“Guys Like Us” by Travis Hubbs

John and I are moral beacons for our class. On the field, off the field, in the hall, in the classroom, on weekends. That’s according to Coach. We think moral authorities sounds better. Anyway it means the same thing.

Our fathers are the head chairmen of the N.W.C. (Neighborhood Watch Committee). It meets Wednesday nights after church, before dinner. Last week the meeting ran late. A family had moved into the pink house—the one that looks like the Alamo—two blocks down from mine—three blocks from John’s. These people weren’t Christians and everybody knew it. Their kids smoked pot and didn’t play sports, you know, the whole bit. And break-ins had started.

Our fathers went over to the pink Alamo house with nice smiles and nice pamphlets and they got the door slammed in their faces. There’s only so much you can do for these sorts of people. So the night after the door-slamming, John and I went around to a bunch of houses that were on the market and gathered up a bunch of realtor’s signs and stuck them all in the pink Alamo’s yard. A few mornings later there was a moving van in front of it.

John and I both lettered our freshman year. We were the only ones. Now it’s senior year and our jackets still look brand new. It’s important to take care of these things. We’ve been co-captains since our junior year and we’ve got more patches on our letter jackets than anyone else in the county. How do I know that? I’ve been to the other schools; I’ve walked their hallways, stood on their fields at dawn when no one else was around. It’s important to do these things. It’s important to see the other half, to see what they see.

A hallway lined with trophy cases leads from the locker rooms to the cafeteria. John and I are responsible for some of the trophies but most of them have been there since before we were born. Leadership Council (L.C.) meets after practice and when it’s over John and I walk to the cafeteria and ride home together with our girlfriends. Usually we have a lot on our minds after L.C., so we take our time walking and we look at the trophies and the plaques and all the names and pictures of the young men who are now old men and we talk ourselves through things. There must be ice in the ceilings in that hallway because the air from the vents is sharp and freezing against our sweat but that’s not why we get goose bumps standing in front of our reflections in the glass cases.

* * *

Sophomore year Adam and I got elected to the Leadership Council (L.C.). Spots are usually reserved for juniors and seniors but Coach said an exception was warranted.  He took us into his office and read us the Pledge and then we signed it. That was a Monday.

Now Adam and I are L.C. presidents. Three weeks ago we had an issue with a linebacker named Julius. His grades were slipping because he’d been drinking beer every weekend with the third-stringers. Most of the third-stringers skip class and smoke cigarettes in the parking lot and wear their pants down around their knees. It’s pathetic and it’s not the kind of image you want representing your team and your school. Especially a good school like ours. So Coach thought it would be best if Adam and I tried talking to Julius before real action had to be taken.

It didn’t work. He just got angry, and we had to bench him for a game. It was the right thing to do. It’s important to know right from wrong.

The next day, Julius quit the team. He didn’t even come talk to us first.

“Just let him go,” Coach said, “There’s nothing more we can do for him.”

And Coach must have been right, too, because the day after that, a Wednesday, we saw him walking to class wearing jeans with giant holes in them that looked like spider webs and a dirty collarless shirt with some black rapper with gold teeth on the front of it.

We’d always considered Julius our friend, you know, even though he didn’t come from the same place as us. He used to keep to himself a lot in elementary school and junior high but we just figured it was because he never got to know his father all that well or whatever and so he was self-conscious about his family situation. It’s an understandable thing. But understanding can only get you so far.

Last Friday was the first district game and Julius didn’t call Adam or me or anyone else to wish us luck. We’d all been playing sports together since before we could read or write, so naturally it hurt our feelings that Julius would turn his back on us. But we won without him.

Adam and I wear our letter jackets every day. Even in the summer when clothes stick to your skin like Velcro. Once every two weeks I take mine to the cleaners. I drop it off on Saturdays after weightlifting and pick it up on Mondays after practice. Today was one of those Mondays. I always feel naked without it.

* * *

John and I were upset about Julius but we didn’t let it distract us from our duties.  “Keep your head down and your ass in the air,” my dad always says.  He was an offensive lineman. “The periphery is irrelevant.”

Today in L.C., the coaches talked about a report they saw on the news last night about the statewide increase in high school drug use. I’d seen the report myself but I took it with a grain of salt, since it’s mostly the black schools in Houston you have to worry about.

“It‘s nothing,” we told the coaches. “The only contact we have with them is when we’re beating them on the field.”

The inner city districts never turn out decent teams. It’s sad, really, what they do to themselves.

