Dying to Live

[Caesar]

Attention

Royce rolled a pencil back and forth across the batter desktop, staring at the ancient clock that hung on the wall as he ticked ever so slowly toward 1 and the de facto end of his day.

Although, few students at Terrebonne would be mad about having a third and fourth period that consisted of art and weights. It was as easy a combo as a junior could get and only topped by seniors who carried only two classes a semester.

The girl sitting next to him slid over a finished linoleum etching that was required by the end of the class. It was of an orange, or possibly an apple. All Royce knew was that it was a fruit and image hadn’t needed to do it himself.

“Thanks,” he said, examining the print.

A conventionally pretty girl, Heidi had been doing almost all of Royce’s work for him in both their previous art class and now this one. She wasn’t a great artist in her own right, but that probably helped to convince the teachers that Royce was the one doing it. Except for the few times she’d gotten a little too creative with color choices.

In return, she only asked for one thing.

“Just remember I helped you Friday,” she said, looking up at the clock before starting on her own etching.

“Your boyfriend not in?”

“No, he comes in next week. You know his schedule. Fourteen and seven. He comes back from Fourchon Monday.

Royce nodded, pursing his lips as he spun the small art piece around between his fingertips. “Bet. But we might not be back in town until late Friday. We’re playing Central.”

“That’s fine. There’s no timer on getting fucked. I’ll be up.”

“Alright. I’ll text you when we get on the bus, and see how you feeling about that when the time come. Ain’t no sense in burning gas if you decide to go to sleep.”

She reached over under the desks and rubbed her hand across the front of his pants. Royce couldn’t help but jump a little, caught off guard.

“I won’t be asleep,” she said, whispering in his ear. “Just make sure that you’re ready to go.”

The bell rung, signaling the end of the period. As the students got up from their desks, the teacher asked that anyone who finished their work turn it in before leaving. Royce was one of only three students at the teachers’ desk.

He held it out to her. “Here you go, Ms. Foucheaux.”

The woman took the etching from him and gave it a once over before flipping it over and writing his name on the back of it with a permanent marker.

“You should start getting someone better to do your work for you, Royce,” she said as she moved the three turned in pieces to a bin near her desk.

“I did that myself, Miss,” he said.

“I’m sure you thought a heart in the middle of an apple would be cute.”

“Yeah, because I’m in touch with my softer side. I was trying to show that I really got a love for fruit and all that, you know?”

“See you tomorrow, Royce.”

“Alright, Miss.”

He walked out of the class and hit the staircase at the far end of the hall, eager to get to weights in hopes that it would pass by fast and practice would do the same. He was still feeling a bit tired of last week’s trip and loss to Lakeshore.

Heidi, on the next flight of stairs down from him, walking with her friends to their next class, looked up and him and subtly bit her lip before disappearing out of sight.

Shaking his head and pushing away the slight bit of guilt he had for participating in her messing around behind her boyfriend’s back, he descended the stairs and headed for the weight room.

As he opened the door to the hall on the first floor, the guilt had completely evaporated when he realized just how much he was benefiting. It wasn’t his fault that Heidi’s boyfriend had become another of the many oilfield workers whose partners sought the comfort of other men when they were out on a hitch.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Ro! Wait up!”

Royce stopped short of getting in his car to see Mike jogging across the parking lot from the junior high next door. Inspired by his cousins, Mike had decided to join the football team despite having never played a down of organized football before.

Fortunately, no one could compete with Houma Junior High since they had a team full of freshmen playing 7th and 8th graders, so it would undoubtedly be an easy transition for him before facing real competition as a sophomore at Terrebonne.

“Can I get a ride home?” he asked when he’d made it to the car.

“Who has been bringing you home before?”

“I been walking.”

“Come on then.” Royce grabbed his bag from the passenger seat and walked around to the trunk to throw it in.

Romeo walked up to the car and went straight to the passenger side door as well.

“Get in the back,” he told his younger cousin.

“Nah, nigga,” Royce said. “You get in the back. Mike Mike got here first. Maybe if your ass wouldn’t been bullshitting with them band needs you would’ve had your ass over here in time to start calling dibs. “

“Man, nigga, chill out. I’m not getting in the back of no car for Mike Mike. You just gonna have to be mad about it,” Romeo shot back.

