Good Luck, Fatty

shouts behind me, or maybe off to the side. (I’m having trouble focusing on anything but Duncan the Mad Scientist.) “Yo, Cotton!” the voice calls again, louder this time and with an unmistakable edge of irritation.
    It’s Malcolm Gates, jerkwad extraordinaire.
    I hop back on the Schwinn and kick away from the curb, but not before Malcolm and Justin White (ex-screw and current Industry High quarterback) tool up beside me on their bikes, wearing enraged—and sex-starved—sneers.
    “What? You’re too good for us now?” Justin taunts as I try to outpace him.
    “ Now? ” I mutter.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” demands Malcolm as he and Justin line up on either side of me, intent on pinning me in.
    Ain’t gonna happen.
    I drop back, let the jerkwad duo enjoy a near collision without me (which would’ve come to pass if Justin hadn’t managed to swerve left and pop a wheelie over a manhole cover, just in the nick of time). “Don’t you… gentlemen have anything better to do?” I inquire lightly, my gaze fixed on the stop sign ahead, where a simple right turn, followed by a sharp left (assuming I can bust through the human clog between here and there) will land me on the doorstep of The Pit and, more importantly, the cusp of the starting line. (It must be nearly ten o’clock, and that thousand-dollar prize has my name all over it.)
    The jerkwads circle me like sharks. “Show us your titties,” one of them (Justin, I think) prods.
    No one (except me, of course) has ever seen my “titties.”  (Hard to believe, I know, considering all the screwing, but there it is.) “Doubtful,” I say, drawing my lips into a stiff horizontal line.
    Malcolm whines, “Then give us the beads.”
    It takes me a moment to figure out what he’s talking about. Then it dawns on me: He wants the Mardi Gras beads I snagged at the flea market, all four strands of which are now slung around my neck. “You’ve got it wrong,” I inform him. “It’s beads for titties, not beads and titties. And I don’t see you with either.”
    Humph. That’ll teach ‘em to mess with me.
    “Oh, fuck you and—” Justin starts to spew, but suddenly I spy a break in the crowd and vanish into it.
    Even though I don’t look back, Malcolm’s sarcastic wail reaches me. “Good luck, Fatty!”
    Good luck, Fatty? Good luck, Fatty?!
    Now I know for sure what happened to the Royale and exactly which jerkwad is responsible. (I also know that, if it weren’t for me, Gramp’s ol’ pride and joy would still be rolling happily along instead of crunched up in some junkyard waiting to be melted down and reincarnated as a truckload of Mountain Dew cans, a thought that makes me sort of ill but even more determined to knock this race out of the park.)
    As a valued member of The Pit—and Harvey’s only real employee—I was able to bypass the registration process this morning (and the gigantic line accompanying it). But fifty or so racers still shift around on their feet and glance anxiously at their watches as Marie and Scott (one of these days I’m going to come right out and ask Harvey if he and Scott are a couple!) verify their paperwork from behind a resin banquet table on the sidewalk.
    I spin past the registration table, shoot the unlikely twosome a peppy wave and a clipped, “Hello,” which they couldn’t acknowledge if they wanted to, their heads bent over twin copies of the lengthy, alphabetized Yo-Yo race list.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Tom on his BMX, jumping the curb into the church parking lot, where Lex Arlington’s tiger-mobile has drawn a horde of curious onlookers. The opposite side of the lot boasts a raised platform (it’s really too insubstantial to be called a stage) that’s festooned with three-hundred rainbow-colored latex balloons (eighty of which were inflated last night with sheer lung power by yours truly). This is where Harvey and Lex will kick off the Yo-Yo.
    And here they come now. “Hello, everyone,” Harvey’s normally soft voice booms through the crackly-sounding speakers. “Good morning and welcome to the first-ever Yo-Yo race, to benefit the American Lung Association.”
    The crowd around me congeals into a semi-solid mass and oozes toward the platform.
    Harvey shuffles some papers in his hands, throws Lex (who’s taken an impatient, hands-on-his-hips stance) a sideways glance and then continues, “As you can see, we’ve got a beautiful day here.” He flails an arm through the