suicide bomber

My sacrifice will ensure a victory for my people. My actions will be remembered by those who follow in my path. I will be a hero.
I repeated the mantra so much, the words just under my breath all through the evening, whispering it over a thousand times to myself – that, by the time I’d made it to the backseat of Lance Calvert’s Buick, I finally ended up believing it. Actually believing what had been hammered into my head for so long now.
I would be a hero. After tonight, my legacy would live on beyond me.
I thought about my family as Lance pinched at my bra-strap, releasing the clasps between my shoulder blades. I imagined how proud my parents would be of me, knowing that their daughter had martyred herself for the cause. Friends and neighbors would praise them on raising such a brave girl, sacrificing herself within the rear of the notorious Lance Calvert love-mobile. The glass had completely fogged over, our breath eclipsing the world just outside the car. No more starry sky. No more cityscape. No more vague outline of the couple kissing from the parked car just beside ours. Life was now nothing more than a narrow path, leading me to the next phase of my being.
A cause that’s worth dying for is a holy cause. That’s true school spirit. Are you willing to suffer for the sake of your football team, rather than perish as the penalty for refusing to renounce your school’s line-up?
Lance had been asking me out ever since I was made squad leader, hunting me down as early as our homecoming game. Whenever the Tamilton Tigers went up against the Greenfield Gorillas, Lance would find me on the field – slipping off his helmet as he ran over, wiping the sweat off his brow before nodding his chin at me, that hollow cleft as cavernous as the negative space left behind in the earth after a land-mine explodes.
Hey, Lydia – if my team wins, why don’t you and me go out this weekend?
What if we win?
What are the chances of that? he grinned, pulling his helmet back over his head.
Some high schools kidnap mascots. Others raid their enemies the night before a match, toilet-papering their opponent’s football field.
Lance Calvert had been determined to date every rival teams’ head cheerleader for years, racking up their pom-poms as if they were the decapitated heads of his quarry. Tricia Carpenter. Charisma Sinclaire. Ali Pendleton. All squad leaders, all from different high schools. All falling victim to the backseat of his Buick.
And here we were, the night before the big game. Tomorrow evening, Lance would take to the field like some bloodthirsty dictator, laying waste to our men yet again, leading his team to victory. All that stood between him and his first touchdown was me. My blouse. My bra. The button on my jeans. The lace panties underneath. And hidden below that satin, a time bomb ticking. The pressure of it mounting in between my legs. Just waiting for him.
You feel so good.
Please, I asked, straining. Slow down.
Sure. I got all night.
Someone else’s earring was sticking up from the seat-cushion, piercing my thigh. Lance could care less about picking up after himself, leaving behind casual reminders of his dates – the remnants of past conquests strewn throughout the car, like bones littering a war-zone.
Ever since I was a freshman, first recruited onto the squad – my fellow cheerleaders prepared me for this night, where Lance would run his hand down the length of my waist, his skin grazing the denim of my jeans, running his finger across the gritted teeth of my zipper. Our unit researched his every move – taking surveillance, watching videos, acquainting ourselves with the target before making our move. I was told where he would place his face through all this, burying his mouth into my neck. They made me learn a list of all the possible responses I could give him – whispering into his ear that he felt good, so good.
Lance. Oh, Lance. You feel so good.
This is what I had been brought onto this earth to do. My entire life boiled down to this one moment. All four years of my training came down to this. I was the chosen one, hand-picked from dozens of different girls to finally bring a halt to Lance Calvert’s tyranny once and for all.
There was no turning back now.
We all had heard stories of his cruelty. We knew what he was capable of doing to anyone who failed in her mission. I had been given a cyanide pill before going on my date with Lance that night, carrying it in a locket that I wore around my neck. If I were to fall into my enemy’s hands alive, I could slip it into my mouth quickly – swallowing the pill before forging any information on my fellow cheerleaders.
But pulling a football player out of his uniform is like cracking open a nut, peeling away all the shoulder pads and jock straps, reaching in for the meat. For all his bravado on the field, Lance had suddenly become clumsy. His hands fumbled over my body, tangling himself up under the seatbelts and bra-straps. The determined look on his face made me smile.
Sorry about this, he muttered. Hold on just a sec...
I could see why girls fell for him so easily. He was kind of cute, in an affluent fanaticism kind of way. Having been trained to handle myself in this kind of situation, the one thing I hadn’t anticipated really was how soft his lips would be. The smell of sweat was still in his skin, having just come straight from practice. When I kissed his neck, I could taste the salt from the field – like licking the leather of a football, the coarse flavor of pigskin filling my mouth. The taste of weatherworn flesh, left to wither on the field – the withered husks of those men that had died at his very hands suddenly overwhelming my tongue.
Repeat it. My sacrifice will ensure a victory for my people.
Say it again. My actions will be remembered by those who follow in my path.
Come on, say it. I will be a hero.
Again. I will be a hero.
What?
I will be a hero. My reward would be waiting for me in the after-life.
Wait until the guys hear about this, Lance whispered directly into my ear. I finger-banged the Tamilton Tigers’ head cheerleader.
Even though I couldn’t see his mouth in that moment, I could sense that he was grinning – his lips pulling back as he slipped his index finger inside me, maneuvering it through. I could hear it in his breathing, the intake sharpened by the curvature of his smile. Hissing almost, as he wriggled around.
And then his breath cut itself short, caught within his lungs.
Lance pulled his finger out, holding his hand up to his face – discovering the pin of a fragmentation grenade hanging off his knuckle, like a class-ring, the metal wet and glistening.
Finger-bang is right. In training, we were taught how to carry a grenade inside our vaginas – spending the entire day walking through school with the explosive hidden within our wombs, going unnoticed by everyone. This was how we could infiltrate enemy lines without getting caught, approaching our target without the worry of any opposition.
Remove the pin, release the handle. Detonation in five seconds.
Five. Give me a T.
Four. Give me an I.
Three. Give me a G.
Two. Give me an E.
One. Give me an R.
I grabbed hold of Lance, pressing him against my chest. We shared the blast between us, the swell mounting from within me, blossoming out into the car, only for me to whisper back into his ear – What’s that spell?