Royce hit the lock button on his key fob. “You getting in the back or you walking home. That’s your choices. This ain’t your car. You don’t get to make no calls around here.”

“Stop bullshitting, Ro.”

“You acting like we driving to New York. Just get in,” Mike said, shoving Romeo away from the car. “You wouldn’t have this problem if your dumb ass could pass the test to get a driver’s license.”

Romeo looked at Mike out of the corner of his eye. “Says the bum looking for a ride when he can just walk him. Better yet, ask your sister to come pick you up. Wait. She don’t have a fucking car either.”

“How you gonna say something about someone else not having a car when you’re standing on the passenger side, too?” Royce asked. “How about this? You call Britni and have her come get you and bring you home and I’ll run Mike Mike home. That sound good, D1?”

“Why you being a bitch, nigga? Just open the fucking door. I don’t got time for all this,” Romeo said.

Royce walked around the car, bent down and brushed his hands across Romeo’s shoes. “Looks like them Dodge Feet looking clean so why don’t you beat that street?”

Romeo looked at Mike and jabbed his thumb in Royce’s direction. “Now, he a rapper. Next, he gonna start dancing and shit.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” a voice called from a car on the outside of the parking lot.

Royce turned around expecting to see the school’s SRO, but it was only a young Black man, likely in his 30s, wearing a powder blue shirt.

“You Royce?” he asked, pointing to Royce. “Royce Lafitte?”

“Yeah?”

“Come, holla at me for a minute. I’m Dre’ Fusilier. I coach up at Southern in Baton Rouge.”

Royce walked over to the car as the coach got out. He dapped Royce up.

“You ever thought about playing ball at an HBCU? I know it’s not flashy like going to LSU or Alabama or anything like that,” he said to Royce.

“I’m gonna be honest with you. I’ve never thought about it. No disrespect to y’all or anything like that. If it makes it better, I haven’t thought about playing somewhere like Nicholls or Northwestern either.”

“I hear you, and look, I get it. But this is just an introduction for us. We really want you up on the Bluff. Seen your tape and you’re the type of player that can change games in the SWAC. Beyond that, we send guys to the NFL just like LSU, and right now, SWAC football got a lot of eyes on it because of Deion Sanders.”

“Yeah, they tough at Jackson State.”

“No doubt, but we building something at Southern and want you to be a part of that. And, we can offer you something these other schools can’t, an opportunity to go somewhere for people like us, where we’re the majority, where our people cheer us on and want to see us succeed,” he said, tapping Royce on the chest with the back of his hand as he spoke. “Think on it for me, lil’ bro. We’ll be in touch.”

“Alright, thank you, coach.”

Coach Fusilier dapped up Royce again then got in his car and drove off. Royce stood there for a minute before taking his phone out of his pocket. He’d turned it off before practice to keep it from dying. Powering it back up, he had two texts, one each from Tyrell and Rana.

’Reached out to my people at Southern for you’ from Tyrell.

And ’Baton Rouge isn’t so bad once you get used to it’ from Rana.

Shaking his head, he walked back over to his car where Romeo and Mike were still arguing about who was going to sit in the front.

Romeo looked up when he noticed Royce was back. “Who was that?”

“Get in the fucking back, bruh,” Royce said, pointing to the back seat before unlocking the doors and getting in.

[Captain Canada]

Something better than nothing

[The JZA]

This Romeo, Man I swear

So we committing? Or still fishing?

[Soapy]

Something better than nothing

don't disrespect HBCUs like that smh

[Caesar]

Mirage

Royce shut off the water to the shower, running his hand over his face to get the water out of his eyes. As he stepped out of the tub, he was thrown off by the amount of steam in the bathroom, forgetting himself as he ran the water on its hottest setting.

The hot water heater back home didn’t work that well, and, at best, he would’ve been treated with lukewarm water.

Music drifted from the adjoining bedroom. Something from Meg thee Stallion’s latest album. The type of music that he’d come to expect whenever he visited Heidi.

He pulled a pair of basketball shorts on and stared at himself in the mirror. His eyes looked clouded and dull, eyelids dropping with the weight of countless sleepless nights. His blinks were slow, taking a fraction longer than normal. He squinted occasionally as if trying to sharpen a blurry image in the glass before him.

He found Heidi laying on her stomach on the bed toward the foot of the bed, her phone in front of her as she scrolled through Instagram or TikTok.

