...is
not this story
But it might make you laugh a bit anyway? I'd very much love some critical critique on the writing quality!! Thanks.
Rock, Paper, Scissors
Thwack!
Danny Hankner’s fist crashed into his palm, cold rock on rugged skin. “Scissors,” he whispered, raising his fist and slamming back down with a cutting formation. The sound slapped the air, only surpassed by the
smack of his paper.
Nodding his approval, Dan withdrew his weapons and rose from his seat, rubbing his calloused hands together with a bite of chalk. The white powder floated and curled in the air like a slowly clenching ghost hand as Dan dragged himself to the sink, staring into his reflection in the water below.
Sweat beaded on his forehead, dropped, and distorted the water. When the ripples cleared, Dan saw something more than a simple, burdened man. He saw a warrior.
Pulling the cap, Dan watched the liquid swirl down the drain, and out of his life – the same life that had been forsaken to make room for his current obsession. He sighed. So much sacrificed, and for what?
A thought crept into his mind, and for a fleeting moment he toyed with the idea of hiring a midget.
“I could carry him around in my backpack,” Dan mused to himself. “And he could do things for me, like pay my bills and comb my hair.” He smiled. “Yeah, it’d be a real timer saver.” However, this night he would have to do without; for this was the night of the tournament.
The sun had dawned red this morning, and Dan knew it to be an omen for blood. Eight men would fight this battle, but only one would survive. This was real. This was war. This, was Rock Paper Scissors.
A well placed roundhouse kick burst the bathroom door asunder, and Dan sauntered into the Goeke basement, the wood splinters paving the way like a frazzled brown carpet. Heads turned at his approach, while the young man eyed his competitors with fierce, nostril-flaring resolve.
“Where’s the nugget!?” demanded Dan, taking a vicious bite out of a nearby corndog.
“We don’t support the vertically challenged vagabond,” explained Cody Campbell, referring to the radical, ‘Fat Tom’ Nienkirk. “He’s a firm believer in the ‘Chinese Style’ that’s caught on recently in Canada, where you use the other person’s base hand as your own. It’s just sick and wrong.”
Dan fingered his non-existent mustache, unappeased.
“Also,” Cody continued. “Long time player and jean jacket sporter, Jeremy Nemmers was banned after extensive use of an illegal paper move.”
“His paper formation is perpendicular to his base hand, like an upside-down T,” added Bill Goeke. “That move was outlawed long ago, and for good reason.”
Cody tensed when Bill finished, assuming Dan’s anger would flare up like a bad hemorrhoid, but instead, Dan smiled disarmingly, his laughter melting away his angry façade. He then punched a nearby baby to further prove that he was merely joking.
“Best of three games to win the set, best of seven sets to win the match,” repeated Dan, which was followed by a chorus of agreeing nods. Dan waggled his fingers tauntingly at one of the Goeke brothers. “It doesn’t matter what your name is!” Satisfied with his completely random and incoherent statement, Dan took a seat on the exercise ball, utilizing the time before the match to work on his old socks. They were worn-out, and in desperate need of a good darning.
While the players patiently waited for the event to begin, tensions waxed while maturity waned, and soon a disagreement broke out.
“I’m a firm believer in paper,” stated Cody flatly. “Nothing can beat paper. Well, except scissors.”
“Hah. Paper is nothing compared to the versatility of scissors!” boasted Bill ‘The Barber’ Goeke. “It takes a well timed rock to beat my scissors!”
After arguing over who had the biggest rock, the first round match began, favorite Danny Hankner vs. the rookie Jayden Root. Odds were heavy against the newcomer, especially facing such a ruthless and veteran player as Dan.
“I almost crapped myself when they announced I had to throw down fisticuffs with Dan,” admitted Jayden after the match. “I heard that after a victory, he slits your throat with his scissors and feasts on your genitals.” Cody seconded that.
The cheers of the crowd nearly drowned out the noise of a large fly buzzing by as Jayden pulled the standard rookie first move - scissors. Grimacing, Dan countered with an earth-shattering rock, and went on to win the set. Jayden’s offense was as predictable as Sally Struthers faced with a Big Mac or a side salad, and the veteran went on to sweep the rookie four games to none.
“I keep telling people, you have to establish the rock,” advised Dan after the match. “Once I establish the rock, I then like to go into a 3-4 paper defense. Rookies like to come out swinging with scissors, but it usually backfires. Then they must rely on paper to get them out of a jam, and it just rolls downhill from there. You might say they get into a bit of a...paper jam.” Silence followed the joke.
Removing his finger-protectors and unleashing a few practice cuts with his scissors, Bill Goeke was fired up and ready to go. However, after failing to get his timing right, his opponent Franchise was disqualified for jumping the gun four times in a row.
