“That T.K. Mann has sure been around a long time.” A sparse round of applause. “He’s been on the operating table so many times, his teammates call him Zipperhead.”

Several people in the audience start laughing so steadily and so hard, Bysshe’s next few lines are almost buried. “They say T.K. Mann is pressuring the Prospectors to replace their mediman with a geriatrician.”

At this, there’s not an un-laughing patron in the house.

“You talk about the problems of an old football player. T.K. Mann has had his skin tightened up so many times that he wears his pecker for a necktie.”

He lets the laughter build, then hits them with a zinger. “If you think that’s bad, you should see where his nose wound up.” He pats himself on the fanny.

He keeps punching away at it: Senator Abelman, the folly of altering football, and a decrepit, doddering old quarterback name of T.K. Mann.

At the end of his act, Bysshe leaves with a standing ovation.

12

KILLERBOWL XXI, THE GAME

Saturday, January 1, 2011, 11:30 A.M.

The second quarter runs out without the Prospectors scoring. Varnie Pfleg and Lester Brye are both put permanently out of the game, Pfleg with a severed knee ligament, Brye with a spinal fracture. This leaves only Orval Frazier, still, in spite of massive injections of procaine and biembutal, undergoing intense pain from his broken arm, Hellinger Clausen, Ken Dedemus, Ros DeGeller, Buddy Healy, Gus D’Amato, T.K., and, of course, Zack Rauscher. Eight men left out of thirteen. T.K. has played with only eight active players before, but always at points far later in the game. (In fact, starting the third quarter with eight men earns the Prospectors a line in the SFL record book.)

The only bright side to the Prospectors’ situation is that the Minutemen aren’t much better off. Thanks to some fine defensive work by Frazier and D’Armato, four Minutemen are permanently out of the game, putting the Prospectors at only a one man disadvantage. All in all, the situation isn’t as bad as it could be.

Although you’d never know it by listening to Coach Carrerra. “God damn it,” he rants in the locker room, “you are giving this game away. Handing it to those bastards on a wooden platter.” Hands waving in the air, he paces the locker room’s length. “What is the matter with you today? Matision is reading our every move. He’s six steps ahead of us on almost every play. Frazier, D’Armato, I want Matision stopped, and I want him stopped hard.” He halts his pacing in front of T.K. “T.K., do you have your play book handy?”

Wearily, T.K. pulls it from his locker and holds it up.