The room, and entire apartment, was very obviously decorated by a young man. A banner proclaiming Saturday as being for the boys hung over the bed with dozens of empty bottles of alcohol on shelves surrounding the room. LEDs light lined the baseboards.

Royce’s understanding was that Heidi’s boyfriend, Jaxon, had given her a key to his apartment so she could go there when he was offshore.

As she shifted to a different position and the oversized shirt she was wearing rode up, revealing that was all that she was wearing, Royce wondered if Jaxon had any idea what he’d gotten himself into with that decision.

“Y’all got beat that bad you had to cry in the shower for a minute?” she asked, looking up from her phone.

He shook his head as he sat on the bed, his back to the wall, taking the time to turn the picture of Heidi and Jaxon on the nightstand around. “You funny. I was trying to wake up. I ain’t been sleeping since leaving school like you.”

“Sucks to be you,” she said. She stretched, throwing one leg over his, giving him an eyeful for a moment.

Royce ran his fingers across the sheets. While Jaxon might’ve been the one to pick the décor, he would wager that Heidi was the one that picked the sheets. These were nothing like the rough, threadbare linens he was used to. These felt like liquid silk, smooth and cool against his fingertips, a stark contrast to the coarse, scratchy texture that awaited him at home.

Heidi flipped over before pulling herself into a sitting position facing him, crossing her legs. “Hey, have you started applying to colleges yet?”

“You want to have a serious conversation sitting like that?” he asked, nodding down to where the shirt had rolled up to her waist, exposing everything underneath.

“You can focus for a few minutes,” she said, adjusting the shirt so it exposed more skin as if teasing him. “I’m just wondering because everyone is talking about having all that shit sorted out before senior year. It’s damn near December already.”

He shrugged. “The only way I’m going to college if it’s with a football scholarship, and those ain’t coming my way all that fast.”

“Yeah, right. You got the grades to get into college somewhere.”

“You do my work for me.”

She rolled her eyes. “In fucking art class. I don’t think schools care if you can draw. I bombed the ACT when I took it last month so I’m going to have to find some prep classes or some shit because I don’t want to have to take it five times. You know of any good ones?”

“ACT prep classes? Can’t say I do.”

“Those fuckers are expensive. I’ll have to get Jaxon to pay for it for me.”

Royce chose to remain silent at that comment. For her, it was a choice to get someone else to pay for such courses. For him, it wasn’t ignorance of where to look, but the fact that his family’s financial situation didn’t have room for that. If he were to prep for the ACT, it would consist of a patchwork of free online resources and the library.

“This the second time I’ve had this conversation like this,” he said, gesturing between the two of them. “I ain’t worried about no damn ACT or no college right now.”

“Who else you be—”

He leaned forward and pulled her toward him, a gasp silencing her, but she recovered and quickly discarded the shirt.

…

Royce stared at the ceiling as he had been for the last two hours. Heidi’s head rested on his chest, having fallen asleep soon after a third round. He reached over and picked up his phone, seeing that it was a little after two in the morning.

Slowly sliding out of the bed, he went to the bathroom to grab the rest of his clothes, shoving them into a backpack he’d left on the counter.

In the dim light, he moved carefully, never remembering where the light switches were in the hallway or the other rooms. The light from the oven clock drew him into the kitchen. He opened the fridge, finding a few odds and ends of ready-to-make meals and water.

Grabbing a few packages of some Koren barbecue meal, he shoved them and a few water bottles into his bag as well. He moved to the cabinets, but only saw a couple packages of tuna and cans of sardines and Vienna sausage. Not even free could entice him to eat that.

He headed for the door, slipping his feet back into his shoes. He paused, looking around to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind. He sighed, walking back to the bedroom and turning the picture back around.

