Their jokes were twisted into the terms of “a cult-like ritual” by one reporter. She was the one who got her hands on a catalog with Hunter’s Grim Reaper “NEXT!” T-shirt, among others. Joseph couldn’t help but smirk at seeing noogies defined on the local news by a reporter, that same chubby Latino guy. He’d flipped to the other channels, watching three or four versions at once, flipped more channels, recording bits and pieces until his father yelled for him to stop. “The atmosphere was tense, and as the forfeit in honor of Anthony Lambros came up, a hush fell over the crowd.” A shot of the ref with the other kid, standing, dopey. A sick feeling slid through Joseph’s stomach. He felt a weird sense of disappointment when they cut away from the match to some guy sitting behind a desk in an office: “We had to wait until evidence was substantiated to make our arrests.” Other repeated shots showed Bennie, Hunter, Dink led out, handcuffed, Dink with his varsity jacket over his head, Bennie and Hunter with their sweatshirt hoods up.
