Heads Up Champ Quotes

The Listeners 'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses Of the forest's ferny floor. And a bird flew up out of the turret, Above the Traveller's head: And he smote upon the door again a second time; 'Is there anybody there?' he said. But no one descended to the Traveller; No head from the leaf-fringed sill Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, Where he stood perplexed and still. But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight To that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken By the lonely Traveller's call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness, Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, 'Neath the starred and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote on the door, even Louder, and lifted his head:-- 'Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word,' he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house From the one man left awake: Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone.

On the morning of our second day, we were strolling down the Champs-Elysées when a bird shit on his head. ‘Did you know a bird’s shit on your head?’ I asked a block or two later. Instinctively Katz put a hand to his head, looked at it in horror – he was always something of a sissy where excrement was concerned; I once saw him running through Greenwood Park in Des Moines like the figure in Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ just because he had inadvertently probed some dog shit with the tip of his finger – and with only a mumbled ‘Wait here’ walked with ramrod stiffness in the direction of our hotel. When he reappeared twenty minutes later he smelled overpoweringly of Brut aftershave and his hair was plastered down like a third-rate Spanish gigolo’s, but he appeared to have regained his composure. ‘I’m ready now,’ he announced. Almost immediately another bird shit on his head. Only this time it really shit. I don’t want to get too graphic, in case you’re snacking or anything, but if you can imagine a pot of yoghurt upended onto his scalp, I think you’ll get the picture. ‘Gosh, Steve, that was one sick bird,’ I observed helpfully. Katz was literally speechless. Without a word he turned and walked stiffly back to the hotel, ignoring the turning heads of passers-by. He was gone for nearly an hour. When at last he returned, he was wearing a windcheater with the hood up. ‘Just don’t say a word,’ he warned me and strode past. He never really warmed to Paris after that.

Not in the mood for pasta?” He narrowed those bold blue eyes to give her a critical study. “You must’ve hit your head harder than we thought.” “I was going to do it—get dinner, I mean. One of the fancy things you like, because—Hell.” She gave up, hurried to him to wrap her arms around him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was so pissed off at what happened, at myself, I didn’t think.” He stroked a hand down her hair first, then gave the choppy ends a quick tug. “I’m not angry with you.” “I know. You could be, but you’re not. So I have to be even sorrier.” “Your logic is fascinating, and elusive.” “I can’t pay you back with sex or salt-crusted sea bass or whatever because you’re too busy taking care of me. So now I’ve got this black mark in my column against the bright shiny star in yours, and—” He tipped her head up. “Are we keeping score?” “No. Maybe. Shit.” “How am I doing?” “Undisputed champ.” “Good. I like to win.” He brushed her bangs back to study the injury himself. “You’ll do. Let’s eat.

so we went up the hill. then we got into my room and I looked at them both. my pure and beautiful slim and magic little girl glorious fuck with the hair dangling down to the asshole, and next to her the tragedy of the ages: slime and horror, the machine gone wrong, frogs tortured by little boys and head-on car collisions and the spider taking in the ball-less buzzing fly and the landscape brain of Primo Carnera going down under the dull playboy guns of cocksure Maxie Baer — new heavyweight champ of America — I, I rushed at the Tragedy of the Ages — that fat slob of accumulated shit.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was so pissed off at what happened, at myself, I didn’t think.” He stroked a hand down her hair first, then gave the choppy ends a quick tug. “I’m not angry with you.” “I know. You could be, but you’re not. So I have to be even sorrier.” “Your logic is fascinating, and elusive.” “I can’t pay you back with sex or salt-crusted sea bass or whatever because you’re too busy taking care of me. So now I’ve got this black mark in my column against the bright shiny star in yours, and—” He tipped her head up. “Are we keeping score?” “No. Maybe. Shit.” “How am I doing?” “Undisputed champ.” “Good. I like to win.” He brushed her bangs back to study the injury himself. “You’ll do. Let’s eat.

