Rontel Read Online Free PDF Page A

ground with his bare hands in the classic “strangling pose,” missing a few times, groaning each miss, but then capturing the rattlesnake and icing it.
    Really icing it.
    I thought—These are the days when man ices the rattlesnake.
    My brother slicked Rontel’s hair back with his bare left foot.
    “I’ma ice you with my bare hands, Rontel,” he said.
    “Give him the business,” I said.
    My brother said, “Give him the fucking business.”
    “Giving him the business” was a phrase we’d been using.
    It was one of the programmed sayings in the hockey videogame from 1997.
    If someone got hit hard in the game, the announcer might say, “Ooooh, he gives him the business .”
    My brother said, “S’rattler”—using the guy’s voice. “D’I’iced him.” Then he leaned to the other end of the couch and head-butted Rontel, saying, “Hyuhh, hyuhh” with each head-butt.
    Every time my brother’s head hit Rontel’s head, there was a small hollow sound.
    The small hollow sound was both funny and sad.
    Rontel just lay there blinking.
    If the head-butt was especially hard he’d close his eyes, his ears down all the way.
    “He gives him the business,” I said, feeling like what I really wanted was to meet a new woman and develop romantic feelings towards her and have sex with her once, then repeat that many more times with others and call it a life.
    No, jump out a high window and call it a life.
    “Hyuhh, hyuhh.”
    My brother used the videogame announcer voice and said, “Ooh, giving him the business,” as he rapidly head-butted Rontel.
    Rontel just lay there clenching his eyes shut, ears down.
    My brother stopped.
    “Shit,” he said, trying to focus.
    He looked unsteady.
    Then he said, “Hyuhh, hyuhh” real fast and head-butted Rontel twice more. “All right, no more.”
    Our game began.
    My brother always just selected this one really big player and then went around knocking people over while I scored goals.
    It was funny to see him needlessly hitting people.
    The sounds were funny too.
    Like, “Urgh” and “Bwuh.”
    One sounded like, “Hyuhh.”
    Sometimes my brother would just skate around a player he knocked over, and then knock him over again when he got up.
    Over and over.
    “The violence,” I said, watching a replay where my brother’s player elbowed someone in the face and injured him for the rest of the season.
    We were already up 3-1.
    I’d scored three wonderful goals.
    Finesse.
    “Fucking finesse,” I said. “Violent finesse, motherfucker.”
    “Who want that violence,” my brother said.
    Upstairs, people screamed at each other.
    There were stomping sounds and screaming.
    Then—while the game was showing a replay of my brother hitting someone into the opposing team’s bench area—I looked across the room, out the window.
    Across the courtyard—in another second story apartment—a slightly overweight woman showered.
    I could see her through the bathroom window.
    Every apartment in the building had a window in the shower.
    She looked good.
    Her chubby shoulders and back were wet.
    I want to fuck you so hard—I thought.
    Then I heard an audience in my head and they all said, “How hard!”
    But I didn’t answer.
    Baby, I don’t even know how hard I want to fuck you.
    Baby, I’m scoring goals, I don’t have a job, I don’t have a future, I’m NO-good, hm.
    And I imagined myself telling her that, rubbing my chin thoughtfully and staring at her thighs.
    The attraction was not entirely sexual though.
    Like—maybe if I were in that shower with her—I’d just rest my forehead on her shoulder while the water hit us both.
    Is that sexual.
    Actually that seems sexual.
    Maybe it is sexual!
    I scored another goal.
    It was extremely impressive.
    Not even going to describe it because I already know I could never do that.
    Anyone witnessing it would be impressed though.
    I looked at Rontel and thought about how pretty he was.
    How much I loved him.
    How, actually no, if he