By sophomore year, Jesus and I were pretty tight. He had gotten fairly popular with the girls, too. There was a girls’ school a couple of football fields away from our school. Some of the girls took classes with us and some of the boys took classes with them “up the hill” we would say, because their school was up a little hill from ours’s. At that time, I hadn’t gone “up the hill” yet, but Jesus took a religious studies class where he got to know some of the girls. They were really into him, not just because he was a decent looking guy but because he was mature for his age. He didn’t seem to be after them like the typical horny teen boy brimming with unruly hormones. Jesus could talk to them. And not just the super-hot ones. He talked to everybody. One of them told me later that when Jesus talked to you, it was like you were the only person in the room. He never looked over your shoulder to make sure no one more important had walked in.
One time we were at a party at this girl’s house. Her name was Paulette. Her parents let her host a lot of parties in their basement. She was kind of cute but not too cute. Not too far out of my league, if you know what I mean. She was short and wore big glasses. I liked her. That’s why I was really happy when Jesus asked me to come along to a party he had been invited to at Paulette’s. I’m sure part of the reason was I had just gotten my license, and I could drive him. Jesus was old enough to drive but showed no interest in getting his license. In fact, I’m not sure he ever did get his license. But he always managed to get somebody to drive him any place he wanted to go.
There were a bunch of upperclassmen at the party, too, boys who generally kept to themselves in a corner of the basement, laughing and talking loudly. Jesus and I were sitting in a circle on the floor with a group of girls, including Paulette and another really cute girl named Lisa. I didn’t say much, mainly because Jesus and the girls were talking mostly about hairstyling. Jesus was sharing some of his hair care secrets. They loved his hair. Their pet name for him was “Curly.”
From what I could pick up, Jesus only washed his hair about once a week. He would rinse it in the shower more than that and sometimes he would just use conditioner without shampoo, which sounded crazy to me. But that’s what Jesus would do. The girls were enthralled. They thought it would be fun for them to braid Jesus’s hair, like he was their communal Barbie doll or something.
I noticed this one upperclassman, Scott, would occasionally glance over at us. He’d zero his gaze on Jesus, drop his perpetually stupid grin, and glower. I don’t think Jesus had any idea. He was busy paying attention to each girl who spoke to him.
Word had gotten out before this that Scott didn’t like Jesus. Scott was what we called in those days “a hard guy.” That’s someone who thinks he’s tough and likes to fight. In middle school years before, we rode the same bus. Scott would walk up and down the aisle like a Gestapo agent intimidating the new kids or the kids who made the mistake of exhibiting some combination of fear and weakness.
“What’s your name!?” he would bark, as if you were in a World War II movie and he was demanding your papers.
Once you told him your name, he would try to turn it into something he and his buddies could laugh at, a new name more to his liking. “Bobby? More like ‘Booby!” And his henchmen would guffaw at their leader’s colossal creativity. He must have thought he was Adam in the Garden of Eden, who gets to name all the animals so he can have dominion over them.
Fortunately, my first day on this bus, I was sitting toward the back, so I had time to see what was coming. And I knew my name, “John,” was a painful mortification just waiting to happen. I knew all the variations. “John?! No, from now on we’re calling you ‘Toilet!’ No, wait! ‘Crapper!’ ‘Piss-Pot!’” For sure, I’d have my own entire page in Scott’s thesaurus of cruelty.
I could tell we weren’t going to make it to school before he got to me, so I had to think fast. Scott loomed over me, “What’s your name?!”
I blurted out… “Seymour!”
I have no idea why I said that. Looking back, I realize it was a rare never repeated stroke of genius on my part. Scott looked stunned for a moment. He cocked his head like a perplexed basset hound. This, apparently, was not a name he was prepared for. However, he quickly recovered and addressed the rest of the bus, “Seymour!? Did you hear that?! His name is Seymour!” He kept repeating it as if he were stalling for time. He obviously had nothing in his mental spread sheet under “S” for “Seymour.” His henchmen, sensing the boss was at a loss, filled the awkward void by chanting derisively, “Seymour! Seymour! Seymour!”
Then to his credit, Gruppenführer Scott finally did hit on something, “Seymour Butts! That’s who you are! Seymour Butts!” And the henchmen and a few other nearby courtiers wishing to curry favor dutifully chortled. But I didn’t care. They weren’t making fun of me. They were making fun of some poor sap named “Seymour.”
