“We’ll hear first from Becca Levy, then from Bret Hendricks.”
Becca gets up as Mr. Popham, the student council sponsor, sits down. As Becca walks past me, I sense that she doesn’t seem the least bit self-conscious about people not liking what she says, who she is, or how she looks. She is pretty, but things onstage are about to get very ugly very quickly when I step up to the microphone. This is the final speech: we’ve done grades nine and ten, now my people, the juniors, get their chance to listen. In my speeches to those young ones, I was pulling punches. But this last one, with Hitchings, Bison, and Sean in attendance, is going to be what wrestler’s call a shoot: the truth and nothing but the truth.
I see Sean and do a half smirk, half smile. I’m still angry at him from when I handed over his money in the library, but it doesn’t stick. I can forgive him more easily than Kylee because I know what it is like to fall in love with her, to lose her, and be betrayed by her. We’ll always have that in common. I hope that along with learning the history of the United States, Sean’s also studying the history of the Destroyed Mates of Kylee Edmonds.When I met her, she cheated on Chad with me. The question for Sean isn’t who, but when. There’s no sense in even asking why.
“Bret Hendricks,” Mr. Popham says after Becca finishes, inviting me up to the microphone. After the applause for her dies down, I bring myself back to life.
“Flint Southwestern High School is run by a cult: the cult of jockarchy. It’s like any other cult. They wear their cult colors, worship at the altar of athletic achievement, and scorn those who do not believe as they do. A conformity cult of the privileged.”
I look over at Mr. Popham, who is frowning and now standing next to Mr. Douglas in the wings. I haven’t seen Morgan yet, but I expect I will. Mold King Cold isn’t in attendance; he probably has sports scores to read or plays to diagram.
“You walk in the door, and it hits you like a bloody nose: a red sea of Spartan jackets. It’s like walking in on a cult meeting. They have their secret symbols, their letter system, and their charismatic coaches who act as their leaders.” I’m calm, yet concerned, as I see the teachers in the audience getting uncomfortable. Some of the students are getting off on what I’m saying, while Hitchings, Bison, and the bullyboys look ready to attack. Sean just looks amused.
“They want everyone to believe as they do, and those of us who don’t are pushed out. They are the only majority cult, and I’m sick of them. Sick of the ball-throwing, puck-passing, track running thick skulls.” I’m slightly sidetracked by the sight of one of the teachers exiting out the back, sprinting toward the office.
“Let me make myself clear, I don’t mean everyone who picks up a ball belongs to this cult,” I say, winking at Will Kennedy. “In a larger sense, it’s not really about sports but about trying to have a great society rather this tyranny of the strong over the weak. I reject a world where some people push and take, while the rest of us try to pull together and give back.”
The room is getting loud, which bothers me not, since I’m shouting my long held words.
“Sports has to be about winners and losers, we all understand that, but that doesn’t mean we have to live that way off the playing field. Let’s stop bullying each other. Let’s stop acting big by putting others down,” I say, happy I’ve worked some of my mom’s philosophy into my speech, even though when she read it, she urged me not to give it, for fear I’d get in trouble. She’s right, trying to protect me as usual, but the real trouble is all around, and I refuse to ignore it any longer.
“Why should you vote for me? Simple: because I think many of you are as tired of what happens here at school as I am. I think a lot of you are fed up with a jockarchy who thinks the world revolves around them and harass those who are different.”
I look into the audience to see Hitchings’s face has turned as red as his letter jacket.
“Earlier this year, we did a play on this stage called The Crucible by Arthur Miller,” I tell the crowd, since probably no more than a handful in the audience attended the show. “The play’s about the Salem witch trials, but it’s really a metaphor about the 1950s and the McCarthy era, where everybody was supposed to conform. No one called this McCarthy guy on his bully tactics until a TV reporter named Edward R. Murrow took him on, but not by making a speech like this. Instead, Murrow let McCarthy destroy himself with his own vile and repulsive words.”
I reach into my pocket, and I think I heard a few people gasp in fear, but I pull out nothing more than paper filled with words, the most powerful weapon of all.
“I went to the library this morning and, with Mrs. Sullivan’s help, I found this article from Time magazine a few weeks after Columbine. This article quotes a member of that school’s jockarchy, but it sounds so similar to what I’ve heard here at our school.” I now look at my audience, asking them to agree to my vision by showing them the viciousness of the alternative.
“‘Columbine is a clean, good place except for those rejects. Sure we teased them. But what do you expect with kids who come to school with weird hairdos and horns on their hats? It’s not just jocks; the whole school’s disgusted with them. They’re a bunch of homos. If you want to get rid of someone, usually you tease ‘em. So the whole school would call them homos.’” I put the paper back in my pocket, then wipe the sweat from my brow.
Then, just as Morgan appears, and is about to shut off the microphone, I hit the finish.
“The enemy’s in this room, but we are not afraid to be ourselves. We are not afraid and we will not be victims any longer!” I shout, pointing right at Hitchings. I thrust my arms in the air, middle fingers curled inward, but in my heart aimed at the scarlet sea of water walkers. As I leave the stage, Morgan follows me, the veins in his neck bulging like ivy along his neck. I have no intention of dodging this bullet. This is about accepting responsibility.
Instead of yelling, he speaks firmly and almost with a smile. “I warned you before about mentioning Columbine. You almost caused a riot in there, and you know what that means?”
I don’t give him the satisfaction of even making eye contact.
“You’re suspended, Bret Hendricks, and pursuant to school policy, you’re expelled from school,” he declares.
“Why?” I know why, but I ask anyway; it’s tough to break old bad habits.
He slowly holds up one finger at a time, mouthing the words “One, two, three.”
I smile back at him and reply by holding up one finger. The middle one.