Collected Prose

introduced in 1801, and as every schoolchild knows, Napoleon was defeated a decade and a half later “on the playing fields of Eton.” After 1863, when the rules of present-day soccer were drawn up at Cambridge University, the game spread throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Since then, it has developed into the most popular and widely played sport in human history.
    America seems to be the only country that has resisted its charms, but the importance of this game in Europe, its grip on the imagination of tens of millions of people living between Portugal and Poland, cannot be overestimated. Add together our interest in baseball, football, and basketball, then multiply by ten or twenty, and you begin to have an idea of the scope of the obsession. When you further consider that each country fields its own national team, and that these teams go head to head against each other in European and world tournaments, it isn’t hard to imagine how the love of football and homeland can be turned into a cocktail for chauvinistic excess and the settling of ancient scores. No country in Europe has avoided invasion and humiliation by one or more of its neighbors during this millennium, and now, as we come to the end of these thousand years, it sometimes looks as though the entire history of the continent were being recapitulated on the soccer field. Holland versus Spain. England versus France. Poland versus Germany. An eerie memory of past antagonisms hovers over each game. Every time a goal is scored, one hears an echo of old victories and old defeats. Passions among the spectators run high. They wave their country’s flag, they sing patriotic songs, they insult the supporters of the other team. Americans might look at these antics and think they’re all in good fun, but they’re not. They’re serious business. But at least the mock battles waged by the surrogate armies in short pants do not threaten to increase the population of widows and fatherless children.
    Yes, I am aware of the British football hooligans, and I know about the riots and injuries that occurred in several French cities during last year’s World Cup. But these instances of extreme and violent behavior only reinforce my point. Soccer is a substitute for war. As long as countries square off against each other on the playing field, we will be able to count the casualties on the fingers of our two hands. A generation ago, they were tallied in the millions.
    Does this mean that after a thousand years of bloodshed, Europe has finally found a peaceful way to settle its differences?
    We’ll see.

    December 1, 1998

Reflections on a Cardboard Box

    It’s a cold and drizzly morning, eleven days before the end of the twentieth century. I am sitting in my house in Brooklyn, glad that I don’t have to go out into that bleak December weather. I can sit here as long as I like, and even if I do go out at some point later in the day, I know that I will be able to return. Within a matter of minutes I will be warm and dry again.
    I own this house. I bought it seven years ago by scraping together enough cash to cover one-fifth of the total price. The other 80 percent I borrowed from a bank. The bank has given me thirty years to pay off the loan, and every month I sit down and write them another check. After seven years, I have barely made a dent in the principal. The bank charges me for the service of holding the mortgage, and nearly every penny I have given them so far has gone toward reducing the interest I owe them. I don’t complain. I’m happy to be spending this extra money (more than twice the amount of the loan) because it gives me a chance to live in this house. And I like it here. Especially on a raw and ugly morning like this one, I can think of no other place in the world where I’d rather be.
    It costs me a lot of money to live here, but not as much as it would seem at first glance. When I pay my taxes in April, I’m allowed to deduct the entire amount I’ve spent on interest over the course of the year. It comes right off my income, no questions asked. The federal government does this for me, and I’m immensely grateful to them. Why shouldn’t I be? It saves me thousands of dollars every year.
    In other words, I accept welfare from the government. They have rigged things in such a way as to make it possible for a person like me to own a house. Everyone in the country agrees that this is a good idea, and not once have I heard of a congressman