Childhood may be brief, but football is forever

It IS THE SWEAT OF MIDDLE- aged men, a mixture of gin and desperation, falling upon this field on the Sunday before Super Bowl. Where it lands, a blade of grass will one day grow. The gods of football, out watering the winter rye.

“You know,” one dad notes as we line up for the snap, “this may be the one thing I do all week that isn’t for someone else.”

“That’s really pathetic.”

“Know what’s pathetic?”

“What?”

“Those shorts you’re wearing.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Third down!” someone yells.

Let it first be acknowledged: All men are quarterbacks, all men are stand-up comics. With that in mind, we have gathered here again for our weekly session of touch football. Our season runs till February, at which point we’ll begin to drift off to coach our Little League teams or try to salvage our marriages. My wife calls us “The Lost Boys.” What she means by that, I don’t really know.

“I’ll warn you, I’m wearing cleats,” I tell my friend Don.

“So?”

“I’m scary-fast,” I warn him. “So fast, it’s scary.”

“No, you’re not.”

“One time, can’t you just humor me?” I ask. “Just one time?”

“No.”

“Hike,” says the quarterback.

On the other side is Big Craig. He prowls the line of scrimmage like a pork loin on roller skates. Big Craig is surprisingly agile and a stickler for rules. One week, in yet another dispute over the laws of the game, Big Craig wagered his state bar license that he was correct.

“I didn’t know he was a bartender,” I say.

“Actually, he’s a lawyer,” someone answers.

“You mean they have licenses for that?”

“I guess so.”

“Hike,” someone says.

Most weeks, we run a Midwest offense. It’s a hurry-up offense that relies on a blend of desperate passes and personal ridicule, which is always offered in a positive manner. Always.

In the Midwest offense, we do not huddle between plays unless someone has a legal question for which they’d like free advice. Or to discuss some juicy neighborhood gossip. Like who drank too much Friday night. Or who’s overextended financially. For that, we are allowed at least two timeouts a game. This week we learn about a recent late-night incident outside the local steakhouse.

“He did what?”

“Lay down in the middle of the street.”

“Why?”

“To show how quiet our little town is after 10.”

“So that’s when the cops pulled up?”

Yep, that’s when the cops pulled up, insistent that no fun be had in our snoozy bedroom community. It’s a new form of prohibition. The prohibition against fun, given to us by the same consortium of do-gooders who gave us veggie sausage, low-fat sour cream and all the other well-meaning precautions of modern life.

Tried to suck the life out of life, is what they’ve done. But they can’t do it. Not to us. Because on this Sunday, the Lost Boys have not lost their sense of adventure. Nor their great sense of touch. Their touch-football touch.

“What’s wrong?” I ask a guy rubbing his chest.

“I think I popped an implant,” he says.

“Can you still play?”

“Never really could,” he explains.

Meanwhile, the quarterback -- a modest-sized attorney at a good-sized law firm -- takes the snap and scrambles for his life. His receivers, five in all, raise their arms as if asking the waiter for the check. There is Viagra in their veins. And, no doubt, trace amounts of day-old Chardonnay.

“I’m open!” says one.

“I’m open!” lies another.

In our league, everyone always insists he’s open.

“Keep running!” yells the quarterback.

OK, so maybe all men aren’t quarterbacks. All men just think they are.

“Keep running!” he yells.

After 30 seconds of running, the receivers have the milky eyes of taxidermy marlins. One stops for water and a cigarette. Another runs a route he developed while avoiding his ex-wife. It’s a sensational route, filled with leaps, facial tics and a certain amount of veiled sarcasm. At the last minute, he tumbles over a sprinkler head.

“Ball! Ball! Ball!” someone yells as the pass floats toward the end zone, where yet another attorney runs under it, with outstretched tongue and a flair for the dramatic. Plunk. Stumble. Score.

“Nice catch,” I say.

“I think I bith my thongue,” he says, spitting.

“You what?”

“I bith my thongue,” he insists.

Gin. Testosterone. The blood of friends. This week, more than most, the Lost Boys leave it all out there on the lumpy schoolyard grass. Our field of screams.

Happy Super Bowl.

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.