The joke was on them.
All the rest of that year, the kids on the bus called me “Seymour,” not making fun but thinking sincerely that was my real name. Only a select few had been clued into my secret.
Later on, Scott found out I had pranked him. One day at recess, he walked over to me with a big friendly smile on his face. He said, “Hi Seymour,” then sucker-punched me right in the jaw.
By this time, a couple of the girls had just started braiding Jesus’s hair when Scott’s main henchman, a short kid named Glenn, bent toward Jesus on the floor and whispered quietly into his ear. Jesus nodded, and Glenn headed outside. Jesus excused himself, telling the girls he had to attend to something and that he’d be right back. I got up with Jesus and asked him what was going on.
“Glenn just said Scott wants to see me outside.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said.
“Nah. That’s okay. The message from Scott was, ‘If you’re a man, you’ll come alone.’”
I said, “Jesus, he wants to beat you up.”
“Why?” Jesus asked.
I told him that even though Lisa was our grade, two years younger than Scott, Scott considered her his girlfriend and Jesus was talking to her, and he’s probably jealous. She’s not asking Scott if she can braid his hair.
“But I’ve got longer, more braidable hair.”
“That doesn’t matter. He’s a bully. You’re popular. He’s looking for an excuse to beat you up,” I said. “Trust me, I know this guy.”
Jesus assured me he could handle Scott by himself.
“All right,” I said, “Just remember, he likes to sucker punch. But he has a tell. When he’s about to sucker punch you, he turns to the side like this. And then ‘Bam!’ round house to the jaw.”
I assured him I spoke from personal experience.
Jesus put his hand on my shoulder and nodded, “Good to know.”
And then he headed out the door.
I found it ironic that Glenn had told Jesus “If you’re a man, you’ll come alone,” but Glenn was out there with Scott. What did that make Scott? I watched from a window as Jesus stood in front of Scott while Glenn occupied himself in the vicinity using the heel of his boot to crack ice that had formed in various small puddles on the street. It was a cold winter night, and like I said before, Jesus always wore a robe and sandals. Although, I noticed that unlike his other robes the one he was wearing that night had a pouch and a hoody. Jesus had his hands stuffed tightly into that pouch, his only concession to the cold. Scott was quite a bit taller and more filled out than Jesus, who at that age was slight of build. Jesus had not yet developed the sculpted biceps you’d see in all those pictures of him hanging on a cross. I was watching through a window, so the whole thing was pretty much a dumb show for me, but Jesus later told me how it all went down.
Jesus said, “You wanted to talk to me?”
Scott said, “Yeah. I don’t like the way you’re lookin’ at Lisa.”
Jesus shrugged. “How am I looking at her?”
“You know. And I don’t like it. She’s mine.”
“I see. You know, Scott, you shouldn’t speak of another person as if she were your property.”
That’s when Scott turned to the side.
I cringed. “There it is, Jesus,” I said through clenched teeth, “That’s the tell! That’s the tell!”
To my relief, Jesus took a half step back just out of Scott’s reach. Scott seemed a bit flummoxed by this. He squared up again and took a half step closer.
“Having said that,” Jesus continued, “I have no interest in Lisa. Romantically, that is. She’s all yours… as it were.”
“Oh yeah?” said Scott, who once again turned his body sideways.
Jesus took another half-step back, forcing Scott to square up again. This little do-si-do went on a couple more times with Scott leading - step forward - turn sideways - step back - square up; step forward - turn sideways - step back - square up; step forward - turn sideways - step back - square up.
Clearly Scott was frustrated, and I felt exhilarated like a football coach up in the press box, watching my defense stymie a much more powerful offense.
To Jesus’s surprise, Scott changed the subject, “I hear you’re pretty good at sports… Curly,” although, unlike the girls, the way he said “Curly” was a taunt.
Little known fact, Jesus was pretty good at sports. He didn’t play varsity football. I don’t think he liked the violence of it. But he did play flag football with us. He had a great arm. I once saw him throw a ball sixty yards through the goal posts. That’s why when we played, we made Jesus the “all the time quarterback.” He threw for both teams because we knew whatever side Jesus quarterbacked was going to win. This way it was even.
