“MOOBS. MOOBS. MOOBS.” The chant started as a faint sound, a rhythmic noise echoing from the depths of the locker room. But as I walked down the narrow hallway lined with alternating green and white lockers, the voices grew louder, meaner even. “Moobs. Moobs. Moobs.”
Laughing at first, I thought the group of boys sounded more like a horde of monkeys. In all honesty, I half expected them to be doing some weird-ass dance around a circle of dirty gym shorts, scratching their balls and dragging their knuckles on the ground. It wasn’t until I heard a familiar voice in between the chants I realized this was far more than just a bunch of kids goofing off.
“Mack’s got titties,” one of them bullied. “Look,” he jeered, his voice followed by a loudthwapagainst skin. There was no crying, no yelling, nothing in response. Just more laughter. More chants ofmoobs.
When it became clear that he wasn’t going to do anything to defend himself, I decided to step in. There was no way I could stand back and do nothing. Watching someone being harassed, while tears streaked down his cheeks wasn’t exactly my favorite pastime.
“Hey, assholes,” I called out. Four Neanderthal-sized skulls craned back at me. In a movement I could only call comical, they all furrowed their brows at the same time, looking at me as ifIwas the one in the wrong here.
The ringleader, Leon Tucker, weighed a solid two hundred pounds and stood at least three or four inches above the tallest kid in school. I doubted he feared much of anything. His three goons stood behind him as if they were awaiting his command. “What the fuck is your problem?” Leon spat at me, adjusting the popped collar of his navy blue polo shirt.
What a fucking prick,I thought, trying my hardest not to laugh at him and his ridiculousness. Seriously, he looked like he belonged on the cover ofAsshole of the Month.
“Me?” I questioned rhetorically. Taking a few steps toward them, my pulse raced in my veins, but it wasn’t out of nervousness. An adrenaline junkie to the core, I lived for moments like these. And since I was forever the new kid in school, lucky for me, I had all the opportunity in the world to pick a few fights, serve a few detentions and be gone before I ever got in any real trouble. But since I was here to stay, or at least that’s what my father told me, I’d have to choose my battles from now on. And this was the perfect battle. My father wouldn’t have anything to say. In fact, he’d probably applaud my efforts for standing up to the bully. He was a real stick-up-the-ass kind of guy when it came to a lot of things—military precision in making my bed, cutting my hair, and being on time, but when it came to standing up for what was right, well, he’d see my point on this one. And as far as the school was concerned, I’d serve my time and hopefully earn the reputation of being someone you don’t want to fuck with.
Being an army brat and constantly moving around had its advantages. Not having to face the consequences of shit you’d stirred was one of them. There were so many times I’d picked a fight simply because it was my last day—no need to pay the price on that one. After my father had retired from the army this past summer, we moved back to east Texas. It was always his dream to go back to where he’d grown up. So since we’d be here for the rest of the school year, I knew I’d have to face some time for this one.
Must be nice to have a place like that,I thought to myself as he told me the news. As for me, I’d spent my childhood in about ten different places. None of them were home to me. And I doubted Galveston, Texas would be any different.
If this standoff was any indication of how welcomed I was, it was clear the answer was not at all.
“Yeah, you.” The ugly smirk on Leon’s face was broken only for the blip of laughter tumbling from his hard mouth. “Who the fuck do you think you are? New kid coming in here, thinking he can talk to us like that?” With a quick look over his shoulder and nod of his head, his buffoon friends all chimed in, echoing his words, “Yeah, who the fuck are you?”
“You said it yourself, the new kid.” They all looked at me, confusion knotting their brows. It was as if they hadn’t expected me to answer at all, yet they heard the cryptic tone coloring my words. They knew I had more to say as I took the final steps toward them.
