Frank, Dwayne, Chuck, and Chico sat on a couch in Bo Cantrell's large living room facing a massive flat screen television on the opposite wall. A cable sports channel ran replays from the football games the day before; the volume was muted. Bo was not. He cursed each time his botched plays were shown, and they were shown over and over again. He pointed the gun at the screen.
"That fuckin' play, it wasn't my fuckin' fault. The fuckin' strong safety, he's gotta help over the fuckin' top. But I fuckin' got blamed."
"Limited vocabulary," Dwayne whispered.
"Linebacker," Chuck whispered.
Cable sports ran 24/7 these days; problem was, there wasn't enough sports action to fill all that airtime. So the highlight and lowlight reels ran in loops. If you missed the recap of your team's game, it would run again in ten minutes. The Wranglers' recap had run a dozen or more times over the two hours since Bo Cantrell had abducted them at gunpoint. He paced back and forth in front of the screen. He held the big gun in one hand and a whiskey bottle in the other. Dwayne was thinking.
"Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey," he whispered.
"We're gonna die," Chuck whispered.
"Yep. Wouldn't mind a shot of JD before we do."
"Why'd you say that?"
"It's good stuff."
"No. That we're gonna die."
"Oh. Just agreeing with you."
"Well, don't."
Bo shot the TV.
"Shit!" Chico said.
"Look, TV still works," Chuck said. "What brand is that, Bo?"
"Shut up!"
"Just asking. Say, Bo, would you sign my football?"
Chuck had brought the Wranglers souvenir football in with him.
"Shut the fuck up! I'm trying to think!"
"Do you have a hard time thinking, too? From concussions? I had ten concussions in college, one in peewee."
"When you was a kid?"
"No. When I was a referee."
Bo shot the ceiling.
"Shut up!"
"I gotta pee," Chuck said.
"You gonna die!"
Bo paced again.
"You know," Dwayne said, "I'm never really gonna move to Panama or Ecuador or none of those places."
"Why not?"
" 'Cause you guys are all I've got. I've never had a real family."
Chuck leaned into him.
"Buddy hug."
He gave Dwayne a hug. Dwayne whispered.
"We could attack Bo, maybe Frank and Chico could get away."
"Or they could attack Bo and we could get away."
"We're bigger than them."
"They might be quicker."
"We gotta man up, Chuck."
"You sure?"
Dwayne sighed. "Yeah, I'm sure." He shrugged. "Hell, we all gotta die sometime."
"But do we gotta die tonight?"
"You goddamn right you gonna die," Bo Cantrell said.
"You're going to kill us, too, Bo?" Frank said. "Like you killed Dee Dee Dunston?"