'An altercation.'
'Got that.Rake's dead now.'
'So?'
'So, it's been fifteen years. I wanna know the story,' Mal said as if he were drilling a murder suspect in the back room of the jail.
Neely put the biscuit on his plate and stared at it. Then he glanced over at Paul, who nodded. Go ahead. You can finally tell the story.
Neely sipped his coffee and ignored the food. He stared at the counter and drifted away. 'We were down thirty-one to zip, just getting the hell beaten out of us,' he said slowly and very softly.
'I was there,' Mal said, chewing without interruption.
'We got to the locker room at halftime and waited for Rake. We waited and waited, knowing that we were about to be eaten alive. He finally walked in, with the other coaches. He was way beyond furious. We were terrified. He walked straight up to me, pure hatred in his eyes. I had no idea what to expect. He said, 'Youmiserable excuse for a football player.' I said, 'Thanks, Coach.' As soon as I got the words out, he took his left hand and backhanded me across the face.'
'It sounded like a wooden bat hitting a baseball,' Paul said. He, too, had lost interest in the food.
'That broke your nose?' Mal said, still quite interested in his breakfast.
'Yep.'
'What'd you do?'
'By instinct, I swung. I didn't know if he planned to hit me again, and I wasn't about to wait. So I threw a right hook with everything I could put into it.Caught him perfectly on the left jaw, flush to the face.'
'It wasn't a right hook,' Paul said. 'It was a bomb. Rake's head jerked like he'd beenshot, and he fell like a bag of cement.'
'Knocked him out?'
'Cold.Coach Upchurch rushed forward, yelling, cussing, like he was going to finish me off,' Neely said. 'I couldn't see,there was blood all over my face.'
'Silo stepped up and grabbed Upchurch by the throat with both hands,' Paul said. 'He lifted him up, threw him against the wall, said he'd kill him right there if he made another move. Rake was dead on the floor. Snake Thomas and Rabbit and one of the trainers were squatting beside him. It was chaos for a few seconds,then Silo threw Upchurch to the floor and told all of them to get out of the locker room. Thomas said something and Silo kicked him in the ass. They dragged Rake out of the room and we locked the door.'
'For some reason I was crying, and I couldn't stop,' Neely said.
Mal had stopped eating. All three were staring straight ahead at the little lady by the stove.
'We found some ice,' Paul continued.'Neely said his hand was broken. His nose was bleeding like crazy. He was delirious. Silo was screaming at the team. It was a pretty wild scene.'
Mal slurped down some coffee, then tore off a piece of a biscuit, which he dragged across his plate as if he might eat it, or he might not.
'Neely was lying on the floor, ice on his nose, ice on his hand, blood running down his ears. We hated Rake like no man has ever been hated. We wanted to kill somebody, and those poor boys from East Pike were the nearest targets.'
After a long pause,Neely said, 'Silo knelt beside me and yelled, 'Get your ass up, Mr. Ail-American. We gotta score five touchdowns.' '
'WhenNeely got up, we stormed out of the locker room. Rabbit poked his head out of a door, and the last thing I heard was Silo yelling at him, 'Keep those sumbitches away from our sideline.' '
'Hindu threw a bloody towel at him,' Neely said, still softly.
'Late in the fourth quarter, Neely and Silo got the team together by the bench and told us that after the game we were running back to the locker room, locking the door, and not coming out until the crowd was gone.'