Now toe-to-toe with Leon, I poked him in the chest. As hard as the metal locker against which Mack was cowering, his chest didn’t yield one bit to my finger. Unfazed in the least, I kept on poking, letting each dig accentuate my words. “And if you don’t want your ass kicked by the new kid, I’d get the fuck out of here before I flatten all of you.”
The second he took to laugh, turning his head to his friends to make sure they saw how powerfully mean his face looked, was all I needed to crack him hard in the jaw. I didn’t take a second to worry about if the snap I heard was from his face or my hand. Bone pummeled bone relentlessly, and after a few hits, I no longer felt the pain in my knuckles. Too stunned to do much of anything, Leon simply let the blood spill from his nose. It even took his friends a few seconds to realize what was going on before they stepped in to pull me away from him.
Through a blood-soaked hand, he muttered, “Oh, that’s it. You’re dead now.”
“Stop it.” A weak voice barely broke through the yelled insults. It was just loud enough to stop both Leon and me in our tracks. Both of us turned our heads to the corner where Jude McMillian, or Mack as most people called him, stood from his cowered position. “Stop it!” he called out just a little louder than he did the first time. Standing now, he made his way between us. Before the words could fall from his mouth a third time, the other two whose names I hadn’t bothered to worry myself with, grabbed him under the arms and held him in place. One more jumped behind me, locking my arms in his own like a steel trap.
“Maybe Mackisright. We should stop,” Leon mocked, his tone saccharine sweet, dripping with angry sarcasm. “There’s no sense in the two of us fighting,” he added, moving his paw-like hand between the two of us. Struggling to break free of goon number three was pointless. The more I moved, the harder he held on.
“Besides,” Leon continued. “It seems that me taking my aggression out on fatty fat here pisses you off more than anything.” Without giving me a second to do anything, Leon cocked his fist and socked Mack in the gut so hard it knocked the wind out of him. Gasping and choking for air, Mack fell to the floor. Curled in a ball, Leon added a kick to the groin for good measure. My protest fell dead on my lips when his knee landed with my own crotch. Sinking to the floor, vomit rose in my throat.
“Coach is coming,” the guy behind me called out. “Let’s get out of here before he catches us. We’ll never play again.”
Seemingly unaffected by the threat of his coach’s would-be punishment, Leon knelt down between the two of us. “If either of you fucking assholes says a word about what happened here, I swear I’ll beat the shit out of you so hard you won’t be able to walk.”
Soaked in a venomous hate like I’d never heard, his words were most definitely not an empty threat. There was something there. And for the first time in a very long time, I was afraid.
When their backs were turned, and the rear entrance to the locker room slammed behind them, Mack threw up all over himself. “Sorry,” he choked, embarrassed by the pile of greenish yellow chunks covering the side of his face.
We sat there a few minutes, letting the silence hang thick in the air, much like the stench of his vomit. I couldn’t help but wonder if Mack wanted me to leave him alone so he could suffer through his shame on his own.
The sound of our gym teacher’s voice competed with Mack’s dry heaves. “What’s going on back there?” he called out. With his sneakers squeaking on the floor, I knew he was approaching.
Willing away the pain in my stomach and balls, I moved to Mack’s side. “It’s okay, Mr. Sanders,” I assured him, trying my best to make my voice sound as normal as possible.
“What happened?” he asked, kneeling at Mack’s other side.
Even though his head hung down low, his eyes met mine, begging me not to say anything about what really happened. He didn’t say a word, but I heard him loud and clear. “Mack was getting changed,” I explained, hoping it would clarify why he was only in his boxers—honestly, I didn’t want to imagine why or how he’d gotten stripped down to his Hanes. “And I heard him fall to the ground. He tossed his lunch a second later, and I was just trying to help him out. That’s when you came in.”
Seemingly satisfied by the lie, Mr. Sanders helped me get Mack up onto the bench. From there, I pulled his clothes out of his locker. We both steadied him as he swayed from side to side as he dressed. “You okay to get home or do you need me to call your father?”
That got Mack’s attention.
