Big 12 Power Prankings: Scraping The Barrel
"Well. If I've not made it clear by now, I'm screwed."
"What do you mean?" asked the Stubbs.
"I mean, I've another article due and another Big 12 list to compile, which makes no sense at all, of course, because there are only nine teams."
"Look on the bright side," said the Stubbs. "You're not being asked to sucker punch a giant in a public boxing match."
"But if only I were! That humiliation lasted you a night. This is going to last me a lifetime!"
The Blake Barker, aka., the Brother Man, arrived at that point and had the temerity to ask how I was doing. I would have spit into my drink, but I didn't have one, as the Guinness keg was currently being changed. So I swallowed, wore a smile, and said, "Reeking terrible, Brother Man, and screw you for asking!"
"That good?"
"I've been worse. But drugs were involved."
"I've never known you to do drugs."
"And there's a damned good reason for that, Brother Man, rest assured!"
"So what's going on?"
"I don't know how to compile a Big 12 Ranking. It's as simple as that. I'm going to be forced to send a telephone communication to the Barry Lewis and cancel. Which is fine. But we won't reach our weekly quota." I shook my head. "I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel. And I'm under it."
"Cheers! Where everyone knows your name," said the Stubbs.
"And, more importantly, knows how to spell it," I said, fisting his glass, as I was still waiting for my Guinness.
"I have an idea," said the Brother Man. "Let's leave it to skill."
"What do you mean?"
"Have a Paddy's on me."
"If it please the Amy, I'll have a Paddy's," I said. "Make it a double."
"Blake didn't say anything about a double," said the Amy.
"It's all right," said the Brother Man. "Lenders can't be choosers."
"So what's the idea?" I asked.
"Nine darts," said the Brother Man.
"Skill!" shouted the Stubbs, pointing at his ass.
"Or random luck. Each one represents a team. You throw each of them and the closest to the bullseye is No. 1 and so forth. The teams will be ranked according to how close they are to the bullseye. All you have to do is remember the names of the team. You can do that can't you."
"Blake, I can't tell the difference between a mascot and an ascot. But I can try."
"So this is TCU," he said, giving me the one with a purple flight. "The green one is Baylor. The red is Tech. What are the others?"
"Well another purple one is Kansas. But it might be Kansas State."
Eventually, with a little help from my friends, and a lot from Google, we had each of the darts labeled. I started with the pristine, the immaculate, perfect royal purple one. I aimed. In my vision, all was red and everything else a blur, the numbers and the yellow and green shapes spinning irrelevantly away from the clear red circle and the point of the dart's tip, pierced already in my mind's eye in the red cork as cleanly as Cupid's arrow in a young girl's heart.
And I threw.
The dart indeed pierced the young girl's heart--that of a swimsuit model marking the month on the wall about five feet from the target.
"Well, it's just a guess. But I'm betting TCU isn't going to be No. 1 for the week," the Brother Man said.
After that, of course, nothing mattered. So I threw the darts, hardly looking. It did not go unnoticed by me that during the process, the Bobby ran away as fast as he could back to the bar.
And when it was all over, TCU was No. 8--I had managed to throw another into the floor, six feet from the target, and that went to Oklahoma State. Meanwhile, five landed on the target. Tech, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and, in the center of the bullseye, Baylor.
Thus, the list ran:
1. Baylor
2. Texas
3. Tech
4. Kansas
5. Oklahoma
6. West Virginia
7. Kansas State
8. TCU
9. Oklahoma State
"There you have it," said the Brother Man. "No sweat."
"This will not do. If I send the Barry Lewis a list with Baylor on top, ever, in anything, he'll never let me publish another word again. And Texas isn't looking too good either. But the rest will do. Here."
I took the green dart from the bullseye and put it in the heart of the swimsuit model. Then took the purple dart and set it safely in the bullseye. The orange one I threw over my shoulder, behind me. Someone shouted something then. I don't know what. But the list was finished.
"There," I said. "Fixed it."
1. TCU
2. Tech
3. Kansas
4. Oklahoma
5. West Virginia
6. Kansas State
7. Baylor
8. Oklahoma State
9. Texas
I sent the list to Barry as quickly as I could. And before he could thank me, the Amy had a request of her own.
"Could a couple of you gentlemen help with this keg? It's awfully heavy."
The Stubbs, ever the gentleman, was first to arrive on one side of the keg. I on the other. Together we would lift the keg and walk it the four feet or so to the tap.
"Okay," said the Stubbs. "On three. One, two . . ."
"There he is!" someone shouted. It was the George, aka., the Jorge.
"Three," I said, and we had the whole keg raised six or so inches from the ground. "Good to see you, George, but as you can see I'm a little . . ."
"He's the one who threw a dart at you?"
And I saw, peripherally, how could I miss him, Little John.
"Right in the arm!"
"Why don't you come over here, T."
"I gotta run, Bobby!" I said, dropping the keg, and he shouted a litany of curses such as no man in the history of beer.
I leapt over the bar, ran across the room, screaming, "It was an accident I tell you! An accident! Fates and furies, have mercy!"
And I fell square against a tree trunk, which I later learned was Big John's torso.
When I came to, the Stubbs was aptly named, so mangled was his foot.
"How am I ever going to get rid of you?"
"Well, it looks like you're the one who ended under the barrel," I said.
"And my foot scratched every inch of it."
"If it please the Amy, two doubles for the Stubbs and I."
"Bobby."
"Bobby and I, excuse me. Cheers, Bobby! To scraping the barrel!"
"Scraping the barrel! My foot!"
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