As he was walking out, he saw Heidi’s phone light up with a text from Jaxon.

~~~~~~~~~~

Romeo shifted uncomfortably in his seat, the stiff collar of the button-down shirt itching at his neck. He tugged at it slightly, wanting to loosen the top button that Britni had all but demanded he fasten in the presence of her parents.

The fabric felt foreign and constricting, almost as much as the setting did. He glanced around the restaurant at the other families in their Sunday best, fresh out of church and grabbing brunch before going home to watch the Saints game.

To say he felt out of place was an understatement, but it had been months since he’d seen Britni’s parents and they insisted he join them.

Britni’s parents chatted animatedly across from him, discussing the sermon they’d just heard. Every so often Britni would interject her thoughts to the conversation as was expected of the dutiful daughter.

Romeo fidgeted with his silverware, trying to distract himself from his uncomfortableness, a sense of being on display. He twirled a fork between his fingers. Without looking at him, mid-sentence, Britni reached over and pushed his hands down to the table.

“So, Romeo,” her father said, bringing him into the conversation. “I heard you’re getting scholarship offers?”

He awkwardly placed the fork down on top of the spoon next to his plate. “Yea— Yea, sir. Nothing too serious yet, but a few coaches have talked to me over the last couple of weeks. We’ll see what happens down the road.”

“That’s so exciting,” her mother added. “Congratulations.”

Britni’s parents weren’t rich, but they weren’t doing too bad for themselves in relation to a lot of others in Houma. Her father, Allan, was an accountant for one of the ship fabricators along Bayou Lafourche and her mother, Erica, worked in HR at one of the pipeline surveyors. They were also active in the community, both being members of the local NAACP chapter.

Compared to his mother, who worked multiple minimum wage jobs to support a family of four, though, they very much were rich. It only stood to make Romeo feel more awkward when he was around them.

In the early days of their dating, Royce used to call Britni “New New” in a nod to the old movie ATL. She never understood the reference, so he eventually dropped it, something Romeo had always been secretly thankful for.

“Thank you,” he said, tapping his fingers on the table absentmindedly. “It doesn’t feel real sometimes. Growing up you always think about going play for some big school and then getting to the NFL, but to actually experience it is something else.”

“Who knows? Maybe you’ll end up at LSU with Britni when it’s all said and done. I know how close the two of you are.”

“I’m still not sure if I want to go to LSU. I might want to go out of state. I heard that Chattanooga is a really cute town,” Britni said.

“If whatever school in Chattanooga isn’t better academically than LSU then it doesn’t make sense for us to pay to send you out-of-state. Unless you’ve suddenly found some scholarships that you haven’t told us about yet,” Allan said.

Romeo decided to take the change of topic to money as a brief respite from being on the hot seat. Football was the only way he was getting to college, especially one in another state. Without the game, it wouldn’t even be worth discussing next steps after high school.

He was more pleased to see the waiter bringing out their food, knowing he wouldn’t be on the hook for paying for the entrée he ordered.

…

“You’re not even paying attention to me,” Britni said, smacking Romeo on his arm.

He wasn’t. He was looking back at the restaurant wishing he had the courage to ask the waiter for a to-go box to bring home the bit of pastalaya he had left. When no one else opted the bring their leftovers home, he felt it would’ve been a social faux pas and passed on the choice.

He’d always gone to great lengths to not look his socioeconomic status in front of Britni’s parents.

“My bad. What were you saying?” he asked, finally getting a chance to loosen his collar after having it choking him for the better part of the last three hours.

“Have any bigger schools reached out to you yet? Like out of state?”

“All the schools I’ve talked to have been out of state.”

“Yeah, but I’ve never heard of those schools before. I mean, like Alabama or schools like that. Someone that might give me a scholarship, too. That’s something that happens all the time, isn’t it? Schools giving players’ girlfriends scholarships?”

He shrugged. “I guess so. That’s what people say. I don’t know anyone who has been recruited before. I’m trying to see if Ro gets anymore attention so we can go to the same school.”

“You said no one is looking at him. Not that I blame them, he’s not as good as you. You should be trying to go to school with me. That should be your goal.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

“It sounds like it’s not,” she said, looking down at her phone and sighing. “I have to get back down the bayou. You need a ride home?”

“Yeah,” he said, frustration seeping into his voice.

Without another word, she turned and walked toward her car on the far side of the parking lot. He followed behind her, wondering why she’d parked so far from the front of the restaurant, considering it wasn’t very full.

[Captain Canada]

These shordies are always so problematic

[Caesar]

These shordies are always so problematic

Hey now. I don't have any other problematic chicks in here.

[The JZA]

Broad trying to get a scholarship based off relationship

[Soapy]

this nigga stealing food at people crib lmao dirty ahh jit

[djp73]

Just read through. Great start looking forward to seeing who makes it.