God Land by Lyz Lenz

Author:Lyz Lenz
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780253041548
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2019-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

7

A MUSCULAR JESUS

OUTSIDE THE STADIUM THERE IS A HEAVING FERVOR of bodies swathed in black and gold. Even in the early morning chill, the air smells of singed meat. People are drinking beer, liquor, wine, who knows what else, all in bottles, cans, and plastic cups. A woman underneath a black and gold canopy opens a package of hamburger buns, white and soft. Body and bread.

I am alone in the crowd, lost in the drunken religiosity of the University of Iowa tailgate. Women cheer. Men paint their bodies. There are babies. Entire families are here. Games of cornhole in between bleary-eyed college students. Black and gold awnings stretch out over pots of chili, sliders, bowls of cheese sauce, chips, Rice Krispy treats, and Special K bars. People want to give me food and be my friend. There are games of tippy cup and beer pong smooshed between cars. I’m wearing a University of Iowa shirt I borrowed from a friend. “Go Hawks!” a girl with blonde hair screams. She has University of Iowa temporary tattoos on her cheeks. She is so tan and beautiful. The men she’s with have thick necks and strong chins. Young bodies already heavy from beer.

For several years, the University of Iowa has ranked in the top five for party schools according to the Princeton Review. Recently it’s fallen to number six, but it’s hard to tell from the throngs of bodies dipping and swaying to a ponderous beat, blue cans of Budweiser already crushed on the ground by 7:00 a.m. Most of the people here won’t even go inside the stadium to see the game. So, they will sit and watch on TV or listen on radios, phones, or computers. Or go into a bar and watch among a communion of strangers. The hue and cry a perfect chorus, when points are tallied and bodies are broken.

The stadium sits at the center of it all—a temple to a weekend god of flesh.

There are no official statistics to tell me how many people are here tailgating. Harder still to quantify the people at home, watching the game from the comfort of their couches. But numbers couldn’t quite capture the way college football is part of the culture of this place. When I moved to Iowa, people kept asking me if I was an Iowa or Iowa State fan. It was part of the cultural currency, a way to establish a common bond. When I’d say I was agnostic, conversations quickly dried up. At my gym, at parties, wherever people meet, sports become a commonality on which we can build our relationships. While giving birth to my second child, the anesthesiologist who showed up to give me the epidural was wearing an Iowa State lanyard; the nurses teased him for being a State fan in Hawkeye territory. I sat between them, partially undressed and in pain. I coughed in irritation.

The doctor looked down at me. “Who do you cheer for?”

“Whoever gets this epidural in me,” I said.

A few minutes later, drugs coursing through my body, the doctor asked me how I felt.

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