---

viva la A/V

My name is Sam Billingsley. I am thirty-four years old, currently working as a guidance counselor at Greenfield High School. Go Gorillas.
I am now being held hostage by the Tamilton High School Audio-Visual class. It has been a week since I was first kidnapped and I fear that my time will soon be coming to an end. This video statement may be my last chance to speak to my friends and family back at home before I am beheaded.
Principal Pritchard – you have until the final bell on Friday to withdraw your football team from this week’s game. If the demands of my captors are not meant within the next seventy-two hours, they will decapitate me as promised.
I’m used to this type of abuse. When I was in high school, all freshman year, my fellow classmates tortured me. Everything from swirlies to wet willies, noogies and wedgies. I’ve even been bound and gagged before, duct-taped to a rolling chair – only to be wheeled through the hallways, pushed around the whole school before being bowled into a cluster of cafeteria trashcans. The worst was when some seniors shanked my shorts in front of my entire gym class, stealing my regular school clothes from my locker when I wasn’t looking – only to run my underwear up our school’s flagpole. The entire student body saluted my tightie-whities. The good ol’ brown and white, striped in skid-marks.
That’s why I became a guidance counselor. I wanted to provide aid to students who found themselves in situations just like mine, back when I was their age. I came here to help with recovery efforts, planning special events such as Career Day and College Week. My goal was to promote a positive personal self-concept for students in their school environment, providing information for kids who might be struggling with particular life choices. Possibly even putting them on a future career path.
I wanted to help.
I have been interrogated and tortured by my captors – becoming the subject of a series of recorded video statements for their A/V class project. Each student has a particular task that they are responsible for. One student mans the camera. Another holds a rifle to my head. These young filmmakers are all getting graded on how well they work with one another, as if this were an actual television station – broadcasting these messages across the school district for all to see.
There have been hostages from other high schools here with me as well. There was a fellow counselor from James River High who I remembered meeting at last year’s district guidance summit. He was forced to read out a statement written by one of the A/V students, demanding the release of their cheerleaders – only for another militant to pull out a knife and grab the counselor by his hair, yanking his head back and slicing his throat.
For you, Roman dogs, the insurgent said. We hope you are displeased and we wait for you with God’s help. Bitter days await you and your football team this Friday. Those who tread on our football field will regret it.
And then the A/V student decapitated him, placing his head on top of his own body as the cameraman zoomed in for a tighter angle.
When I first interviewed for this job, they told me that guidance counselors have one of the highest initial attrition rates of any profession in the school system. Sixty-percent slip away within the first two years. Over half just disappear. The degree of emotional commitment to this position is simply too intense. They just can’t take it. They aren’t willing to devote themselves to the cause.
You have to relate to adolescents well, that’s all. The ability to listen. The need for an open mind. Communication skills. A sense of humor. You have to believe that everyone has the capacity to change.
You need hope.
And I believed it. We’re the one’s responsible for our student’s future, no one else.
I am not a soldier, I am not some spy.
I’m just a guidance counselor.
This is a message for my employer, Principal Pritchard. I need you to be as compassionate as humanly possible, sir – as you have always said you are to our students.
Help me. Help me see my family again. I have a wife and daughter at home. They are all that I have in this world. My daughter’s just about to enter into elementary school and all I want is to see her off on her first day of kindergarten.
I do not want to die. Please, sir – you are the only person on God’s earth who can save me now.
Withdraw your football team from this week’s game.
For those of you watching, for the students at Greenfield – I ask that you look at yourselves and think of your own family. Think of your boyfriend or girlfriend being here, where I am. Think about how you would feel if they were the one’s asking for your help. What if it was your son who had been kidnapped and brought here? You would want them to come home. You would do whatever it’d take to get them back. You would beg Principal Pritchard to intervene and bring your loved ones home.
Anyone, please – Principal Pritchard, fellow faculty, Miss Irvington, Mr. Edwards, Mr. Robinson, Mrs. Winters, anyone on the student government, anyone from the Latin Honor Society, the French club, peer facilitators, anyone from Amnesty International or the Bible club, the theatre department or the debate team – please, please, open your mouths and speak up for me.
If you do not, these A/V students will receive an A on their video project – and you will find my headless body dangling from our school’s flagpole by Saturday morning.

