Kelly Oubre lay slumped in a booth in the far corner of a downtown Philadelphia bar. In front of him was an astounding collection of empty beer bottles. Despite his being a prominent NBA player who had just played a game in that city on that night, nobody was bothering him. In fact, Kelly suspected that nobody here knew who he was. His hoodie was drawn up tight against his face and he had purposely walked with a slight stoop to disguise his height, so the crowd had ignored him.
His mild annoyance at the loss to the Sixers was being inflamed by the alcohol coursing through his body, and the annoyance was beginning to combine with his ever-simmering rage at his foe Klay Thompson.
“This is Klay’s fault,” he muttered to himself as he took a swig of his final remaining beer. “I would be playing better if he didn’t exist.”
The bar was dim, but Kelly noticed a tall, dark figure enter just as he was murmuring these words. He immediately began to pay more attention to the man, who had entered alone. The man ordered a beer from the bartender, received it, then went to sit by himself at one of the stools near the window.
“It’s Klay Thompson,” Kelly whispered aloud, unheard by any of the establishment’s patrons. “I don’t know how, but he found me. He’s found me and he wants to kill me.”
He tried to bring to mind all the teachings he had accrued from many feverish nights of googling martial arts techniques, but his mind, perhaps under the influence of the alcohol, had gone strangely blank. He got up from his seat and walked towards the man he knew to be Klay Thompson. “I found you Klay,” he said when he was face-to-face with the man.
The man looked at Kelly with confusion. “You got the wrong guy. I’m Steve.”
“You can’t fool me, Klay, even with that mask on!” Kelly yelled, noting Klay’s odd appearance but immediately rationalizing it in his twisted mind. “You thought you could sneak in here to kill me, well, I’m going to kill you first!”
Now the man looked more concerned than confused. “I don’t know what you’re talki-”
“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” Kelly roared, attacking the man’s face with his fingers. “I’m gonna rip that mask right off you, expose you to the world, and then I’ll punch you so hard that you’ll die!”
The man shielded his face from the deranged attacker with his arms. “Stop it, you crazy psycho! I have no idea who you are!”
Kelly did not stop his assault. “Die Klay, die!” he yelled, having failed to remove Klay’s deceptively-realistic mask and instead falling back to prepare the lethal punch. Just as he was about to swing, however, he was held back by two burly men who must have been bouncers.
“Your ass is outta here,” said one of them. “Not sure if you’re drunk or a dumbass or both, but at this point it don’t matter.” Kelly struggled initially, but when he realized that he couldn’t move his limbs, he gave up, and instead yelled more words of outrage at the man who was currently wincing at the fingernail marks on his cheeks. “I’ll find you Klay! And when I do, you’ll wish that you had never messed with the man they call KELLY OUBRE JUNIOR!”
When Kelly was dumped heavily onto the sidewalk outside the bar, he drunkenly got to his feet and began to stumble back to the team hotel, already formulating his next plans.