This wasn’t just any game. It was Browns V Steelers. David V Goliath. Batman V Superman. The pandemonium was real. The sea was endless, I’m sure. A wash of Brown and Orange. I’ve seen it a million times. Hundreds of thousands of people reppin’ our Brown and our Orange. Talking major shit to the Shittsburgh Steelers. Agreeing on only one thing: booze. A paradise of Bud light, Michelob Ultra, Keystones, and Coors… Only buttholes from Pittsburgh drank that crap Yuengling.

This was America. Football, drunkenness, battle, and beer.

The line for security stretched longer than the lines at Cedar Point. Every year, they added a new step. Frisk your package. Tingle your spine. Sweep your belt. Invade my personal bubble, and groin.

One person at a time, ‘til we filled the butts in seats.

Getting through felt Herculean, and damn did you feel accomplished. Everyone behind us, friend, rival, or parent, was trash… cause we beat em’ inside. We could buy overpriced merch, overpriced drinks, or try our luck at the overloaded toilets. We could do whatever we wanted in the almighty First Energy Stadium.

“HERE WE GO BROWNIES HERE WE GO!”

One cheer gets us a hundred replies, from every dumb face in the crowd. This had to be the most energized square mile in the whole state. The thermal energy from here could power a blimp. Maybe even a medium-sized skyscraper.

Entering the bowl was like stepping into a Medieval war field. The wind was fresh off the lake. The place stank with French fries, fried meat, and… Well, beer. The guy next to us was eating peanuts and letting em’ crash to the ground. Inner city composting, if you ask me. All these dumb, drunk faces were beasts. Animals caged up Monday through Saturday. Couped up at home, at school, at work. Pacing the gym. Lawyers and nurses sitting next to the fist fighters, and me next to them. It was abrasively exciting to let your guard down and just join it.

There were heroes in this stadium. Steel town heroes. Bus drivers, alcoholics most of em’. The working class Joes who built this city. Freezing my ass off out here made me wonder what it was like up in the loge, wearing a $200 jersey over a $180 shirt. Looking up at them every game… I knew someday, I’d make enough to join those rich motha-

But without missing a beat, everyone united, as the giant American flag rolled out. It was time for the anthem. Looking up to the East, hearing the jets… This is what we play for.

The B-2 Bomber was coming in from New Mexico. On time. It was a carefully choreographed dance. They were flying circles over the Lake until 5 minutes to kick off. Then they were to divert west 3 miles, and ride the current off the lakeshore breeze to fly over the stadium. Riding along the wind pattern would make the roar of the jet engines boom louder and linger shorter. On this day, where the overcast was dim and murky, it was much appreciated to keep the sound for the game. Using an aging machine like the B-2 could really pack a punch on the eardrums.

“Nosey on station, standing by,” The pilot relayed to the Ground Controller. His accent was hardly even noticeable over the system’s comm channel.

Gemini, the captain, was flying co-pilot. A promising but skittishly confident young man. He was ice silent, feeling out the new aircraft system. “Now that they fashioned these old birds with the Tesla Computer System, it’s like driving a car” Nosey said to Gemini, “a 160,000 lbs. car.”

The bomber was beginning its low altitude descent. The pilot could see the stadium in his field of vision; the small, fun-sized stadium. He could almost make out the people sputtering out the stadium on the ground. From all the way up there, they looked like termites. Brown and Orange termites. “Cook the engines,” said the in-stadium coordinator, “this choir’s a little fast on the anthem.”

“7 seconds to fly-by. Annd theeeee passsss iiiis… oh wait hold on,” said Nosey. His onscreen interface was glitching out before his eyes, and the wild rotation of weapons and blue screens flicked over his comm. He flipped the switch on the hatch doors to lock the doors closed. As he pushed them, they splayed into attack position. No way. Something was wrong. The Tesla interface wasn’t functioning. It was infected. It was doing the polar opposite of what the buttons were programmed to do. The button commands were switched. As the pilot repeatedly tapped [DISENGAGE], his computer instead executed the polar-opposite command: [ENGAGE].

The young Gemini looked on, stupefied. His training, at least up to now, didn’t prepare him for this.

No. no. Stop. No. No! Fuck!

Nosey was pushing every button to stop it, but every button he pressed sent the command signal through. As he fumbled the controls, he accessed [BOMB RACK R] and [DROP]. The entire right bomb-rack assembly, eight 500-lbs bombs, fell.

“What now?” said Gemini.

“Something’s going on. I’ve lost the controls. Taking evasive action” he chirped as he hit his TOT with precision.

The pilot went full throttle, blasting his engines over the roaring stadium. Eardrums exploded.

“Ground visual: you have deployed something...”

“Buster, Buster, Buster” he replied, then cooked his afterburners hot over the Lake Erie morning. Ground went silent. His words ricocheted over the flight intercom, reaching deep into the ear of the Air Force. It wasn’t long before the rest of world would find out.