---

prom queen

Did you see what Sarah Haymaker is wearing? She looks like a complete cow in that dress. You’d think someone would have the decency to tell her straight to her face that it looks as if she put on a picnic blanket with shoulder-straps, my God. I can’t even believe Billy Aldrich would be caught dead dancing with her.
Whatever. Not as if he’s my date or anything.
Senior prom’s upon us, girls. It’s been everything I dreamed it would be. Tin foil constellations, comets with tails made of crepe paper. There’s an entire galaxy of spot lights and mirror balls just over our heads, turning our gymnasium into its own solar system. This will totally be a night to remember.
Now a little extra eye-shadow.
Another layer of lipstick.
A bit of rouge for the cheeks and we’re beautiful again.
Thank God this mascara’s waterproof. These colors don’t run.
Oh my God. You are not going to believe what I heard. You absolutely cannot tell anyone I told you this – okay? You have to swear on your mother’s grave that you’ll keep it a secret. I promised the person who mentioned it to me that I wouldn’t tell anybody else – so word cannot get around that you know about this, all right?
Pinkie swear with me.
There’s a rumor going around about a mass grave hidden somewhere below the football stands. Supposedly, there are sixteen bodies buried beneath the bleachers.
It’s true. Sally Halvern told me during third period. She and Tim Peltier skipped English together, sneaking off to the football field when no one was looking. She leads him right under the benches – saying, we need to have a talk. Everybody knows that the bleachers are where couples go to make out. Not like its some big mystery what happens under there. It’s one of the only spots on school property that offers some privacy – so, when someone says we need to have a talk while tugging you underneath the scaffolding, it’s pretty safe to assume where things are heading.
Her tongue, his mouth. Case closed.
So Tim’s just about to get to second base when Sally places her hand behind her, for leverage – only to touch something wet. She brings her palm up to her face, thinking she’s got Bubble Yum stuck to her skin – only to realize pretty quickly it’s not gum at all, but blood. Turning around, she discovers she and Tim are sitting smack dab in the middle of this shallow grave – the two of them totally surrounded by over a dozen dead bodies, their hands bound behind their backs, all blindfolded. They’d all been shot, execution-style – the rear of their heads burst open with a bullet-hole. Some didn’t even have a head, completely decapitated, everything leveled at the neck. Nothing but this straight line, clear across, shoulder to shoulder.
You didn’t know they were together? That’s such old news now. Sally and Tim have been, like, going out since last month. Everybody knows that.
Where have you been all year? Tim hasn’t been dating Lori Pendleton for almost three months now. She dumped him after she caught him flirting with Sally after football practice. That slut. I’ve caught her covering up her cold sores in the bathroom over a hundred times, slathering Valtrex all over her mouth. Tim deserves every venereal disease he gets from kissing her.
Loose lips sink ships.
Just keep an eye out on how many mouth-outbreaks there are amongst the boys here. Then we’ll see how Sally’s been campaigning for prom queen, swapping herpes for votes. All she needs to do is keep promoting her own propaganda, spreading rumors about all the other court candidates without anyone realizing that she’s totally behind this little venereal upheaval in the first place.
Great. I cracked a fucking nail. I wish I could get my hands on my God damn date in order to cut him to pieces with my teeth, that clumsy son of a bitch. He keeps stepping on my feet as we’re dancing.
