Free Fireball by Tyler Keevil

Julian decided that it was a big deal. This was back when he was still a little runt and even more insecure than he is now. His mom always gave him two lunches, trying to bulk him up. I think she might have been the one who got him started on the protein powder, actually.
    â€˜They’re saying you’re a pussy, man.’
    It’s always the pussies who worry about being called a pussy.
    â€˜That’s too bad,’ Chris said.
    â€˜Are you just going to take it?’
    â€˜I don’t know. I’ll fight him sometime.’
    It might have gone on like that forever, if some dickhead hadn’t told Kevin about Chris’s dad. I never found out who it was. Most of the kids from our elementary school knew because Chris had taken a month off school, so it could have been anyone. Looking back, I guess it doesn’t really matter who told him. Somebody told him. Me and Chris were sitting in the library when Kevin stormed in, all riled up and ready to play his wild card.
    â€˜Hey bitch,’ he said. ‘What kind of faggot catches himself in his own crab trap?’
    That got Chris going, all right.

    High school kids are worse than reporters when it comes to talking shit. There were tons of witnesses to the fight – pretty much everybody who was in the library – but none of them could agree on anything, not even who’d won. Some said it was Kevin, because he’d thrown Chris into a bookshelf. Others said it was Chris, because he’d gotten in the most punches. The only thing they could agree on was that it was the biggest fight anybody had ever seen. It was, too. I saw it all. They fought up and down the aisles, knocking over desks and chairs and scattering books everywhere. A whole row of shelves fell down, like dominoes, and nearly killed this one girl who’d been sitting there reading. It took three teachers and the principal to pull them apart. In the end, whatever anybody else claimed, it was pretty much a draw. That’s what I thought and that’s what Chris said, too. If it had happened a year or two later, he would have destroyed Kevin. But back in grade eight Chris didn’t have much muscle mass. He was fast, and tough, but still scrawny. Kevin was practically full-grown. So it was a draw. They were both pretty messed up, and they both got expelled. The other kids talked about that fight for the rest of the year. Like so much else involving Chris, it became sort of an urban legend. The day Chris fought Kevin.
    Those shitheads are probably still talking about it.

    After that, Chris made a circuit of the North Van schools. He got kicked out of Windsor and Argyle and Sutherland and a couple of others, usually for fighting. He ended up at Keith Lynn, which is kind of a school and also kind of a prison. It’s nearly impossible to get expelled from Keith Lynn. You’re only allowed to attend if you’ve already been banned from every other school in the district. Basically all the craziest guys on the North Shore go there. When Chris told me, I just assumed there’d be a lot of trouble. In my mind, life at Keith Lynn was sort of like those real-life prison dramas you see on TV. You know – where everybody’s shanking each other with weapons they’ve smuggled in past the guards.
    â€˜What do you think, Razor?’
    â€˜I don’t know, man. It sounds pretty nuts.’
    Chris had a plan. Rather than worry about who wanted to scrap him, or which guys were going to jump him after school, he decided to get all the trouble out of the way at once. It was the kind of plan only Chris could have come up with. On his first day, he borrowed my dad’s old ghetto blaster. It was this huge paint-spattered steel box with massive black speakers. It didn’t play CDs or MP3s or anything. Just tapes. Chris biked all the way up to Keith Lynn with that ghetto blaster strapped to his back. He was wearing flip flops and a tank top and huge