Unable to contain his pent-up fury, T.K. whirls, picks Barin up by the collar of his jacket, carries him to the door and pitches him out into the hall. “As you might have guessed, Senator,” he snaps at the rumpled heap of injured dignity on the floor, “the answer is no.”

Barin hoists himself up, favoring his left hip, bruised in his fall. “You’ve got trouble, Mr. Mann. I hope you realize it. You’ve got big trouble.”

T.K. closes the door, cutting him off from view.

When Sarah returns from her shopping trip, she finds T.K. passed out on the sofa, three empty liquor bottles lined up neatly on the table beside him.

13

KILLERBOWL XXI, THE GAME

Saturday, January 1, 2011, 6:15 P.M.

His world is a protracted, swirling cyclone, whisking away great chunks of complacency’s breathable air, replacing it with the foggy, choking dust of long buried remembrances.

There are his parents, two shocks of white hair, two quiet, reassuring smiles, two gentle touches, as like each other as the first breezes of two succeeding springtimes, so delicate to the appearance, yet nurturing the strength of all nature within. There is his car. Slamming into a corner, its engine whining out the siren call of forbidden vitality. Football is wedged in there, too. The game drips his ego out through the spigot of his crumbled morality. He maims and enjoys it; he kills and is proud.

Enter Harv Matision. A great shining plug-ended wire protrudes from his ankle up to a huge golden socket imbedded in the sky. Charged with the outpouring of celestial fury, Matision crackles and bristles. Nothing can touch him lest it die from the might of his aura. Matision embraces the two elderly blocks of goodness that are T.K.’s parents, and they shrivel away. He rubs up against the car in all its metallic fury. As quickly as ice cream in hell, the car melts to a river of slop. Last, but not least, Matision lays hands upon Football. Like all else before, that vanishes too.

Fully warmed to his ultimate task, Matision approaches T.K., his right index finger extended, a gesture of choosing, a volition of death.

T.K. backs away, further and further, until finally he can back up no more. He is trapped by the boundaries of his own misconceptions. Unless he can scale them, he dies. He starts to climb. A quarter of the way, a half, three quarters he goes and finally grasps to the top. His fingers betray him. They slip, slip and give way. He tumbles headlong to the ground, his ears filled to bursting with the sound of his life rushing past him. That and Harv Matision’s hideous laughter.

Then he hears something else. A voice, a far-off voice, calling to him. “T.K., wake up,” says the voice, “come on, snap out of it.”