It's that time of the week again. Time to flash.
This week I am using this prompt. I love horse racing and so do Tom and Ben.
When most people think of men and sports they think of
football, baseball, hockey, or basketball.
Tom and Ben liked baseball and
football a lot, but their favorite sport was the sport of kings—horse
racing. Not many of their friends, and
certainly very few of Tom’s fellow firefighters, knew of their interest in
horse racing. They weren’t ashamed of
it, but it just didn’t come up in conversation.
The other guys at the firehouse, and at Ben’s real estate office, were
always talking about the more popular sports.
They went to the track as often as they could. Ben was the one who loved horse racing; he’d
grown up not far from the track. He and
his parents would go to the track several times during the racing season. He introduced the game to Tom, and converted
him into a horse race enthusiast.
“Come on number eight, come on, come on!” Tom screamed at the top of his lungs as two
horses, leading the pack, came thundering down the home stretch. It was the last race of the day, and he and
Ben had won a few races, including the previous race. If this horse came in, they’d win the late
double and collect at least five hundred dollars.
They were standing right near the finish line; both leaned over
the rail, screaming.
“Come on, Love Train!” Ben shouted.
“Love Train?”
“The horse’s name.”
Ben was the one who helped pick the horses and placed the bets. So Tom didn’t pay as much attention to the
names as to the number the horse wore.
“Love Train, win for us, Daddy needs a new pair of shoes,” Tom yelled.
“You did NOT just say that,”
Ben said, and they both laughed. The
thunder of the horses grew louder. Two of the front runners, eight and two,
were neck and neck. Two was on the
inside and eight was on the outside, struggling to keep up.
Some taps from the whip and number eight, aka Love Train,
kicked it into high gear and ran the race of his life. At the finish it was too close to call, a
photo finish.
“Please hold all tickets, ladies and gentlemen, as the
stewards look over the photos.”
The tote board in the center of the track showed eight and
two’s numbers, and the word photo blinked next to them. The crowd was noisy, and everyone impatiently
waited for the final results to be posted.
Tom and Ben hung close together, holding their breaths. “Yes!” Ben screamed.
“Yay, we won!” Tom
yelled as they saw the order of finish and the word final. Eight then two followed by seven—win, place,
and show. They hugged and went to the
ticket window to get their winnings, all five hundred and forty two dollars and
twelve cents worth.
“Now this has been a good day,” Tom said as he and Ben made their way out to
the parking lot.
“Aren’t you glad I
introduced you to horse racing?” Ben
asked him.
“Yeah, honey, I am. I
had a lot of fun.”
“Yeah, and we won some moolah.”
“More importantly, I got to have fun with my fella,” Tom said.
Ben’s heart swelled up; he had plans for them when they got
home.
“Oh my gawd!” Tom
stopped in his tracks when he saw the car.
All four tires on Ben’s car were flat and the words ‘Fags Die’ were spray painted on the hood.
“Tom, oh my car!” Ben had worked very hard to buy that Audi. True, it was a used car he’d gotten from Car Max,
but it still cost a pretty penny. He
loved that car.
Tom didn’t waste any time calling 911 and taking photos of
the damage.
The police called in the anti-bias division. The detectives
took their statements and had the car towed in for a good going over.
Tom called his friend Joe, from the firehouse, to give them
a ride home.
“Who would do this, Tom?” Ben was on the verge of
tears.
“I don’t know, Ben.”
He held Ben close. They filled Joe in on what happened when he picked
them up.
“I’m scared, Tom,” Ben said as he and Tom sat in their
living room.
“I’m glad we got that alarms system last month. We’ll have
to be careful until this scumbag is caught.”
From an old beat up Ford Taurus parked across the street
from Tom and Ben’s home, a man smiled wickedly.
On the passenger seat next to him was a pamphlet from the Westboro Baptist
Church.
Roller coaster- what a twist! It was such a fun happy post - I was cheering also then bam! Don't want any of those Westboro people near Tom and Ben.
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I was all fuzzy bunny too and then the car knocked me off my feet. And what an end. Excellent chapter, fuzzy to shocked to chilled in 1000 words is some achievement
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