Title Page

Copyright information

Killerbowl
by Gary K. Wolf
Copyright © Gary K. Wolf, 1975

Smashwords Edition

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

This e-book is a work of fiction. While references may be made to actual places or events, the names, characters, incidents, and locations within are from the author’s imagination and are not a resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, or events. Any similarity is coincidental.

Title Illustration: EIS

Interior Book Design: Cera Smith, cerasmith.com

Dedication

To my mother and father.
For their sacrifices, their guidance, and their love.

1

KILLERBOWL XXI, THE DAY BEFORE

Friday, December 31, 2010, 7:55 P.M.

Sitting on the floor next to a practice bag full of footballs, T.K. takes one last riff through his play book, making some inconsequential notations in the margins as he goes.

For what must be the hundredth time in the past hour, he pulls out and studies his Boston street map, paying particular attention to the area bordered by Cambridge and Mt. Vernon Streets on the north and south, Bowdoin and Charles to the east and west.

Coach Carrerra enters the locker room and wordlessly hands him the latest weather forecast. Not too different from the weather of the last few days, bitter and bone-chillingly cold. The temperatures will range from fourteen above zero at the start of the game to thirty degrees at the game’s midpoint, to a frigid five above when the game concludes tomorrow midnight. The chance of snowfall has declined from 50 to 30 per cent, but there’ll still be great quantities of it on the street left over from last week’s tumultuous storm.

The trainer calls T.K.’s name.

The familiar paraphernalia is all laid out, the tape, the scissors, the Band-Aids, the gauze. T.K. hops up on the training table, and the trainer sets to work. He applies flexible penetration resistant aluminum tape along T.K.’s major arteries, up and down both sides of his neck, around both his wrists, around his elbows and around his thighs from groin to knee. He wraps conventional surgical tape around T.K.’s ankles and knees. He changes the dressing on T.K.’s injured left shoulder.

T.K. climbs off the table, flexes his wrists, elbows and thighs and rotates his neck and ankles to work the tape into his skin’s natural creases.

Satisfied with the trainer’s work, he goes to his locker, opens it, and begins the laborious process of suiting up. First comes his aluminum groin cup—the infamous iron horse—and his elastic supporter.

To help fend off the cold, he slips on a set of ventilated thermal underwear.