Mechanically, T.K. stands and walks back to the line. On the way, he passes Harv Matision. “Another candy-assed motherfucker bites the dust,” taunts Matision.

T.K. goes for him, wading in with hammering fists. T.K.’s overpowering shock and hatred make him careless. Matision manipulates him easily. He yanks T.K.’s arm back and around, separating it at the shoulder. Still, nearly fainting with pain, T.K. presses after him. It takes six referees to pull them apart.

As soon as the referees release him, T.K. heads, once again, for Matision. He collapses before he can make two steps.

When he wakes up, the game is over.

The Prospectors have won it, 121 to 119.

They met one day

In the city by the bay.

The man they call Matision,

And the man they call T.K.

There was biting, there was fighting,

Was a lot of wrong and righting,

And two real angry heroes

When the smoke had cleared away.

Poor old Harv he lost the game,

T.K. Mann put him to shame,

Changed a winner to a loser nothing flat.

But when the game came to an end,

T.K. Mann had lost a friend,

And there can’t be hardly nothing

Worse than that.

No, there can’t be hardly nothing

Worse than that.

So they both got bones for picking,

Cause they each one took a licking,

Bound to be some blood spilled when they meet again.

Now, I know that ain’t this year

But I’m gonna play the seer,

Say they’ll both be back for XXI,

And only one will win.

(The Ballad of T.K. and Harv, written and sung by Timmy Longan and recorded on the PRIMO label, an IBC subsidiary. On Monday, July 26, 2010, The Ballad of T.K. and Harv began the first of sixteen weeks on Billboard’s “Latest and First-ratest” listing.)

Monday, July 26, 2010

Every Monday after a home game, T.K. wakes up around noon and heads for Tubber’s Bar. There’s no entertainment at Tubber’s, no food, no atmosphere, no loose women, nothing but liquor and a longstanding tradition of social privacy. Tubber’s patrons, a motley collection of lower middleclass working men, come there to forget about their jobs. They grant T.K. the same privilege. (Although, when back in the company of their non-Tubber’s-frequenting cohorts, Tubber’s regulars are not above tossing out a casual reference to a Monday spent “drinking with the Mann” to lend extra credence to their knowledgeability about what went right or wrong with the Prospectors in their latest game.)

Usually, for T.K., Tubber’s is a few brisk shots, an hour or two of exposure to humanity to transition back into a world where death doesn’t wait around every corner, and off about his business.

Today, Tubber’s is considerably more.