All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might have thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them, had dammed it into little pools; these were surrounded, each by its own jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before the wine had all run out between their fingers. Others, men and women, dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women’s heads, which were squeezed dry into infants’ mouths; others made small mud-embankments, to stem the wine as it ran; others, directed by lookers-on up at high windows, darted here and there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new directions; others devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted fragments with eager relish. There was no drainage to carry off the wine, and not only did it all get taken up, but so much mud got taken up along with it, that there might have been a scavenger in the street, if anybody acquainted with it could have believed in such a miraculous presence.

The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship's stokers. With huge pronged poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out of the doors to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled away in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth of the works, on the further side of the wide wooden hearth, was the windlass. This served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their eyes felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny features, now all begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. As they narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like the flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul.

Similarly, when the dreadful depths of sickness and death open up inside us and we have nothing left to defy the havoc into which the world and our own bodies hurl us, then to sustain even the weight of our muscles, even the shudder that strikes us to the very marrow, and even to keep still, in what we would normally regard as no more than a strained posture, all this demands, if we want our head to remain erect and our expression to keep its composure, a good deal of vital energy, and so turns into an exhausting struggle. And if Legrandin had looked at us with astonishment on his face, it was because to him, as to others who passed us at the time, in the cab in which my grandmother was apparently sitting back, she had seemed to be sinking down, slithering into the abyss, desperately clinging to the cushions which could scarcely hold back the impetus of her falling body, her hair dishevelled, a distraught look in her eyes, which were no longer capable of focusing on the onrush of images their pupils could bear no more. She had seemed, even with me sitting beside her, to be plunged into that unknown world in which she had already received the blows whose marks I had noticed earlier in the Champs-Élysées when I saw her hat, her face, her coat thrown into disarray by the hand of the invisible angel with whom she had wrestled.

The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship’s stokers. With huge pronged poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out of the doors to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled away in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth of the works, on the further side of the wide wooden hearth, was the windlass. This served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their eyes felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny features, now all begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. As they narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like the flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander’s soul.

Pixie lay in a basket by the fire where a dozen brown and white puppies wriggled around her.  She had surprised us by getting pregnant very soon after moving back in with us, and the puppies were just under four-weeks-old now. We couldn’t have been more thrilled, and Bandit couldn’t have been a better dad.  He seemed to have endless patience as they climbed all over him, these wriggling furballs of energy.  Literally everything excited them.   Sully kneeled down beside me to pet the nearest pup, one with a big brown patch over one eye and a butt that never quit shaking.   “Have you got names for them yet?”  I pointed at the one in his hand while Bandit said.  “That’s Patch” “Because of his eye, obviously,” I filled in. Hearing the name, Patch suddenly squirmed out of his hands and bolted for Bandit, but his little paws couldn’t quite get purchase on the new floor and he skidded all the way to Bandit who he bumped into, coming to a sudden stop.  Shaking his head, he looked up at Bandit with intelligent eyes, then sat, waiting for further instructions.  Sully and I shared a look.   They were too young to know their names or much more than that, but it definitely seemed that Patch had known his name and was now waiting for Bandit to begin a game or something.  I pointed at a different puppy, one with a white shape on his rump.   “That one’s Star.” Bandit said. The minute the iPad said his name, Star’s head shot up, then he too bounded over to sit beside his brother.  Sully’s mouth fell open.  “No way…. They’re too young to behave like this.” Feeling a wave of excitement, I watched as Bandit finished calling his kids.   “Panda, Ace, Champ…” As he called their names, each puppy jumped to attention, coming to sit in a neat row in front of Bandit until all twelve of them were in a line in front of him.   I snapped a look at Bandit.  “Did you know about this? Did you know they were super smart too?”  He snorted out of his nose, laughing at our shock.  Sully and I looked at each other, the same startled expression in our eyes. “But…” was all Sully could say.  I at least managed two whole words before the full ramifications of an entire household of super smart dogs could hit me. “Oh boy.

