Escaping George
“Troublemaking children become troublemaking adults.”
George’s grandmother was no font of great wisdom, but occasionally, she doled out a quick lesson as he left for school. Usually, it was something she heard on television. “So don’t be a troublemaker.”
He couldn’t be a troublemaker if he tried. Unlike his classmates, who were preoccupied with popularity and the ravages of puberty, George’s attention was given to survival. At 13, he assumed that everyone he encountered had hostile intentions, and so he approached each day with fear and distrust. From the first step onto the school grounds in the morning until he reached the nearest exit at the final bell, every movement had to be quick, yet tentative; a step or glance in the wrong direction would activate the true troublemakers.
Later that day, George returned home, happy to be in one piece but riddled with anxiety over the school year that had just begun. His grandmother, who was folding laundry to a cheerful hum, paused, gesturing a warning to avoid her freshly mopped linoleum.
“Your father left some things for you on his way out—on your bed, for the football.”
“I told you, I don’t want to play football,” he mumbled.
“Ay, yai, yai. You don’t know what you want. Play like everybody else,” she directed, closing the issue. There was never room for dispute or negotiation.
The plastic shopping bag of sports gear included socks, a mouthguard, an athletic supporter, and rubber-studded turf sneakers, rather than the required field cleats. I’ll be the only one wearing the wrong shoes, he thought. Of course. There was always a target.
Falling face-first onto his unmade bed, George sank into the worn mattress and cried without sound or tears. All he wanted was to disappear or at least be free of the constant, sickening anxiety. He remained there, motionless, and filled with despair, in dread of the next day, until he was summoned for dinner. Then it was time to withdraw again, out of sight and hoping to be forgotten for the balance of the evening. Solitude was his safe space, and he used it to disappear into any number of the fantasies stored in his mind, which he could play on demand, like a movie. He took himself to a green suburb, like the ones he saw on television shows, or to a glittering city, and always envisioned a life of purpose in a place that accepted him. Often, he would grant himself great wealth, fame, and even sex appeal. His fantasies sometimes led to sleep, bursts of energy, or even masturbation, but they also left him with a profound sadness that grew heavier with every collected layer. George was well aware that what he desired would never come to fruition, but in those moments, they were all he could rely on to buoy his spirit, albeit temporarily, while he stewed in an unfortunate reality.
Toylson, Oklahoma, was hours from anywhere and no one’s destination. It was a speck of a town, planted in the northwestern end of the panhandle, what was once an ungoverned and slaveless salient known as No Man’s Land. Throughout its history, the town barely survived its desolate geography; after finding itself in the deep of the Dust Bowl, it all but vanished. Most had fled, leaving behind the who-cares, one-horse town that saw few changes up to the present day. In every direction were miles of barley, sorghum, and cattle fields, and a horizon ornamented with wind turbines. To the northwest, just beyond eyesight, a continually operating feedlot generated a sickening and far-reaching odor, leaving the town’s daily scent at the whim of the wind. The drab, flat land and vast open skies create a profound emptiness, a stark yet beautiful expanse. Between bands of violent summer storms, the sun scorches everything to dust, leaving tractor-sized tumbleweeds bounding across the fields. Most winters, the ground freezes solid, and snow can drift high enough to conceal an entire house.
Nearly all the residents of Toylson were born-and-raised plainsfolk who were seemingly impervious to their seclusion and whatever Mother Nature delivered. Neither would financial matters drive them off, another ever-present struggle. Main Street relied on the farmers’ solvency to support a half-dozen small businesses, while crops and cattle required every nickel of government subsidy. Toylsoners were never motivated by prosperity.
In a town such as this, a shred of uniqueness in appearance or behavior was like blood on a wounded animal, awakening predators miles away. George was easy prey. He was misshapen, as though different parts of him were developing independently, not yet in synch. Beyond a sporadically cracking voice, he showed no sign of pubescence, no acne, or whisps of upper lip hair. In the mirror, he looked upon himself like a sideshow attraction, a collection of physical maladies. His eyes were too big for his face. His nose and chin were too pointy, and his lips were too thin. A tendency to avoid anyone’s gaze led to a constant slouch. Long arms kept his hands dangling close to his knees, and while he walked, the tip of a shoe would sometimes nick the ground while reaching for its next step. George moved like a cloddish, flightless bird destined for extinction. And if his physical state was not enough to invite mockery, he was a brown boy in a very white town.
