The Streak - 2

Evan felt a telltale vibration in his pants. He clutched the source of the sensation through the fabric of his jeans and repeatedly pinched its tapered tip, thereby forcing it to slide tortuously up and out his left front pocket. The whole procedure put him a little sideways on his barstool but now he had the thing in his hands, at last. He focused as best he could on the screen and deduced that someone was sending him a text. It said:

    wherefuck r u

It was from Kyle Boyce, a utility infielder and his best friend on the team. Evan couldn't be too sure whether he read that wrong or whether it really said what it said. So he read it again, carefully this time, with some solemnity. These are the words in the message. The message to me. If he did nothing else before darkness took him tonight he had to be sure of this, the true contents of the message. It said:

    wherefuck r u

It made Evan think of "wherefore art thou Romeo," and he thought that was funny. Painstakingly, he texted back:

    fucking your wife

It seemed funny to say "your wife," although in fact her name was Michelle and Evan knew her well and she was very nice and they all got along, and though he'd thought about it, just like he thinks about everything, he wouldn't ever fuck her, probably.

Soon an impatient reply arrived from Kyle:

    come to scores now

Evan sighed and put his phone away. He felt powerless to disobey this command, nor to impede the night as it took shape, to question the judgment of the fates. He settled up, staggered out into the glowing street, hailed a cab and rode down to the strip club to meet Kyle and God knows who or what.