After L.C. we headed to the cafeteria. John didn’t want to stay long because he had to pick up his jacket from the cleaners but he knew there were things we needed to talk about. We stopped for a bit in front of the team pictures from thirty years ago.

“I bet it was easier back then,” John said.

“How so?” I asked.

“Easier for guys like us,” he said.

“What’s changed?” I wanted to know.

“Lots of things, I guess. No rappers. Less drugs.”

“Christ, I hate rap.”

“I bet Julius listens to rap now.”

“I bet you’re right.”

I looked at our reflections in the glass, then the pictures, then back at our reflections. The faces in the pictures looked older than ours even though they were the same age as us. But I knew my eyes were playing tricks on me. Kids grow up faster nowadays.

* * *

Cheerleading practice wasn’t out yet, so Adam and I had to wait around for the girls.  They knew I was in a hurry. And besides, why would cheerleading practice take longer than football practice?

The cafeteria was empty except for the dancing girls and baton twirlers on the far side under the big windows. Several of Julius‘s new friends were sitting around a table close to the hallway—the ones whose parents forgot to pick them up and the ones who missed the bus on purpose because they were afraid to go home.

They’re a funny little bunch if you think about it. They were slumped so far down in their chairs that a small breeze from the vents would have sent them sliding onto the floor. None of their clothes were pressed or even clean. The ones who wore flip-flops had feet so caked in mud you’d think walking through a car wash at a gas station wouldn’t do any good. One was pounding out a “beat” on the table with his knuckles and his palm and a pencil. Two others had headphones on. Occasionally they’d pass them around the table so the other guys could hear.

I didn’t even recognize Julius until he was passed the headphones. But sure enough there he was, looking awful like he’d just survived the Great Depression.

I nudged Adam and we walked over to the adjacent table. Julius didn’t see us until we sat down. He didn’t want us to know he’d seen us. But then we made eye contact. He was the first to look away.

Adam pulled out the Playbook, and we pretended to go over our assignments.  I’m the quarterback⎯I don’t know if I mentioned that⎯and Adam’s my primary receiver. It’s a beautiful thing when we’re on the same page. If I don’t miss, Adam doesn’t drop. It used to be a beautiful thing to watch Julius read guards, too. Running backs were afraid of our defense because of him. It’s really too bad.

Cheerleading practice let out and the girls filed out of the gym in skirts with their tanned legs that made us squirm in our seats. We pretended not to notice but Julius knew we’d noticed because he’d noticed too. He knew how hard it was not to stare. In the old days he would have looked down at the table and fought the urge right along with us. But not anymore. Shame must have gone out the window with pride and discipline. He stared.  He gawked. The fucking guy was drooling for Christ’s sake. And he made sure we saw him. We made eye contact again and this time he held it, testing me, wanting me to see every last thought in his filthy head.

* * *

I could tell Julius was really getting under John’s skin.

Our girlfriends (hands-down the prettiest of the whole bunch) were standing in a group over by the coke machines, just loitering and talking about God knows what. Normally if he was in a hurry he’d cut their conversation short and we’d be on the road by now.

It was Julius’s turn with the headphones. He bobbed his head to the gibberish, not once taking his eyes off the girls and the skirts and the legs. And then—still bobbing his head like a rhythmic pigeon—he looked at John and John looked at him and they held each other there.

I stuck my hands in my pockets and waited. I could feel violence in the air, restless in the spaces between us, looking for a home.

When Julius finally did look away, he did it with a tiny smirk—it was so tiny that now I can’t be sure it had been there. Then here’s what Julius did next, believe it or not—he cleared his throat, gargled a little, and then spit on the floor—right there on the linoleum in front of God and everybody.

At the time I wasn’t sure what would happen. Now of course I understand that John and I had to do what needed to be done, and that the next moments were inevitable, like history had made sure of them before we’d gotten there, because it’s a certainty—I mean, it’s our destiny—that if we catch anyone—not only Julius, but anyone—disrespecting our school like that, then we have to stand up for what’s right and good, no matter the circumstances.

It’s important to remember these things. To look back at the past and learn from it. Sometimes the past happens so fast that it’s impossible to think about it until after the dust settles and the blood soaks in.

John said:

“You spit on your mother’s floor, too?”

It was the first thing he’d said to Julius since he quit the team. Julius didn’t hear him—that god-awful noise in his ears was so loud it echoed across the cafeteria. But then one of his friends nudged him and he took off the headphones.

“I said,” John said, “Do you spit on your mother’s floor, too?”

“I spit where I spit.  Thas all anybody need to know.”

He put the headphones back on and he cleared his throat again—louder this time—all the while keeping John in the corner of his eye.

