Rash by Pete Hautman Page B

“Thought you had the ball.”
    I managed to get a lungful of air and stood up without his help. “That’s okay,” I said. Then I let him have it—a perfect shot to the jaw. I heard his teeth clack together; he staggered back.
    “Sorry, man,” I said. “I thought you had the ball.” Then I hit him again, a hard right to his gut.
    After that, things didn’t go so good. Bullet was no Karlohs Mink. He came back at me with a flurry of blows to my face, chest, shoulders, and neck. I fought back—at least I think I did—but after those first two blows I didn’t do much damage. If they hadn’t pulled us apart, I think he would’ve killed me.
    The funny thing was, until that moment, Bullet and I had gotten along just fine. I wondered what had gotten into him.
    Hammer sidelined us for the rest of the practice.
    “What did you do that for?” I said to Bullet.
    “Do what?”
    “No talking!” Hammer yelled at us.
    An hour later, in the locker room, a blueshirt showed up and told Bullet and me to follow him. Bullet gave me an accusing look, as if whatever was about to happen were all my fault. I gave him the same look back.
    The guard led us through Building A and Building B to Building C.
    “Where are we going?” I asked. I’d never been to that part of the complex.
    No reply. We stopped before an elevator at the northwest corner of the building. The blueshirt used his palm print to open the door.
    “Go on, boys,” he said. “He’s waiting for you.”
    We stepped inside. I expected the blueshirt to follow, but the doors closed behind us and the floor of the elevator pressed up against the bottoms of my feet.
    “This is all your fault,” said Bullet.
    “My fault?” I felt my face getting hot. “ You tackled me !”
    “What did you expect? I thought you had the ball.”
    “Yeah, right.” I took a breath. I didn’t want to get in another fight. But there was no way he’d thought I had the ball. “You know where we’re going?”
    “You stupid or what? Where do you think?”
    I felt myself coming to a boil.
    “ You calling me stupid? Now that’s funny.”
    “Watch it, newbie.”
    Bullet was giving me a dark look that should have scared me, but I was losing it all over again; instead of backing off I gave him a shove, just a little one.
    “Watch it yourself,” I said.
    When the elevator doors opened a few seconds later, Bullet and I came tumbling out, a ball of pounding fists and kicking feet. We crashed into two tree trunks that turned out to be a pair of legs belonging to Hammer. He reached down with one hand, grabbed me by the shirt, jerked me up off the floor, and slammed me against the wall.
    I wasn’t alone. With his other hand he had Bullet. We were both pinned to the wall, Hammer’s enormous hands twisted into the collars of our gold T-shirts. My feet were off the floor, my windpipe was collapsing, and all I could see was Hammer’s red face. White lips. Snake dead eyes like polished blue stones. I struggled to pull air past my compressed trachea. I could hear Bullet’s wheezy squeaking in my left ear, but the fact that we were both in the same predicament did not make it any easier. Large fuzzy black spots crowded the edges of my vision.
    “You done?” Hammer asked.
    I think I nodded.
    He dropped us. It was only about six inches to the floor, but my legs weren’t ready for it; I staggered and fell to my knees. Bullet, clutching his throat, managed to remain upright. Hammer turned his back and walked across the room and took a seat behind a wide steel desk. I got slowly to my feet. For the first time I was able to look around.
    We were in a large room about thirty by twenty feet. The wall to my left was a bank of tall windows looking out over miles of dreary tundra. You could see the curve of the earth on the horizon. The opposite wall, the one behind Hammer, held several shelves laden with books, trophies,and football memorabilia. Between the shelves were framed photos, magazine