And now my corsage is crushed. Who gets a girl cornflower freesias anyway? He didn’t even ask me what color my dress would be, wondering whether it would clash with my corsage or not.
Whatever. Really. It’s completely beneath me. I’m totally over it.
So Principal Pritchard’s been on the war-path ever since they found that mass grave. Remember how there was that surprise weapons inspection last week, where he got the janitor to open up everybody’s locker while we were all in class – searching through our belongings just to see if he could find any artillery hidden inside? He’s just pissed off that no one’s ‘fessed up to slaughtering all those students yet, like we’re all on some honor system or something. He’d prefer to punish everybody that nobody. Like that’s going solve anything.
So Principal Pritchard gets the janitor to start digging up all those bodies, just to see how many there actually are. The one’s that still had their heads had all their teeth pulled out with a pair of pliers, so no one could identify them. After their hands had been tied behind their backs, someone snipped off all their digits with clippers – leaving behind nothing but stumps just above their knuckles. No finger-prints now. The only distinguishing characteristics left were their football uniforms – each body still wrapped up in their jerseys, nothing but funeral shrouds now, the numbers cut out from the cloth. It’s impossible to tell which team they were from anymore, completely anonymous.
My guess was junior-varsity. None of them were big enough to be seniors. These bodies were JV all the way.
Their relatives couldn’t even identify them. Each body had to be photographed before being buried in an unmarked grave, categorized by numbers on the off-hand chance that some family member would eventually come in and examine the pictures, sifting through for their son – reducing the number of unknown bodies over time, hopefully.
Whoever they were, I can tell you one thing – none of them would be voting for prom queen.
It’s all boiled down to Sally Havern and me.
It’s time to prepare for my tiara. I’ve sprayed on enough AquaNet to make this bouffant bulletproof. Back at home, I took a lower jawbone and pressed it down on top of my head, letting the teeth sink in – molding a perch just above my bangs, shaped like a horse-shoe, then layering it in hairspray for a permanent indentation. That way, when they crown me tonight – my tiara will slip right into place. Perfect fit.
A little lesson to all you bitchy infidel wannabe’s touching yourselves up in the girls’ bathroom: Why be prom queen? Because popularity equates to power. Everybody here knows the person with the real power is the one who takes it. Our school needs a leader who isn’t afraid to seize power by any means necessary.
This isn’t about rigging the elections. This isn’t about stuffing extra ballots into the poll boxes. Please. This is about supremacy. Absolute power.
And this election has been a resounding success, as far as I’m concerned. Tonight marks the birth of a new Tamilton High, as a free people. We have taken a major step towards securing our democratic future.
I want you to think about all the football players who had to die for this. If Sally Havern thinks she can sleep her way to the top, she’s got another thing coming. If she’s going to stoop so low as to make out with every member of the JV football team, simply to get them to vote for her – then I’ll take back their ballot with a bullet to their head.
Because this is about bringing democracy to the people – and I think the people have spoken, loud and clear. They have chosen me to be their leader.
And now it’s time to lead them through the first dance.

