I, Racki (Part III)

This is a continuation. To start from the beginning, click here.

“I mean, come on. My chance at Princeton goes up in flames because of one bad day? Jesus, where’s the justice in that?” He inhaled for another go. “Two years my coach was trying to get someone to come watch me. And now your teammate, he swoops in at the last minute.” He must have got a surge of courage, because he was staring back at me now. “Do you think that’s fair?”

Now I was starting to get pissed off. Seriously.

Unfortunately, this is the kind of boo-hoo garbage you get when you throw out the way you usually do things and go against your instinct to beat out Def Leppard’s Photograph on someone’s skull who so desperately needs it. I don’t know why I didn’t do just that. Hannibal’s a class act, this guy was being a crybaby. He deserved a beating. But I was thinking he’d already got one today. I pushed my rage down; what Hannibal had done on the links, I decided I wasn’t going to do a second time on Main Street.

Slowly, so as not to spook this jumpy character, I put my paw on his shoulder and looked him square in the eyes. He wasn’t expecting that. He slithered back a foot. “Don’t beat yourself up, dude, whatever your name is… you didn’t have a chance at that scholarship on a day you were playing my boy. He plays on a whole different plane,” I told him.

Maybe he didn’t notice me heckling him all morning, now that I thought about it.

“My name is Simon Rycene,” he said.

Like I cared what his name was.

“This is where you tell me your name, okay?”

Oh boy.

“Look here. I’m going to do you a huge favor. I don’t know what you’re doing hanging around Stone Creek today. Maybe you felt like some pork fritters. But I don’t think that’s it. Am I right?”

This seemed to shut him up, so I figured I was close. Looking for revenge? Honestly. You’ve got to be kidding me.

He suddenly had the look of someone who had misplaced his keys, the look he had all morning. And when he found these keys, his car wasn’t going to get him where he wanted to go. I’m not even sure he had good directions to get there; maybe he bought the wrong map at the Zippy Mart. Whatever plan this sweater vest had put together was a botched mess, but this guy had walked into the wrong lion’s den and he was about to get mauled.

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