The smell of blood works its way into my dreams, which are, for the most part, terrible: trapped on a green and white Boeing 787 Dreamliner that catches fire, witnessing nuclear meltdowns in Dallas, the violent deaths of most of the inside linebackers in Seattle, Mario Williams doing something bad to me, finding myself back at boarding school, then at Harvard, the dead walk among the living. The dreams are an endless reel of hospitalization hits and personal fouls, coaching carousels and grisly career suicides, steroid syringes and mutilated index fingers, flying wedges, underperforming Jacquizzes, pink uniform accessories. When I wake up in a cold sweat I have to turn on the wide-screen television to block out the construction sounds that continue throughout the day, rising up from somewhere. A month ago was the anniversary of Vince Lombardi’s death. Football games flash by, the sound turned off. I can hear the answering machine click once, its volume lowered, then twice. All autumn long Wiz Khalifa cries out to us, “But something told me that it wouldn’t last…”

When I’m moving down Broadway to meet Jean, my publicist, for brunch, in front of Tower Records a college student with a clipboard asks me to name the saddest song I know. I tell him, without pausing, “Benny and the Jets” by the Beatles. Then he asks me to name the happiest song I know, and I say “Ram It” by Bruce Springsteen. He nods, makes a note, and I move on, past Lincoln Center. An accident has happened. An ambulance is parked at the curb. A pile of intestines lies on the sidewalk in a pool of blood. I buy an apple at a Korean deli which I plan to mash into a smooth paste and FedEx to Alex Smith with a note that says “YOU”. Jean stands at the Sixty-seventh Street entrance to Central Park. When we look up at the clouds she sees an island, a puppy dog, Alaska, a tulip. I see, but don’t tell her, a Gucci money clip filled with $600, a fireman with an axe stuck in his back, a wide receiver cut in two, a large puffy white puddle of blood that spreads across the sky, dripping over the city, onto Manhattan.

We stop at an outdoor café, Nowheres, on the Upper West Side, debating whether Joe Flacco is elite, if Peyton Manning’s fossilized vertebra belongs in a museum, maybe just a walk, she suggests the zoo, I’m nodding mindlessly. Jean is looking fit, like she’s been Playing 60, and she’s wearing a gilt lamb jacket and velvet shorts by EvoShield. I’m imagining myself on television, in a commercial for Papa John’s pizza? StateFarm? Under Armour?—and I’m moving in jump-cut, walling along a beach, the film is black-and-white, purposefully scratched, eerie vague pop music from the mid-1960s accompanies the footage, it echoes, sounds as if it’s being pumped in illegally. Now I’m looking into the camera, now I’m holding up the product—a wristwatch? tennis shoes?—now my hair is windblown then it’s day then night then day again and then it’s night.

“I’ll have an iced decaf au lait,” Jean tells the waiter.

“I’ll have a decapitated coffee also,” I say absently, before catching myself. “I mean…decaff-einated.” I glance over at Jean, worried, but she just smiles emptily at me. A Daily Fantasy Sports Form sits on the table between us. We discuss plans for dinner tonight, maybe. Someone who looks like Tanner Purdum walks by, waves at me. I lower my Ray-Bans, wave back. Someone on a bike pedals past. I ask a busboy for a Recovery Water. A waiter arrives instead and after that a dish containing two scoops of sorbet, cilantro-lemon and vodka-lime, are brought to the table that I didn’t hear Jean order.

“Want a bite?” she asks.

“I’m on the Chip Kelly diet,” I say. “But thank you.”

“Well, maybe we shouldn’t go out to dinner,” she says, concerned. “I don’t want to ruin your…willpower.”

“No. It’s all right,” I say. “I’m not…very good at controlling it anyway.”

“Fitzpatrick, seriously. I’ll do whatever you want,” she says. “If you don’t want to go to dinner, we won’t. I mean—”

“It’s okay,” I stress. Something snaps. “You shouldn’t fawn over him…” I pause before correcting myself. “I mean…me. Okay?”

“I just want to know what you want to do,” she says.

“To successfully complete a two minute drill?” I say sarcastically. “That’s what I want.” I stare at her hard, for maybe half a minute, before turning away. This quiets her. After a while she orders a Bud Light. It’s hot out on the street.

“Come on, smile,” she urges sometime later. “You have no reason to be so sad.”

“I know,” I sigh, relenting. “But it’s…tough to smile. These days. At least I find it hard to. I’m not used to it, I guess. I don’t know.”

“That’s…why people need each other,” she says gently, trying to make eye contact while spooning the not inexpensive sorbet into her mouth. “Haven’t you ever wanted to make someone happy?”

I stare at her, a cold, distant wave of fright washes over me, dousing something. I clear my throat again and, trying to speak with great purposefulness, tell her, “I was at Sugar Reef the other night…that Caribbean place on the Lower East Side…you know it—”

“Who were you with?” she interrupts.

Jeanette. “Eric Decker.”

“Oh.” She nods, silently relieved, believing me.

“…Anyway…” I sigh, continuing, “I saw some guy in the men’s room…a total…Wall Street guy…wearing a one-button viscose, wool and nylon suit by…Antonio Sparano…a cotton shirt by…Colquitt Brothers…a silk tie by Dominic Bonvissuto and, I mean, I recognized the guy, a safety, named Cooper…I’ve seen him at Harry’s and Au Bar and DuPlex and Eli Goes to Camp…all the places, but…when I went in after him, I saw…he was writing…something on the wall above the…urinal he was standing at.” I pause, take a swallow of her beer. “When he saw me come in…he stopped writing…put away the Mont Blanc pen…he zipped up his pants…said Hello, Carson to me…checked his hair in the mirror, coughed…like he was nervous or…something and…left the room.” I pause again, another swallow. “Anyway…I went over to use the…urinal and…I leaned over…to read what he…wrote.” Shuddering, I slowly wipe my forehead with a napkin.

“Which was?” Jean asks cautiously.

I close my eyes, three words fall from my mouth, these lips: “Start…Geno…Smith.”