---

grand marshal

Popped my first shot in the back of some majorette's head, watching her skull combust through my crosshairs. This pink mist fogged up the air in between her pigtails. Nothing but red confetti and cerebral streamers showering down on the crowd.
That girl had been twirling her baton as if it were some Molotov cocktail, all lit and ready to burst – the entire high school pep squad looking like a group of insurgents, swarming around the front of the parade, ready to riot, their arms raised over their heads, brandishing their banners in tandem to one another. The whole fucking color guard's praising Allah, shouting out obscenities into the air.
Took another one down before she could catch her baton, watching the rod spin through the air as her body fell to the ground.
We're rolling over Broad Street, heading into the center of town – an entire cavalcade of cars and floats driving down the main drag, turning left on Elm, right on Vine, passing the courthouse, town hall, all the shops, even the grocery store I used to work at back when I was in high school, bagging these people's sandwich meats for three and a quarter an hour. Well before that college recruiting officer waltzed into the backroom on my lunch break. Well before he handed me his business card, scribbling his extension on the back so that I could talk to him personally – because he saw the potential in me to go pro, he believed he could see the potential in me to kill on the football field. Well before I enlisted, kissing my mom goodbye and joining the ranks. Well before training at boot camp all through the school year, away from home for the first time in my life. Well before being deployed onto the field, taking on one team after another.
And worlds before making my way back home a war hero, the proud recipient of the medal for combat valor – nothing but this ribbon flickering against my chest, pinned to my neatly pressed uniform, telling my home town that I'd been in direct combat with the enemy force.
Worlds before they threw me my own parade.
They've got me perched in the backseat of this classic '57 Chevrolet convertible, donated by Gentry's Auto, located right off of Route 29 – all wrapped up in ticker tape and paper chains, an American flag sprawled across the front hood. The roof's peeled back, letting me sit topside – just next to Tamilton’s homecoming queen, a tiara on top of her head, her sash wrapped over her shoulder, like a satin bandolier, holding enough ammunition to shoot all the way through town. Her elbow's bent, hand cupped – waving with her wrist to the crowd down below.
Our convoy sweeps passed this militia of shriners, their miniature cars sputtering under our line of fire – all these geriatric guerillas tossing rock candy at the kids along the sidewalk. I learned that a medulla oblongata shot jerks their neck back quick, twirling the tassels on top of their heads – so I see how many fezzes I can hit within a minute, plucking off shriners left and right, as if I were playing some arcade game, where every bull's eye wins you another ticket. Bling, bling, bling.
People keep throwing handfuls of confetti into the air, these bits of paper picked up by the wind, scattering everywhere, like a sand storm hitting me right in the face. The desert’s digging into my skin. The particles burrow into my flesh, finding their way inside – through my ears, my nose, until I'm taking the desert with me wherever I go.
I spot old Miss Rollinger in the crowd, waving her flag at me. Picked her off with a single shot, thinking of her working behind the counter at the Cardinal Pharmacy – where, when I was just twelve years old, she caught me shoplifting one of the dirty magazines off the rack in the back, slipping some Hustler under my shirt, banning me from stepping through the doors of that store for looking at such filth in the first place. The only kind of girls I've seen for the last three years of my college life are coming from magazines just like that, surrounding myself with air-brushed breasts and shaved pussies – the kind of girl who won't give you her heart, because there's nothing beyond her skin, all smooth and glossy. Only type of girl who's willing to give up her cunt to a grunt comes packaged in a brown paper bag, willing to follow you in your pocket wherever you go.
