Fireball Read Online Free Page B

face. Also, it was almost impossible to knock him out. I guess his skull was extra hard or something, because he could take tons of punishment without going down. It was like a special ability or a super power. Even when he should have lost, he usually won.
    â€˜Hey Razor – what’s up?’
    â€˜Not much, Kristofferson.’
    He’d called me from Lonsdale. We biked over there once in a while, to play games at the Hippo Club Arcade – back before it burned down.
    â€˜You want to come meet me?’ he asked.
    â€˜I’ll come and beat you, all right.’
    â€˜The old beat and greet, huh?’
    On the other end of the line, I heard somebody swearing. The voice sounded tinny but clear, as if they were shouting at him from nearby.
    Chris said, ‘Can you hold on a minute?’
    â€˜Yeah. Who’s that?’
    But he was already gone. I heard more shouting, then some scuffling and this cracking sound, like a broom handle being smacked against concrete.
    Chris’s voice came to me faintly: ‘Are we done? Huh?’
    A moment later he was back on the line, panting.
    â€˜So,’ he said, as if it was nothing, ‘where should we meet?’
    â€˜What’s going on?’
    â€˜Some guy just lipped me off.’
    That kind of thing happened all the time. Fighting was as natural to him as eating, sleeping and breathing. And dying, I guess.
    He never started fights. He didn’t have to. Fights found him. The thing about Chris was that he didn’t look tough. He wasn’t super built or anything, and he had a young face – smooth and almost pretty. It was the kind of face other guys wanted to hit. Only he hit back. Harder. He didn’t train. He never took boxing or martial arts or anything. I did. I got it into my head that I wanted to be tough like him, so I enrolled in kung fu classes for about three years. I worked pretty hard at it, too. Twice a week I would go down there, learning these moves and training with a bunch of other wimps. They taught us how to kick and punch and block. Eventually I even got a brown belt. I learned some stuff, I guess, but the thing about kung fu is that it doesn’t make you tough. Toughness is just something you’re born with.
    Or without, in my case.
    I didn’t try to hide it, at least. You know – I wasn’t one of those guys who pretends to be super tough. I guess that’s why Chris started calling me Razor. He nicknamed me after this wrestler, this tough-as-shit Mexican who always had a toothpick in his mouth and talked a lot of trash to his opponents. Basically, he was the exact opposite of me. Whenever Chris saw me walking in the halls, he would start singing Razor’s theme song – one of those super lame wrestling themes – and I’d raise my arms over my head as if I’d just won a big match.
    He’d say something like, ‘Who’d you scrap yesterday, Razor?’
    And I’d say, ‘Oh, six or seven guys.’
    â€˜At once?’
    â€˜You know it.’
    Eventually the nickname got around and everybody started calling me that. It was the kind of thing Julian would never have put up with – not even as a joke. It would have harsh offended him. Jules had this image of himself in his head, and he didn’t like anything getting in the way of that image. One time he even told me that he thought he could take Chris in a fight. I didn’t say anything. I was too shocked to say anything. Jules? He had about as much chance against Chris as a cow fighting a panther. He wasn’t just bragging, either. He was dead serious. He’d actually tricked himself into believing he was tougher than Chris.
    Julian had a few issues, I guess.

    â€˜Looks like we got a couple of high rollers, here.’
    Me and Chris were on our way out of the Avalon – this raunchy bar right on the border of North and West Van – when some treat said that to us.
    â€˜Don’t