Naturally, without intending to, I transitioned from these dreams in which I healed myself to some in which I cared for others: I am flying over the Champs-Élysées Avenue in Paris. Below me, thousands of people are marching, demanding world peace. They carry a cardboard dove a kilometer long with its wings and chest stained with blood. I begin to circle around them to get their attention. The people, astonished, point up at me, seeing me levitate. Then I ask them to join hands and form a chain so that they can fly with me. I gently take one hand and lift. The others, still holding hands, also rise up. I fly through the air, drawing beautiful figures with this human chain. The cardboard dove follows us. Its bloodstains have vanished. I wake up with the feeling of peace and joy that comes from good dreams. Three days later, while walking with my children along the Champs-Élysées Avenue, I saw an elderly gentleman under the trees near the obelisk whose entire body was covered by sparrows. He was sitting completely still on one of the metal benches put there by the city council with his hand outstretched, holding out a piece of cake. There were birds flitting around tearing off crumbs while others waited their turn, lovingly perched on his head, his shoulders, his legs. There were hundreds of birds. I was surprised to see tourists passing by without paying much attention to what I considered a miracle. Unable to contain my curiosity, I approached the old man. As soon as I got within a couple of meters of him, all the sparrows flew away to take refuge in the tree branches. “Excuse me,” I said, “how does this happen?” The gentleman answered me amiably. “I come here every year at this time of the season. The birds know me. They pass on the memory of my person through their generations. I make the cake that I offer. I know what they like and what ingredients to use. The arm and hand must be still and the wrist tilted so that they can clearly see the food. And then, when they come, stop thinking and love them very much. Would you like to try?” I asked my children to sit and wait on a nearby bench. I took the piece of cake, reached my hand out, and stood still. No sparrow dared approach. The kind old man stood beside me and took my hand. Immediately, some of the birds came and landed on my head, shoulders, and arm, while others pecked at the treat. The gentleman let go of me. Immediately the birds fled. He took my hand and asked me to take my son’s hand, and he another hand, so that my children formed a chain. We did. The birds returned and perched fearlessly on our bodies. Every time the old man let go of us, the sparrows fled. I realized that for the birds when their benefactor, full of goodness, took us by the hand, we became part of him. When he let go of us, we went back to being ourselves, frightening humans. I did not want to disrupt the work of this saintly man any longer. I offered him money. He absolutely would not accept. I never saw him again. Thanks to him, I understood certain passages of the Gospels: Jesus blesses children without uttering any prayer, just by putting his hands on them (Matthew 19:13–15). In Mark 16:18, the Messiah commands his apostles, “They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” St. John the Apostle says mysteriously in his first epistle, 1.1, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.

Hah! I think you’ve overestimated your abilities, kid,” Scorch shouted, the acoustics sending her words into the crowd, who laughed. “A weak attack won’t even touch my Doomy.” Scorch played it up for the crowd and for the chancellor. She waved a hand and the mushrooms on Doomshroom’s back launched off like missiles, flying in an arc toward Wooly. “Weak attack?” Ellie chided as she had Wooly defend against the attack. Her crest lit up as each of the mushroom missiles landed, absorbing the fired damage. “Like that one?” The crowd went crazy as the sheep took the attack like a champ, flashing red, but showing no outward appearance of being hurt. Ellie pointed like a crossbow at Doomshroom, and pulled a pretend trigger, a block of water appearing right on the Mooshroom’s head.

THERE is a place in front of the Royal Exchange where the wide pavement reaches out like a promontory. It is in the shape of a triangle with a rounded apex. A stream of traffic runs on either side, and other streets send their currents down into the open space before it. Like the spokes of a wheel converging streams of human life flow into this agitated pool. Horses and carriages, carts, vans, omnibuses, cabs, every kind of conveyance cross each other's course in every possible direction. Twisting in and out by the wheels and under the horses' heads, working a devious way, men and women of all conditions wind a path over. They fill the interstices between the carriages and blacken the surface, till the vans almost float on human beings. Now the streams slacken, and now they rush amain, but never cease; dark waves are always rolling down the incline opposite, waves swell out from the side rivers, all London converges into this focus. There is an indistinguishable noise—it is not clatter, hum, or roar, it is not resolvable; made up of a thousand thousand footsteps, from a thousand hoofs, a thousand wheels—of haste, and shuffle, and quick movements, and ponderous loads; no attention can resolve it into a fixed sound. Blue carts and yellow omnibuses, varnished carriages and brown vans, green omnibuses and red cabs, pale loads of yellow straw, rusty-red iron cluking on pointless carts, high white wool- packs, grey horses, bay horses, black teams; sunlight sparkling on brass harness, gleaming from carriage panels; jingle, jingle, jingle! An intermixed and intertangled, ceaselessly changing jingle, too,of colour; flecks of colour champed, as it were, like bits in the horses' teeth, frothed and strewn about, and a surface always of dark-dressed people winding like the curves on fast-flowing water. This is the vortex and whirlpool, the centre of human life today on the earth. Now the tide rises and now it sinks, but the flow of these rivers always continues. Here it seethes and whirls, not for an hour only, but for all present time, hour by hour, day by day, year by year.