Not like the girls back here at home. Not like my old girlfriend – who kept her legs squeezed tight my last night before I shipped off to college, sitting in the backseat of my car, pushing my hand away every time I slid it up her thigh, whispering to me that she wanted to wait, to save herself for when I got back.
And I remember thinking to myself, I'm never coming back. I'm as good as dead the second I say goodbye. Please, don't make me go. Please, don't let me leave.
I spot her in front of the post office, leaning against a mailbox. She's smiling at me, waving her hand. Looking so proud, like I'm her hero. Some knight in shining armor.
I get her right between the eyes. Her head opens up in the rear, her brains blossoming over the eagle emblem painted across the front of the post office.
I'm a hero all right. All state, district champion.
I hear my name called out from the crowd, echoing through the streets. There's this ringing in my ears, coming from the marching band up ahead – and all I can see are these rows of coiled brass, these piles of twisted intestines exposed to the open sun, an entire battalion's worth of bodies left in the desert, days after dying, yellowed from decomposition. The hollow cylinders keep hissing with trapped gasses, a steaming pile of entrails sputtering up The Stars and Stripes Forever for the fifth fucking time in a row.
So I start taking out everyone I see. Mr. Pritchard, my high school principal. Mrs. Parker, my third grade English teacher. Mr. Reynolds, my boss from the grocery store. Father Dervisham, from church. Miss Holland, from down the street. Sally Stanton, the first girl I ever felt up. Sean Thomas, her fucking boyfriend. Nancy Gladson, the checkout girl. Jimmy Hodgkin, my best friend from fifth grade.
Even my own moms and pops, looking so proud of me. I wipe the smiles off their faces with a single shot through the mouth, their lips unraveling the second that bullet pushes passed.
I'm all out of rounds by the time my tank pulls up to the bandstand, the hollow discharge of my rifle clicking through the air. I can't let go of the trigger, my finger locked into place – only for Principal Pritchard to step up to a microphone and clear his throat.
We are very lucky to have a hero of our own return home today, leading our high school’s homecoming parade. While proudly serving your college’s football team, you have repeatedly come under heavy attack, game after game – only to lead your team to victory time and again. You have persevered on the field more than any other player. To this day, you continue to hold the record for the most touchdowns out of any student to ever attend Tamilton High. And for this, your team has honored you for your valor. For your sense of duty, loyalty, respect, selfless-service, honor, integrity, patriotism and personal courage in the face of danger – we salute you, son. Welcome home. Welcome back to Tamilton.
I head back to my parents' house after the parade.
I make my way up to my parents’ room, closing the door behind me and locking it. I open up the top dresser drawer and push back the socks, pulling out my father’s Marine-issue 9MM pistol from its holster. I watch my reflection in the dresser mirror as it slips the muzzle passed its lips, resting the barrel over its tongue. My reflection never flinches, never blinks, even when it squeezes the trigger – watching the backside of its head burst open, a tuft of sand spilling out from the exit wound. The desert spreads over the rest of my parents’ room, covering the walls, the carpet, the bed.
Sand seems to find its way into everything.

