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Carl had three beers in him and exactly zero allegiances, which Rooster considered a character flaw of the highest order.
"You have to pick someone," Rooser said, jabbing a finger at the TV bolted above the bar. "That's the whole point of the World Cup. You can't just watch twenty-two guys run around for no reason."
"I'm watching it for the reason of beer and air conditioning," Carl said. "Those are reasons."
On screen, the US and England were locked at 1-1, which Carl understood was apparently a national tragedy for one of those countries and a Tuesday for the other.
"Pick a team," Rooster said again.
"Fine. I'll pick whoever's losing. Underdog stuff. Builds character."
"Nobody's losing. It's tied."
"Then I'll pick whoever's about to lose."
"That's not how—" Rooster took a long pull of his beer. "You know what, fine. You want to be a traitor and support the English? You go for it. They’re gonna lose anyway.."
Forty minutes later, Carl was not a traitor.
"USA! USA!" he bellowed, after a corner kick went exactly nowhere. "We are so back, man, did you see that corner kick, that was basically a goal—"
"It hit the corner flag and went out of bounds."
"That's aggressive positioning."
England got a free kick near the box, and Carl's allegiance evaporated like morning dew.
"Come on lads," Carl said, in an accent that started in Dick Van Dyke cockney and ended somewhere in rural Australia. "Bring it 'ome. For the Queen. For—" he squinted at the screen "—is that guy's hair real?"
"His name is Wayne Rooney and yes."
"For Wayne's hair, then."
The free kick sailed over the bar entirely. A man three stools down groaned into his hands like he'd received a terminal diagnosis.
"You alright, man?" Carl asked him.
"I've been waiting four years for this."
"For a free kick to go over the bar?"
"For England," the man said, his Mancunian drawl nothing like Carl’s attempt at an English accent. "It's always like this. Every four years. Hope. Then this." He gestured at the screen, where the replay showed the ball sailing serenely into the upper deck of a stadium in South Africa, watched by approximately 84,000 people and one increasingly resigned Englishman in a bar in St. Louis.
Carl considered this. "That's rough, buddy. You want me to root for England? I'll root for England. I got no skin in this."
"Don't," the man said. "It's cursed. Whoever you root for loses. I've seen it happen. Spain's looking good this year — God help them if you pick Spain."
"Noted," Carl said, and immediately turned back to the TV. "GO SPAIN."
The man put his face back in his hands.
On the TV, the commentator's voice rose into the particular strangled shriek reserved for goals, own goals, and men discovering wasps in their shorts. Carl never did find out which team had scored, because at that exact moment Rooster’s phone rang, and his face did the thing where all the color left it at once.
"It's my sister," Mongo said. "She says Grandpa's stuck on the roof again."
"The roof? How does a man his age keep getting up there?"
"He says there's a possum and it's 'disrespecting him personally.'"
Carl drained the rest of his beer in one go and stood up, already reaching for his keys. "Alright. Possum duty. Let's move."
Behind them, the bar erupted in a full-throated roar as glasses were raised and strangers began hugging strangers. Someone had scored. Carl would never know who, or for which team, or whether his curse had claimed another victim.
"Hey," Carl said, pausing at the door, looking back at the man who'd been waiting four years for this. "For what it's worth — go USA. Or England. Or Spain. Whichever. I'm rooting for all of you, man. Genuinely. From the heart."
The man stared at him.
"That's the nicest, worst thing anyone's ever said to me," he said.
"You're welcome," Carl said, before turningt to go fight a possum.