He was a decent basketball player, too. He didn’t have a great outside shot, but he knew how to drive to the basket dribbling with either hand. We played a lot of one on one in my driveway, and I learned the most effective technique was to back off him a step to cut off his angles to the basket. Make him beat you with his jump shot, which was not as well developed. A lot has been made of the Gospels. But take it from me, that’s the book on Jesus.
He liked baseball best, I’m guessing because it’s not a game of physical intimidation. You get a base hit, the first baseman will congratulate you. I’ll never forget the time we were playing our arch-rival, and Jesus was batting fifth behind Big Daddy Wilson. Big Daddy was an enormous dude with tremendous power. We had two men on base with Big Daddy coming to the plate. The other team intentionally walked him to load the bases. They didn’t know who Jesus was at that time. They just saw this skinny kid wearing sports sandals and a robe under his jersey in the on-deck circle chatting with some girls in the stands. He looked like he’d never in his life held a bat in his hand. And Jesus played it up, too. He shuffled up to the plate, dragging his bat behind him. I knew he was sandbagging ‘em, hoping they’d think he didn’t know what he was doing and throw him a first pitch fastball down the middle. He didn’t even take a practice swing, so as not to give away the fact that he had any level of competence.
Sure as shit, the pitcher throws him a first pitch fastball down the middle. Jesus takes a nice easy swing and just smokes it. I mean, he hit that ball a ton. It looked like it was shot out of a cannon. High and far and way, way over the left center field fence. He crushed it. The outfielder didn’t even give it a courtesy look; he knew it was so far gone. It bounced onto the track that circled the football field disrupting the 400-hundred-meter relay that was going on at the meet that seemed like a mile away.
Our dugout exploded as Jesus trotted around the bases, but he was as calm as ever. He had a big grin on his face but didn’t get overly excited, no fist-pumping or chest-beating. After we finished swarming him at the plate in congratulation, instead of heading into the dugout, Jesus jogged into the metal stands, leaned back on his elbows, and continued his conversation with the girls.
I remember watching him from the dugout. That was the first time I thought, “I wanna be like that guy, the unassuming dude who shuffles up to the plate, takes one easy swing, hits the ball out of the park, glides around the bases, and takes a seat in the stands to chat up the ladies.
When Scott said, “I hear you’re pretty good at sports,” Jesus said, “So?”
“So, how would you like to go in the back and try boxing?” Scott said.
“No thanks,” Jesus replied.
Suddenly without warning Scott lurched forward and slapped Jesus upside his face. It was an odd move. Maybe he didn’t know how to punch unless he was turned sideways. Or maybe he was just trying to provoke Jesus into doing something physical back, so he would have an excuse to pummel him. From the window it almost looked like an exasperated parent smacking a child in the grocery store. Mainly, it struck me as a smack of desperation. Of course, it didn’t strike me, it struck Jesus, but you know what I mean.
I could tell it stung Jesus, too. He finally took one of his hands out of his pouch to feel the side of his face. He didn’t look angry or embarrassed, though. He looked more… disappointed. That’s when Scott slapped the other side of his face. Really hard. I could see Jesus blink his eyes in pain and move his jaw around like when you give a dog peanut butter.
Scott stood back, waiting for some kind of response in kind. But Jesus didn’t give him the satisfaction.
He simply said, “Are we done here?”
Scott didn’t know what to say. Jesus wasn’t following any schoolyard bully playbook he recognized. I’m not saying Jesus turned the other cheek. A lot has been made of that over the years. But he didn’t fight back. He didn’t retaliate. He didn’t back down, either. He just kind of took it. Textbook passive resistance. In the end, Scott was the one who turned and just melted away into the dark night. He didn’t go back into the party. I guess he must have walked home. Jesus looked at Glenn, who didn’t know what to make of what just happened to his Dear Leader. I have to say, Glenn actually looked kind of relieved, like one of the soldiers who worked for The Wicked Witch of the West. He asked Jesus if he minded if he went back to the party. Jesus nodded his ascent whereupon Glenn hustled to the door and held it open for him.
On the car ride home, I asked Jesus why he didn’t hit back when Scott slapped him. Jesus gazed at me with those big brown soulful penetrating eyes and said, “‘Cuz he would have kicked my ass.”
End of Chapter Two
Tomorrow, Chapter Three of Jesus: The High School Years
Awesome!!
So so sweet and funny!! I can’t wait until tomorrow for Chapter 3! Steve, you make me laugh out loud!!!