Photographs by Finlay MacKay
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of five brothers. Al, who is just ahead of me and was always big for his age, did most of
the brotherly hazing. He invented a two-player football game he called Cut-down. We
each got four downs, and on my possession he’d let me get to the equivalent of his five-
yard line, and then he’d steamroll me. It wasn’t designed so much to prevent me from
scoring but rather to humiliate. Completely humiliate. When he had the ball, he’d
pretend to struggle, but he’d drag me across the goal line, pumping his knees into my
chin. We played in all the same sports leagues, and to get in the games I had to “play up”
and overachieve. It was good for me, though I can’t say the memory of those Cut-down
games is a pleasant one. Al, who has long been my best friend, just laughs about it.