“Drop something, Jorge?” George’s books were slapped out of his hands for the second time that morning as he walked from class to class. “Better pick them up fast. Arriba, arriba, andele! Dirty chico.”
Dirty. George hated the word. It was a springboard that launched all other taunts and insults to new heights, guaranteeing a deeper cut when they landed. He’d heard them all. Dirty immigrant. Dirty Mexican. Dirty wetback. Dirty spic. Dirty border rat. Dirty beaner. They were white; he was dirty. They called him Jorge, a name he never once heard at home, only at school. He was labeled Mexican, the local blanket term for anyone of Latin descent, all of whom were assumed to be undocumented. George knew nothing of his family background, but he was confident that their residency was legal. Not my family, he thought. Who would sneak into the country and choose Oklahoma? However, there was no way to confirm it, as his father, who made his living as a long-haul truck driver, was rarely home, and his mother hadn’t been seen in years. Moreover, his grandmother, his primary guardian, was uninterested in discussing such matters.
“Where were you born?”
“Aye, yai, yai, where does this come from?” she asked, easily annoyed and focused on her cooking.
“Do you know?”
“I was born in the hands of the Lord,” she asserted and quickly crossed herself, punctuating with a kiss on her thumb. “Do I know? Sheesh! Don’t worry about what I know. Go. Do your schoolwork so you know something.”
It would remain an unanswered question.
His classmates, especially the boys, seemed so proud of their hate, which was largely performative; without an audience, George wasn’t worth much effort. Silent bystanders, whether they watched in amusement or curiosity, were all accomplices, and teachers were either conveniently nowhere to be found or blatantly uninterested, even when the assaults became physical. Sometimes, his lunch tray would be overturned, or he would be pushed into a bank of lockers or onto the floor. He took the occasional punch to the crotch and once had his pants yanked down to his ankles in a crowded hallway, all to a soundtrack of vile, racist slurs. George’s stomach would drop as he struggled to keep the tears at bay, his throat seizing as though packed with cotton balls, preventing him from swallowing. It was a sickening sensation he had come to know well.
Day after day, his mental library of fantasies helped to relieve his troubles. His imagination could be activated at the mere sight of a distant jet in the sky or a train passing by town. What was their destination, he wondered? Someplace breezy and tropical or a snowy mountain resort? Anyplace but Toylson was exciting to George, who had never been more than an hour’s drive from town.
No cultural phenomenon defines a Western American small town like football. Toylson residents revered, even obsessed over the sport, fervently following their team as if it belonged to a professional franchise. Just as the school day was shortened for every game day, local businesses kept abbreviated hours. Away games meant a mile-long convoy of trucks and cars trailing the team buses to the hosting school, often more than an hour away. Games were broadcast on the radio, and a detailed, front-page, above-the-fold recap with photos could be found in the town newspaper the following day, making the players local celebrities. Football was not merely a Friday night pastime but a community bond that held the withering town together.
George had nothing against the game; he just wasn’t made to play it, and anyone who took a moment to size him up would agree. However, lacking athleticism or understanding of the sport was not a disqualifying factor. Once eligibility was reached, there was no choice. Thanks to a modest population, students as young as 13 were added to the junior varsity roster, and occasionally, a student deliberately stayed for a fifth year of high school to remain on the varsity squad.
George barely had the fortitude to survive the school day, and soon, he’d also have to stand alongside his daily aggressors, enduring endless practices, games, bus rides, and locker rooms. Then, a thought: what if he was injured before the first practice? Nothing too serious, but something slow-healing to keep him out of the entire season. A broken bone. Of course, it proved much more challenging to obtain than expected. The worst he inflicted on himself was a day-long limp from an old bowling ball dropped onto his foot. Aside from the several rifles his father kept at home, George was at a loss for ideas on how to avoid death on the field.
