by Crimefactory
* * *
The man behind the mask was Marcus Shaw and he was a former elite defensive end from a rival football university in the state and part of the reason The Quarterback was screwing diseased and loaded hookers in sleazy motel rooms instead of prepping for the NFL draft.
"You’re walking again," The Quarterback said.
"Told the doctors I would."
"And you told me you wanted my help. But so far all you've done is kick my ass and scare away a woman I pre-paid for pleasure."
"We've both been out of the game a while. It was rough for me getting back into it. Thought it might be for you too. Wanted to make sure you hadn't lost it."
The Quarterback knew the game he was talking about wasn't football. Marcus Shaw looked good: clean, well-dressed, and soft. If he wasn't playing football he was doing something else for money and sanity.
"He cut you?" The Quarterback asked.
He was The Coach. Part Two of how The Quarterback ended up where he was. The Coach was a manipulative asshole and once had Marcus Shaw as his puppet.
"Cut me from the team, cut my scholarship, then sent his boys after me."
The Quarterback's charmed life ended a year ago with a blonde and two defensive ends in the alley behind the Detroit Music Theatre. The blonde was The Coach's daughter, Marcus was one of the ends. The other was a preppy douche named Nash who was fucking the daughter.
"I loved her," Marcus said. "And he turned her against me."
Marcus didn’t fuck her. He made love to her and wanted to marry her and have little mixed babies with her and cure racism with a fucking rainbow. She never had any interest in The Quarterback, didn't care much for white guys. He didn’t much care for whiny bitches so it seemed to work out.
"You went to play for him after I went away," The Quarterback said.
"Wasted a year of eligibility but The Coach said he'd play me and get me another scholarship. It's a good school, better scouts. More clout in the draft you know."
"You're one of the few who could get me," The Quarterback said. "NFL would have found you in Alaska if they had to."
Marcus shrugged. The Quarterback understood. It was the best school in the state. Good athletics, good education, well-connected alumni, nice campus with ivy and marble. And The Coach's daughter.
Marcus didn’t say anything for a while and The Quarterback didn't push it. He straightened the bed and put the rest of his clothes on.
Then Marcus said, "The day before training camp is supposed to start she tells me she's pregnant."
"Nash's?"
"She says yeah, it's his. I say bullshit. I know it's mine. So I propose. She laughs and tells me to grow up. Says even if it was mine ain't know way her daddy's gonna let her keep a mixed baby so maybe I should go find somebody more like me."
"Not the worst advice."
"Whatever. She wants to be like that maybe I do need somebody else. So I walk away. The next day, I show up at camp and her dad's waiting for me where I usually park. He's got a gun and a baseball bat on the hood of his car. But all he does is tell me to walk away and never touch his daughter again."
"My buzz is running off and I don’t have money for more booze. If you want to keep talking you better get to the interesting points real quick or I'm going to pass out."
"I've got my car here. Let's go drive to The Coach's place. We can get a six pack or something and some Red Bulls and I can finish my story."
"And the story ends with The Coach dead?"
"First the middle part though," Shaw said. "Where we get to his boys and nail their fucking scalps to the motivation board.
* * *
The story went faster when we were moving. The Coach told Shaw to take the day off, clear his head and get his shit straight. Instead he went back to the daughter to apologize. She took him back and he took her dress off. The Coach came back when Shaw was up his daughter's ass. She said it was rape. The Coach hit Shaw in the head with his daughter's softball bat. Shaw threw The Coach out a second story window.
"Asshole landed on his head in a fucking bush." Shaw said. "But didn't die."
The Coach's sons showed up the next day at Mother Shaw's house during family dinner and put her in a coma then took Shaw to the basement and re-sculpted his face with a tire iron and a set of discount steak knives.
"You call the cops?" The Quarterback asked?
"White people don't come from college town to beat up on black folks."
They were near the University now, out on the fringes of the campus where a row of stately former manors turned Greek gave home to the spoiled and powerful seeds of industry, art, and commerce. Shaw pulled into a liquor store parking lot down the road and reached across The Quarterback to the glove box. He pushed a button to pop the trunk and grabbed two pairs of rubber gloves, handing one pair to The Quarterback.
"Surgical removal," Shaw said, snapping on his gloves. "The instruments are in the trunk."
The instruments were two baseball bats and a machete. Shaw handed the Quarterback one of the bats and took the other for himself along with the machete, which he strapped to his hip in a sheath so he looked like a cocaine field peasant or a pirate.
They walked to the front yard of the largest house on the street, a modernistic abnormality with sharp edges and glassy surfaces that mocked the more traditional homes on the block. Even approaching 3am, the party inside the house was still going strong with spillovers in the back yard, both side yards, and the front yard where The Quarterback stood next to Shaw.