“I expected to win, but not like that,” admitted The Barber. “Franchise’s collapse was more pathetic than the WNBA.”
“Sometimes the pressure gets too much for rookies, and they have a hard time focusing,” he went on to explain. Bill then breathed heavily on his blades and wiped them clean with a terry cloth. “This is a very intense game.”
While Bill polished his scissor fingers, Boz took his seat in the arena, ready for his opponent Rags – Bill’s Dog – to waddle into the ring.
Rags swept the first series with a mind-boggling onslaught. Set back, Boz called a timeout and managed to break Rags’s offensive code - which not even the German’s could crack. After throwing 12 consecutive scissors to counter 12 consecutive papers, Boz sailed easily into victory. He later thanked Squatting Deer for his own unbreakable code.
Taking a hit from his pipe, Squatting Deer eyed the trash-covered floor and shook his head, disappointed. After letting a dramatic tear edge down his copper cheek, Squatting Deer drove back to his adobe, picking up his government check on the way.
“The thing about Boz is…is…he’s a special player,” blurted John Madden from the booth. “He’s great fun to watch, and usually draws a big crowd, just like Brett Favre. He might have a huge lead, so you’re thinking he’ll throw out rock to run the clock down, but then boom he throws out scissors. And, and, when one player throws out scissors, and the other throws out paper, generally, the player who used scissors, wins.”
“It was a tough match but I emerged the victor,” laughed Boz all the way to the bank. “It’s hard, I mean, were all pretty even.”
While a dejected Rags shuffled back to her doggy coop, BJ “Hmmmm” Goeke and Cody Campbell took center stage, ready to duke it out in the final first round battle.
“I figured if I could make it past the first two rounds,” babbled Cody, “I would play Dan for the championship and slide into an easy victory. For some reason, I always beat Dan, Dan always beats everyone else, and everyone else always beats me.” Cody then feigned an epiphany and stared into the stars.
A newcomer to the sport, BJ Goeke glowed with promise. Tom had sensed the force was strong in this one, and, despite warnings from the High Council, brought BJ into the ring, even at such an elderly age of 15.
The battle began like listening to Steven Hawking talk – slow, yet slightly entertaining. Though bosom buddies outside the arena, one questionable referee call had the pair at each other’s throats.
“Rock smashes scissors!” declared Bill prematurely, before the formations had fully formed.
“What!?” cried Cody, throwing out the red flag for instant reply. However, they were in the two minute warning, and upstairs, sitting in the kitchen, Jim Goeke simply refused to take a second look.
“TIMEOUT!” Outraged, Cody reached for his playbook. He wasn’t sure whether to go with the ‘Rock Option’ or the ‘Paper Mache’. At last, he settled on scissors.
“You see, I knew he was going with rock,” explained Cody afterwards. “So I thought I'd go with paper. But I knew he’d know that and go with scissors, so I decided to go with rock. But then I realized that he had me setup for the rock the entire time - that tricksy little devil - so I went with scissors.”
Cody’s plan came through, tying it up at three games a piece, praying that his playbook would carry him to victory. But after falling down 1-0 in the final set, he chucked his playbook at the wall in disgust.
“At this point I realized I had but one choice,” dramatized Cody, “like a man ready to wipe, but discovering he’s out of not only toilet paper, but Kleenex as well. I had to go without paper, or, in the common tongue, the Rock Lopster.” He pushed up his glasses. The Rock Lopster was most difficult combo to pull off in RPS, but also one of the deadliest. What you do is tie on rock, then tie on rock again, and tie on rock for the third straight time. At this point the opponent’s betting you’ll go rock for a fourth and final time, but then, just at the last second, you switch to scissors for the ultimate betrayal.
Needless to say, like France during any war, the Rock Lopster failed horribly, and the favorite Cody fell in the first round. It was a tough loss, and, embarrassed, Cody dragged himself to the corner and practiced his rock formation.
“I pulled out paper too early, plain and simple,” he remarked after the match.
With the entry-level players taken care of, the semi finals began with an epic stare-down that would shame a pervert. Across the room, Bill eyed Dan with his mother’s birding binoculars. Undaunted by The Barber, Dan changed tactics and ridiculed Bill’s scissors, comparing them to a butter knife.
In typical Goeke fashion, Bill came out swinging wildly with his paper. Dan guessed it and went on to win the set. But Bill was no cheap prom date, and wasn’t going down so easily.
The match proved to be a grueling test of endurance. Dan wore through two sets of gloves, while Bill was forced to place his blades over the grinder after each set. At last, bone-weary and dehydrated, the competitors fought each other all the way to the final round.
Though Dan charged into the match with momentum, Bill was flirting with a record-breaking performance by never once throwing out rock. It was a feat never achieved before in the world of RPS, and Bill was ready to grasp a heralded victory in his steely hands.
