Caesar was a snake, no ifs ands or buts about it. He was a snake pure and simple.
Bill thought back. He thought first about injustice. No. Not what had happened to him at that demonstration that had ultimately landed him in the workhouse. Not that injustice.
He thought further back, back to his high school football days. He thought back to when he was the second-string center and he felt, he knew, he should have been the starting center. He thought about problem-solving. He assessed the situation, considered the possible courses of action. He pondered his alternatives.
The situation was the situation. No matter what he thought it should have been or wished it was, well, that didn’t, couldn’t/wouldn’t change it. Only thing that could change the situation was an action, and the choices were limited. He could quit. But he wanted to play and quitting ended any chance of playing. If he quit, that was it. Done. Over.
Choice two was staying where he was, second-string, playing when the opportunity arose, if it ever did. This choice meant he’d be stuck stewing over the injustice of it all. So this alternative was not at all acceptable.
Choice three, and his preferred course of action, the only one that made any sense at all, was persevere. Work harder in practice, be faster than the starting center, hit the sled harder than he could. Believe in himself. Either he was right or he wasn’t, either he was better or he wasn’t. Outwork the starting center and prove he was right.
Which is what he did. Perseverance. Hard work. Believe in himself.
It was only a matter of time until one day when the head coach was standing on the four-man sled right over him when he hit it.
God, it was a good hit. Man, it was a hard hit, low and straight and uplifting, just the way it was supposed to be.
“Who is that?” The head coach asked.
Bill stood straight up so the coach could see his number.
“Wynn,” the coach said, “go over and work with the quarterbacks. Work with Nick.”
Nick was Nicoletti. Nicoletti was the starting quarterback.
When Bill got over to where the backs were, when he told Nicoletti what the coach said, Nicoletti said, “About time.”
He couldn’t/wouldn’t quit his job. He liked this job. His job had a lot of good things going for it, and when Bill considered all the positives, none of the girls figured into his calculations. It was clear he was going to make a good living, especially if he worked all the banquet hours, and having been broke and down and out and needing to borrow rent money every month for a long string of months, he would work all the hours he could get and more.
Perseverance was the key. He could see it clear as day. He would persevere at killing Caesar with niceness and kindness. Sooner or later, one way or another, Caesar would break. Either he would crack, lose it so bad he’d have no way of coming back from it, or he’d give up the cause, resign himself to the new order of things and go with the flow.
Either way, Bill would win.
In the workhouse, with the mean guy, Ronnie, once Bill discovered his nature and demeanor, his evil intent, it was easy to just stay away from him, to simply avoid him altogether. Here, with Caesar, of course that was not at all possible. No. Killing Caesar with kindness was the only course of action.
Stay the course, Bill thought. Just stay the course.
