It was cold. Drafty. The men were exhausted after a day’s battle, their muscles burning as they moved and their clothes sticky with sweat and grime. But not Tony. He sat in the red foldout chair, a can of Steel Reserve clutched in his hand, staring through the comrades before him as if they weren’t there. Tony’s foot knocked over a pyramid of empty Steel Reserve cans when he placed his foot on top of his sword, feeling it’s foam casing give underneath his sandals, the action lacking conscious direction, as if conducted by an outside observer granted temporary control over a piece of the landscape.
He finished the last of the Steel Reserve and tossed the can over his shoulder without looking, oblivious and unconcerned about the bespectacled 16-year-old girl looking ridiculous in an elf outfit that it struck in the head, her yelp being of no consequence to Tony, who only pawed at air on the ground next to the chair. The remaining Steel Reserve was in a cooler over by an old oak tree, twenty feet away.
“Hey, BJ, get me another Steel Reserve,” Tony called out to the high-schooler next to the cooler, one of the unit’s newest recruits. The kid looked up, irritated.
“It’s JB,” he said.
“BJ, JB, DS, IRS, get me another fucking beer, now,” Tony said, not looking at JB, but straight ahead, his words fielded in an arc so that everyone could hear. JB’s eye winced in an unfriendly way, his mannerism coated in contempt.
“I’ve been fighting all day. You get it.”
Tony closed the distance from the chair to JB seemingly within an instant, his hands clutching the diminutive high school sophomore’s throat and ramming the boy’s head into the hard plastic top of the beer cooler. JB’s nose was overwhelmed with bourbon and cheap beer before the remainder of his senses could catch on.
“Let me tell you something about war sonny gem!” Tony thundered into the boy’s face, spittle pouring from his mouth. “I was recruited into the 32nd Hell Hammers while you were still finger-painting at Hansen. I was one of the only survivors of my unit at the Battle of Lucky Peak in ’01. I slew seven enemy archers and relieved pressure on our flanks at the University of Southern Illinois in 03’. I was at the forefront of Bluebeard the Wicked’s charge at the Battle of Ulrich Park in 05’. When our commander was struck down, I took control and personally led the defense at the Battle of Black Hawk in 06’. I’ve killed over two hundred men and crippled hundreds more. So don’t you tell me about war, sonny gem! Now when the pain stops, open the cooler and bring me a fucking beer!”
Tony’s knee bolted into the boy’s crotch. JB saw clouds of black and white as his legs gave out and Tony’s hands released, dropping him to the ground. He choked and hacked and didn’t notice as Tony walked away and took his seat in the red foldout chair, once again staring forward as if through one dimension and into another, a plane of existence containing something deserving of his precious attention.
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3 comments:
Although I don't really write it that way, this was totally a joke. I wrote it as a gift to my good friend Tony (who very occasionally posts on my main blog), a jolly man that religiously participates in foam fighting.
For those not in the know, foam fighting is a game where the players dress up as medieval characters and battle with foam weapons. It's sorta fun, but a number of participants take the game extremely seriously, with phony names, ranks, organizations, and all sorts of things. Usually these events involve excessive alcohol consumption, and Tony is one of the better drinkers I know my age. Very enjoyable and personable normally and to his friends, I've heard more than a few reports of ultra-aggressive behavior on his part at these events, probably not hurt by the fact that at 23 he is like an elder statesman of the sport.
Though intended to be funny, the events depicted in Tony's War are only mildly exaggerated. Tony does get to boss around teenagers, a lot of whom have acronymn names, and he has smashed a couple of them in the balls before, not in a playful way.
Overall, not intended a serious demonstration of my writing, but as a gag that I was fond enough of to publish for public consumption. I am glad that I refrained from directly stating what was going on, a nice choice for a piece like this, I hope.
I was about half way through this when it finally dawned on me that you were talking about foam fighting. Then I had a good laugh.
Damn, that's funny.
Not that Tony would really yell anything like that while kicking someone in the nuts. It would be considered sort of ridiculous, even among other foam-fighters.
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