Every day after school, he would suit up in loose-fitting shoulder pads and the wrong shoes and take to the field for practice, not knowing what he was supposed to do or why. He couldn’t throw a spiral, keep up with the conditioning exercises, or understand the plays or the jargon. Not that anyone noticed. The coach never spoke to him or even glanced in his direction, and, surprisingly, George’s bullies-cum-teammates were the least of his problems on the field. A downward-pointed finger assigned him a position, one that would likely keep him from making contact with the ball. His task was to prevent an opposing player from reaching the quarterback; he understood nothing more about his role than that and so found himself repeatedly plowing into rivals for reasons entirely lost on him. It was physically exhausting, but the constant repetition allowed him to look busy, participating enough to be forgotten altogether. Usually, it worked. On the field, he went through the motions, and George’s worries were reduced to running laps in the late summer sun, the tormenting sweat bees, a heavy helmet and pads, an itchy jock, and one brain-rattling collision after another. But hell was after practice.
Nearly twenty sweaty, hyperactive boys in varying stages of pubescence crowded into a stinking basement locker room. While they stripped and took to the communal shower, their coach hovered with a questionable gaze, unconcerned with any inappropriate horseplay he observed. George did his best to blend in and do what the others did—the same approach he had to on-the-field survival. The pack sensed fear, but hiding would accomplish nothing. He had to undress and shower without revealing his timidity. Like the others, he took up space with his gear and was deliberately noisy with his locker. And when the room would erupt with laughter, he joined in so he wouldn’t stand out. The result was usually the indifference he sought.
The coach had a magnetic presence and a confidence inflated by his authority over the young men who devoured every word he mumbled. George liked his swagger and how he commanded respect, and especially liked his body. He paid attention to the coach, badly wanting to earn his favor and, in turn, his protection. After all, George thought, a coach had to look out for even the least of his players. He might even gain some respect under the wing of someone so revered by the team. Soon, he began to look forward to football, not for the game itself, but for the time with the coach he believed could help him become less of what he was. For once, he had a fantasy that felt within reach. George was, briefly, optimistic.
“What are you, George, some kind of failure?”
The random gibe was delivered like a gunshot through the locker room, silencing all activity and redirecting everyone’s attention to its source. After a silent moment, the coach shook his head in disbelief at the sight of the naked, gangly, undeveloped boy. George’s throat closed up as the corners of his mouth struggled against the weight of humiliation. Chuckling, the coach walked away, having just stepped on one of his players for no apparent reason but cruel sport. George felt such intense shame and confusion that the universe itself might have intervened had it been capable of such a feat. Many laughed, some taking permission from what they witnessed to offer their own barbs as George furtively brushed away a tear and wished himself dead.
His father often told him that the future was like an ominous cloud on the horizon; you knew it was approaching, but no one knew for certain what it would bring. There was nothing to do but wait. But sometimes the waiting was worse than what he had to endure, growing into a near-constant gut-gnawing fear. He couldn’t escape his classmates, and while they had nothing to gain from the harassment they thrust upon him, he had been drained of all esteem, motivation, and joy. George possessed no hidden ember of rebellion that would one day spark and cause him to break free of his circumstances. It would never get better, not through being part of a team or playing a sport, and especially not through the guidance of a coach. He was convinced he had already seen all that his life would ever be.
Each night after practice, his teammates either rode off on bicycles or were collected by parents and driven away in different directions to their lives. George waited, hidden, until he was certain no one would confront him, then walked alone, going out of his way along the tiny town’s perimeter. On the unlit and uneven dirt road, a comforting silence and privacy invited him to dial up a stored fantasy in which he was anyone other than himself. That dependable escape allowed him to stand a little taller, walk more confidently, and become, often aloud, any number of different Georges. He lost himself in those young men and the worlds they inhabited, where no threats existed, and no ugly words were hurled. But one sound or another from the earth or sky would always pull him out of his dream, dropping him, heartbroken and full of self-hatred, back into his landlocked reality. And each night, with nowhere else to turn, as the last of the evening light vanished, he released his painful despair upward as a plea to the emerging stars.
