A start:
My Friend Jeśus
By T.W. Albert
I don’t know if I would have made it through high school without my friend Jeśus. See, I was never the kind of kid who got picked first for kickball, or anything else for that matter. Maybe it’s the same for everyone at that age, but it seemed to me like some people hated me for no reason at all. Freshman year I got jumped a total of six times before I started learning my way around the school and finding escape routes. I survived that first year by ducking, hiding, sneaking and evading guys who were tougher meaner than me. There was a big banner that hung over the main entrance of the building that read: “Welcome to the Largest High School in Los Angeles County.” The letters were in blue and gray like the school colors and the claim it made was true; at least according to the Internet. When we first moved here I remember when we drove by the school. The practice field where all the sports teams meet was surrounded by this huge thirty-foot stonewall. I stared at it and my mouth hung open for a minute, then I told my mom it looked like a prison yard. I had no idea just how right I was.
The worst part of high school is not that they make you go. You don’t have a choice and that’s bad enough, but what’s worse is that you also have to go other people who REALLY don’t want to go. Some kids ditch class so much that they get threatened: you either stay in school, or go to jail. Luis Gutierrez was the king of this crowd. Even though he was only 16, he had already gotten into so much trouble with the cops that he could legally be charged as an adult. Luis hated school more than anyone I have ever seen and he made sure that everyone else who had to go suffered right along with him. Especially me.
The first time I pissed off Luis was in Mr. Longworth’s European History class the first day of my sophomore year. We were having a class discussion about the fall of the Roman Empire. Now, I don’t usually volunteer to speak up but I love history and it’s one of the few things that I can talk about any time, day or night. If I can ever find a girl that’s a huge history buff, I’ll be in business. Mr. Longworth finished his lecture and then asked for somebody to start the discussion. Nobody said anything. Had there been crickets in the room, the noise they made would have been like a deafening roar.
“Anyone? Anyone at all…”
I looked around and saw nobody else making a move, so I finally raised my hand.
“Yes. In the brown shirt there. Mister…”
“Ramon.”
“Mister Ramon. How would you explain the collapse of the Empire?”
“Well, there were a lot of reasons, but I guess the main one would be that they simply got too big. There was no way that the Romans could manage all of the territory that they had conquered over the years. All of those people needed things and eventually all of the resources got dried up because the Empire was stretched too thin. They ran out of money because they got greedy and tried to control too much land.”
I felt satisfied with my answer but somebody disagreed.
“That’s BULLSHIT. What are you some kinda retard?”
The voice had come from the back of the room and the entire class turned to see who had caused the outburst. Luis was sitting in the corner desk, furthest away from the front of the room and the blackboard. He was wearing a baggy red shirt and black jeans and his pudgy, brown face looked, for lack of a better word, evil. A shiver ran up my back when I realized this guy had just insulted me. Mr. Longworth groaned.
“Well that’s quite an insightful remark, Mr. Gutierrez. Would you care to elaborate on it?”
“Yeah. This kid’s a history retard who doesn’t know shit about history.”
“Duly noted, sir. Now, would you care to offer your own theory as to the fall of the Roman Empire? Or would you like to just continue sitting in the back, chewing gum and being a general pain in the testicles?”
The class laughed which broke some of the tension. I tried to laugh too, but not very loud because I didn’t want to make him even more mad at me. Luis leaned back in his desk and he blew a bubble with his gum then popped it. He resumed chewing it as he talked.
“Yeah I know what happened.”
“Well, by all means enlighten us. Preferably sometime before the prophesied rise of the second Roman Empire.”
“Yeah, right. They got soft. That’s why they collapsed. It wasn’t cuz they conquered too much land or ran out of money and shit. It was cuz they stopped kicking ass and taking names and started helping the people they just conquered. Now, if they had just stuck to war and taking the peoples gold and shit, they woulda been just fine. But when they started feeding everybody and building roads, that’s when they fell off. Them Romans was killers. They shoulda just kept doin that.”
“Interesting theory. Mr. Ramon, would you care to retort?”
I froze. Normally I love to debate history, but arguing with this angry gorilla who was three times my size and already had a rap sheet wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.
“Uhhhm. I don’t know. I guess that could be what happened.”
“No SHIT that’s what happened.” Luis snapped. “You a pussy, you know that? Soon as anybody disagrees with your theory you back off it just cuz you don’t want any drama. You gotta stick to your point, pussy.”
Inside of me I felt like a volcano ready to erupt. First of all, his theory was ridiculous and then he started taunting me? But the fear of Luis was stronger than the volcano and so all I just balled my hands into fists inside my jacket and furrow my eyebrows. But that only made things worse.
“Who YOU lookin hard at?”
Luis had been wearing a black durag on his head but as he said this he yanked it off and stood up from his desk, revealing a clean-shaven head. His eyes were dark and shining like some kind of predator in the wild looking at its prey. I tried like hell not to shake all over. Luckily, Mr. Longworth intervened.
“Alright, alright. Enough of this. Can’t we have one class discussion that doesn’t end in a felony assault case, Mr. Gutierrez?”
Luis spit on the wood floor and then put his durag back on before he sat back down in his seat. “Whatever. Pussy.” Once he was back at his desk I realized that I had been holding my breath. I wasn’t sure how long but I felt like I was suffocating so I exhaled deep and tried to relax.
“Now, does anyone else have a theory to offer?”
“Maybe if the Romans had had Luis they never would have gone soft and they would still be around today.”
There were a few nervous giggles at first and then the entire class erupted into laughter, even Luis. Even Mr. Longworth was laughing. He walked over to a desk in the front row in the middle of the room and stood over the student who had made the comment. The kid was wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans and he was glowing all over from the joke he’d just cracked. His smile was a perfect set of white teeth.
“Excellent idea, Jeśus. But, barring having Mr. Gutierrez in a Roman cape and brandishing a short sword, how do you think they could have survived?”
“I don’t think they would have. It was an inevitable decline, for a lot of reasons like Mr. Ramon said earlier. But I would add that the collapse was really spurred on by a morality crisis.” Mr. Longworth nodded pleasantly and the entire class seemed to be hanging on his every word. Jeśus was charismatic, calm and the words that came from his mouth from behind his trimmed black beard were like music to my ears. “I mean, they just went off the deep end. Bread and circuses, spectacles of violence, bathhouse orgies going twenty-four seven, feeding people to lions, it was crazy and they knew it. The empire collapsed because it needed to.”
“Very well said, Mr. Ramirez. If I had a little gold star or a smiley face to bestow, you certainly would have earned it.”
“Thanks.”
Luis mouthed off again in the corner.
“Pussy ass gold stars.”
The bell rang, signaling the end of the period. We all jumped up from our desks and made a B-line for the door. Mr. Longworth called after us that the discussion would continue tomorrow. After I made it through the doorway, I jogged up the hall partly to catch up with Jeśus and partly to get away from Luis. Just when I caught up to him, Jeśus turned around and shook my hand.
“Hey, I’m Jeśus.”
“I’m Ramon. Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
“That was awesome, man. I don’t know anyone our age who knows that much about history.”
Jeśus smirked.
“Yeah, that’s my old man talking. He knows a lot about history.”
“Cool.”