---

PTA

A curse! A curse on those quarterbacks!
A curse on their families. A curse on their souls for what they have done to my son.
I said a prayer under my breath the second the coach cried out his name, calling my child onto the field. I could not control myself, watching him play. These football games are cruel, played by animals. Nothing but a pack of rabid dogs attacking one another, tearing each other apart. They are sending our sons out to be slaughtered. Slaughtered!
What mother could watch this?
I begged God to spare him. I clenched my fists, pleading from the bleachers – Please, God. He is just a boy. Nothing but a child. Please – spare his life for me.
I had four sons. The one’s that were old enough to play football have all gone to the front. They were prepared to offer their lives for their school, their team – and they have all perished from it.
And now – my son, my third youngest son – he has joined his older brothers. He followed in their footsteps, right onto the field. Two of my children had already lost their lives to this game. Now I have lost another. He died never knowing a single day’s worth of peace.
Too many dead, too many dead. May all the other mothers know this pain. May they feel it from the very bottom of their hearts.
I only breathe to weep. The air in my lungs does nothing for me. I live to mourn the lives that I have lost. I don’t know what wrong I could have caused that I should be punished like this.
What had my son done? He was a good boy, guilty of nothing. He could have been a star quarterback. Recruiters from colleges all over were keeping an eye on him, as vultures circle over a dying animal – biding their time before its last breath. He could have gotten a football scholarship from any school he chose. He could have grown up to be a great man. So would have his brothers. But now they share a shallow grave, their bodies buried just behind these bleachers. Every day, I visit them. This thin layer of dirt reveals their bones more and more each time, like a gift unwrapped by the weather and elements.
See for yourself. See their blackened bones, their snapped necks. See their skulls settled inside their helmets. Their uniforms are the only skin they have left.
He was a polite child. He believed in God and said his prayers with his younger brother every night before the two of them went to bed. He was not a fighter.
He had a girlfriend. The two of them had been together all semester. They were to be married. Soon, I would have had grandchildren. Now, I will have nothing. His girlfriend had sat in the bleachers with me during the game, watching him take to the field. She gripped my hand tightly, the two of us making one great fist – squeezing so hard, our knuckles went white, like gritted teeth.
The ball had gone into play, my son going wide to receive a pass – running the length of the field as several members of the opposing team rushed after him. He passed the forty-yard line. The thirty. The twenty. At the ten, he leaped into the air, catching the ball – only to be tackled. Four men leapt upon my son, piling on top of him. I could hear the sound of their grunting from the sidelines, the sound of their breath as they pounced on my boy.
I felt my heart break in that moment. I could not find the strength to stand up from my seat, watching as those players stood – only for my son to remain lying on the field. He did not move. He simply lay on his back, his face eclipsed by his own helmet. I could not see his face, his eyes. His mouth was hidden from me. I could not see if he was breathing.
A physician made his way onto the field, kneeling next to my son. He slowly unlatched the strap around his chin, carefully slipping off his helmet. His face was finally exposed to me – his neck loose, unable to hold up his head.
That is when I knew. That is when I felt this numbness within my heart, having felt the same sensation twice before. Even though no one had said anything, I knew.
I rushed towards my son. The physician told me not to touch him, but I could not keep myself from stroking the hair out from his face. Blood found its way onto my hands as his eyes rolled up towards the safety of his skull, the lids fluttering in their wake.
I never saw his eyes again, left with nothing but white.
We are not wealthy. We live in slums. My family washes itself in rusted water every morning. I have no husband, I have but only one child left. I can do nothing but look at him, my youngest son – and weep. Now he wants to grow up and fight. He wants to follow in the footsteps of his older brothers, racing after their corpses onto the field – to avenge their deaths by joining the team. He is only nine and already he has picked up a football, gripping the leather within his small hands. Nine years old and he has already learned how to throw, practicing in our backyard every day. I can smell the scent of leather on his palms when I tuck him in at night. When he brings his hands together to say his prayers, the raw odor is in his skin. The smell of his brother’s dead flesh will be his own before long.
Just after he says amen, he tells me – When I’m old enough to go to Tamilton High, I will beat the team that did this to my brothers.
And I begin weep, knowing that he will die along with them.
Then I will have nothing. Nothing.
God will avenge me.
May God strike all the other mothers’ children down. May He smite your sons on the football field as they had done to my boy, snapping their necks in half. May He break their backs in two, crushing every vertebra that holds their head up on their shoulders. May He pluck their bodies up from the field as if they were nothing but flowers, crushing the very stems of their spines.
And may God show you, in your own pain, in your own suffering, within this injustice that has been done to your own sons – this is the hell where all mothers of football players must live. This is our home now. Our roof is a shovel full of dirt, nothing more – burying our boys in the same mass grave.