“I kept waiting for him to whip out his rock,” exclaimed Jayden from the side-lines. “But it just never came!”
Bound and determined, both players knew that either records or dreams would be shattered this chilly December eve, and after tying four times on paper, Dan mustered the courage to launch a scissors change-up. Their hands struck down in a blur of motion, and when at last the smoke cleared, the match was decided. Scissors cut paper.
Game over for The Barber.
“I was so pumped up before the match that I forgot to stretch,” explained Bill while sharpening his finger with a wet stone. “My hand started cramping. I feared if I threw out rock, I might sprain something.” A pause went by as Bill sheathed and unsheathed his index and middle fingers, which coincidently made that notorious shink sound, so common to drawn swords. “I almost revolutionized the sport that night.”
“Sometimes you have to lose a few at first to win a few later,” advised Dan to the young children who had gathered near the foot of the bleachers.
After fighting over who got to sit on BJ’s exercise ball, the last semi round match began, Boz vs. BJ. Like a senior citizen out of batteries, the game proved violent and unpredictable. Boz came out striking hard, and BJ got called a few times for slow-fingering.
“That really took away his momentum,” noted Bill, who had spent three summers at RPS camp.
After falling behind, Jim Goeke - BJ’s personal trainer and long time mentor - called a timeout to give his son a pep talk. “Don’t let him psych you out,” whispered Jim. “He’s good, but not invincible. Everyone has their weaknesses - except for Chuck Norris.”
“In fact,” stated Jim, staring off into the non-existent horizon. “Chuck Norris is so great that he eats cancer for breakfast.”
Inspired by his father’s heartwarming story, BJ took a deep breath, wiped his brow, and stood before the clown, unabashed, undaunted, and unafraid. But it didn’t matter. Boz unleashed his signature hurry-up offense, and rattled, BJ had no answers to his opponent’s deadly assault. Like an angry hick sporting a new pair of Wranglers, Boz’s quick maneuvering was not to be reckoned with, and the Cinderella story went on to rout BJ 4-1.
“I couldn’t handle his aggressiveness,” reasoned BJ after the match, drowning his sorrows in a pudding pop. “There’s just so much strategy involved!”
“I didn’t expect BJ to win,” stated Boz bluntly. “Lets face it, he sucks.”
The herd was now thinned, and only two players remained. Entering this tournament as boys, only one would emerge as Man. The Championship Match was at hand. Thunder vs. lightening, Mountain Dew Vs. Pepsi, The Wad Vs. The Fold.
Dan verses Boz.
In an attempt to gain an edge, the underdog winked at the veteran, trying to psych him out. But Dan Hankner used to ride a Huffy, and wasn’t distracted by Boz’s ambiguous display. He was determined, focused, like a Jehovah Witness at the door.
The battle surged forward with a double-rock tandem, both players attempting to capture not only the physical but the psychological front. Two plays later, Boz conceded with a sloppy scissors, and Dan was able to establish the rock, taking a 1-0 lead. Mounting a paper offensive, Boz stormed back, and after some shystee hand signals, claimed the lead 2-1.
“Check his rock formation!” screamed Dan furiously. “I mean what kind of rock is that? It looks like a ham sandwich!”
Awing the crowd with nasty scissors, well-folded papers, and ground-pounding rocks, the battle swayed from one side to the other, like a confused transvestite. Neither man could maintain a decisive lead, and at last when their energy was sapped and their resolve breaking, the last game of the last set was nigh.
Boz gulped down a glug of Gatorade, while Dan wrung the sweat from headband. What schemes the other man was hatching, neither knew, but as they drew their hands forward, it didn’t matter. Tactics and planning were tossed out the window, replaced by raw, ruthless grit.
“I just went with my gut,” said Dan after the match. “Rock was my friend. I trusted him, and I knew he wouldn’t fail.”
Fists swung through the air like death hammers, crashing down upon bruised, calloused base hands. With the final blow, the dust settled, fingers spread in full formation. The victory was decisive, and clear.
“Rock smashes scissors,” announced Cody. Danny Hankner won the match, and the first ever RPS Championship.
“I threw out scissors, and it just didn’t work,” sighed Boz, almost as disappointed with his performance as he was the first time he ordered an Arby’s roast beef sandwich.
“You see, scissors is a little different than rock or paper,” explained Danny. “The thing about scissors, is that your either going to win, lose, or tie.”
The day was over, and fans swarmed to take pictures and get autographs.
“I worked so hard for it,” gushed Dan. “All those nights of staying up late studying plays, all those hard days in the gym perfecting my paper; after all that I’ve been through to get here, it all makes it that much sweeter.”
Dan eventually made it to the big time, where he lost the final match of the Hand Bowl due to a career ending thumb injury. He later got a job as a janitor where he hustled school children for their lunch money.
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