How’d it go?” I said, trying to sound indifferent. “He took it like a champ.”  She opened the back car door for Clay.  He lifted his head and stood with obvious effort.  Then he hopped down with care and pathetically climbed the deck steps to my side.  I stared at him for a moment. “What’d they do to him?” Rachel shook her head and closed the door. “He wasn’t acting like this when we left.  I swear.  I think he’s hamming it up for you.”  She patted Clay’s head with a laugh. He accepted the pat with a defeated grunt, stopped hobbling, and started to walk with his usual gait.  I heaved a relieved sigh.  He looked up at me and winked.  I quickly checked to see if Rachel had noticed, but she had already walked away from us and into the house.  I shook my head at him before we followed Rachel in. “So

He smoothed a little hair off her forehead. “I’m proud of you.” “It was so awesome.” “See? I knew you’d find something here to sink your teeth into.” He reached down, crossed his arms under her bottom and lifted her straight up so that her face was even with his. “Nowwww, what did we decide?” she asked, but her tone was teasing. Her smile was playful. “We decided that I would not kiss you.” “That’s right.” “I haven’t,” he said. “Maybe we should have talked about this,” she added, but she certainly didn’t struggle. In fact, this seemed oddly right. Celebratory. Like being picked up and swung around after the win of a big game. And that was how she felt—as though she’d just scored a touchdown. Arms resting on his shoulders, she clasped her hands behind his head. “We further decided that if you kissed me, I would let you,” he said. “You’re fishing.” “Does this look like fishing to you?” “Begging?” “Doing exactly as I’ve been told. Waiting.” What the hell, she thought. Absolutely nothing could feel better after the night she’d just spent than to plant a big wet one on this guy—a guy who’d keep his business open all night just in case they needed something. So she laid one on him. She slid her lips over his, opening them, moving over his with wicked and delicious intent, getting her tongue involved. And he did nothing but hold her there, allowing this. “Did you not like that?” she asked. “Oh,” he said. “Am I allowed to respond?” She whacked him softly in the head, making him laugh. She tried it again, and this time it was much more interesting. It made her heart beat faster, made her breathe hard. Yes, she thought. It is okay to feel something that doesn’t hurt sometimes. This wasn’t because she was grief-stricken or needy, this was because she was victorious. And all she could think about at the moment was his delicious mouth. When their mouths came apart, she said, “I feel like a total champ.” “You are,” he said, enjoying her mood more than she would ever guess. “God, you taste good.” “You don’t taste that bad,” she said, laughing. “Put me down now,” she instructed. “No. Do it again.” “Okay, but only one more, then you have to behave.” She planted another one on him, thoroughly enjoying his lips and tongue, the strength of the arms that held her. She refused to worry about whether this was a mistake. She was here, she was happy for once, and his mouth felt as natural to hers as if she’d been kissing him for years. She let the kiss be a little longer and deeper than she thought prudent, and even that made her smile. When it was over, he put her on her feet. “Whew,” she said. “We don’t have nearly enough births in this town.” “We have another one in about six weeks. And if you’re very, very good…” Ah, he thought. That gives me six weeks. He touched the end of her nose. “Nothing wrong with a little kissing, Mel.” “And you won’t get ideas?” He bellowed. “You can make me behave, it turns out. But you can’t keep me from getting ideas.” *

