Gutz is amazing. Seriously. The man provides, be it food, fun, or perspective. On Super Bowl Sunday halfway around the world…it was football.
We gathered around his television set, four Americans, one enthusiastic and one reluctant Liberian. We gathered with fried chicken, plantains, and sweet potatoes, fresh pineapple, and ginger coconut cake. Gutz sweating over a coalpot.
We gathered at 11pm and stayed past 2am. The game was good.
There we were all crammed into his bedroom, in plastic chairs and on the floor and bed. There we were screaming and groaning and cheering at the top of our lungs. By the second half, we were beginning to jump up and down. By the middle of the fourth we were cautiously exuberant.
Even Amarula started to catch Saints fever. She was contorting her face and body with us – not always sure why but caught up in the moment, in the spirit of our excitement. And so we found ourselves shrieking like crazy people in the early hours of Monday morning, verbally reenacting key plays and waiting patiently for a shot of New Orleans pandemonium to fill the screen so that we could give Gutz his house back.
Gutz is my hero. My friend. My brother. He made it possible for me to bask in the Saints victory – Geaux Saints Geaux…and geaux they did!