"It sounded like a wooden bat hitting a baseball," Paul said. He, too, had lost interest in the food.
"That broke your nose?" Mal said, still quite interested in his breakfast.
"Yep."
"What'd you do?"
"By instinct, I swung. I didn't know if he planned to hit me again, and I wasn't about to wait. So I threw a right hook with everything I could put into it.Caught him perfectly on the left jaw, flush to the face."
"It wasn't a right hook," Paul said. "It was a bomb. Rake's head jerked like he'd beenshot, and he fell like a bag of cement."
"Knocked him out?"
"Cold.Coach Upchurch rushed forward, yelling, cussing, like he was going to finish me off," Neely said. "I couldn't see,there was blood all over my face."
"Silo stepped up and grabbed Upchurch by the throat with both hands," Paul said. "He lifted him up, threw him against the wall, said he'd kill him right there if he made another move. Rake was dead on the floor. Snake Thomas and Rabbit and one of the trainers were squatting beside him. It was chaos for a few seconds,then Silo threw Upchurch to the floor and told all of them to get out of the locker room. Thomas said something and Silo kicked him in the ass. They dragged Rake out of the room and we locked the door."
"For some reason I was crying, and I couldn't stop," Neely said.
Mal had stopped eating. All three were staring straight ahead at the little lady by the stove.
"We found some ice," Paul continued."Neely said his hand was broken. His nose was bleeding like crazy. He was delirious. Silo was screaming at the team. It was a pretty wild scene."
Mal slurped down some coffee, then tore off a piece of a biscuit, which he dragged across his plate as if he might eat it, or he might not.
"Neely was lying on the floor, ice on his nose, ice on his hand, blood running down his ears. We hated Rake like no man has ever been hated. We wanted to kill somebody, and those poor boys from East Pike were the nearest targets."
After a long pause,Neely said, "Silo knelt beside me and yelled, 'Get your ass up, Mr. Ail-American. We gotta score five touchdowns.' "
"WhenNeely got up, we stormed out of the locker room. Rabbit poked his head out of a door, and the last thing I heard was Silo yelling at him, 'Keep those sumbitches away from our sideline.' "