GRITS

by
Eddie Jeffrey

Hank was a Grit. That�s what we used to call the dirty heavy metal kids behind their backs when I was in junior high. Grits. Hank was THE Grit, a three-time repeater of the 8th grade and their de facto leader. They smoked, ditched school, huffed gas, grew their hair long and wore old fucked up shoes and jeans with gaping holes in the knees. They wore flannel back before it was cool, before anybody�d ever heard of grunge.

Their ragged clothes, their grubby fingers, their stringy hair and their surly, twisted mouths raged louder against the straw they�d drawn in life than with any kind of na�ve, misguided teen-aged rebellion. Ignorance and poverty had kicked them in the teeth before they were even born, and it�s not that they didn�t give a shit. They gave a shit. That�s all they did was give a shit. Their whole modus operandi was GIVING A SHIT, and the only way they knew how.

Going all the way, the other way, burning out as fast as they could was kind of their FUCK YOU! to everyone who�d ever looked at them sideways, whose family'd never had to worry about if all the bills would get paid or where the next meal was coming from, had cars that didn�t leave oil slicks in the driveway or rattle the neighbourhood awake when they started up in the morning, weren�t on familiar, if uneasy terms with the sheriff and his deputies, didn�t even know what a Repo Man was.

For all that posturing, though, sometimes it didn�t matter. We were kids and they were kids, and we had nothing but nothing to do in the summers. We had all the time in the world and we spent most of it playing tackle football in a giant field next to the power lines that joined all our neighbourhoods together.

Grits, Preps, Nerds, Douche Bags, Whites, Blacks, whatever. If you could run, you played. If you could take a hit and get back up, you played. Bruises, blood, torn shirts, it didn�t make a difference. Football was the equalizer. It could make anybody tough, and it could make you act tough even if you weren�t. Football didn�t give a shit about your parents. It didn�t give a shit where you bought your clothes. Football was grass and leather, dirt and adrenalin, touch and finesse, pain and atrocity. It was fucking beautiful.

One day, Hank and company didn�t show. We weren�t organized or anything, it�s not like there was a schedule. We would all just kind of appear in packs of twos and threes like coyotes gathering on a hilltop to howl at the moon. But, we needed Hank because he had the football. It didn�t matter then that he�d borrowed it from this 7th grade pipsqueak Aubrey, and that Aubrey would never get it back. We just needed Hank to come out and play. I was a bit vague on where he lived, but I knew it was only a few blocks away so I volunteered to go get him.

Aside from football, Hank and his friends spent most of their days standing on street corners or sitting on each others� porches ripping on one another and getting into fights. That�s what it looked like from a distance, anyway. But, you never saw them without this dinky little silver boom box that looked like it�d been the first tape deck off the assembly line back in the 70s or something, and it didn�t matter how long you hung around them, the only tape they ever played was Led Zeppelin IV.

As I came around the corner, �When the Levee Breaks� was blaring tinnily from those callow speakers making it sound like it�d been recorded at the bottom of an overflowing aluminium garbage can. The cymbals and the guitar were all washed out, and the kick drum was a dull flapping heart murmur.

The Grits didn�t care, though. Zeppelin was God. So what if this cheap-ass stereo was all they had to channel Him? They were faithful worshipers. They would be welcomed in Valhalla one day.

�What�s up, guys? Where�s Hank?� I shouted as I came up the walk.

They were all sitting on the steps to his house, and I didn�t notice the especially sullen air right away.

�The fuck you say?� somebody grunted and stood up and flung a cigarette at me. It was Sonny, Hank�s younger, but no less bigger brother.

I stopped and took a step back.

�I was just comin� over to see if you guys were gonna come play football. That�s all.�

�Hank ain�t here,� Sonny spat. His face was flushed and his eyes were puffy. If I hadn�t known any better I�d have said he�d been crying.

�Well, lemme see the football, then, if you guys aren�t comin�,� I said. Jesus, was I blind.

Sonny�s nostrils flared and then he spun around like he was going in the house. Instead he ducked into a corner and picked something up. He jumped off the stairs with the football held out in front of him, shaking it all around like evidence at a jury full of lunatics. When he landed he was only a few feet away from me. He shook it in my face and he was twitching like an epileptic he was so mad.

�Here! You want it? Take it, fucker!� he yelled and threw it on the ground.

I was too stunned to move, and it was a good thing I didn�t because Sonny pulled out a butterfly knife, waved it around a few times to reveal the blade, and proceeded to stab the football into oblivion.

When he was done he stood up and took a couple steps toward me without bothering to put the knife away.

�Sonny, he don�t know, man! Just leave him alone!� this kid Jason yelled as he ran over and shoved Sonny to the ground. �Ed,� he said to me, �you gotta disappear. NOW!�

Jason actually lived over by me and wasn�t a typical Grit. He could read, for starters, and his family represented everything they thought they stood against. We sometimes hung out, but I�d never seen him like that before. It wasn�t just Sonny he seemed to be protecting me from, it was myself, it was him, it was all of them.

�Alright, Jase,� I said and walked away with burning ears, leaving them all behind even as Robert Plant prophesied:

Cryin� won�t help ya
Prayin� won�t do ya no good
When the levee breaks
Mama you got to move

Sooner than later word got around that the day before I went over there Hank had gotten into a fight with their step-dad, Lester, and Lester had bashed Hank�s head in with a baseball bat. Hank spent the next few months in a coma, all but a week of it at home because the hospital could only care so long for somebody without insurance. Sonny officially dropped out of school that fall so he could look after his brother, but when Hank woke up he was like a six year old. He never got better. The day Lester got out of prison eight years later, Sonny picked him up at the gate in a stolen car, and that�s the last anybody ever saw of them.


� Eddie Jeffrey
Reproduced with permission

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