John said:

“Sorry, I forgot. Whores don’t raise gentlemen. Silly me.”

This time I guess Julius heard him. His friends buzzed and cackled and suddenly none of them were slouching. They bounced around the table like rabid vultures, screeching insults in a slurred and butchered derivation of English that John and I, of course, couldn’t understand a word of.

Julius got up and with measured softness he placed the headphones on the table.

“One more time, John. One more time lemme hear that shit you just said.”

John said:

“Your mother’s a whore, Julius.”

* * *

You always let the first one slide, boy. That first one’s when you just turn that cheek, you heard?

Pops aint never said much that’d really be worth a good goddamn to anybody, at least not as long as I knowed him, but I think that there in italics does mean something. I guess it’s one of them last things he gave me, you know, like here’s some shit you can live by, before he up and bolted. That was a Wednesday some years back. I don’t really want to forget him but I don’t wanna remember him neither. A real fuckin Catch-22 I guess. That’s right. I know what the fuck that means. Fuckin Yossarian.

I’d turned the music down a little bit already. I figured John was about to say some real shit and I was right, too, but I didn’t know how real it was gonna be until after he said it and so when I heard him I had to make him say it again. I knew he’d say it again. I wanted him to.

His girl was wandering over our way by this time. I made sure she was watching before I hit him.

I got lucky⎯I connected with his mouth and his nose at the same time like I needed to. Sonofabitch buckled just like Goliath. My brain was on autopilot at that point, right, like it used to be in football, like I had a nose for where the violence needed to be.  And I smelled it right then and I knew Adam was coming for his buddy’s back. I guess he thought I’d go for John while he was down, see, but that aint what I do, even though some people might tell you otherwise. And so then I seen in his face that he knew he aint had the element of surprise he thought he did—that’s how I knew I was in good shape.

The hit I gave him was more off target than the one I gave John, but it still did the trick and I’m sure he’ll have some nice purple action when he wakes up in the morning. He toppled back against the table—all the tables have wheels, see, so it skated away—and he landed on his ass right next to John, who was now on his knees and just about ready to go again. The girls were all whoopin and hollerin like they do, but I aint never let shit like that throw me off. I was ready when John lunged up from his knees and I sent him right back down again.

I don’t know what got into me after that, but I walked over to Adam (he was still holding his eye in his palm like a little bitch) and I took his jacket right off his body. At first it looked like the devil himself had jumped into his head what with the way he tried to stop me, his arms and legs flying out all over the place, but even the devil can’t do nothing if you slap him around enough times. I aint never met the devil but I’m inclined to agree with Pops—the devil can’t take a beating any better than anybody else—and so after Adam was spent and John wasn’t moving much neither, I took that ugly green and gold jacket with all its awful patches and I dropped it in one of those big gray garbage cans where it belongs.

Now you’re wondering where all the teachers been through all this. Don’t you worry though. You don’t kick the shit out of Mr. and Mrs. All-America and get away with it. I ain’t been expelled since that time in kindergarten when I ran up to that girl at the water fountain and bit her in the ass—I thought it was funny as hell at the time and I guess I still do—and I don’t mind telling you that I’m laughing right now and I guess if I can still laugh then being expelled aint gonna be all that bad.

No, it aint bad at all when I really think about it. Not when you compare it with the other shit I gotta deal with. Momma Jules for example. She aint been home much my whole life—not since Pops left—and she gotta keep food in my good-for-nothing mouth all by herself. I don’t wanna know where she been, even though I do know and I can’t get rid of knowing. It’s a damn shame too—poor John couldn’t have known what he was saying, but after I got home that night his words just kept eatin at me and grindin away in my head—even though I knew I shouldn’t have been letting them—and when Momma Jules finally walked through the door—in that outfit and smelling like she does at four in the morning—I was standing there waiting for her and before she could say anything I closed my hands and hit her a few times until she was lying there at my feet. And I swear I aint one for crying but I couldn’t help it after I saw her down there, quiet as a confession as she watched the carpet soak up her own blood, and the whole damn time I knew for a fact that what I was doing was wrong, and then I looked at Momma Jules’s face real close and what I saw was the whole rest of my life spilling from her eyes in a single spark of wet violence.

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Travis Hubbs is a Ph.D. student in English at Louisiana State University. His writing has appeared in A Cappella Zoo, North Texas Review, the Journal of Texas Women Writers, and the American Literary Review blog. He holds a B.A. in English from The University of Texas and an M.A. in Creative Writing from The University of North Texas.