Joaquin the Marble Kid, Part 1

Joaquin was the odd sort of fellow. He was a 16 year old from a poor Korean family, with an earring and bleached hair, thus immediately signaling to everyone that he was a huge douche but woah hold up there! The kid had a little more to his nature. His favorite song was Chopin’s Nocturne in Eb, and his favorite artist was Georgia O’Keefe (“yes, they look like vaginas hahahahaha Joaquin that’s SO FUNNY”), and his preferred book was Ender’s Game, because who doesn’t love plot twists? The defining feature of this young boy however, was his proficiency in not only History, but in the game of marbles.

In fact, Joaquin was so good at these two things that he could easily win any game of marbles by spouting facts about the American Civil War during the match, thus distracting his opponent and allowing Joaquin to throw his biggest marble at their eye, incapacitating them and letting Joaquin steal all the marbles on the field. A winning strategy to be sure; so much so, that his friends and acquaintances were constantly badgering him to participate in a regional marbles tournament. Since the boy didn’t have much else to do , he decided to enter the tournament. In his mind, not only would he be able to win the prize ruby marble, but also teach some ignorant people a good amount of history! “God everyone except me is so ignorant” thought Joaquin (and every other 16 year old) every day. This was his chance! This was his opportunity to seize the Golden Fleece! Then probably go back to smoking weed and watching Netflix every day afterwards.

The day of the event, Joaquin arrived early to scout out his opponents in order to determine who would be the biggest threat, kind of like a jaguar would if it decided to steal food from a pride of lions (a horrible idea). One by one the opponents filed in, each one seemingly looking meaner than the last. There were eye patches, scars, suggestive tattoos, and buzzed haircuts everywhere Joaquin looked…as confident as he was in his abilities, he knew one thing for sure: these guys were veterans. Korean War veterans to be exact, as they all probably carpooled and all looked to be around the same age.  Maybe they even went to Denny’s beforehand and all got a Grand slam to celebrate their anticipated victories? “Probably”, Joaqin thought; that’s a pretty old guy thing to do.

Eventually it was time for Joaquin to meet his first opponent. His name was Tyrone; “Twistie Tie Tyrone” to be exact, as that was his name given to him during the war, because of his ability to consistently untie ANY twisty tie every single time without any problems. “Damn impressive” thought Joaqin to himself, “but in a game of marbles, you’re gonna need more than that, old guy.” Tyrone gave Joaquin a pensive look that suggested just by looking at his bleached hair and Ed Hardy Jacket, he already knew everything about the kid that there was to know. He was probably right, Joaquin knew, but what Tyrone didn’t know was that you can’t prepare for history facts during a game of marbles. Oh, how Joaquin intended to deliver.

As the announcer started the match, and Joaquin lined up his first shot, he announced “The Korean War started on June 25^th, 1950. Over 2.5 million South and North Korean civilians were killed during the course of the war”. The marble flew at Tyrone, but he gave no reaction, instead letting the marble hit him square in the face. His eyes had glazed over, and he had begun trembling, clearly going through some form of PTSD flashback. Quickly, Tyrone’s veteran friends came and took him away to sit down and recover, giving Joaquin some choice words in the process, such as “Juvenile prick”, and “Bitchy McDickface”. Joaquin won the match by default, thus proving that jerks can succeed in the right conditions. However, the results of the rest of the tournament have yet to be seen!