Cheating
“I win!”
“No! It’s not a staring contest unless I know we’re playing!”
“You’re just sore - I won!”
“Did not! You cheated.”
“I ain’t no cheater.”
“Well I say you are.”
“Nobody says I’m a cheater - I’ll make you eat your words!”
Amid the playground chaos, a long time passed before the two boys fighting was noticed. The children encircled the commotion, and some of the older kids started chanting “Fight - fight - fight.”
Ironically, it was the rhythmic chanting - an unnatural order in the normal hubub of lunch hour sounds - that eventually summoned Missus K. to the scene. Marching across the lawn yelling for them to “stop fighting this instant” had little effect, but once she waded into the crowd, it was only a few short seconds before she emerged dragging the two boys out by their ears.
Missus K. was heard giving the usual rap about “zero tolerance” for fighting, and school pride, and so on. It took no time at all before the playground was back in full swing. A good fight only made lunch time more exciting.
* * * *
When John got home from school, he had a hundred excuses and explanations for the fat lip already figured out. His Dad was asleep on the couch while the TV played in the corner. John snuck past the snoring lump, making his way to the kitchen. Once there, the boy dared to hum softly to himself while he scoured the desolate refrigerator for anything he could eat. Sighing, he gave up and slammed the door shut without thinking.
A sharp intake of breath indicated that he had disturbed his father. John stayed perfectly still, he dared not breath, nor blink, he pretended he was playing statue, and he didn’t want to be *it*. A moment passed - it was one of those monstrously thick ones that you can feel sliding past you, like so many nails grinding their music on a chalk board. John didn’t breathe. Still his father lay motionless, sleeping. John dared not move. The deep shallow breathing of sleep began to resume. John closed his eyes, waiting.
Some time later, John had upgraded his position somewhat. His father still snoozed on, but he managed to reclaim the clicker, so he was watching what he wanted to - at least for the time being. He’d lowered the volume and was sitting on the ground just in front of the TV.
In the end, it all started with a cough. At first a really timid little thing, more like a clearing of the throat than a cough really. Slowly, the cough built up though, it turned into a series of short staccato coughs which wheezed their way out. Then, one of these wheezes seemed to catch in the sleeping man’s throat and, breathing in a long sharp breath, a new batch of deep chest coughs pulled him into consciousness.
If you had watched John during that time, you would have seen his ears perk up with the first sound from his father. You would have seen him stand up quietly when the sound continued, and finally seen him exit the room soundlessly a moment later.
When the fit died down, the man sat up on the couch and lowered his head into his hands cursing breathlessly about one thing or another. He looked at the television and laughed for a moment as Wile E. Coyote flashed a “HELP!” sign before the realities of gravity applied themselves. Just then, the phone rang, and grumbling the man gathered himself to pick his heavy body from it’s thrown.
John thought for a moment about heroically bounding across the room to intercept the phone call - bluffing like it was a friend from school - but he couldn’t muster it. He looked at his shoes and noticed that his socked showed through on his third toe on his left foot, and despite the ringing phone, despite his inevitable fate, he wiggled his toe watching the sock move inside the shoe.