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pep rally

I walk down the hall alone every day. No one sees me. No one turns their head when I pass them. No one says hello. No one ever waits for me at my locker. No one slips me notes in class. No one has ever made up a rumor about me. No one talks to me in the boys’ locker room before gym. No one sits with me in the cafeteria. No one lets me carry their books home. No one walks with me to our math class. No one wants me to be their science partner. No one calls me at night to tell me what happened to them in fifth period that day. No one sees me through the blanket of acne on my face. No one has ever kissed me before.
No one knows my name. No one knows who I am.
But the moment I slip on this mask, the moment I step out onto that field – I am the embodiment of this school’s pride, its people. My body becomes the student body. With fangs. With claws.
Cardinal rule is to not let anyone see you change. This is holy for most mascots. Part of the beauty of our job is the mystery behind the mask. Once you’re hidden inside, your own identity disappears. This is your skin now. Beyond your costume, there’s nothing below.
You are the emblem of your school, the symbol of your people.
Tonight, you are a fighter. Tonight, you are a Tiger. Tigers overpower their prey by biting the neck, breaking the spinal column with one snap of their jaws. Their teeth pierce the windpipe, severing the jugular until their quarry’s blood floods their mouth.
I’ve been the official Tamilton High mascot for two years running now. Ever since my sophomore year, I’ve lead our football team to victory – charging the field in this outfit, rallying the fans from the front-line.
Who knows school spirit better than the high school mascot?
Pep rallies are a big deal for people here. The bandanas and foam mitts. The banners and flags waving through the air. The band plays our school fight song as students file into the gym, filling up the bleachers.
Hey, hey Tiger fans.
Yell it out and rock the stands!
Go Tigers, go!
Go Tigers, go!
It’s pertinent to learn the five E’s of proper mascotting.
Your entrance. Let the crowd know that you’re leading them to victory. For this pep rally, we made a large banner with TIGERS painted in big, bold letters across the front – only for me to tear right through, ripping the paper with my claws. Everybody started yelling. Flags were waving, showers of confetti raining down. I took to the basketball court with a series of flips, somersaulting my way from one end of the gym to the other.
Always exaggerate. Wearing such a huge costume, with big feet and an enormous head – you need enough spirit to fill it. Every action you make in real life, triple it as a mascot. March instead of walk. Leap instead of jump. Use your whole body so that everyone in the stands can see, from the person right up front to the very last person in the rear.
Show your emotions. Run the gamut of feelings and physicalize them. Your expressions are gone, your face frozen into that one single look – so you’re going to have to emote with all that you’ve got: your body. Your arms and legs become your heart. Slow motion. Temper tantrums. Leaping up and down. Everything’s got to be big. Every time your team scores a point, your arms have got to be in the air. Raise your fist. Kick the air. Claw through.
Energy. You’ve got to have your finger on the pulse of the people for the duration of the game. When the crowd seems to be losing their steam, you’ve got to get their spirits back up. You can’t lose them. It’s your duty to inspire hope and faith.
But most important of all – your enemy. Show the crowd whom to hate. Show the fans in the stands the blood they’ve spilled, the women they’ve raped.
Every year, our football squad picks a random date to kidnap key seniors from our opponent’s team. A handful of players will storm into their bedrooms while they’re still sleeping in the dead of night, gagging and blindfolding them, hog-tying their hands behind their backs with rope before shoving them into the trunk of their car.
The crowd cheered as our team dragged the bodies of Greenfield’s star line-backer, Tim Showalter, and second defense, Andrew Gillette, across the court, several members of the mob kicking and stamping their mutilated remains as they skidded by. Both bodies were strung up onto opposing basketball nets with jump-rope, their feet only inches away from the ground now, left dangling there for the jubilant masses to curse and jeer. Students hurled stones at their corpses, seeing who could hit them from the farthest distance. Hard candy came showering down from the bleachers, pelting the dead until they spun from their nooses, rocking back and forth like pendulums.
Let their bones become beacons. Let their remains serve as reminders of their actions against our people. Let their flesh get pecked by crows, their muscles riddled with maggots. Let them wear a second layer of skin comprised of flies. Let the hum of a thousand wings supplant the absence of their own heart – so shrill in pitch, only the stray dogs gnashing at their heels can hear it beating.
This is the fate of all football teams who come to Tamilton!
The crowd roared in response, stamping their feet against the bleachers – the deafening drone of heels marching in place echoing through the halls of the entire school. A swarm of students broke away from the bleachers, rushing onto the basketball court. Dozens surrounded the bodies, having their way with them.
One was doused with diesel, set afire – the flames consuming the cindered flesh fast, extending themselves up the length of jump-rope until it snapped, falling to the floor in a heap of ashen bones, flames soaring. Students circled around the fire, forming a ring by grabbing hold of each others arms. They sung and danced about the blaze, looping around the mounting fire as the band played our patriot song.
Tigers, Tigers – don’t be shy.
Let us hear your battle cry.
V-I-C-T-O-R-Y.
That’s the Tiger battle cry.
The other body was taken down from the basketball net, its ankles still tethered together with jump-rope – only for a few students to run up and down the halls of the high school, dragging the body behind them as they went, singing and shouting passed every classroom. A throng of ensuing students ran directly behind the body, carrying Tamilton flags just over their heads.
We were hungry for the game now. Like a pack a rabid dogs charging towards its quarry, we headed straight for the football field.
You all pass me in the hallway almost everyday and you never even realize it.
But out here, on the football field – it’s me who leads you into battle.
To be a symbol. To be the embodiment of one’s own people. To be their heart, their soul – their very spirit.
Slit this throat and watch our school colors pour forth from my neck. Like a dam breaking, the entire basketball court would flood over. Peel away this costume as one would skin a rabbit, and you’ll find nothing but musculature. You’d discover nothing underneath but sinew and gristle, ligaments and bone.
But cut off my head – and another will sprout up from the stump.
Now that’s true school spirit.