Fast Greens by Turk Pipkin Page A

part, primarily because in the prebattle negotiations I was appointed captain of the geek team, which consisted of myself, fat Donny Ratley, and Clyde Eckhardt, the stutter king.
    The three of us were sure to get pulverized, tenderized like a bad cut of meat. My ego was already injured by not being included on the team of the genetically cool, but when somebody screams “Go!” and the rocks start flying, there’s not much you can do but dive for cover, gather an armful of ammunition, and start lobbing a few long, deadly bombs between the incoming salvos.
    One of the reasons I liked golf so much was because the rules were so specific. There ain’t no rules in a rock fight. Hopelessly outgunned, my army bruised and battered, and one of my troops crying shamelessly, a ray of hope broke through the clouds. A seventh kid walked up in a lull between volleys, and, unable to comprehend the murderous sincerity of the game, he wanted to play. Even though Larry Seebers wore thick glasses and threw like a girl, an extra body on my side gave us a remote chance of not dying a horrible death before the end of recess. But it was not to be. As I jumped from cover to claim him as ours, I was immediately buried by a barrage of rockwork.
    â€œLarry’s on our side!” the other team yelled. “You guys outweigh us!”
    It was true. Weight was our only advantage. And never having been on any sporting team with the cool guys, Larry fairly beamed with complicity. My protests were answered with another volley of rocks and I was driven back into my hole. The only thing that kept the game going was that, mad as I was, no one in their right mind was gonna get within thirty feet of my long slingshot arm. Nobody, that is, except a geek in glasses who didn’t know the game. Nobody but Larry.
    â€œHere’s what you do,” his new teammates explained as they handed him his first rock. “Run straight at Billy, screaming as loud as you can. We’ll do the rest!”
    What a rube this kid was. Not questioning this idiotic directive, Private Larry ran at me, screaming for all he was worth. Just like his throw, he also ran like a girl and screamed like a girl. When he was twenty feet from me, I hopped out of the hole, took aim and hurled a ragged stone straight at his head. Thank God for safety glasses. I cracked the left lens into a dozen sections and he went down as if I’d shot him with a howitzer.
    That’s about it. When Larry regained consciousness, he staggered to the school nurse, crying all the way. Only one question was asked: “Who threw the rock?”
    For me there followed long hours in the principal’s office awaiting the eye doctor’s verdict on permanent blindness.
    â€œAs far as blindness goes,” I contemplated telling the principal, “I’m against it.”
    No, that would never do. Maybe I could raise the money to buy Larry a seeing-eye dog like old man Parker’s fat Lab that peed on everyone’s leg. Maybe I could donate one of my own eyes. I finally settled on trying to pass for seventeen, joining the Marines, and shipping off to Vietnam as an adviser. Anything, just as long as they didn’t make me stay after school for the rest of my life.
    In the third grade I’d been unjustly accused of scratching a dirty word onto the wall of the cafeteria. In fact, I’d been playing a childish game of make-believe with a toy car, but the principal didn’t fall for the truth and sentenced me to a week of staying after school. I was like a wild animal chained, serving time without end, each tick of the clock like Chinese water torture on my brain.
    My transgression was more severe this time and I was now old enough for corporal punishment. For throwing rocks, I got five golf-swing swats from the principal’s maple paddle (we called them “licks”). For being a smart-ass (“As far as blindness goes,” I told him), I got five more.