Mario's walk: Orin reduced to football pants and a helmet
An old folded pair of U.S.A. football pants and a helmet are on top of one of the file cabinets by the flag. Her one memento of Orin, who won’t talk to them or contact them in any way.
Context
The athlete-son as a folded uniform on a filing cabinet. Avril's "one memento of Orin" is "an old folded pair of U.S.A. football pants and a helmet" — the punter reduced to the gear his body once wore, the estranged son present in the office only as equipment. It's the anthology's body-as-asset theme run through a mother's grief: what remains of a departed athlete is the kit, the developed body itself gone off to the Show and out of reach, leaving pads on a cabinet by the flag. (The Avril-relationship and estrangement freight is f-h's; landed here is the athletic-relic.)