The Tinder Chronicles: The Caveman

Fiction Friday

One thing you should know about me: I am NOT into sports. Playing sports, yes — I played competitive travel volleyball for nearly fifteen years — but watching other people play sports? Nah.

I didn’t reveal this tidbit when Kurt and I were messaging on Tinder, but I’m sure he could tell by my use of a simple smiley face instead of a wide-eyed grin emoji when he mentioned he was a football player at Emory. Perhaps that’s why things didn’t go well, but come on. Sorry dude, playing football is cool I guess, but that can’t be the only thing you’ve got going for you.

After connecting on Tinder, we met up at an axe throwing place, which was something I’d been wanting to try for a while. It seemed like a fun, athletic activity that, to my Stephen King-loving heart, also sounded potentially romantic.

“Hey,” he said in greeting when I walked up to the front of the building. “Kurt.” He was quite tall and super solidly built — he looked like a linebacker for sure.

I’m a hugger, so I moved to give him a hug as I said “Hi, I’m Vig — ”

The rest of my words whooshed out in an inaudible rush as Kurt squeezed all the air out of my lungs with his massive embrace, even going so far as to lift my feet off the ground. When he finally put me down and said “Let’s go in,” I got the distinct impression of a caveman, monosyllabic speech and all.

Kurt secured us a rectangular alley built up on both sides with a battered, scarred target at the end. A shelf full of axes and a bar-top table completed the tableaux.

“First time?” he asked me, winking.

“Yeah, it is,” I admitted, taking off my jacket to hang over the chair.

“Easy for me, hard for you,” he said, picking up one of the axes with a flourish.

“I don’t know about that, I’ve got pretty great hand-eye coordination.”

“Not a sport for girls,” he said simply, his caveman-esque chauvinism laid bare.

“And yet here we are, and I’m going to throw an axe right into the bullseye of that target.” I couldn’t tell if we were flirting or if he just wanted to show off before dragging me off by my hair to the nearest cave.

“Yeah right,” he said, smirking. “Me first.”

Mr. Macho hefted the axe, brought it back, coiled his muscles, and hurled it with far too much force at the target. The axe embedded itself almost to the wooden handle four feet to the left of the bullseye.

He whipped around, his eyes holding a dull fire.

“Your fault,” he said, pointing at me with one meaty, scabbed finger.

“What? How is that my fault?” We were definitely not flirting, that much was clear.

“Distracting,” he said, and I was so taken aback by his use of a multisyllable word that his meaning didn’t register with me at first.

When it did, I stood up, grabbed an axe of my own (trying not to show through my body language how heavy it actually felt to me), and stepped up to the line.

“Okay, big boy, let me show you how a girl does it.”

Please keep in mind that I had never been axe throwing before that moment; I had no conception of the technique, the rules, or anything else.

But luck is like evolution — it favors the Homo sapiens over the Neanderthal.

I tensed my muscles and lifted the axe up over my shoulder like Kurt had done, then heaved my entire body forward, crunching my abs almost painfully as I flung the axe. The handle and the axehead flew in a somersaulting line, hurtling toward the target…

…Where it hit the bullseye with a metallic twang.

“You cheated!” Kurt roared, coming up behind me and trying to nudge me out of the way.

“How could I possibly have cheated?”

“Your foot was past the line!”

I looked down and saw that my right foot was a good two inches behind the heavy black line.

“Nope, dude. I hit that bullseye fair and square.”

Kurt harrumphed and grabbed another axe off the shelf. With a Cro-Magnon roar, he flung the axe.

Kurt must have been a terrible football player because the poor boy had zero aim. Instead of hitting the target, or even the wall, the axe collided with the floor about five feet from the target, ricocheted up to hit the wall, then went flying back towards us as if thrown by a vengeful Viking ghost.

I screamed and scrambled out of the way, and Kurt managed to duck as the axe went flying past our heads and embedded itself in the drywall above the bar table.

“Fuck!” he yelled, earning annoyed looks from the other axe-throwers in nearby lanes. He went to the wall to pull the axe out, but before he could grip the handle he leaped back in terror. A whimper — an actual whimper — trickled out between his lips.

“What? What is it?” I asked, my heart still beating fast.

He didn’t say anything, only pointed at the axe handle.

I stepped up to inspect it, and saw a tiny ladybug perched on the wood.

“A ladybug? That’s what you’re scared of?” That couldn’t be possible.

He remained silent, only nodding. His giant hands were trembling.

“Dude, seriously? It can’t hurt you.”

He whimpered again and, before I could say anything else, ran off in the direction of the bathroom, snot running out of his nose and fat tears streaming down his rough cheeks.

That seemed like a clear endpoint for that particular evening, and I was tired and ready to go home anyway.

It wasn’t until I was back in my apartment, baking gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, that I realized Emory doesn’t even have a football team.