Bruiser Read Free

time. He sets for his shot. It’s almost comical; his golf club is much too small for him, as is his shirt—either he outgrew it, or it shrunk a few sizes after he got it. The overall effect is very Winnie-the-Pooh, without the pot belly or cuteness. He hits the ball too hard, it bounces off the course, and it gets swallowed by a topiary hedge shaped like a walrus.
    â€œTough break,” I say. “That’ll cost ya.”
    â€œIt’s only a game,” he grumbles, then lumbers off in search of his ball. Katrina smacks her next ball and follows it to the far end of the hole, leaving me alone with Brontë, who gets in my face the second Katrina is out of earshot.
    â€œYou are going to pay for this in the worst way!” Brontësnarls. “I haven’t figured out how; but when I do, you will suffer.”
    I look toward the walrus bush. “I think your date was distracted by something shiny. I’d better go help him find his ball.” I saunter off, leaving her fuming.
    He’s around the other side of the huge walrus bush, fighting pine branch flippers to get at his ball, poking the club into the shrub. I get in there right beside him, force my way deep into the branches, and snatch up his ball. I hold it out to him, and he reaches for it; but instead of giving it to him, I grab him by his shirt, pulling him close to me, and I hiss in his face.
    â€œI don’t care what you think is going on between you and my sister, but it’s not happening, comprende ? My sister doesn’t know what you’re all about, but I do.”
    He looks at me with dumb hate in his swampy eyes but says nothing.
    â€œAm I getting through that rock skull of yours, or do I have to pound it in through your ears?”
    â€œGet your hands off me.”
    I grip his shirt a little harder. I think maybe I’ve got some chest hairs in there, but he doesn’t show the pain. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
    â€œI said, Get your stinking hands off me or I’m gonna find a new use for this golf club.”
    That’s just the kind of thing I’m expecting to hear from aguy like this. I don’t let him go. “Let’s see what use you’ve got in mind,” I say.
    He doesn’t do anything. I didn’t think he would. Finally I let him go. “Stay away from my sister,” I tell him.
    He grabs the ball from my hand and strides back to Brontë. “I don’t feel like playing anymore,” he says, and stalks off with Brontë hurrying behind him. She throws me a gaze of pure, unadulterated hatred, and I wave. My mission of coercion is accomplished.
    Katrina, who did not care for the way she played this hole, claims herself a do over. She comes up beside me and watches the retreat of my sister and the Swamp Thang. “Where are they going?”
    â€œTheir separate ways,” I say. Katrina swings, and her ball bounces up, wedging in the miniature girders of the Eiffel Tower.
    â€œI hate the Eiffel Tower,” she says, and I smile at her, secretly relishing my victory.
    Sometimes you have to take control of a situation. Sometimes you have to be the dominant force; otherwise chaos becomes law. I mean, look at lacrosse. This is a game that started as Native American warfare, with warriors breaking their enemies’ bones with their sticks as they carried the ball for miles. Even soccer was played with human heads once upon a time. It took the brute force of civilization to tame all that into lawful competition. But one look at theBruiser and you know that there’s nothing lawful about him. The fact that Brontë can’t see that scares me, because there will come a time when I can’t protect her…and what if someday she finds out the hard way about guys who still see life as head-kicking warfare. You hear stories all the time.
    So hate me all you want, Brontë, for what I did here; but that will pass—and someday, if