A very short story: Punch

 

Punch

            “Fight me for it,” Ron says.

             “No way in hell,” says David.

            There is one beer left, and only one. The case has dwindled from twelve, and both men feel the swimming welling up behind their eyes.

            “I’m not fighting you for it. Take the damn can.”

            “Come on Dave, I’ll let you have the first smash. Hit me straight in the nostrils.”

            There they sat, moving less than an inch for the past two hours, against the cabinets on their mother’s linoleum kitchen floor. Each can they guzzled sits crushed against itself, flowered between the dirt-caked lines of the tiles.

            “We haven’t fought since we were what, twelve? I believe every man can use a good fight now and then.”

            “Back off Ronny. This is childish.”

            A small circle table stands about three feet from the feet of the two brothers. On top of the turquoise table lay a stack of embroidered papers signed in giant cursive lettering.

            “You’ve always been a wuss, a momma’s boy,” says Ron as he reaches in for the last can of one-dollar beer.

            David feels the heat on the back of his neck like a firebrand pressed to cattle hide. He picks up his hand, moving from the warmth it had built on the cool of the floor. David folds his fingers tightly in on themselves and throws his fist, the force of his large body, into the tip of his elder brother’s nose.

            Blood splatters the linoleum.

            “Here you go Dave. I can’t compete with that.”

            “Thanks.”

            The can opens with a crack like the cartilage Ron moves between his forefinger and thumb. The light through the window above them fades more completely, and neither Ron nor Dave notices the small red particle speckled on their mother's will.