Free The Domino Effect by Andrew Cotto

the pages of his book.
    “Brown?” Rice asked, recoiling. “They got a squad?”
    Terence leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Lost to Princeton last year in the Ivy League Championship,” he said. “The same Princeton that beat Georgetown in the first round of the NCAAs.”
    “Alright, then. Alright, then,” Rice said, standing up, his stringy hair bouncing above his eyes and over his ears. He began to pace the small space between the beds, talking out loud to no one in particular. “We good. We good. And once we have a season, man, one good season, this school’s going to be about basketball. Basketball. Not that Greco-homo-erotica stuff they doing on them mattresses and shit.”
    Santos, with his back still to the closet, nodded as his partner continued. “It’s on alright, and that business with the shoes, and this guy here, this hero, standing up to them, just set it off early. That’s all.”
    “Relax, Willy,” I said. “Nothing’s happening.”
    “I don’t know about all that,” he said, rapping his knuckles against his chest, “and when it goes down, y’all just holla’.” He jerked a thumb toward the neighboring dorm. “We got cho’ back.”
    “OK, then” I said, rapping my knuckles, then pointing toward the door. “Got it.”
    He stood up, and smoothed out his sweat suit. “In the meantime, y’all just let us know when you ready to run some ball and shit.”
    “We’ll keep it in mind,” I said. “And shit.”
    “Do ’dat,” he said before easing toward the door. “Later y’all.”
    Santos nodded and followed his friend out.
    After they left, Terence and I resumed our positions of study. I couldn’t help it. I swear. I had to look at him. He looked right back at me. We turned our eyes toward the open doorway that Rice and Santos had just exited. I tightened my mouth to keep from laughing. It was hard.
    “The hell was that?” Terence asked, his face puckered.
    I started to answer, but a howling came from my throat. Terence smacked his desk and tried to hold back a smile. We traded glances and then just started to crack up. A minute later, we were laughing like lunatics, right there at our desks, practically falling to the floor.
    When we stopped laughing, Terence straightened his face and raised his chin. “You sure there’s nothing to worry about with those wrestlers?”
    “Nah,” I said, trying to seem certain. “Nothing at all.”

     
    I’d been having trouble sleeping, thinking about Rice and everything he said about the wrestlers and their signs. So, after hours one night, I slipped out of the room and down the stairs. Quietly, I entered the corner room. In the dim light, a figure, low to the ground, reclined below the arch of headphones. On the far side of the room, between the desktops stacked with jewel boxes, Grohl sat on the window’s ledge and fingered his guitar in the silvery moonlight. Upon spotting me, he raised his head. I held a finger to my lips as I crept up slowly behind Meeks, pulled the big ear cushions back and released them into place with a snap.
    “Ahhhh!” he screamed, flopping from his bean bag chair and onto the floor.
    “What are you listening to there, Geoff?” I asked casually.
    “You dick!” he squealed.
    “Relax there, chief,” I advised. “You’ll get us busted.”
    He made a bulldog face and started to get himself together.
    Murky sounds leaked from the headphones, and I picked up the CD booklet to look at the Pearl Jam artwork. “Maybe if you listened to some respectable rock-n-roll instead of all this gloom stuff you wouldn’t be so edgy.”
    “Bite me,” he said, wrapping the cord around his headphones.
    “And what’s with the flannel?” I asked, flicking the booklet. “They look like the Brawny Paper Towel band.”
    “So, what’s up?” he asked. “I thought you only left your cube for classes and dinner these days?”
    He had me there. I really had been spending a lot of time in my room. It was