off. For the first time in a long time like a flickering match cupped in a palm against the wind, the Reds are off. James doesn’t have time to think at all, because it’s been 55 seconds and the ball is in the back of the net and the Kop is deafening.
He jumps in the air because if air was just a little more dense he could climb it, grasp every invisible rung like a ladder and climb to the very top of Anfield, and yell from the top of every cloud he finds. When his feet touch the ground thinking returns, and then what does it come down to? Memory made tactile. Danny smiling fiendishly enough to keep the hope going. Philippe’s scrunched up face. Every day a little more of this- red, seeping in to his skin, red like the flush after a scalding shower, red for shame. Red for bitten lips and eyes after nights rewinding the tapes. Red for the lines against which the armband settles, like some discontent, undeserved accolade, high up on his arm.
Red which fades quickly still, a synonym for transience.
The rest of it goes like that, wordless halftime with tightly pressed lips and Brendan’s ever enigmatic, you know what you have to do lads. Of course, of course, James tightens his laces and the breathes come fast but shallowly, feeling like his lungs have become transparent, his blood running clear. Run on to the pitch, kickoff, and it’s back to the siege. Last match someone had yelled, Come on Red Men, drunkenly angry, half drowned in despair. This time they’re all singing, a crowd murmur, a disquiet ocean under clear skies.
Three steps forward, two steps back, and the Kop exhales, a collective breathe released. They've missed Studge’s dance, the fire, and James thinks about it like this: the men and women and children walking home through the streets tugging at the ends of their loose scarves, singing. They can lift their heads up now, not from a sort of indignant bullishness, We are Liverpool till the end but, We are Liverpool.
We are Liverpool. The Kop breathes out, and James breathes with them.
“Goal difference.” Simon says in the locker room after, rueful. He’s peeling the tape off his wrists, letting them settle downwards in whorls on the bench. James offers him the rest of his gatorade. Simon takes it and drinks, throat straight, head tipped back in contented exhaustion.
James shrugs, claps Simon on the shoulder. “It’s a step.”
Simon smiles sideways at him, a signature goalkeeper’s evasive grin made a little more real by genuine happiness. James shifts his gaze across to the roomful of half dressed men, at Studge having an impromptu lip synching session with Philippe while loud hip hop blasts from his portable speakers, Philippe who looks both extremely confused and extremely happy. Everyone laughing. Europe beckons around the turn of the week.
These are not the men who will make legends. Yet.