"Hit 'em all," Shaw said. "But no killing."
"That's a rubber machete, then?"
"It's for trophies."
Shaw also pulled out two battered practice helmets and tactical style facemasks and handed one of each to The Quarterback. He felt himself focusing better as he slid the helmet on. The compression of the bonnet cushions always directed every part of his brain to the front, the football part of his brain.
Despite the rage running through them and their stripped emotions, Shaw and The Quarterback were still fiercely sporting competitors and couldn’t stomach the idea of a surprise attack. So they moved closer to the house and began shouting curses and insults at the house. As more guests began leaking out of the house to join the commotion or defend the home's honor, The Quarterback noticed these were not traditional preppy douche fraternity brothers. A couple of the guests were accessorized with minor animal apparel like dog collars or rabbit ears, but the larger the crowd grew the more elaborate the animal getups became until a large group came out together with nothing on except large, furry animal masks. They looked like mythical orgy creatures spawned by depraved college mascots. There were five of them. The dog, eagle, and horse masked creatures were muscular, well-endowed young men, while the leopard and the frog were tanned, artificially endowed young women.
"The fuck?" The eagle said.
"Animal control," Shaw said.
The Quarterback remained silent while he swung his bat around and played croquet with exposed appendages of the nearby revelers. It wasn't long before the less elaborately costumed guests scattered and the original five dirty mascots were joined by ten more males. The females stayed on the porch, holding hands and comforting each other with moves from the Penthouse Forum Guide to Emergency Management, but the men merged into an impromptu military formation and approached Shaw and The Quarterback as a single unit.
Shaw moved to The Quarterback's left, slightly to the front as the more aggressive fighter, and they prepared to take on the unit of masked nudes, but the unit began to break up and two of the men at a time approached Shaw and The Quarterback, drunkenly waving their fists and cocks at the invaders. As the rest of the masked cocks danced on the outskirts of the fight like henchmen from a porn version of the old Batman show, The Quarterback wondered if they were too drunk to charge all at once or if they were too afraid of their penises accidentally touching another guy's that they were willing to get their ass kicked to avoid the possibility.
But he and Shaw worked their way methodically through each pair of attackers, who seemed to have arranged themselves in order from least skilled to most skilled, again probably regurgitating hours of action movies and fighting fantasies. There was a brief moment when The Quarterback's time out of the game almost got them beat down. He'd missed the rise of UFC fighting and mixed martial arts so when he was doubled teamed by two ropy guys with throbbing muscles to go with their throbbing swords he didn’t immediately have a move to match them with. When the fighting switched to wrestling and they started groping him instead of punching him, The Quarterback couldn’t figure out if they were trying to pin him or rape him. His confusion cost him a few seconds of reaction time and Shaw had to come and rescue him while fending off two of his own fighters.
Drunk wrestlers eventually fall as easy as drunk boxers and drunk kick boxers, and Shaw and The Quarterback surveyed the carpet of blood and mascot stuffing spread across the yard. They had to remove the masks before finding The Coach's boys. One was lights out from Shaw's bat, but the younger junior was still squirming when Shaw pulled the machete and chopped his left hand off. He pulled a large freezer bag from his pocket and dropped the hand into it and motioned for The Quarterback to follow him back to the car.
* * *
The Quarterback didn't worry about the social consequences of the fight. The combination of Shaw's family legal connections and the fraternity's own tendency to sweep their unpleasant business into the corners of life was enough to ensure their quest could continue unimpeded. But The Quarterback had other concerns about what they were doing.
"So we kicked some college ass," he said to Shaw on the way to The Coach's practice facility. "Good for us. The world is safe once again from the bane of cheap beer and self-important assholes with sexual identity issues. Now what?"
"We kill him."
"In his life he's been party to manipulation, racism, abuse, probably embezzlement, most certainly extortion, and any of a number of petty to minor felony charges," The Quarterback said. "None of which would ever draw a death sentence in a court of law."
"I don’t see any lawyers or judges," Shaw said. "You got a gavel in your pocket there?"
"We can still take him down. Make him wish he were—"
"Look at us. Doped up, bottom rung, riding around in the middle of the night looking to avenge our college experiences. He killed the guys we were."
The Quarterback grunted and let the conversation drop. He wasn't about to kill anybody, but talking about it wasn't going to do anything but piss them both off. He'd deal with Shaw later if the time came for it. His first month or so back from lockup threw The Quarterback for a loop and he briefly considered some darker uses for his skill set that would address his rage and lack of cash. But his conscience hadn't been fried as deep as he thought and it only took a few practice gigs to realize murder for hire sat wrong on his soul.