SURE? The Case of the Knockout Artist Bugs Meany’s heart burned with a great desire. It was to get even with Encyclopedia. Bugs hated being outsmarted by the boy detective. He longed to punch Encyclopedia so hard on the jaw that the lump would come out the top of his head. Bugs never raised a fist, though. Whenever he felt like it, he remembered Sally Kimball. Sally was the prettiest girl in the fifth grade—and the best fighter. She had done what no boy under twelve had dreamed was possible. She had flattened Bugs Meany! When Sally became the boy detective’s junior partner, Bugs quit trying to use muscle on Encyclopedia. But he never stopped planning his day of revenge. “Bugs hates you more than he does me,” warned Encyclopedia. “He’ll never forgive you for whipping him.” Just then Ike Cassidy walked into the detective agency. Ike was one of Bugs’s pals. “I’m quitting the Tigers,” he announced. “I want to hire you. But you’ll have to take the quarter from my pocket. I can’t move my fingers.” “What’s this all about?” asked Encyclopedia. “Bugs’s cousin, Bearcat Meany, is spending the weekend with him,” said Ike. “Bearcat is only ten, but he’s built like a caveman. Bugs said he’d give me two dollars to box a few rounds with Bearcat. “Bearcat tripped you and stepped on your fingers?” guessed Encyclopedia. “No, he used his head,” said Ike. “I gave him my famous one-two: a left to the nose followed by a right to the chin. I must have broken both my hands hitting him.” “You should have worn boxing gloves,” said Sally. “We wore gloves,” said Ike. “Man, that Bearcat is something else!” “Did he knock you out?” asked Encyclopedia. “He did and he didn’t,” said Ike. “His first punch didn’t knock me out and it didn’t knock me down. But it hurt so much I just had to go down anyway.” “Good grief!” gasped Encyclopedia. “H-he licked you with one punch?” “With two,” corrected Ike. “When I got up, he hit me again. I was paralyzed. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move enough to fall down.” “Bearcat sounds like a coming champ,” observed Sally. “He’s training for the next Olympics,” said Ike. “Isn’t he a little young?” said Sally. “You tell him that,” said Ike. “He hurt me when he breathed on me.” The more Encyclopedia heard about Bearcat, the unhappier he became.

Cracking one eye open, I saw Kash sitting on the edge of my bed just staring at me with an amused expression. “Can I help you?” I mumbled against the pillow. “I’m hungry and want pancakes.” “You want . . . What are you, five?! Make your own. I even bought the easy-make pancakes last weekend. All you have to do is add water.” I rolled over and groaned. “Seven thirty? Kash, we didn’t get back from work until after one. You have got to stop waking me up so early. And how are you even in here?” He looked like he was fighting a smile and his eyes kept flashing up above mine. “Candice let me in.” Trying to act like I didn’t notice where his eyes kept going, and like I wasn’t flipping out because I was sure my hair looked like a hot mess, I slowly brought my arm up to brush back the hair from my face when my hand hit something that tugged at my forehead. “What the hell?” I tried to look straight up and even leaned my head back to try to follow whatever was at the very top of my forehead. I saw a blue tip and grabbed at it before yanking it off and holding it in front of my eyes. “A Nerf dart?!” Kash shamelessly pulled up a Nerf gun and waved it at his side. His eyes slid back up to my forehead and a hard laugh burst from his chest. Rolling back, he fell off the bed and landed with a dull thump on the floor. “What?” I snapped, and scrambled out of bed. As I made my way to the bathroom, I was hit once in the butt and once on my calf by more darts. “You’re such a child, Kash!” Flipping on the light, I blinked against the brightness before focusing on the mirror. A loud gasp filled the small room. “Logan Kash Hendricks! What did you do?” He was still cracking up as he got to his feet and came to stand behind me. “I just had to make sure it was on there real good. So I tested it a few times . . . you’re a really heavy sleeper, by the way.” “There is a hickey on my forehead!” His body was shaking from the laughter he was trying to keep in now. “It’s not funny! This better be gone by the time we go to work tonight.” “Don’t be mad, Sour Patch.” He planted his chin at the top of my head and brushed at my bangs. “You have those, they’ll cover it. Can we have pancakes now?” My eyes went wide and my jaw dropped as I continued to stare at him in the mirror. “No! Go make them yourself.” He frowned and brought the toy gun up in front of us. “I’ll let you shoot me.” I chewed on my bottom lip for a moment. Pancakes sounded really good right now. With a heavy sigh, I held my hand out. “Give me the gun.” As soon as it was in my hand, I went around collecting the three darts and put them back in with the other three still in there before aiming it right at his forehead. Kash smiled, closed his eyes, and took all six darts like a champ. When I was done he had little red marks all over his forehead, and though I knew his would be gone in a few minutes, I felt like he’d gotten it worse than I did. “Feel better?” “A little.” I handed the gun back to him and turned toward my door. “Let’s go make pancakes.” I’d barely hit the kitchen when I realized I didn’t hear him behind me. “And don’t even think about shooting me again, or you’ll be on your own for breakfast!” Whirling

