Fiction Foundry 4

This was one of those times in life when a statement sounded like one thing, but was meant to achieve something completely different.  Mike knew full-well that his seemingly off-hand comment was the rhetorical equivalent of dangling red meat in front of a wild beast.

Michael Carson, Sr. ("Big Mike" to everyone in the neighborhood) was a spirited competitor.  From his boyhood on, Big Mike had played--and excelled at--virtually every sport played in Atherton, first in school and community leagues.  In his younger days, he'd even been known to engage in some of the illegal sporting events (i.e., the car and motorcycle races undertaken by a small cadre of Atherton teenage boys out at the abandoned WWII air base.)  His son had issued a challenge, and "Big Mike" immediately saw himself on the Indy 500 Speedway.