His conscience may not have been dead, but any feelings of joy or excitement as they approached the old stadium were. Shaw grew more visibly unstable as they pulled into the faculty section in the back, but The Quarterback still thought he could handle it. The hand in the freezer bag was already beginning to decompose in the humid air, so they moved quickly to get it into the locker room before it was too spoiled to work.
One of The Coach's favorite motivational tools was a large bulletin board near the team entrance to the field where he'd post news articles and web clips and anything else where an upcoming opponent said negative things about the home team. The Coach would put it up at the beginning of the week and use it to taunt them during practice anytime they made a mistake. It usually worked and Shaw hoped nailing the younger junior's hand to the board would taunt The Coach enough to drop his guard and let them get close enough to take him.
Inside the locker room, The Quarterback heard grunting and moaning and knew they weren't going to need the hand to drop The Coach's guard. He looked over at Shaw who also seemed to recognize the sound, but in a different way. Almost like he could recognize the person making the sound as well.
Fuck.
Shaw was already in the office off in the back corner of the locker room by the time The Quarterback caught up. The office stank of alcohol and body odor, both of which seemed to be radiating from The Coach standing in the middle of the office, naked and sweating. The Quarterback couldn't help but notice The Coach had let his body go substantially since they'd last worked together while Shaw couldn’t help but notice The Coach's daughter was the one on her knees making the dirty noises. They all noticed each other at once, but The Coach was the only one who didn’t react. His daughter pulled away and tried to cover herself with her hands, Shaw ran to grab her, The Quarterback braced for a punch, but The Coach just wobbled backward and fell over his desk.
The scene itself wasn't shocking. Nobody who knew The Coach would ever be surprised at any creature he'd been accused of fucking, including animals or his children. But what caught The Quarterback off guard was the disappointment at not being able to fight The Coach like he'd planned. Shaw didn't seem to care that their target was virtually incapacitated by his weight and drunkenness. He was dragging The Coach back from behind his desk and taunting him with the hand.
"This is your son," Shaw said, dangling the hand in The Coach's face. "Your weapon. Now it's your turn to—"
The Quarterback moved to Shaw's side and tried to pull him back from The Coach.
"Not tonight. Not like—"
Shaw fought against The Coach's dead weight and The Quarterback's tugging, not succeeding with either. When the Coach's body finally collapsed under it's own weight, Shaw turned his full attention to The Quarterback.
"You never wanted my help," The Quarterback said. "You wanted an accomplice."
"The moral vigilante. Fuck you."
"You knew he'd be here with her. You hoped I'd feel the same way as you."
"Your lips should be moving faster than your words," Shaw said. "Since you're apparently in an old Kung Fu mov—"
The Quarterback took the only opening he thought he might get and punched Shaw in the throat. He followed quickly with a knee to Shaw's groin, another punch to the side of his head, and a sweeping kick to Shaw's knees.
Shaw dropped to the ground and The Quarterback turned to walk away. After three steps he heard two gunshots and turned in time to see the daughter putting a bullet in her father's head the same as she'd done to Shaw.
The Quarterback had a split second to read her offense. Was she going to blitz him with the gun and point and shoot, or was she going to try an option read and talk to him, maybe try to justify her actions. He gambled on the blitz because she'd moved so quickly with the gun and hadn't said a single word yet.
It was the right move and he was in a good position when she fired. He wasn't fast enough to dodge a bullet or strong enough to deflect it, but he was able to twist himself enough to catch the bullet with his shoulder hoping it would go right through. But the round was a small caliber load that didn’t have the power to exit the body, but had plenty of power to tear up his muscles once it was inside. The Quarterback spun halfway around then fell to the ground.
The daughter was fast and was on top of him the second his head hit the floor. If she'd been interested in a fight, The Quarterback would have been screwed. But she wanted to finish him off with the gun, which, again, gave him one last grain of sand in the hourglass to ride to victory. He was able to use his legs to throw her off balance, though he was surprised to see how well she took the hit without falling. He was also pleasantly surprised to find that when a woman shot him it overrode the part of his brain that wouldn't let him hit a woman.
It also surprised the daughter too because The Quarterback was able to easily subdue her with a set of basic punches to her midsection and a chopping kick. Her patriarchal father and brothers had apparently taught her to fight well and screw well but couldn’t show her how to handle being in the dominant position. Her entire arsenal was depend
ent on being underestimated or seduced. So when The Quarterback treated her as an equal, fully capable of putting bullets in the rest of his vital organs, she crumbled.
