Echo Canyon Trail. Paradise Valley, Arizona. 9:15 A.M.

The weather was beautiful. It was turning into a why you live here kind of day, Michael Bidwill thought. In his favorite shorts and hiking top outfit (complete with lucky Georgetown Prepatory Academy neckerchief), he approached the bouldering section of the hike with caution and care — the last big effort before the summit. He had been frolicking the various trails and parks and alleys in the Phoenix region since his father had brought the family goose, the Cardinals NFL Football Club, to the desert. IN those decades, he’d seen enough raunchy stuff to know that tootsy-footing up the shaded boulders in January — fun as it may sound — leads to crushed ankles. Deadly in the summer heat. Painfully embarrassing during the crowded tourist season.

A woman hustling up the mountain brushed by Michael as her hiking stick nearly poked his toe. She was wearing a #1 Arizona Cardinals Superfan tee shirt and began her ascent through the obstacles with a huff, loudly reinforcing a point she had been surely making since arriving to the very-limited parking lot probably 50 minutes ago. “…and they have their travel campers and they don’t know how to get out of the way and they don’t know the trails and they…”.

Always nice to see a fan but no, no attention today please, Michael thought. He put his head down as he focused on clinching his buttocks as he crested each of the first stones. He looked only at the next steps on the trail but to occasionally glare uphill to affirm that he was making the right cuts to slalom his way up the chute without losing his line.

The boulder run is short but Michael could feel it was a beast today. Not that this Georgetown Prep grad would ever say no to a Beast. Today was just about getting in a vigorous effort before the sun gets too high — and not breaking a leg on the trail. And maybe getting a couple peeks at that small pack of ASU coeds up ahead. He didn’t recognize them completely but couldn’t help but notice their toned muscular legs, carefree hairstyles, and broad shoulders from his position behind them on the trail.

Being around as many locker rooms as a professional football team owner has, there’s no excuse to not look at anyone as a piece of meat. After all, maybe he finds a diamond in the rough someday. And maybe it’s you, Michaël recalls telling similar young people in the hallways outside seminars and speaking arrangements; conventions and the like — for decades. He’d had 100% success delivering the bait at his manor around the opposite face of Camelback Mountain. Those were his favorites and his mind began to drift to the thought of hanging out poolside with the ASU hikers today….

In a moment of daydream he misstepped and found himself the victim of a rash across the outside of his right leg, as a pocket of debris slipped out from under his heel and down a thirty-inch tumble Mike went. He’d found himself on his knees enough times to know that this tumble wouldn’t be anything serious. A good time to catch your breath. Take your licking. Probably forget about charming that ASU group after all.

A fellow hiker behind Michael — a man who’d been wheezing loudly but still making ground on Michael since they crossed the saddle behind the Cardinals Superfan lady — eased over off his line to offer a wellness check to a downed peer on the trail. A gentlemen. He’d give a check-in. Or maybe, Michael saw his handsome face rise up to assess the situation, a hand up.

“You okay man? Looks like you fell on your butt. Need a hand?”

Michael looked up at his hero will relief and a sense of fate. He noticed my butt! his eyes gleamed. The stranger was just pushing back careless blonde locks and putting them under a worn Arizona Cardinals cap! He smiled, their eyes locked, and an electricity sliced through the air like a transparent lightning strike.

“Oh shit. You’re Michael Bidwill.” He pulled his hand back from his intended offering. “Oh shit! Look everyone! It’s Michael Bidwill!”

“Hey here’s some asshole who is gonna force us to have embarrassing fucking football team and make us pay for the privilege! Isn’t that right, you damn silver spoon billionaire? How dare you show up on these trails like you’re part of this community! You’re another rotten dumbfuck legacy NFL owner who’ll whore out anyone and anything for a buck! Oh this is so fucking rich, man! So fucking rich! The shit we ought to do to you you…you damn repugnant pig! Oh you’re the worst here and WE ALL ARE PAINED BY IT! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!”

The man had escalated to a full-throated yell that reverberated off the stone surroundings and caromed back down the trail walls to the corner where Michael was positioned. Within moments, the cumulative noise was deafening. New screams could not be heard over the echoing complaints that had reached a maximum intensity until only the speed could be increased. And it was.

“…Fucking Steve Keim gets to chop the head off the future and you’re sitting here just out of the game for fucking years! Enjoy Jerry Jones being clowned now! You ain’t gonna be laughing when the fucking pitchforks come out and we make that goddamn stadium a graveyard for your filthy –”

The reverberations had reached their man-induced inflection point. The boulder uphill from the man, just barely balancing for decades in it’s place on the mountain, was as still as the frozen crowd up and down the trail that was watching this….scene. Until it was released when debris holding it in place crumbled under the vibration of a particularly filthy sentence about the damage caused by hiring Steve Wilks to the cause. The released boulder followed the only path available and squarely came down against the fan, pinning his right ankle before pushing over the man with a bump to the knee. His lower leg split like a pretzel stick, complete with chips of bone scattered in some kind of dust (if you could ignore the blood).

The fan slipped partially off the boulder to an unbearably painful position, desperately in need of help to twist his body over his crushed leg to relieve the torsion pains that had him seeing clear bolts on lightning in his pain. He yelped once then stopped his yelling for a moment as he struggled unsuccessfully to reposition his crooked frame.

Michael Bidwill looked over to the fan as he hung halfway toppled off the rock, locked in by the broken limb that was pinned beneath the stone he had moved with only his words. It was clear the pain was the only thing keeping the fan’s voice subdued. Michael’s mind finally had a moment to recalibrate.

Michael pushed himself up (taking care to flex his triceps as he backed himself onto the boulder), stood back up where he’d slipped just a minute earlier. He viewed his own leg — flexing his buttocks in the process (for anyone who might enjoy…maybe from ASU) — and did not bother to wipe off the debris or address the scrape. A good fall, he was relieved. Then he looked down at the suffering man, like a rat in a glue trap, body contorted and limbs broken. Helpless. Michael now noticed no one moved up or down the trail. His actions would be first to act. Michael Bidwill wiped his palms on his shorts and mimicked the Superfan’s tone with a pouring of conscious validity. “Would SOMEBODY get this fucking faggot out of my face?!”

He turned to move decisively down the mountain and was faced by a roadblock standing on the landing to which he needed to continue. The Superfan was just feet from the situation and clearly saw no compassion being offered by the part of this man who’d been blessed with a life of riches beyond measure. He was a community leader and, in an opportunity to walk the teachings of Christ in a display that would inspire the dozens of onlookers to Do Better, he rejected any opportunity to give relief to his fellow man. His fellow statesman. A fan of his football team.

The superfan looked at him in the eye then over at the passing-out fan. Then she plucked her hiking stick on the next boulder and continued her decent continuing to broadcast her opinions, which could now be heard across the canyon in the dumbfounded stillness that fogged the trail.

“Fucking Mexicans. I swear you can’t go anywhere without them walking six-wide and I need to get my…”