Landon reappeared, wearing a shirt, and pointed to the trash bag. “All done with that? I’m taking them to the garage.” Colby did a quick scan of the kitchen. “Yeah, looks like we got it all.” “Cool.” He knotted the top together then lifted the bag. Glass bottles rattled inside. “This shit stinks. Our friends are pigs.” Matt pretended to clear his throat. “Says the beer pong champ.” He lifted his hands, his face masked in innocence. “Didn’t say a thing.” “Ha-ha, okay, okay. Yeah, so maybe I contributed.” Landon shouldered the weighted bag. “A lot. But I also kicked your ass.” “We,” I chimed in. “Considering how drunk you were, we should probably respect the solid seventy/thirty split of the win.” Landon opened the garage door and paused. “Hold that thought.” “Uh-oh, you got him all fired up now.” Matt laughed and plopped down on the couch in the now clean living room. “You got anything for a headache?” Colby nodded, reached into the kitchen cabinet where he stored the ibuprofen, then tossed him the bottle. The garage door reopened and Landon stepped through already talking. “Okay, so if I’m not mistaken, you’re saying you did seventy percent of the winning?” “Seems about right.” I grinned, just to egg him on. “What I’m thinking is we should just call it fifty/fifty because my drunkenness just took my superior beer pong skills down to average-guy range.” “Oh? So that’s what we want to call it? Hmm…Okay, if this helps keep your ego nice and inflated, I guess I can get on board with that.” “Hey now…” He forced back a smile. “Kidding. We all know I suck at beer pong. If it hadn’t been for my champion of a partner and Matt’s extreme inebriation, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. It was a team effort and we…how did you say it? Mopped the floors with the blood of our enemies?” “Damn girl, you’re feisty. This isn’t no red wedding. I just said we kicked some ass.” “Oh, you didn’t say something like that? Wow, now I see how the inflated ego comes about. That kind of win just really goes straight to the head. I’m like crazy with power.” “I’d say.” He laughed. “And remind me to never play against you.

I faced Pat Smith in the finals, the man who I had previously beaten. This time, I lost 7-6. Pat became the first four-time NCAA champion. I was winning with less than thirty seconds to go when we went out of bounds. To this day, I remember every thought and every second of every position. A few nights before the NCAA finals, I had dinner with my technical coach, Jimmy Zalesky. Jimmy was a three-time NCAA champ who helped me, as did his older brother, Lenny. These brothers were tough and technical. They’re great men who are both college head coaches and good friends. When I went out of bounds, I remembered the conversation between Jimmy and me the week before. I asked him what it felt like to win his first title. As my opponent and I walked back to the center, I allowed my brain to recall that previous evening’s conversation. As soon as my foot was on the line in the center of the mat, the referee blew the whistle. Pat shot and got to my ankle. A scramble ensued, and he came out on top with twelve seconds to go. I fought hard to get out, which sent the match into a tough back and forth battle in the final seconds. Ultimately, I couldn’t escape and lost the NCAA final match. That was the biggest loss of my life. I squared up with my foot on the line, thinking I was seconds away from winning. I had the mindset of protect and defend. Simultaneously, Pat squared up, thinking he was seconds away from also winning. He had the mindset of attack and score. It was a battle of mindsets, and his prevailed.

They flipped the coin. Nathan chose tails. It came up heads. “How about best two out of three?” Nathan asked the ref. The ref curled his lip and said, “What are you talking about? No.” Nathan said, “You can’t blame a guy for trying.